Paradox (An FBI Thriller Book 22)

by Catherine Coulter

  A sharp slap on his face, and another. His fingers grabbed Sherlock’s wrist. She shouted in his face, “Wake up, Dillon! Come on, that’s it. Everything’s okay. You were having a nightmare. That’s right, come back to me.” He let her wrist go, sucked in a breath, and the black shadows faded away. Though he couldn’t see Sherlock’s face in the dark, he knew she was close, knew she was real. He calmed himself, breathed in the soft, quiet air of their bedroom, and felt his heart begin to slow its mad gallop, felt himself settle. She was kissing his face, holding him close, and whispered against his cheek, “What happened? What did you dream?”

  Savich turned his face into her palm, kissed her smooth skin. It was dark, deep in the night, so he told her all of it, his voice scratchy, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.

  Telling her about it calmed him down. “Do you know, I heard the girl’s laugh. It sounded familiar, but I can’t remember.”

  She kissed him again, stroked her hand over his face. “A dream like that—I’d scream the roof down. But Dillon, given what happened today, it makes sense you’d have a doozy of a nightmare, don’t you think?” She paused, cupped his face in her palm, studied him. “I think your mind is trying to fit the pieces together.”

  Such faith she had in him. How could he fit any pieces together when he could barely breathe? He still felt the lingering fear, the sense of helplessness. He concentrated on her hands stroking him instead.

  Sherlock wondered how the girl’s laugh in his nightmare could sound familiar to him. He’d figure it out, he usually did. She said, “Remember Tommy Raider’s face when he FaceTimed us earlier, waving that toilet paper rod? ‘We’ll know tomorrow if this goombah’s prints are in CODIS!’ Utter disbelief and joy at finding that gift from heaven. He laughed like a hyena. Can you imagine all that work, and you miss the TP? Talk about irony.”

  Finally, Savich’s heart was steady again. He said against her temple, “He did sound like a hyena, didn’t he?”

  She snuggled against him. “Sorry I had to slap you so hard.” Her words were mumbled, she was nearly back to sleep. Savich waited another couple of minutes, then eased away carefully so not to awaken her and took MAX to his study. He’d been checking Octavia’s cases in the public record before Sherlock had come out of the bathroom, a long and tedious job. Now he decided he didn’t want to wait for fingerprints, didn’t want to wait for the warrant for all of Octavia Ryan’s client files, even those that hadn’t made it to trial yet. Not when he knew Octavia Ryan’s former law firm would fight the warrant tooth and nail to keep her files private.

  It was time to move justice along.

  17

  * * *

  Savich made himself some tea and got to work. It took him less than a half hour to break through the firewall at Jacobson, Wile, & Corman in D.C. and access Octavia’s client files. He wondered if he should let them know how crappy their security was as he sipped his tea.

  He methodically pulled up her former client files, concentrating on criminal cases. Fifteen minutes later, he stared at the familiar face of a young man Octavia Ryan had taken on as a pro bono case, Victor Nesser. She’d convinced a judge he wasn’t competent to stand trial, so he’d been sent to the Wharton Facility for treatment a year and a half before. Victor Nesser was an only child, American mother, Jordanian father, gifted computer hacker, still only twenty-three years old. Savich remembered that Victor was a mess at that time, uncommunicative, disinterested in everyone and everything around him. Had he even realized Octavia Ryan had convinced the judge the state couldn’t legally prosecute him until he was able to more fully grasp the charges? He’d loved a thirteen-year-old girl, Lissy Smiley, and Savich knew she’d seduced him, an eighteen-year-old boy, and bound him to her. He’d then been brought in by Lissy’s mother to drive the getaway car for the Gang of Four, as they were called. There was no doubt, though, that when Savich had been forced to kill Lissy, Victor had been a lost soul.

  Victor Nesser fit the profile, but he should still be incarcerated. Savich brought up the patient database of the Central State Hospital, where he’d been transferred. Victor had escaped six weeks before. Law enforcement had been notified, notices had been sent out, but Savich hadn’t seen them nor had there been any mention of his escape in Octavia’s client files to indicate her former law firm had ever been notified. Victor had managed to disappear. Savich had no doubt Victor’s fingerprints would be on that toilet paper rod.

