Payback

by Jasmine Cresswell

Paul made a dismissive gesture. “I doubt it, but we’ll check him out when we’re somewhere more private.”

  “Where are you planning on taking Ron exactly?”

  “To a local café,” Paul said curtly. “I’m not sure that I owe you any explanations, Mrs. Raven, but I’m waiting for my sister and niece to arrive from Chicago. Once we’ve had a chance to talk with Ron, we’ll arrange for the police to come and arrest him.”

  “Avery invited me to join you all,” Ellie said. “I appreciate her invitation. As you can imagine, I have plenty of questions I’d like my ex-husband to answer.”

  “If you’re joining us at Lucinda’s, then you need to hurry up and get in the van.” Paul slammed the rear doors of the van, hiding the interior mere seconds before another car passed within a yard of where they were standing.

  “Look, we can’t stand around here talking. We need to get out of here before anyone starts asking questions.”

  It was one thing to ignore Avery’s advice and confront Paul when she’d thought Ron was about to get a bullet in his back. It was another thing to voluntarily deliver herself into the hands of a man whose own sister had warned her to stay away from him. But Paul was still holding the Taser, and she was very much afraid that if she refused to get in the van he would simply pull the trigger, leaving her unable to resist. With Avery’s warnings ringing in her ears, most of Paul’s explanations struck Ellie as falling far short of the truth.

  “Thanks for the offer of a ride.” She smiled at him guilelessly, as if she were truly the gullible country bumpkin he imagined her to be. “I always hate trying to find new places, even when I have directions, and the traffic around here is the worst.”

  She turned her back on him and walked away as if meekly going to the passenger side of the van. She prayed that he wouldn’t bother to follow. Tasers had a short range, she knew that much, and once she got on the other side of the van, she would run like hell—and shout for help while she was running.

  Her plan would never have worked if Paul Fairfax hadn’t considered her a dowdy, unintelligent nobody. As it was, it didn’t seem to cross his aristocratic mind that she might be tricking him. She walked around the van and then, protected by its bulk, ran like hell toward her car.

  “Help! Help! He has a gun! He’s going to kill me!”

  Paul was chasing her, she could hear the pounding of his footsteps, but she had a significant head start and it seemed she was out of range of the Taser because no terrifying jolt of electricity stopped her in her tracks. Out of the corner of her eye she saw somebody had appeared in the doorway of Focus Health. Thank God, a witness!

  “Help!” she shouted again. “He has a gun!” Not true, of course, but yelling that he had a Taser might not produce the desired effect.

  “Call the police!” She collapsed against the side of the Pontiac, shaking, panting and totally petrified. Another person arrived in the doorway of Focus Health and somebody was coming out of the Hot Tub Emporium, too. Paul wouldn’t be able to Taser her now.

  Then she realized that Paul had reached the same conclusion. He’d not only given up the chase, he was climbing back into the van. She heard him start the ignition. Drat it, darn it and double darn. She’d saved herself, but in a moment, Paul would be gone, taking Ron with him. God knew what his plans were, but they almost certainly didn’t bode well for Ron.

  Almost without conscious thought, Ellie threw herself into her rental car. The keys were still in the ignition and she reversed out of her parking space at a speed she hadn’t attempted since she was in high school and suffering from teenage delusions of immortality. She knew there was almost no chance she could follow the van through the nightmare of Washington, D.C., traffic. Besides, if she did by some miracle keep up with Paul, what would she do when they arrived at their destination? Paul had a stun gun for sure and possibly even a gun that fired real bullets. She had nothing.

  She revved the engine and shot past half a dozen parked cars. The van was cumbersome and Paul was still maneuvering it out of its parking space. It was now or never. Ellie drew in a deep breath, took her foot from the accelerator and rammed her rental car straight into the hood on the passenger side of the Snow White Linen delivery van.

  Twenty-Seven

  A very’s worst fears were realized when Luke turned into the Focus Health parking area and she saw the crowd gathered around a white Pontiac that had apparently crashed into a delivery truck.

