“Really, so dramatic.”
“A compliment, coming from you,” I said. “Special agents will be here any moment to take you in for questioning.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong. They were the ones. She planned it all.”
I told her about finding her Studebaker in the Bensonhurst massage parlor’s garage.
Kirsten was visibly shaking.
“Where is your mother-in-law?”
She shook her head.
I told her about finding the pills inside the glove compartment.
Her eyes, now wild, darted from side to side. “I didn’t do it, I swear.”
“Tell us who did, Kirsten.”
Running feet. I looked around. No Rip.
“Where’s Kat?”
“Don’t know. You’ve got to believe me. I’d never touch Kat. Sweet child. Thought my car was in Wheeler’s. Rip …”
The shape-shifter.
“All Liese’s fault. She wanted Kat for the operation. The operation, don’t you see, that’s all they care about. That and the billions they’d make. Cops must have known about their operation. In debt. House exploded.”
“Where is she?”
“The guesthouse. Liese’s in the guesthouse. They can’t accuse me of any of it.”
“You did nothing about it: you’re an accomplice. Guilty. Do yourself a favor, take me to Kat.”
But Kirsten didn’t answer. She was raving now, her eyes wild. “I didn’t kill Phyllida. I liked her. It was Rip, don’t you see? He works for Liese. Get them before they drive away.”
Just then I heard the sound of a garage door, a revving engine, screeching brakes.
I flew to the window in time to see a Bentley careen out of sight.
A buzzer sounded. Insistent.
“Tell us where Kat is!” I yelled.
She pounded her knees. “Don’t know. Believe me.”
Lorraine shouldered Kirsten, gently helping her to sit on the couch. “Where’s your husband?”
“Should be landing in Knob Hill soon.”
“Did he know about Phyllida?” Lorraine asked.
She nodded. “He ran the operation in Bensonhurst and Toronto.”
I didn’t quite believe her.
Kirsten was beginning to drool. “Liese watched his every move, of course.”
“And Oxley Paper?”
“Not much to run these days. The company’s bleeding. As for Bensonhurst, I don’t know much about it, but they get girls that come through Canada.”
“They?”
“Liese set it up years ago. There’ve been problems with the operation for the last few years. Liese blames it on Abe, but a few years ago she partnered with the mob, and they’ve been soaking up the profits.”
More buzzing.
I looked around. No Rip in sight. After asking Lorraine to watch Kirsten, I ran to unlock the gates and open the door. In a few seconds, men in dark suits and ties burst in, flashing their badges.
“Follow me.” I explained we were looking for two people in addition to the missing teen. “We’ve got one of them in the study. She’s being helpful,” I said after they’d surrounded Kirsten. “Huge home, huge grounds, guesthouse.” I told them about the Bentley I saw leaving the garage. “One might have gotten away. We’re looking for the others. Don’t know for sure how many, but one is an older woman, red hair. She’s the mastermind.”
“Dangerous?” a special agent asked.
“Think Ma Barker.”
“We’ll handle it from here,” he said. “You’re Tig’s friend?”
I nodded, looking at the hour on my phone. I had twenty minutes to meet Abe Goncourt’s plane—unless it had already arrived. “On my way to Knob Hill Airport,” I called over my shoulder. “I might need help. I’m hoping we’ll find the missing teen there. But she might still be here. Wherever she is, she’s being held by a woman who won’t think twice about killing us all.”
Lorraine started to follow me.
“Better stay here,” I said over my shoulder.
“Not on your life.”
Racing
Lorraine and I sped back to the airport, not talking, except to leave a message on Jane’s phone, updating her on the arrival of the FBI at the Goncourts’ Princeton home, and telling her when she got my message, to alert her colleagues in Princeton asking them to send men to the airport. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I thought I saw the Chevy with the dealer plates. In a few seconds, I looked again. It was gaining on us, only a few cars behind. It had to be Garth.
I gunned the motor, zinging through red lights. With luck the police would stop me. Far ahead, I could see a Bentley burning rubber.
