Downfall

by Jeff Abbott

  “Do you want to know what’s happened or not, Janice? Every mother should want to know.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “You made that video, and Diana found it and watched it. She had no way to contact you. She found the video, and she called your personal phone, and Belias heard the voice mails she left for you.”

  “No…No…” Janice collapsed against the stairs and Holly grabbed her shoulders, an instinctive response.

  “Of course, being a good daughter, Diana didn’t go to the police. She didn’t want Mama getting in trouble and she wanted to confront you with it. But Belias knew she was a danger. So. He sent people after her. She came to the bar; she left you a note begging you to call her. She thought maybe you were still in town because she knew you weren’t at that retreat, she called. She needed her mama so bad and you weren’t there. You were busy planning the murders of another mother in Barbara Scott, and a dad in Lucky Lazard, and well, Wade Rawlings doesn’t have kids but you get the idea.”

  Now Janice was keening, sobbing, the awful weight of it hitting her.

  “So. You sent Diana to her death. I will tell you who killed her if you’ll tell me where that video is. You must have a copy of it hidden. Where is it?”

  “This is a trick!” Janice screamed.

  “Is it?”

  Janice shuddered.

  “You made a video, but Belias couldn’t find a trace of it on your home computer. Or on your phone or camera. Where was the copy that Diana found?”

  After a moment, Janice said, “On a USB flash drive. A hidden one. It looks like a lipstick case. Who killed her?”

  “Thanks, Janice. Huh, a lipstick case. That’s a good one.”

  “Felix, okay, I told you. Let us out.”

  “No, you two are staying here and I guess we’ll determine who the better parent is via trial by combat.”

  No, Holly thought.

  “Holly. Holly killed your daughter.”

  Janice’s wail choked off. Holly froze and in the dim light of the cold basement she could see a wisp of her own breath.

  “Holly killed her. Broke her neck, I think, against the bar railing at The Select.”

  “He’s lying,” Holly said. “He’s lying. He wants to turn us against each other.”

  “Belias sent the Marchbankses after her. Diana came back to the bar, hoping you were there, and they tried to ambush her and that was when Sam Capra got involved. Diana called me for help on Saturday and wanted to come back to the bar to see me, and since we were closed, I told her yes. I just wanted the video; I wouldn’t have hurt her. She was innocent. Not like you. She came back to the bar but Holly was waiting for her. Holly Tasered me and locked me in a storeroom. And then she broke your daughter’s neck.”

  Janice turned a teary, angry face toward Holly, who shook her head.

  “Good luck, Holly. Janice is a trained killer. Good luck, Janice. Holly is younger and stronger and still has children to live for. Oh, and there are no guns or weapons in the basement. And Belias isn’t here to make it all easier for you.” He gave the door a farewell tap. They stared at each other in silence for ten seconds, the quiet shattered by the distant sound of a gun firing.

  “He’s lying,” Holly tried, but she knew it was futile, too much specificity in his words. Janice shoved her and Holly thought, She’s got cancer, she’s weak.

  But rage can be a fuel for the heart.

  It was as though whatever life was left, whatever months remained for Janice Keene surged into her body all at once. She powered a fist hard into Holly’s chest and Holly staggered back one step and then Janice clocked another punch into Holly’s stomach. She fell backward down the steps.

  “Don’t! Please, Janice! Stop!” Holly screamed. She slammed into the concrete, started scrabbling backward. Janice roared down the stairs, rage contorting her face. She threw a fist at Holly; Holly blocked it, tried to shove Janice to the ground.

  You can’t reason with her, Holly thought. Then her mind went blank, into survival, and the two of them fought like women have fought for centuries to save their babies, to hide their children from the marauders and the rapists, to fight for the morsel of food that staves off starvation, to fight for a space on the boat during the wartime evacuation. Reason died.