  But who was the girl Sala had heard laughing? The teenager who was Victor’s soul mate, Lissy Smiley, was dead—Savich had shot her himself. Victor could have found another girlfriend since his escape, but Savich wouldn’t, couldn’t, believe it. He’d never forget Victor’s howl of agony when Savich had told him Lissy was dead.

  He looked down at his Mickey Mouse watch. Not yet midnight.

  He went to their bedroom, turned the bedside lamp on low, leaned down, and kissed Sherlock awake. When she smiled up at him and touched her palm to his face, he kissed her hand, slipped in beside her. He said quietly, “Octavia Ryan’s murderer is Victor Nesser. And it’s Victor who’s been stalking Sean.”

  She was instantly awake, blinked up at him. “Victor Nesser? You’re sure?”

  “As sure as I can be without the call verifying his fingerprints are on that toilet paper rod. I sent MAX into Octavia’s files at her former law firm. She took over his case from the lawyer in L.A. She must have been happy she’d gotten him committed, saw it as a great victory, despite the fact he’d been the driver for the bank robberies and was as guilty of murder and robbery as any of them.”

  She stared up at him. “The Gang of Four, of course I remember. Jennifer Smiley and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Lissy, her nephew Victor the driver, and two guys from out west. And you brought their bank-robbing rampage to a close at our Georgetown bank. All of them now dead except Victor. The man who tried to take Sean Wednesday night—he limped. I shot Victor in the ankle two years ago.

  “Dillon, that means Victor has a hit list, everyone who helped take down the gang, everyone who helped lock him up. He tried to take Sean first, but when that failed, he went after someone else on his list, Octavia Ryan.”

  “And after he killed Octavia, he must have driven back to Washington and followed us back again to Willicott. Victor must have thought our returning to the same town where he’d murdered Octavia a piece of irony. Maybe he saw it as karma.” He frowned. “But why was Octavia on his hit list? He must be as crazy as they say to want to kill her. She did a brilliant job, getting him into treatment in a medical facility rather than life in prison. I remember he was a mental and emotional wreck after we brought him in. I suppose Victor couldn’t have liked how she did it, pointing out he was mentally unstable to begin with and that was why he’d been easily manipulated. She made Lissy out to be a teenage Lolita. I suppose he couldn’t bear to hear the truth, and so by killing Octavia, he gained—what?”

  “I guess he had only one plan going for him, Dillon, and for whatever reason, he wanted her dead. If he wasn’t crazy before, he is now. I saw him in McGurk’s tent, a man wearing sunglasses and a ball cap, and I should have recognized him, maybe even his voice. But I didn’t, Dillon. What he did wasn’t very smart, but unexpected enough he got away with it.”

  Savich rubbed his hands up and down Sherlock’s tiger stripes. “So who else could be on Victor’s radar? Probably Buzz Riley, remember, he was the one who shot Lissy’s mother in the bank robbery.”

  Savich would remember that day at his Georgetown bank for as long as he lived, lying on his stomach, face to the floor with everyone else in the bank when Lissy Smiley recognized him. He could still hear her high, excited voice, crowing how she was going to kill her an FBI agent. Then very suddenly, crunch time, and he and the security guard, Buzz Riley, had managed to survive. He said now, “It was Buzz who killed Jennifer Smiley. If Victor wants to go after anyone else, it’ll be Buzz.”

  Savich grabbed his cell off its charger and scrolled through
the numbers until he found Buzz. “Buzz? It’s Agent Dillon Savich. I’m sorry to wake you. But Victor Nesser has escaped from the psychiatric facility where he was being kept, and we believe he murdered his lawyer, Octavia Ryan, Friday morning. You saw this on the news, right?”

  Savich listened, nodded, and explained exactly what was happening. Then he said, “What do you say to another vacation in the Caribbean? Can you get on a plane tomorrow? Good, I’ll clear it with Mr. Maitland.” When he hung up, he was breathing more easily. “Buzz said he’d sleep with his Beretta on his pillow. He said he really liked the sound of Saint Thomas, heard they were coming back from the hurricane damage.”