We followed it onto the airport access road. In a few seconds the Chevy appeared, not too far behind. I screeched to a halt in front of the office, where Lorraine jumped out of the car to check on Abe’s arrival.
“Tell the tower to delay the plane’s takeoff as long as possible. I’ll pick you up in a few minutes,” I yelled.
“But—”
I didn’t give her a chance to object, but flew around the side to the rows of hangars, glancing every few seconds in the rearview. No Bentley in front of me. No Chevy behind, so I pulled over, hid behind a clump of trees, and adjusted my binoculars. Were my eyes playing tricks? I scanned the hangars and in the distance saw the words Oxley Paper. Edna was right, even at that distance I couldn’t miss the large red letters printed above an open door. A single-engine plane looking like a gigantic mosquito stood about ten yards in front of the hangar’s raised entrance. Both the cockpit and fuselage doors were open, and a fuel truck was just leaving, the smell of Jet A making my eyes water.
Just then I spied the back end of the Bentley parked inside the hangar, half hidden by what appeared to be a chest or something, maybe a place for storing tools. I watched as a figure, a tall man, got out of the vehicle, followed by a tall redhead. She wore a full-length mink, which would have touched the ground had it not been for her spikes. Liese Goncourt. Her diamond flashed splinters of light as she strode over to the cabinet and opened it, leaned in and pulled out, I couldn’t believe it, she pulled, literally pulled out a blindfolded figure with long silky black hair, Kat Oxley shivering in her hoodie and Chuck Taylors, stalling with all her might, while the tall man sprinted to the airplane and entered through the cockpit door. Oh, Kat, poor Kat! Liese started pushing her granddaughter toward the plane, the teen dragging her feet as best she could, the old redhead pushing and prodding.
Aiming my binoculars at the cockpit window, I saw the outline of a man wearing headphones. So there were two of them, Rip and the pilot, plus a beast of an old woman, Liese Goncourt, and there was one of me. Maybe Kat could assist me, too, if I could get her blindfold off.
I looked around, hoping against hope to hear sirens. For a moment I was paralyzed. My position was too weak to confront them head-on—I’d make things worse for Kat—so I decided to sneak around the back, counting on the element of surprise to give me a fighting chance. Remembering I’d passed a dirt path a few hundred yards to the rear, I backed up as fast as I could, now out of the Goncourts’ line of sight.
Sure enough I found the road, but it wasn’t a road at all, much narrower than I’d first thought and badly rutted. I followed it with my eyes. It looked like I could circle around to the back of the Oxley hangar if I hoofed it. But first I needed protection, so I ran to the trunk and yanked out one of Denny’s vests still in the hold of my car, quickly zipping it up. The cold hit me like a blast and I watched my breath like steam coming up from a manhole.
Deciding it was too cold to walk, I drove instead on the narrow lane as fast as I could, my tires tearing up the surrounding field grass, frozen clumps hitting my windshield and the side of the car like dirty snowballs. My BMW careened around narrow openings between large oaks, bumping over roots and rocks, narrowly missing a low-hanging branch. The ground became even more deeply rutted and I feared for my poor struts as I sideswiped to avoid hitting a
bike abandoned in a patch of snow.
Racing for what seemed like forever, I continued until finally I arrived in the back of the Oxley hangar, where I slammed on the brakes. But just my bad luck, the hangars were joined by common walls. I scanned the row and noticed a walkway between the fourth and fifth hangar, so I ran the three hundred feet or so, hoping the opening led to the front.
It was dark, just wide enough for a small person to wedge through, and even then I had to turn partially to the side, slow stepping it, crunching on broken bottles and frozen weeds. The way was filled with rusting parts, oil cans, even a section of mangled wing. As I crept over the debris, I left a Hail Mary voice mail for Tig, telling him my location, what I saw, and that I was desperate, asking him not to return my call but to send men and be quick about it, adding I’d leave my phone on so they could pinpoint my location. As I moved forward, the air filled with Jet A and I gagged, stifling a cough.
I could hear their voices before I could see them.
“Move, girl! They’re waiting for us.”
