by Sandra Brown
“What is Shaw Kinnard’s condition?” she blurted. “Did he make it through the surgery all right?”
The two men exchanged an uneasy glance.
Jordie’s stomach plummeted. “He died?”
Wiley cleared his throat. “No. He came through the surgery okay and was expected to make a full recovery.”
She tried to keep her relief from being too obvious. But then she caught the tense of the verb. “Was expected?”
No longer the genial family man harassed by a faulty toilet, Wiley now assumed his game face. “About fifteen minutes ago, we got a call from the Houma hospital’s administrator. Preemptive, I think. He’s covering his…behind.”
“For what?”
“Kinnard is en route to a trauma center here in New Orleans. His condition is a lot more serious this time.”
Jordie’s ribs seemed to shrink around her lungs. She couldn’t take in sufficient air. “More serious than what I…what I did to him?”
“The admin guy described him as being critical. Of course, he’s not a doctor.”
She wheezed. “What happened?”
Wiley’s frown deepened. “An assistant DA here in Orleans Parish, name of Xavier Dupaw, failed to indict Kinnard on two murder raps when he had the chance to. He’s been eating crow ever since. He heard about Kinnard’s capture and went to see him in the hospital this morning.
“No one knows exactly what was said between them, and, believe me, Dupaw can be provoking as hell. Whatever he said caused Kinnard to go apeshit, if you’ll pardon the French. He started yanking on his restraints, yelling that he was gonna kill Dupaw if it was the last thing he ever did.
“The admin guy described quite a scene. The upshot of it? Kinnard was too aggressive and hostile to be left down there in Houma. Dupaw insisted that he be moved immediately to a more secure facility, a hospital with bars on the windows, concertina wire around the perimeter, and dozens of guards, not just one deputy outside his door, who Dupaw described as ‘green as they come.’” He paused and looked at her with concern. “You want some water, Ms. Bennett?”
She shook her head.
“You sure?”
“Please go on.”
He hesitated, then resumed. “The hospital staff objected to him being moved, said their patient wasn’t up to it, that he wasn’t out of danger yet. Since Kinnard is technically Morrow’s prisoner, Dupaw enlisted his help.
“After some arm-twisting, Deputy Morrow got the surgeon’s clearance to make the transfer. The admin guy signed off on it. That’s where the ass covering comes in. He doesn’t want to be held responsible for what came later.”
Jordie’s throat was too constricted to ask what had come later.
Wiley took a deep breath. He looked over at Hickam, who gave him a nod of encouragement to continue. “Somehow—we don’t know the details yet, because we’ve been unable to confirm with Morrow. But somehow while in transit, Kinnard got hold of that green deputy’s service revolver. Busted out of the ambulance and took off on foot. Almost made good his escape. Morrow managed to, uh, stop him.”
“Stop him.”
“We were told he ordered Kinnard to halt. He didn’t. Morrow had no choice.”
“He shot him?”
Wiley just looked at her, which was answer enough. “They packed him back into the ambulance and, since they were closer to New Orleans, continued on this way rather than returning to Houma. I think the admin guy in Houma is relieved that it’s out of his hands.”
“Because he doesn’t expect him to survive.”
“He didn’t come out and say it, but that’s what I gathered.” Wiley ran a hand around the back of his neck. “I hate this for Morrow. He told me yesterday morning after Kinnard was apprehended that he was damned glad he hadn’t had to use his weapon. Said he hoped to go his whole career without ever having to hurt anybody. He must’ve jinxed himself.” He paused before adding quietly, “I’m sure we’ll hear from him when…when he has something definite to tell us.”
Jordie lowered her head and stared vacantly at the chipped edge of the particleboard table. Her ears were echoing the doleful beating of her heart.
“Shaw Kinnard was, is, a violent man, Ms. Bennett,” Hickam said. “With heinous crimes to his credit.”
She merely nodded.