  It was only a little past midnight when they settled down to sleep. It was very quiet without Sean. He hated to say it, but he was used to telling her everything. “That girl’s laugh, Sherlock, in my nightmare. She sounded like Lissy.”

  She wanted to tell him it was impossible, Lissy was long dead, but instead, she leaned up, kissed him, and said only, “You’re not going to puzzle everything out tonight, Dillon. Try to get some sleep.”

  Both of them hoped there would be no more nightmares.

  18

  * * *

  CAMPGROUND NEAR GREENBRIER LAKE

  GREENBRIER STATE PARK, MARYLAND

  SATURDAY NIGHT

  Victor sang “We Are the Champions,” nearly screaming the words as he thumped his fist on the steering wheel in rhythm. That’s what he was, a winner, a champion of the world. He pulled his Kia smoothly to a stop at the Greenbrier State Park entry kiosk and was told by the snotty girl park ranger the campground was full, and why didn’t he go to the Lorelei Motel back up the road, not more than ten minutes away? He felt a leap of rage, thought about sticking her with his new Ka-Bar knife right between her ribs, but he managed to quash it, even managed to smile and thank her nicely. She was nothing, a pebble in his path.

  How dare the cow turn us away? Go back, Victor, shoot her in her stupid face with that agent’s Glock.

  Victor shook his head at her. Lissy would shoot everyone in the world if he let her.

  He drove back to the exit and parked out of sight around a corner. He slipped through the trees until he could see the ranger in the entry kiosk. He waited nearly thirty minutes until she left for a break. Fast as a lick of spit, as Lissy always liked to say, Victor drove past the empty kiosk to the very end of the visitor parking lot and parked the Kia next to a big SUV.

  I didn’t think the bitch would ever leave. That was well done, Victor.

  “Yeah, that’s always been your problem, you have no patience.”

  Victor unloaded the camping equipment he’d bought, locked the car, and trudged well beyond the designated campsites. As he walked, Victor smelled hamburgers and barbecue being cooked over fire pits, heard children laughing, whining, several parents’ exhausted voices scolding, two guys yelling at each other about the Yankees. He walked until all the people and their noise were far behind, deeper into the thick maple and oak forest until the trees were so close together their branches and leaves formed a canopy over his head. His arms were tired, but it didn’t matter, he knew he had to walk until no one could hear him. Finally, it was silent, no one close. He found a small opening in the trees, set up his tent, dug a small fire pit, and sprinkled in dried leaves, a couple pages of wadded-up newspaper, and some small twigs. He laid a match to the pile, watched a small flame leap up. He said, “You rest, Lissy. I know that was a long walk for you. I’m sorry I don’t have any more pain pills. I’ll make some nice strong tea for you, warm you up.”

  She was silent. It didn’t take him long to get a fire going strong, the twigs snapping and popping. It wasn’t quite dark yet and still warm, but the fire felt good. He felt the soft air against his face, and he breathed in deeply, stared up at the darkening sky. Soon there would be a white half-moon and brilliant stars shining down on him. He smiled. Everything was perfect.

  It’s beautiful here, Victor, nice and warm. And the best thing is none of those brain-dead yahoo cops have a clue who we are, not a single fricking clue.

  “That’s because we were thorough, Lissy. We cleaned up after ourselves, wiped everything down.” He paused. “Not that anyone is likely to go up those stairs at Gatewood for the next fifty years. I mean, why would they? If by some crazy chance they do, they won’t find a thing. Well, maybe that FBI agent’s body, eventually. Then they’ll know what we did, how we fooled them, but they still won’t know who we are.”

  Victor raised his fist to the heavens and sang out, “I am the champion! I am the champion! Of the world!”

  You mean we, don’t you?

  “No, I’m the one who did the heavy lifting in Willicott. Give your mouth a rest, Lissy, I’m tired.”

  You’re not the only one who’s tired. Drive, drive, drive. I was bored, and you know my belly hurts. The staples dig in and pinch.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He could practically see Lissy getting ready to blast him even more and said quickly, “Okay, both of us are champions.” He sat cross-legged on a blanket and watched the fire bloom, tried to distract Lissy by whistling Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe,” an ancient song from the hippie era Lissy’s mom was always humming, until she got shot through the neck. He hadn’t minded that at all, the crazy witch. But he’d never say it to Lissy.