Liese Goncourt.
I heard the sound of a propeller beginning to whirr and ran the rest of the distance in time to see the blindfolded Kat, arms tied in back, body pressing against the plane’s skin, trying to block her entry into the cabin. I had the presence of mind to haul out my iPhone and tape a few seconds.
“Get in!”
“No, I’d rather be dead!” Kat said.
A loud crunch as I stepped on a piece of metal, catapulting onto the tarmac in front of the hangar.
Liese Goncourt swiveled around.
“You!” She stared at me, fixed, her arm pointing in my direction.
“Get her, one of you—Rip? Garth? Hurry! What good are you?”
The last thing I remember before waking up to see the land skimming below us was something heavy hitting me on the back of the head.
In the Air
I opened my eyes and felt the plane dip and roll and right itself before gaining altitude. My head felt like a pounding drum. Slowly I got to my knees as the craft swayed, nose high during the initial phase of flight, steadying myself on the back of a passenger seat. The propeller noise was deafening.
Garth was in the captain’s chair, and I hoped he was a better pilot than a mechanic. Rip was sitting next to him. In the first row of the cabin, Liese sat beside the blindfolded Kat. The teen’s head was down, her arms crossed. Her cheeks were wet.
“I don’t think Kat likes you very much,” I said.
Liese Goncourt craned her neck and shouted, “The redhead’s awake! One of you, get back here. Do something with her.”
No answer.
“This is their busy time,” I said, as if I knew what I was talking about. “But you have a chance to answer some questions.”
Liese spun around. “Your cocky mouth is nothing but trouble.”
“So let me get this straight. You killed your daughter—”
“How dare you!” She half rose, pointing a bony finger at me.
“Oh, you didn’t mean to kill her. You never dreamed Henriette would be on board Norris’s airplane when you arranged for the push rod to snap.”
I watched her face mottle, her mouth move back and forth, but she said nothing.
“You murdered Terris; you killed Norris and Henriette. Three down, two to go. Only Phyllida and Kat stood in your way of a fortune, which you rightly assume is huge. It took you a few attempts, but finally you killed Phyllida. Four down, one to go.”
“Rip! Throw her out!”
“Not there yet,” he called back.
“One thing I don’t get,” I said, sudden turbulence catapulting me into the empty seat across from her. “I know the explosion was your idea, but why? Drowning in debt? Too bad it meant Ameline—”
“There is no Ameline,” Kat said. She turned to her grandmother. “Where’s Abe? Where are we going?”
“Uncle Abe. None of your business,” Liese snarled.
“He’s somewhere in Canada,” I said, “near a port where Eastern European girls pour out of a dank hold in a leaking ship, expecting freedom, a lucrative job, and instead turn out to be drug-addicted sex slaves.”
“We pay them well. They have a better life with us than they would in their own country.”
We leveled off, and when I looked up, Rip towered over me.
“Should I call you Kirsten or Ameline or maybe Needle Liese?” I asked him.
He yanked me from my seat.
“I’ve had enough of her mouth,” Liese said. She turned to Kat. “You have a minute to decide. We’ll teach you everything you need to know. You’ll have a perfect life. All you need to do is keep track of things, expand the business, find customers, something your uncle Abe, for the life of him, cannot do. He failed Oxley Paper, now he’s drowning our business. Useless. It was lucrative when I was at the helm, but I’m too old for the day-to-day. I’ll train you, invest the money. We’ll work as a team.”
I realized she was talking freely because I was toast.
“Save yourself, Kat,” I said.
Kat shook her head. “I’d rather be dead.”
For a moment, Liese Goncourt sat straight, her eyes focused on something only she could see. “Take them both, then.”
She shoved Kat into the aisle, and I steadied her and untied her hands and blindfold. Her eyelids fluttered in the sudden light.
Rip looked at Liese. “Better buckle up. As soon as we’re over the trees, I’m going to open the door. It’ll be windy.”
Watching Kat standing tall in the aisle, something clicked inside me. They weren’t dumping us, not without a fight.