Wiley said, “I know you have mixed feelings about this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
She raised her head and looked at Wiley, who seemed genuinely puzzled. “He wasn’t violent with me. He frightened me, but didn’t do anything heinous. He was offered a lot of money to kill me.” She raised her shoulders. “He didn’t.”
No one said anything for a stretch of time. Then Wiley said, “That’s not the only development we’ve had this morning. The other relates to your brother.”
She covered her mouth, whimpering, “Oh, God. No. Don’t tell me—”
“He’s alive,” Wiley said quickly. “At least he was a few hours ago.”
When he saw a question forming on her lips, he held up a hand. “I’ll start the official questioning by telling you what we know. Uh, Hick, would you hit the switch on the video, please?” Then to her, he said with apology, “Procedure.”
When the camera was on and recording, he continued. “The canines picked up Josh’s trail in the woods and tracked him to a storage facility that was three miles from there, give or take. The security cameras at the facility caught him before he disabled the system.”
“How did he do that?”
“It was old. Hardwired. We think he simply cut the power source. Management of the place provided us records. Josh rented the space using a fake name and paid for twelve months in advance. His unit was empty save for a motor oil stain in the middle of the floor.”
“He kept a car there?” she asked.
“Looks like.”
“He sold his car before being sent to Tennessee.”
“And the single mother who bought it still has it,” Wiley told her. “Hick checked on that this morning.”
The other agent confirmed that with a nod.
“Your brother has a different set of wheels,” Wiley continued. “We don’t know what kind, because no one spotted him driving away from that storage outfit. But he’s no longer so confident of his escape.” He paused to take a breath. “He called me this morning a little before dawn.”
Having had to absorb the shocking news about Shaw, Jordie now suffered another jolt. She listened without comment as Joe Wiley recounted his most recent conversation with Josh.
“He sounded different from when I talked to him night before last,” Wiley said. “He got really spooked when I told him that I had talked to Billy Panella last night.”
Jordie flinched. “What?” The shocks just kept coming.
“I used Bolden’s phone. Same as Kinnard did. Just hit Redial.”
“Panella answered?”
“He expected it to be Kinnard demanding payment for services rendered. I identified myself and told him that his hired gun had been apprehended and that you were alive and well. Plan foiled.”
“What did he say?”
“Garbled some obscenities, then hung up. Now that he knows we have Bolden’s phone, the one he answered is probably in pieces.”
Jordie murmured agreement to that. She was aware of Greg Hickam standing with his back to the wall, watching her intently and gauging her reactions to everything Wiley was telling her. Keeping her expression schooled, she said, “My brother is my main concern. Any indication of where he is, how he is?”
“If I knew where, he’d already be in custody. But I don’t think he’ll keep running much longer. He sounded strung out, jumpy, on the brink of falling apart. He was crying when he hung up.”
“I’m sure he’s scared.”
“I think so, too,” Wiley said. “Told him he should be. But what, in particular, do you think has him scared enough to bawl like a baby?”
“You don’t have to
answer,” Adrian Dover said.
Jordie disregarded her. “He’s scared of being recaptured because he knows the punishment he’ll face.”
“Years in prison.”
“Yes, and that will be torture.”
“It isn’t meant to be fun, Ms. Bennett.”
“Of course not. But for Josh, the lack of privacy is his worst nightmare.”
“You’re referring to his scars,” Wiley said quietly.
She nodded and lowered her head sorrowfully. “They’re unsightly, and Josh sees them as being even worse than they are. He’s extremely self-conscious of them. Pathologically so.”
No one said anything for the next several moments, then Jordie raised her head. “I can’t bear the idea of imprisonment for my brother and his being subjected to, well, everything that it entails, but I’ll do the right thing, Agent Wiley. I’ll answer truthfully any questions you put to me.”
Adrian Dover said, “Unless she exercises her constitutional right not to.”
Wiley began, and for approximately an hour they reviewed everything Jordie had already told them about her abduction. She found it almost impossible to speak Shaw’s name without her throat seizing up.
