Where's Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House?: A Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mystery #2

by Barton, Sara M.

  I let myself in through the side door, pausing long enough to listen hard for sounds of activity. There was nothing. I could have been on the moon, for all the distance I felt between me and the next guy on the planet.

  The first two condos were unlocked and unoccupied. They appeared to be mirror images of each other. The third was incomplete, still without a functional kitchen and baths. The fourth was pay dirt. I needed only to step into the room and I knew this was the place. How did I know? Annette’s perfume. It clung to the air with a desperation borne of fear. Where was she? The combination living and dining room was empty, as was the kitchen. The master bedroom was empty, too. The second bedroom didn’t have a door yet. It was here that I got the strongest impression that Nettie was just out of reach.

  “Annette?” I kept my voice low. “Are you here?”

  The thud was barely discernible. Enough to capture my attention. Not enough to direct me. Where could she be? I had checked every room, even the bathrooms. What hadn’t I checked? I went back over the condo, looking for the mechanical room. It was just off the kitchen, with a couple of hook-ups for a laundry center. Where else could she be hidden? The master bedroom’s walk-in closet revealed nothing. Dead end.

  “Nettie? I can’t seem to find you. Can you bang again?”

  Sure enough, this time I heard the sound more clearly. It sounded like it came from that second bedroom. I gazed around the big, empty room.

  “Nothing,” I grumbled to myself. Where was she? The last place to look was the closet. “Nettie, are you in here?”

  Even as I slid the door open, I could see the shoes. Attractive leopard print three-inch heels. Stockings on the legs. Skirt cut just above the knee. Gag across the mouth. She was sitting on the floor in the dark, hands behind her. I started to remove the duct tape, wondering why the gag. After all, there was no one around. And then I knew. I could see it in Annette’s eyes. She was terrified. He must be behind me. Even as I leaned across with one hand to help her, I was reaching for my Glock with the other. Flipping off the safety, I whirled around, just barely catching him unaware.

  “Hands in the air!” I bellowed in my best law enforcement voice. “Now!”

  The middle-aged man was short, fat, bald, and dressed in black. The eyes were void of any surprise or conscience. He looked right through me, like I didn’t exist. Even as he put his hands above his head, he was already planning his next move. The eyes were calculating the distance between us. I knew I only had seconds before he activated the plan. He was a professional killer. I held my weapon steady, knowing he was coming at me.

  Seven seconds later, he launched himself at me. He came in low and fast, faster than I expected a man of his physical health and age. Without even thinking about it, I took him out at the knee, aiming my right foot at the vulnerable cap and striking a blow that sent him reeling onto his back. That’s the benefit of having a boyfriend who’s Special Forces. One of Sam’s favorite activities is to practice his kick boxing, and as his occasional sparring partner, I’ve learned a few moves. I closed in with my weapon aimed at his groin as the hit man writhed on the ground.

  “Give me a reason,” I warned him. This time, he stayed on his back. Even as my eyes never strayed from his face, I could hear shouting down the hallway.

  “Annette!”

  “We’re in here,” I shouted. “You bastards are late!”

  “We were turning off the gas. It took me this long to get a crew from the gas company to shut off the line from the street. Hello,” said Will, rounding the corner with a motley crew of federal agents. “You’re not alone.”

  “No, we’re not,” I replied, still not trusting the human cannonball. His options were quickly diminishing, and that made him even more dangerous. He had nothing to lose. I also learned that from Sam, who dealt with desperate people every day.

  You can’t trust them for a second, Gabby. Never let down your guard. They’re opportunists. They seize the moment, and when they do, they kill. That’s why you always have to make the first move. It has to be preemptive. You come in fast and you come in hard. You establish your control, because if you don’t, you’ll waste valuable time and effort trying to catch up.

  “Damn!” one of the other agents moaned. “It’s Frankie Galicchio, the Snuffman!”

  “No way!” said another.

  “Seriously, it is, man!”

  “Are you boys done chatting about the Little League game?” I demanded. “Because if you are, I’d appreciate it if you would apprehend the suspect.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” they said with great enthusiasm. As Will supervised, they disarmed the suspect, who was carrying what looked like a Beretta 92A1. More federal agents filled the room. There seemed to be a lot of cheering upon seeing the Snuffman in handcuffs.

  Once I holstered my weapon, I reached down to release my cousin from her restraints. As the tape came off her mouth, a long, pain-racked sob escaped from her lips and filled the air with a primitive sound so powerful, the law enforcement people all turned in shock. Will dropped what he was doing, ran to her side, and dropped to his knees.