  He’d picked a good spot, quiet and peaceful. They could even see a slice of Greenbrier Lake through the trees, its flat dark water smooth as glass. His only worry, a small one really, was that the girl park ranger would come sniffing around, threaten to fine him or toss him in jail. Victor cracked his knuckles. Let her come, maybe he’d strangle her with her ridiculous long hippie braid. He knew he could do it, no doubt in his mind, not since he’d whacked Octavia Ryan on the head and shoved her overboard into Lake Massey, two heavy bricks tied by a rope around her waist so she wouldn’t float to the surface. That was what you had to do to keep a body under the water. He pictured himself standing in the rowboat, looking down at the flat surface of Lake Massey for any sign of her, and he’d felt better in that moment than he had in a long time. He was a winner. He sent his fist again to the sky. Yes, he’d thought of everything.

  He looked through his small, cold bag and frowned. He didn’t want to eat the last two hot dogs for dinner. No, it was time to celebrate. That meant dessert. He hummed as he made himself a s’more and set it on the small grate he’d carefully placed over his fire pit. The graham crackers were on the stale side, but the marshmallows and the Hershey’s chocolate bar were prime. Lissy loved s’mores, a treat her mama had always made her when she was thirteen, licking her lips, to tease him, he knew.

  He chewed slowly, swallowed, wiped his mouth. It was a wonderful reward for a guy who’d gotten the job done, accomplished what he’d set out to do. And better yet, he had the money to prove it. He looked into the small fire and said softly, “Don’t worry, Lissy, I’m making you a s’more, too. Mine are better than your mama’s.”

  About time, Victor. You ate the first one, didn’t even think to offer it to me. I don’t know, Mama’s were pretty good.

  “Sorry, Lissy, but I wanted to celebrate my success. And it was mine, not ours—you saw what I did.” He preened. “I killed that bitch lawyer like I promised. And don’t feel bad about that FBI agent who was screwing her, either—the guy tried, I’ll give him that, came close but he failed. After that, I kind of liked stuffing him in that closet. I decided he deserved to die long and slow. I mean, he had the rotten taste to hook up with that lying witch, didn’t he? I even have the agent’s gun. Not that he’ll ever need it again.”

  To his surprise, rather than criticizing him like she always did, she said, I like what you did to the FBI agent. You ma de the punishment fit the crime. You know what else I like? I like how you waited for that girl park ranger to take a break. That was smart. You fooled her good.

  Victor felt a burst of warmth inside. He’d pleased her. She’d actually praised him, without reservation, wi
thout criticism. It had to be a first. He smiled into the glowing embers. Victor realized he’d been smiling a lot today. He could get used to it. “I wonder what the FBI agent is thinking about now, all cozy in his closet? About his mama? About Octavia, wondering what I did to her? Hey, I wonder if fish eat lawyers?” He laughed and began constructing another s’more for Lissy.

  Nah, Porto’s thinking about himself, no one else, not even that frigging lawyer he was screwing. He finally understands there’s nothing he can do. He’s helpless. It’s all over. He’s toast. I bet he’s wondering how long it will take him to die.

  “A good long time,” Victor said, “at least three days.”

  She fell silent, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. Victor knew she was examining every action he’d taken to find fault, as she usually did when something was his idea, not hers. First praise, then the spurs. Sure enough, she pulled close and said, her voice sharp and critical, Lookie here, Victor, what you did may have felt good, but I’m thinking you should have put his lights out with a nice clean bullet, instead of trying to prove you can think on your own. You know how hard it was for you to haul him up those stairs and leave him in that stupid closet. He weighs lots more than you do. He could have got his brains back together at any time and taken you down. Did you even think about anyone coming to Gatewood, maybe finding him before he’s croaked? I mean, you did sink the rowboat right there off the Gatewood dock. What if someone saw you or finds that sunken rowboat? They’d investigate, wouldn’t they? They’d look around and they’d find the agent, and maybe he wouldn’t be dead yet. You tried to be cute. You should have shot him with his own gun, wham, right between the eyes, and that FBI bastard would be gone forever, no chance for him to rat you out. It was stupid, Victor.