Various aspects of the time he’d held her captive were covered repeatedly, until she said in a cracking voice, “Must we go over this again and again? There’s nothing more I can tell you.”
Then from Hickam, “All right, then tell us about your trip to Costa Rica with Billy Panella.”
The switch in topics was so abrupt it took her aback.
“That’s not a question,” Adrian Dover said.
“Excuse me. I’ll be happy to put it in the form of a question.” Hickam pushed himself away from the wall. “Ms. Bennett, did you accompany Billy Panella to Costa Rica?” He checked his iPad and cited the dates.
“Yes.”
“What was the reason for the trip?”
The lawyer laid her hand on Jordie’s arm and shook her head.
This time Jordie heeded her. “I’ve been advised by counsel not to answer.”
“Did you know that Panella had funds stashed in a bank in San Jose?”
“Not until yesterday when Agent Wiley alleged it.”
“Your brother made the deposit for him.”
“So Agent Wiley alleged.”
“You had no previous knowledge of this?”
“None.”
“You didn’t know about Billy Panella’s plans to flee the U.S.?”
“You don’t have to answer.”
She turned to the lawyer. “I want to answer, Adrian.” Then to Hickam, “I didn’t know Billy Panella’s plans regarding anything. We rarely even spoke.”
“But you spent a long weekend with him.”
She divided a look between the two federal agents, but didn’t say anything because her lawyer was whispering in her ear not to.
Hickam said, “You still claim to have no knowledge of funds in that bank?”
“Correct. I have no knowledge of them.”
Wiley sat forward, clasping his hands on the table and looking at her like the regretful bearer of bad news. “They remember you down there, Ms. Bennett.”
“Who? Where? What are you talking about?”
“The bank employees in San Jose. You paid a visit to it with Panella.”
“Oh. That.” Her shoulders sagged forward. Adrian Dover cautioned her not to say anything, but she held up a hand to silence her. “I want this cleared up, Adrian.”
She glanced at handsome, stoic Hickam, then met Wiley’s sad-looking eyes. “Panella ordered a chauffeur-driven limousine to take us to lunch, a place on the mountainside overlooking the city. On the way there, he asked the driver to stop at a bank, where he said he had some quick business to attend to.
“I told him that I would wait in the car, but he insisted that I go into the bank with him.” She took a deep breath. “He made a spectacle of us. Flirted with the tellers, glad-handed the officers, and cashed a check. I was embarrassed by his grandstanding and couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
She raised her hands. “That was it. I’m not surprised that the bank employees remember us, because it was a disgusting display of affluence. Him with his Armani suit and Patik Philippe watch. But that’s all I know about a bank in San Jose. If Josh made a deposit—”
“He did.” Hickam stepped forward and opened up an e-mail attachment, holding it where she could see it. “One week before Josh agreed to cooperate with us, he opened an account for Billy Panella with half a million dollars.”
She looked at him, but didn’t say anything, unsure of what he expected from her. Wiley said, “The thing is, Ms. Bennett… Show her, Hick.”
He scrolled to another page.
“That’s the amount in the account as of this morning. Half a million and change, the change being the interest that’s accrued in the past six months.” He leaned farther forward. “Panella hasn’t touched it. No withdrawals.”
Both he and Hickam were still looking at her expectantly. She raised her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. “He must’ve changed his mind about San Jose. He went someplace else.”
“And left this money there? Does that sound like him to you? Doesn’t sound like him to me. To us. To Josh, who told us while sitting in that chair you’re sitting in now that, although Panella made a show of spending to enhance his reputation as a brilliant moneyman, he kept track of every single cent. Squeezed the copper off every penny. He’d made a science of having his money multiply while he slept. Why would he leave five hundred thou in an account that earns less than one percent interest?”
They waited. She felt the walls closing in and was powerless to stop them. “I have no idea.”