  “I’m afraid we didn’t get here in time,” she said, and she could hear the dread in her own voice.

  Luke slammed their rented Taurus into a parking space and shot out of the car. Kate jumped out almost before the car stopped moving, Avery following hard on her heels. The police hadn’t arrived, she noticed, and there were no paramedics, which must mean that the crash had occurred within the past few minutes. She hoped—she really hoped—that her decision to ask earlier this morning for Ellie’s help hadn’t led to Ellie being injured. Or worse.

  As they approached the crash site she saw that the crowd was smaller than it had appeared as they drove in. No more than a dozen people were milling around, with nobody doing anything very useful for the victims.

  “Let us through, please. These are our family members.” Luke spoke with authority and he had the advantage of being tall, so that he looked commanding. The crowd parted, allowing him access to the cars. He and Kate headed in the direction of the van, so Avery made her way toward the Pontiac.

  As she walked, she could hear a woman babbling to anybody who cared to listen. “She crashed her car into the van! She did it on purpose! One minute she was yelling for help. The next minute she turned around and was trying to kill him!”

  Avery didn’t waste time wondering whether the claim was true or not, but she did wonder where Ron was. What a disaster it would be if they’d put themselves through all this and Ron had somehow slipped through their fingers yet again. As for her brother…he was presumably behind the wheel of the delivery van and she was more than happy to leave Kate and Luke to deal with him.

  Steeling herself, Avery made her way to the driver’s side of the Pontiac, dreading what she might see. The air bag had deployed, but it had already deflated and a fine mist of cornstarch or talcum powder had settled over the car’s interior. Ellie, looking incredibly petite and fragile, was slumped in the driver’s seat. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt, Avery noticed, her stomach plunging. Petite women not wearing seat belts could be killed by the air bag, let alone by the impact that caused the bag to deploy in the first place.

  There was no blood, however, at any rate none that she could see, and although the hood of the car was ominously crumpled where it had crashed into the right front side of the delivery van, there didn’t appear to be any reason why she shouldn’t attempt to open the car door. Nothing seemed on the point of bursting into flames, but if the car did, it would be all the more important to rescue Ellie.

  Gingerly, afraid that movement might cause the air bag to redeploy if it hadn’t been fully extended the last time, she slowly opened the door. The air bag, thank goodness, remained quiescent, and there was still no sign of blood. That had to be positive, surely?

  It had been a very long time since she’d earned a Girl Scout badge in first aid and she was reluctant to move Ellie. Still, nobody else was taking charge, so she’d better do it. “Could somebody please bring me some drinking water and a towel? And has anybody called 911?”

  “I called. I called as soon as I saw them crash.” A woman clutching a small cocker spaniel stepped forward and peered into the car. “She’s not moving. Is she…is she all right?”

  “I’m not sure. I have no medical training. But she’s breathing and her pulse seems steady.”

  “That’s a relief,” the woman said.

  As Avery watched, Ellie’s eyelids fluttered. After another moment, she opened them and seemed to recognize Avery. “Oh, hello. My…ribs…hurt.”

  Avery rested her hand very lightly against Ellie’s
forehead, just so that she would have the reassurance of human touch. “The air bag deployed and it probably winded you. You may even have some cracked ribs. Don’t talk if it hurts.”

  “Paul…was getting away…with Ron. Didn’t know how else to stop him.”

  “You did the right thing. Thank you.”

  “You asked me to…save the day. I think maybe I did.”

  “Absolutely, you did. If you hadn’t been here, Paul would have driven off with Ron and we’d have lost him.”

  Kate came up at that moment. “Is this Ellie? How is she doing?”

  “Yes, it’s Ellie and she’s doing well, I hope. How about Paul?”

  “He’s unconscious. He doesn’t seem to have any bleeding wounds, but we’re afraid to move him in case there are internal injuries.”

  “I think I hear sirens,” Avery said. “Let’s hope it’s the paramedics and not the police.”

  “Yes, I hear them, too. Mom, we found Dad in the back of the van. He doesn’t seem badly injured and he’s asking to speak with you. Can you come?”