  Janice hammered a fist into Holly’s jaw. Holly collapsed against the table stacked with framed, forgotten photos and she grabbed one of the pictures, an eight by ten. She swung the frame hard into Janice’s throat. The older woman staggered back and Holly hit her again with the frame, hard in the chest. Janice screamed; she retreated, grabbed a heavy glass vase on a bench that was crowded with ugly, dusty decor. She shattered the top against the wall. Jagged glass remained.

  “You killed my baby,” Janice said. “You killed my baby.”

  “Please, he’s lying.” Holly didn’t know what else to say. She wanted it to all be a lie.

  Janice swung the vase at her and there was a hiss like the air tearing before the sharp, brutal shards. Holly ducked, punched Janice in the stomach. The edge of the vase caught her thin coat and ripped the sleeve. Holly shrugged out of the coat, and when Janice charged her again, she threw the trench coat over the jagged glass. Seizing the vase, she drew Janice close. Janice hooked fingernails toward Holly’s pepper-spray savaged eyes.

  Holly screamed as the fingernails scored. She slammed her forearm into Janice’s throat and swung back with the picture frame, catching the edge of it along Janice’s temple. Blood, skin, and hair tore away and Janice fell. But she clutched at Holly’s leg and both women landed on the cold floor.

  And then no more screams. Holly’s fingers closed around Janice’s throat; Janice’s fingers closed around Holly’s. And then there was just the hard, insistent breathing of two people fighting to the death.

  Outside a car started, the music turned up loud as it drove away.

  75

  Monday, November 8, morning

  WADE RAWLINGS,” Benny said as we ate a quick breakfast. “Really one of those people that you wonder, how did he get to be a success?”

  “Belias is the answer to that.” It had taken a while to find out about the last name on the list. Wade Rawlings was a top political fixer, a paid consultant who guided campaigns. He had a sterling record of success except for one notable fail: He’d managed the re-election campaign of the senior senator from New Mexico, one of the most popular and powerful men in the Congress, but he’d managed to squander a twenty-point lead and the seat had instead been won by Marjorie Henderson. Who was about to become, according to every news channel, the new vice president.

  It would not be hard for Wade Rawlings to be fed a lie that given the deaths of Barbara Scott and Lucky Lazard, he was in imminent danger. But Belias wouldn’t want to move him to kill him. He might tell Rawlings to go to some place where Rawlings had easy access but wouldn’t be known to someone hunting him. Benny had finally found, digging through public records, that Rawlings owned a lake house and his family still owned his grandmother’s house, a good distance west of the city.

  Those were our possibilities.

  “The other possibility is he’s here somewhere in Chicago. Or that Belias has had him leave the city entirely.”

  “I’ll take the grandmother’s house,” I said. Because didn’t Belias want this guy dead? That was the lonelier house, easier for murder. “You see if you can find him here in town.”

  Benny gave me a truck and I drove west. City and suburbia faded in time and I was out in the countryside. Fifteen minutes later I drove past the address, then turned around and parked a quarter mile away, keeping the truck hidden in a grove of trees.

  I hurried through the scattering of snow.

  The front door was unlocked.

  I crept through the house. There was a man taped to a chair, half his face badly burned, griddled like it had hit a nonstick skillet. It was Wade Rawlings; I recognized him from the pictures Benny had found. He was dead, a bullet through the throat. I touched him
; a hint of warmth touched the body, he had been dead for maybe an hour.

  I saw a sheen of pepper spray on the furniture and the rug and noticed a trail of blood. I followed the blood to a door in the kitchen. Locked.

  I listened. I could hear the soft quiet of someone moving around in the room.

  I unbolted the door. Slowly I crept down the cellar stairs, thinking of every movie I’d seen as a kid where the hero or heroine went down the stairs, only to find horror and death.

  I found both.

  I saw Holly Marchbanks lying on the cellar floor, curled up in a fetal position. But she sat up as I came down the stairs. Dark bruises marred her throat; she had a rising black eye and an ugly gash along her palm.

  In the other corner lay Janice Keene. Blood spreading from the back of her head, eyes half-lidded. Dead.