Wiley said, “Only thing we can guess? He plans on keeping it there till he can retrieve it or move it, and the timing just hasn’t been right.”
“I don’t know what he plans,” she said. “I never did.”
“Who called you to that honky tonk last Friday night?”
Again, the switch in tone and subjects momentarily threw her. “I’ve told you repeatedly that I didn’t recognize the voice.”
Wiley leaned toward her. “And all he said was—”
“I quoted it to you exactly. You wrote it down.” She gestured to the iPad now lying on the table.
Hickam picked up. “You’re an intelligent woman, Ms. Bennett. You’ve got common sense. You’re rational. A savvy businesswoman. Yet you expect us to believe that when a man you can’t identify called and told you to rush to a seedy bar out in the sticks, you dropped everything and went tearing out there?”
Adrian Dover intervened. “This is becoming harassment, gentlemen. My client has affirmed several times that she doesn’t know who that caller was.”
“Was it Panella?” Wiley asked.
“No.”
“How do you know it wasn’t?” That from Hickam. “You said you didn’t recognize his voice.”
“I didn’t! He only said a few words and then he was gone.”
“Has Panella been cooling his heels somewhere until you and he could sneak off to—”
“Oh, good God, no!”
Adrian was urging her not to say another word.
Unmindful of her lawyer’s advice she said, “I wouldn’t go anywhere with him.”
“You went to Costa Rica.”
“If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t.”
“Why? What happened down there?”
“Don’t answer,” Adrian said.
“I hated Billy Panella then, and I utterly loathe him now. And the feeling is mutual,” she said, stressing it. “He sent two men to kill me. Have you forgotten that?”
Hickam patted the air between them. “Okay. Right. He had Bolden and Kinnard waiting there for you. He laid a trap.”
She negated that with a shake of her head. “Shaw Kinnard told me that it came as a shock to them when I walked in.”
Hickam scoffed at that. “You believe Kinnard?”
She thought back to all the times he had tricked her with a lie or semitruth, and she’d been gullible enough to believe him. Maybe plan A had been to kill her at that bar.
Hickam didn’t let up. “Panella called you—”
Shaw had said otherwise.
“—and invoked Josh’s name to get you there.”
She put her fingertips to her temples and massaged them. “I don’t think it was Panella, but I suppose it’s possible.”
“If you loathe him, why would you heed his summons?”
“I didn’t. I…I…”
“My client is declining to answer,” Adrian said.
Hickam persisted. “If it wasn’t Panella, it was your brother.”
“I don’t believe it was Josh, but I can’t be certain.”
“You went there to aid and abet one of them, Ms. Bennett.”
Adrian Dover said, “Do not respond.”
“Who did you expect to be there waiting for you?” Hickam asked. “Panella?”
“No.”
“Then your brother.”
“No.” She shook her head in confusion. “Possibly. I don’t know.”
Adrian was pressing her arm, demanding that she say nothing more.
Hickam leaned across the table again and thumped it with his fist. “Not Panella. Not Josh. Then who? Tell us. Who called you?”
“I did.”
At the sound of the new voice in the room, four pairs of eyes swung toward the door. There stood Shaw Kinnard.
Chapter 26
Jordie and Joe Wiley lurched out of their chairs. Jordie’s tipped over backward.
But Wiley’s partner moved faster than anyone. In under a second his pistol was drawn and aimed at the bridge of Shaw’s nose, his finger on the trigger.
Behind Shaw, Xavier Dupaw shouted, “Don’t shoot! He’s one of you. FBI. Special Agent Shaw Kinnard.”
Shaw’s focus remained on Jordie’s wide, incredulous gaze, but in his peripheral vision he saw that the woman sitting in the chair next to her was blinking rapidly. Joe Wiley mouthed several profanities and looked like he wanted to drive his fist through a wall.
The guy with the nine-millimeter acted like he hadn’t heard the disclaimer. He still had a bead on Shaw’s forehead.