The Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 7-9

by Jonas Saul

  The door opened and a doctor came out to talk to the young boys who had been sprawled across chairs sleeping.

  After a moment of hushed tones, the older boy’s face hardened and the younger boy wept. They walked away, holding each other. Even the doctor shed a tear as he watched them leave.

  Parkman checked his watch. Joffrey had been gone more than five minutes now. Aaron would be back at any moment.

  He had a decision to make. Tell them all of it, everything, and get their help in arresting Violeta, or go after her himself.

  If Sarah hadn’t been hurt, he might’ve offered Violeta up to the police, but now that Sarah was fighting for her life, especially when she wanted to walk away from the violent life, it had become personal. He wanted Violeta Payne all to himself.

  The elevator doors opened.

  Detective Joffrey stepped off and headed his way.

  “Where’s Aaron?” he asked.

  “Gone for coffees.”

  “You think he’s getting three?”

  “Can’t be sure.”

  Joffrey handed Parkman a pad of paper and two pens. “You know the drill. I need your statement. Write it out as best as you can. Be as detailed as possible. And write so I can read it.”

  “Okay, but I’ll need a few hours.”

  “I don’t think any of us are going anywhere anytime soon. While you get started, I’m going to find that doctor. I have a couple of questions for him.”

  “Did you catch his name?” Parkman asked.

  “The name plate on his office door said, Jacob, so I’m assuming he’s Doctor Jacob.”

  “Shit, missed that. I’m usually observant enough to catch that sort of thing.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Joffrey walked off as Aaron showed up with two coffees.

  “I didn’t know if you take cream or sugar or both, so I left it black.”

  “Black’s fine. Nothing for the detective?”

  “Forgot. He can go get his own when he comes back.”

  Parkman sipped his coffee and then set it down.

  “I’m going to start writing my statement.”

  “I’m going to veg until doc comes back out with more news.”

  Parkman wrote as legibly as he could, adding everything he could recall. At times, he had to wipe his eyes. He had asked her to meet him at the ruined building across the street and then, on purpose, met her in the parking lot of the industrial building so if they had been followed or his cell phone traced, his pursuer would see Sarah’s bike and assume they were on the other side of the street.

  He had no idea the occupants of the Jaguar were the enemy. The driver didn’t even turn to look at them as he drove by.

  Parkman shot his head up and looked at the wall across from him.

  “What?” Aaron asked. “What is it? You remember something?”

  “Unless it wasn’t the Jaguar.”

  “What?”

  He turned to Aaron. “What if the shooter had been waiting across the street, listening with a parabolic mike or something. They waited until the Jaguar passed and then took the shot. Sarah and I would’ve assumed the shot came from the Jag.”

  “Won’t the investigators look across the street for evidence of a shooter?”

  “Not necessarily. They might, especially if they suspected that was a possible scenario. But based on my statement, they would assume the shooter was in the Jag.”

  Detective Joffrey entered the waiting lounge. He walked up to Parkman and took the pad of paper from him.

  “Hey, I’m not finished. There’s lots more.”

  “I know. Just checking something.”

  “Ask me if you need clarity. I know what I wrote.”

  Joffrey studied Parkman’s words for a moment longer, then lowered the pad. The muscles on the side of his jaw clenched like he was grinding his teeth.

  “Parkman?” Joffrey said.

  “What?”

  “What kind of gun do you carry?”

  “A Glock 22. Why?”

  “Doctor Jacob pulled the bullet out when Sarah arrived. It was in relatively good shape.”

  “Which means?”

  “It has to undergo testing in the lab, but upon visual inspection, it looks like a .40 S&W bullet.”

  Parkman looked at Aaron for support, then back to Joffrey. “So the gunman used the same ammunition I use.”

  “The first responders called me when I went down to my car ten minutes ago.”

  Discomfort at being questioned this way angered Parkman. Was Joffrey trying to say that Parkman shot Sarah?

  “And? What did they say?”

  “They located the Jaguar you shot at already.”

  “Good.”

  Joffrey shook his head. “Not good.”

  “Why?” Parkman asked. It came out curt, angry. His patience was thinning.

  “The man driving it works three buildings down from where you and Sarah were. He had a baby in the backseat on account that his wife had recently died of cancer. As he drove by your location, he claims he thought he heard a firecracker go off, which startled him and made him duck his head. Just before he passed your location, he said he saw a woman with long blonde hair fall to the cement in front of a man who had a gun in his hand. Then the gunman tried to take him out, too.”