  I swung the gun toward Holly.

  “Where is he?”

  “Who?” Her voice was a broken rasp.

  “Belias.”

  “I don’t know. Your friend Felix left us here. He killed Rawlings, and when we got here…”

  “To kill Rawlings yourself.”

  She ignored my comment. “He was bound but not dead and Felix threw us down here.”

  “And…you killed Janice?”

  Holly glanced at Janice’s body, then looked away. “She tried to kill me.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  Holly said, “It doesn’t matter now. Are…are you going to kill me?”

  I suspected all the fight was out of her. She looked broken. I thought of her children and wondered, Will they see the change in her? That she’s a killer now?

  And then I wondered, Will Daniel see the same in me?

  “Where did Felix go?” I asked.

  “I think he’s off to find Belias.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. I really do not know.” She watched the gun. “Two things. I’ll tell you what I know if you will let me live, Sam.”

  “What?”

  Her mouth worked. “You offered me safety once…you offered to hide me.”

  “Tell me what you know and we’ll see. Do you know who shot Mila?”

  She bit at her lip. “Your friend? Felix shot her. I saw it. I was following them…They went into a storage room. He came out a moment later and I hid down the hallway; he didn’t see me. I didn’t see her again.”

  “You followed Felix then?”

  “I started to but someone found Mila and started screaming and it got crazy. I lost him in the crowd. I think he got on a service elevator.”

  That was how he’d arrived at the Lazard penthouse. All right. “You said you knew two things.”

  “The video Janice made for Diana. Explaining Belias’s network. It’s in a lipstick case Diana had. There’s a flash drive inside. That was the only copy of the video Janice made, and I don’t know if Diana made a copy but it for sure is in the lipstick case. You can stop Belias if you have it.”

  “Do you know where Diana is?”

  A momentary flash of surprise crossed her face. “No. No, I don’t.”

  “Did you have to kill Janice?”

  Holly pointed at her throat. “She tried to kill me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s dying and she’s crazy and she’s been killing people for Belias for years. Killing people—it ruins your mind.” She looked at me. “Is your friend dead?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “I hope she will be okay.”

  “Now that you’re in dire straits.”

  “If you’re going to shoot me do it,” she said. “Just…I’m tired. I’m so tired.”

  I put the gun down but I kept the distance between us. I remembered too well how she fought in the splendor of her own grand house. “Where will Belias be?”

  “You offered me safety once before,” she said quietly.

  “That offer expired. I don’t trust you, Holly.”

  “I’m too much like you,” she said.

  “You’re nothing like me.”

  “What we wouldn’t do for our kids. Belias knows you broke the law to save yours.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He would have texted us where to meet him after Janice killed Rawlings. But Felix took our phones.”

  I turned and went back up the stairs.

  “Sam. Please. Don’t leave me here.” Her voice rose in horror.

  “I said I’d let you live. I didn’t say I’d let you out.”

  “Don’t…”

  “I’m actually curious to see how you deal with a real problem, without Belias to remove all the obstacles. You’re smart, Holly, you should be able to get out of a basement.”

  I slammed the door closed, cutting off her words. Let her be scared to death. I’d tell Benny to let her out in a day. If I found and dealt with Belias, I’d let her out myself.

  Felix shot Mila. The betrayal was complete. Yes, Jimmy, I will kill Felix for you.

  I searched the house. I found a cell phone, tucked next to the cushion of the chair where he sat.

  There was a text message, the last one sent:

  WR IS DONE. FELIX WAS HERE. WE HANDLED HIM.

  Felix had phoned in Wade’s death using one of the women’s phones and faked his own.

  Then a reply:

  COME TO THE NEST.

  The Nest. I remembered the term from when Belias and Roger captured me and Diana at her friend’s place in the Marina District and offered us a deal. I recalled his words: You both join Team Belias, so to speak. You’re going to be taken away to a house of mine I call the Nest. Far from here, private. Where we can discuss your futures, your usefulness, and I can start changing your lives for you.