  “If you’ll stay here with Ellie.”

  “Of course.”

  Kate knelt down so that she was at eye level with Ellie inside the car. “Hello, Ellie. I’m Kate, Avery’s daughter. I’m going to stay here with you for the next couple of minutes. I expect you can hear the sirens, which is good news. It sounds as if help is on the way.”

  Avery left her daughter to take care of Ellie and made her way to the delivery van. The rear doors had been thrown open and Ron was sitting up, his back supported by the wall of the van, his legs dangling over the edge of the loading platform. He looked pale, with two small and unhealthy blotches of color on his cheeks, but he gave Avery a smile of vintage charm when he caught sight of her.

  “My dear, how have you been? I must say, you look simply wonderful.”

  “I wish I could say the same for you.” Avery had no intention of allowing Ron to direct the conversation to some level where they ended up exchanging pleasantries as if they were old acquaintances reunited at a high school reunion. “What happened here today, Ron?”

  “Paul obviously was afraid I’d make a run for it as soon as I saw him.”

  “Was Paul wrong?” Avery asked dryly.

  Ron actually laughed. “Probably not. Anyway, Paul wanted to make damn sure I couldn’t escape and so he used a Taser on me. The bastard had the Taser set on high stun, I’m sure of it. I’m damn lucky I didn’t die of a heart attack.”

  “Paul may not be a prince, but he has legitimate cause to be angry with you, Ron.”

  “Like hell he has legitimate cause. Your brother’s a complete fraud, Avery, just like Ellie’s brother. They’re two of a kind. Paul was so damned incompetent I’d have fired him in a heartbeat, except he blackmailed me to keep him on the job.”

  “Which particular ethical lapse did my brother choose to blackmail you about?”

  “He found out about Ellie when Kate was in high school and he threatened to tell you I was a bigamist if I didn’t keep paying him off.” Ron gave a tight smile. “In retrospect, I can see I should have told the son of a bitch to fuck off. That would have called his bluff, because he damn sure needed me a hell of a lot more than I needed him.”

  “Why did Paul need you so badly?”

  “Because your brother has the world’s worst business judgment, that’s why. If Paul invests in a project, you can just about guarantee it’ll go belly up within a couple of years. He never had any money and he was a constant drain on our partnership. Without me, he would have spent his entire life two steps away from bankruptcy.”

  This wasn’t the moment to mull over the incredible truth that Paul had known for years about Ron’s bigamy and chosen never to tell her about it. The men in her life had not exactly been noble cavaliers, Avery thought acidly. She drew in a deep breath and focused on the real issue. She wasn’t going to let Ron shift the blame for his sins, even if her brother was a lying, deceitful lowlife.

  “My brother wouldn’t have been able to blackmail you if you hadn’t been a bigamist. Why did you do it, Ron? Why did you lie to me, and to Ellie, too, for that matter? Why did you fake your own death? And why have you been hiding from us all these months?”

  “You know why I faked my own death,” he said, sounding weary. “Ellie’s brother was trying to kill me.”

  “Ellie’s brother has been dead for five months, which means that particular excuse hasn’t been valid for equally as long.”

  It was silly of her to have expected honesty from him when she’d never received it before. “God, I have the world’s worst headache.” Ron rubbed his hand across his forehead in a convincing portrayal of a man suffering.

  Avery discovered to her astonishment that she didn’t care anymore about Ron’s evasive tactics. Didn’t even care whether or not he really had a headache. She had no particular desire to stay and listen to Ron weave clever, or not-so-clever, explanations for unforgivable behavior. Looking at him, she realized with a surge of an emotion pretty close to happiness that her liberation was truly complete. There was no reason to waste time asking in a hundred different ways why he had deceived her for so many years. The simple answer was that he’d lied because he was, at his most fundamental core, a liar.

  She sent him a look that was more of pity than of anger. “I can hear the paramedics arriving. I’m sure they’ll take good care of you. Goodbye, Ron. I don’t believe we have anything more to say to each other.”