  Some of the anger at feeling like he was about to be accused of shooting Sarah turned to sickness. He had acted on instinct. He was convinced the shooter was in the Jaguar. At the time, there had been no doubt. But even going over the situation again, before Joffrey told him this, he was already thinking the shooter set him up to think it was the Jag.

  Their aim was to take Sarah out and make Parkman go to prison for murdering an unsuspecting member of the public driving a Jaguar. The baby could’ve been hurt or killed. He could almost hear Violeta ordering this reckless task.

  “The baby had to get splinters of glass removed from her ear because you blew out the back window. The father is being treated for shock as we speak.”

  Parkman raised a hand to cover his mouth. He didn’t know what to say. Aaron put a consoling hand on Parkman’s shoulder.

  “The officers have a theory,” Joffrey continued.

  Parkman didn’t say anything as he held back warring emotions.

  “They think you waited for the car to drive by, shot Sarah, and then emptied your weapon at the fleeing vehicle.”

  Parkman found his voice. “Why would I do that?” he said. “Why the fuck would I shoot Sarah? Huh? You tell me that?”

  “Calm down,” Joffrey said.

  The remaining people in the waiting room sat up straighter and watched them.

  “They think you shot Sarah because of the note found in the pocket of your jacket at the scene.”

  Parkman’s stomach clenched. For a second he thought he would throw up on the detective.

  “I just checked your handwriting against what’s on this note,” Joffrey said. “From what I can see, you wrote it. Care to explain?”

  “What’s the note say?” Aaron asked.

  “That Sarah would die with a bullet to the head,” Joffrey offered. “It was signed by a woman named, Violeta, but it’s Parkman’s handwriting. Are you trying to set this woman up? Were you trying to kill your friend? Come on, Parkman, tell me what’s going on. No more bullshit or I will lock you up and charge you.” Joffrey stood in front of Parkman, handcuffs in his hand. “You want to put these on now or later?”

  Aaron removed his hand from Parkman’s shoulder.

  Chapter 10

  Oliver Payne didn’t want to move a muscle. Everything ached. The Greek police had placed him in a small, dirty holding cell without a bed or anything to sit on. The toilet was seatless and there was no toilet paper to speak of. The damp room stank of mold and past occupants’ urine and feces.

  They had clipped the twist ties off his wrists. Only in the last ten minutes had the blood stopped oozing from the cuts.

  Luckily, his shoulder had
n’t popped out when he hit the ground. His knee was intact after twisting it, but had swollen to double its original size. He looked down past his fat lip at the dirt clinging to his skin, stuck on the leftover massage oil. It spread out as if he had layered butter on himself and then sprinkled cinnamon on top.

  His passport was missing and all he could surmise was Violeta had someone steal it before the police showed up. He guessed the police already had his passport as they were probably the ones who stole it in the first place.

  Within days he would be on a plane, heading back to the States, where he would hire a lawyer and leave Violeta the hard way. Walking out had been easy. Coming to Greece, living here for four months, had been fun. But this was the coward’s way out. He knew it and could live with it. But Violeta had pushed too hard.

  He would go for dissolution of the company and he would want his share in cash. Either she would have to find a way to buy him out, or the company would go up for sale.

  She didn’t want that. But what she wanted anymore wasn’t of importance to him. Tam would be eighteen in a few months. She’d understand sooner or later what her mother was like.

  A door clicked open down the hall.

  “What now?” he asked out loud.

  The lock clicked on his door.

  “Mr. Payne, you have a call.”

  He had to take it. Maybe it was Violeta willing to work things out. His first step had to be to get out of this holding cell. If that meant befriending his ex-wife, then he would.

  He rolled to his side, wincing at the pain. Without letting his swollen knee touch the ground, he got up on his good knee and pushed with his hands.

  “Ah, shit,” he whispered.

  “What?” the cop asked.

  “Split open the cut on my wrist again.” He met the cop’s eyes. “The cut from your twist ties.”

  The cop shrugged and stepped out of the doorway to let Oliver pass.

  He escorted him down the hall where a phone dangled from the wall. The cop gestured to it and stepped behind another door. Metal doors barricaded any thoughts of escape in the back of the Greek police station, which pleased Oliver. That meant they didn’t have to bind his wrists again.

  He picked up the swinging phone. “Hello?”

  “Enjoying the comforts of home, darling?”

  “Do you know what they did to me?”

  “You stayed past your allotted time. In their eyes, you’re an illegal immigrant.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I have my ways.”

  Oliver wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her. “Stop with the bullshit, Violeta. I want out. I am out. Leave me alone. You can have the business, everything—”

  “No. It’s not that easy.” Her tone darkened, the lightness gone.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s black and white. You’re either with me or you’re not.”