  “Holly,” I called through the door, “where’s the Nest?”

  She came close to the door, I could hear the scrape of her feet. “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because I’ll let you out.”

  She weighed my words, then decided to answer me. Hope is a lovely thing. “It’s a bolt-hole of sorts. We’re supposed to go there. If the network melts. He’s arranged for us to be able to get out of the country.”

  “Where is it?”

  She told me a rural route number and a town northwest of Chicago. Made sense, the center of the country, not far from a big airport where you could fly anywhere in the world.

  “Did Felix ask you where it was?”

  “No.”

  But Wade Rawlings might have told him. He might have tortured the location out of him before he killed him.

  Felix and Belias had a head start on me. I wanted them both. But I didn’t know where Belias was coming from, I didn’t know if Felix would simply be laying in wait.

  I hoped he’d be alone. I prefer to face one man who wants me dead instead of two.

  Holly was still calling my name through the door when I left the house.

  76

  Monday, November 8, afternoon

  BELIAS LOVED THE NEST.

  He’d gotten the idea from his favorite Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest. He knew he was supposed to root for the hapless adman hero, Cary Grant, but the supposed bad guy, James Mason, was just so much more interesting. Suave, smart. And he had a private chalet and a private little airstrip right by Mount Rushmore. Belias loved that. He wanted such a rural yet well-designed escape.

  So he’d found and had a network member acquire for him via a front company an abandoned airstrip north of Chicago, not far from Lake Michigan. He’d had a comfortable house built there. He called it the Nest because he told every member that if the network melted, if it fell apart, they could run to the Nest and he’d prepared escape routes for them and their families.

  Of course it was a lie. If the network fell apart, he would abandon them and he would tell the authorities where to find them all, waiting there at the Nest. He was their master, not their keeper, and if he had to go, then he was gone. They were on thei
r own.

  His plane from New Mexico landed. The pilot got out, said he’d refuel, do a postflight checklist and then asked when they’d want to head out. “Probably a couple of hours,” Belias said.

  A car was parked close to the house, and he recognized it as the one he’d left for Janice and Holly in Chicago. They’d arrived. He clicked on his smartphone.

  A message from the anonymous benefactor who’d sent him Sam’s CIA file appeared on the screen: DO YOU HAVE SAM YET?

  NO, he wrote. BUT SOON. I’M GOING TO SET A TRAP FOR HIM.

  And he would. Rawlings was dead now, and Sam, if he had sense, might be able to sniff out a trail that led here. Let him if he dared show his face. Here he would die.

  The plane could take Holly home to San Francisco, back to her children. Janice could come home and reason with Diana. And he could focus on finding Sam and his friend Felix, and silencing them.

  He went inside the house. The lights were off except in the kitchen and he walked into the room, drawn by the slight smell of coffee. He knew that Holly loved her coffee, she must’ve made a pot…He flicked on the lights, blinking.

  “Hello,” the man in the kitchen said. “My name is Felix Neare and we are going to have a talk.” And then he shot Belias.

  77

  Monday, November 8, afternoon

  I DROVE TO THE ADDRESS of the Nest. It was the middle of nowhere, and I had phoned Benny to say where I was heading but he was a good hour behind me. I wasn’t sure how much use Benny would be in a fight. He looked very quiet and soft. Of course, sometimes those are the deadliest people.

  He had brought bad news: Mila’s condition had worsened.

  I wanted Felix Neare’s throat in my grip.

  I parked on a country road about a mile away. The woods were sparse here, but I moved quickly and quietly through them. The sky spit early snow at me, a brief brisk flurry that thinned. I wished for a blizzard for cover. The snowfall here had been sparse.

  And then I saw the plane. I heard it first, a low approaching buzz, and I ducked close to a tree. The snow hadn’t been much here or I think the plane could not have landed, the strip would have had to be cleared. I stayed very still and wondered if I’d been spotted.