I spun around, crouched down, and jabbed into Rip, elbowing his balls with all my might.
He doubled over.
“Get over yourself and grab her!” Liese said. “The girl, too.”
I must have packed a mighty wallop because Rip didn’t move. The propeller roared.
“Do it now or you’re finished!” Liese screamed.
He’d have to tear out the seat I was hugging before I’d let him drag me to the door. With my other arm, I shouldered Kat.
In a few seconds he regained himself, freed Kat from my grip, and yanked me with the force of a bulldozer, throwing me into the aisle and dragging me toward the door.
“Both of them, I told you! Throw them both out. The girl’s too much like Henriette and Abe, anyway. And hurry up, it’s frigid in here.”
With the door open, the wind was a gale. It tore at my clothes. My hair flattened straight back; my lids stuck to my eyes. In that moment, I’m not proud to say it, I begged for my life like a baby.
Regaining myself, I turned away from the rushing wind and looked out at the fleeting world below, cars moving like ants, the houses like toys. In the distance, a ribbon of water wound through snow-covered fields, and beyond, the peaceful earth was covered with trees. My last view of life?
Kat was holding my hand, I was hugging her in the howling, resisting Rip with all my might. He shoved us both toward the open door. It couldn’t end this way, not this way.
“Hurry, you fool!” Liese screamed.
I’d never see Denny again. Two more steps, three if I could manage to take baby ones.
Holding Kat and trying to push her back, I clung to the side of the door while Rip practically tore my arm off trying to push me forward. My knee felt the sting of the frozen air. Two steps closer to the end.
Suddenly I heard a shot.
Rip staggered back and fell to the floor.
I lost my balance, about to fall into the wind when I felt a hand grab my collar, pulling me back inside, Kat clinging to me and burrowing her head into my shoulder, her hair lashing my face.
“Don’t move, old broad, or I’ll plug you full of lead.”
A familiar voice.
I couldn’t help it, I hugged my rescuer and felt my father’s rough skin on my face.
Not too gently, he shoved me and Kat into a row of seats. “Both of you, sit. Don�
��t try to help.” He looked at me. “That means you!”
He shut the door and I felt the silence. After he cuffed Liese Goncourt, he turned to me and cocked up one side of his mouth. “I knew I had to follow you. As a kid you were always fearless, but now you’re loony tunes. Getting yourself into this mess was one of your stupider moves.”
I opened my eyes, still stinging from the wind. “What took you so long? How did you get in here? Where’d you get those cuffs?”
“Save your breath for later.”
“Figures. You never would answer my questions.”
It was my father, all right, but I wasn’t about to kiss him and call him daddy dearest. Face it, I couldn’t begin to tell you how I felt at that moment. My heart was pounding, soaring. I was so glad to be alive. I gulped air, got the sweats, just about wet my pants, was angry, mortified, subdued, elated, exhausted, all at once. I imagined what Robert would say, something like, “It took a man to save your hide.” I concentrated on breathing.
Rip lay on the floor, keening and clutching his right upper arm, blood pouring onto the carpet.
I looked around for something to staunch the flow. My eyes hit on the scarf around Liese Goncourt’s neck. “Give me your scarf.”
She looked straight ahead as if she hadn’t heard.
I made my way to the back, trying to find the first aid kit. Behind the last row of seats, I found an old piece of canvas lying in a heap. I lifted it—too big to use—but underneath, a scarf and a pair of men’s gloves lay on the floor. The leather was similar to the jacket worn by my father, and I figured he must have hidden under the tarpaulin until he was ready to make his grand entrance.
I snatched up the scarf to use on Rip, but my father had other plans. I watched as he placed the muzzle of his .38 on the forehead of Liese Goncourt and told her to keep her yap shut and hand over her scarf. His words.
After I bound Rip’s wound, I sat back down and scowled at my father, who reminded me not to help.
“Turn this baby around and bring her down,” my father called out to Garth. “And don’t try anything cute or your brains will coat the instrument panel—I can fly this crate in my sleep.”
The Brooklyn Drop (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 4) Page 22