  “I know. I’ve heard your speeches about yin and yang and right and wrong a thousand times—”

  “Are you with me?” she asked.

  He thought about his answer. He was supposed to be friendly, with aims of being released from this hell hole. But she told them he had raped his own daughter. She had become foreign, enemy territory. She had started a war and he couldn’t just surrender.

  “Obviously I am not with you. I should’ve seen your delusional side years ago. How did I miss how fucked up you are?”

  “Then you’re not with me,” she said, almost to herself, barely above a whisper.

  “Are we getting anywhere here? You keep saying the same thing. What do you really want?”

  “I want the business. Not just a controlling interest. If you’re not with me, then I want it all.”

  “Fine. Take it. Leave me alone.”

  “I need signatures from you. Lawyer meetings. This isn’t something we can agree to over the phone. You have to return to me and sign everything.”

  “Get me out of this Greek police station and then send me the documents. I’ll sign whatever you send.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  His hand tightened on the phone. It always had to be her way.

  “Why won’t it happen? Isn’t that what you want?”

  “You come here. To the States. It’ll take weeks, if not months to transfer everything. I have a rather large deal in play right now. Before everything is signed over to me, I need you to sign off on this other deal and I can’t send those documents to Greece.”

  “Sounds like you have a lot going on. Well, enjoy yourself with it. I’m not coming back to the States. When I leave Greece, I’ll be in Britain or Australia. Good luck finding me again.”

  “A moment ago you offered to sign if I sent you the documents. Were you lying again?”

  “If you were amicable, willing to work with me, I’d make it happen at my end. But because it has to be your way, I’m done with you. There’s no negotiation. It’s not open for discussion anymore.” Without cautioning himself, his voice rose a notch. “That’s why I left you, Violeta. Don’t you get it? Now that we’re separated, I don’t have to do it your way. You don’t have any control over me anymore. It’s not always cut and dried. It’s not always black or white. Sometimes there are gray areas. Once you realize that, you will understand that you can’t keep acting like—” Oliver stopped talking. He heard nothing on the line. Not even her breathing. “Violeta? You there?”

  The guard opened the metal door to his right and nodded at the phone. Oliver replaced it in the cradle and limped past the guard, favoring his swollen knee as he headed back to the holding cell.

  Your move, bitch.

  What would she do to get him back to the States? How far had he pushed her? How much could the Greek police be manipulated? Maybe in a shifty Mexican jail, or some uncivilized country, she could get him beaten, or even killed. But Greece?

  All he had ever wanted was peace and quiet. He was willing to let his old life go. Willing to leave the wealth and the company in her hands. Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?

  And what had Violeta told their daughter? That her father doesn’t love her anymore?

  In Violeta’s world, there was never a gray area. You were either on the team or off the team. You were either in the water or out of the water. In the fire, or out. She didn’t believe in fence sitting of any kind.

  That meant there was only love or hate. Now that he was the enemy, he would be hated.

  His daughter, in order to stay under Violeta’s financial umbrella, would have to hate her father, the enemy. She would have to hate him so much as to be in collusion with her mother. It was a matter of survival for Tam now. Or death.

  There was no in-between with Violeta and there never had been.

  He realized that he had just answered his own question.

  How far would Violeta go to get his compliance to return to the States? Whatever it was, she would find a way to make him come home, even if it was against his will.

  Or she would have him killed, which would be easier than obtaining signatures for everything.

  Yes, his death would solve her dilemmas as their wills were specific.

  In the event of death, everything transferred to the surviving spouse.

  Everything.

  Chapter 11

  Violeta pushed the button down, ceasing the sound of her ex-husband’s whiny voice. She had heard enough. Oliver had two options and he had made his decision. There was a right answer and a wrong answer.

  Because he willingly chose the wrong answer, what happened next was on him. He did this to himself. She had to protect her interests, further her aims. There was no other way to operate. No other way to live.

  Oliver Payne had declared himself her enemy. He had deemed them at war and he was in an active state of retreat. Once he left Greek police custody, he would either go back to the States to work with her or he wouldn’t, and she was betting on the latter.

  That meant he had to be forced to return. Against his
will. Something she could make happen without remorse since this was all his fault anyway. Why have pity on the enemy? She would easily squish a mouse if it intruded on her home. Oliver was nothing more than the nuisance a mouse could cause. The only difference was a mouse wouldn’t hurt her financially. Oliver had the potential to cost her the new wholesaling deal if he wasn’t back within a week.