  She turned to leave and he called after her. “Avery, wait! Wait up!”

  She paused and half turned back. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry, Avery, for everything. Truly. I never meant to hurt you. I stayed with you all those years because I loved you.”

  Avery felt her mouth curve into a smile. “Did you, Ron? And Ellie? Did you love her, too?”

  He didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “Yes,” he said earnestly. “I did. You’re wonderful women. Quite different, but equally wonderful. I loved both of you.”

  “By your standards, perhaps. By my standards, you didn’t love either of us.”

  “You have a narrow definition of love, Avery. That’s what comes from being raised by such old-fashioned, inhibited parents.”

  “You know, Ron, insulting my family probably isn’t the very best way to make me think more kindly of you. Although, I’m afraid there probably aren’t any methods left to achieve that goal.”

  “You’ve changed,” he said sorrowfully. “I’m surprised at you, Avery. You never used to be this hard.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that I’ve changed. And I don’t think I’m hard, just confident in my own abilities. But let’s talk about you for a moment, Ron. I see a police squad car arriving right now. The police are going to arrest you, you know that, don’t you? You committed bigamy, you faked your own death, you stole money from Adam’s bank—”

  “I can explain everything.” He sounded supremely confident.

  “I hope for your sake that you can, although bigamy is a little hard to explain away, I would have thought, and theft even harder.” She held up her hand. “No, please don’t make your excuses to me. I don’t care, so save it for the police. You’d better hope that your son, Liam, is willing to defend you, because you’re going to need a really good lawyer.”

  Ron was silent for several seconds. “Look, Avery, I want you to understand,” he said finally. “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but I’m a different man since I met Consuela Mackenzie. Until I met her and she showed me how much the Mayan people have been forced to suffer at the hands of invaders and conquerors, life always seemed something of a game to me. Could I prove I was better than the competition? Could I win in this negotiation? Make more money than my rivals? Those were my main motives a lot of the time.” He shrugged. “It’s different now. Julio Castellano is a really good man, and Consuela Mackenzie is a really good woman. I want to help them. I want to help the Mayan people win freedom from their
economic servitude.”

  He sounded genuine, earnest even, but Avery didn’t really care if he was being honest or not. “I’ve no idea how you’ll help the Mayan people from a prison cell, Ron, but I wish you luck in your endeavors. Sincerely.” She turned to go once again.

  He spoke from behind her. “Consuela is pregnant,” he said. “It’s my child.”

  It was almost the only thing he could have said that had the power to hurt her. Ron had always resisted the idea of having another child after Kate, despite the fact that he’d known Avery badly wanted more children. It was painful to think that with Consuela he’d been willing to embrace the notion of fatherhood when he’d denied her another baby for a decade after Kate’s birth. If there had been any thread of affection left for him in her heart, nothing could more effectively have severed it.

  Avery waited until she was sure her face displayed nothing beyond impersonal courtesy before she once again turned to look at him. “I wish Consuela and her baby only the best. Good luck to all three of you.” She said nothing more, just walked away from him at a fast, steady pace. And this time when he called her name she didn’t look back.

  The paramedics arrived as she joined Luke at her brother’s side. “Paul’s regained consciousness,” Luke said. “But he really doesn’t look too good.”

  “How are you feeling, Paul?” Avery’s voice softened as she saw the pain etched on her brother’s face. “What happened? How did you get so badly hurt? Ron has barely a scratch.”

  “Taser,” he said, his voice a thin and reedy rasp. “Multiple stuns.”

  Avery looked inquiringly toward Luke. “I thought Paul was the person aiming the Taser at Ron. Is he claiming it was the other way around?”

  “I don’t think so. We found him with a Taser resting in his lap. It must have discharged when the car crashed. Maybe it even discharged several times, if that’s technically possible. My guess is Paul’s suffering more from an adverse reaction to the Taser shots than from the aftereffects of the crash. For some people, especially if they have weak hearts, a blow from a Taser can have quite an impact.”