  “You’re okay, Annette. Take a deep breath!” Despite his best efforts, she was going into shock. As scary as the attack on me had been, it didn’t warrant this kind of reaction from her. I was stunned. She was gasping for air. And then I saw the blood spattered across the front of her blouse. How had I missed that?

  “Is she injured?” I asked. Will looked at me as I said those words and then looked back at Nettie.

  “That’s not her blood!”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Annette, was someone hurt?” He put his face to hers, barely an inch away. She nodded. “Who?”

  “Ke-ke-ke....”

  “Kevin?” I suggested helpfully.

  “Ye-ye-yes!”

  “Where?” All those FBI agents quickly crowded into the opening of the closet, jockeying for position. They were elbowing each other and bitching. Someone actually fell against me as I was hunched over, almost knocking me into my distraught cousin. I gave the bastard a shove backwards. I felt like a wiener drowning in a barrel of sauerkraut. Too much condiment, not enough dog or bun. Annette’s right hand pointed behind them. We all turned to look.

  “Bath tub.”

  The hunt was on. Two minutes later, the blood-soaked body of Kevin Frist was found down the hall, in the spa tub of the master bedroom of another condo. His limbs had been severed from his trunk with a construction worker’s power saw.

  “Holy mother of pearl,” I could hear one of the agents exclaimed aloud. “If that isn’t the epitome of evil, what is?”

  There was also the sound of retching as one of the agents was rushed away from the murder scene. A weak stomach was no legitimate excuse for contaminating evidence.

  Will and I took Annette to the emergency room. She had a few bruises, but most of her wounds were psychological. She had seen the horror of her boss slaughtered before her eyes and immediately withdrew into herself. It didn’t look like she was coming out anytime soon.

  The consulting psychiatrist called to the emergency room was a well-known trauma specialist who had worked with returning vets. When Dr. Rayburn asked for a description of the murder scene, I gave it to him in great detail. Will promised to return after he had finished processing the Snuffman and catching up on the report. That was fine with me. It wasn’t like Annette and I were going anywhere, not given the state she was in. By six, she was admitted for observation.

  Just after nine, the medication took effect and she fell sound asleep, knocked out by a powerful tranquilizer cocktail that put her in La-La Land. I curled up for a little shut-eye of my own, dozing fitfully in the chair beside Nettie’s bed.

  “Gabby.” A hand touched my shoulder and I bolted up from my seat.

  “What?” I shook myself back to consciousness. It was Will.

  “How is she?”

  “Exhausted. Terrified. Horrified.”

  “Damn it.” He patted
her hand automatically, as if it would comfort the sleeping patient, and in doing so, him as well. That was the guilt talking. After all, he had reassured us several times that Annette would be safe if she cooperated with the FBI’s investigation. “This whole thing is unbelievable. Who would have guessed?”

  “I take it the Snuffman is a big collar.”

  “Yeah, that too.” At least he had the good sense not to take delight in leading the team who caught a really bad guy while ruining a truly wonderful woman.

  “Meaning?” I could tell there was more to the story.

  “Guess who hired Galicchio.”

  “I give up. Who?”

  “Kevin’s brother.”

  Chapter Fourteen --

  “His brother, the guy who went missing all those years ago?”

  “Yes, Kyle is alive and well. It gets better. The new wife, Christine? She’s Kyle’s long-time girlfriend. It turns out she and Kyle have been plotting to kill Kevin for months.”

  “Talk to me.” Now I was leaning forward. I couldn’t help myself. There was a much bigger story here, one the FBI hadn’t seen coming. I wanted to know why. “Where was Kyle all these years?”

  “Kevin hired Michael O’Callaghan, an IRA gangster, to murder his brother back in 1993, when that million dollars plus disappeared. According to Christine, who has already agreed to testify against Kyle in exchange for not getting the needle, Kyle took the money because Kevin was cheating him. He made his way to Florida, put the money in a bank in Miami and then began laundering it, until it was clean enough to move to Key West, where he settled down to build his new life. Kevin tracked the money to that bank account, thanks to a forensic accountant he hired, and began stealing the money back, using a series of wire transfers he arranged over the space of a week. That flushed Kyle out of hiding and O’Callahan was waiting when Kyle showed up in New York to grab the money back.”

  “No love lost between the brothers?” I asked. Will shook his head.

  “That’s an understatement. What Kevin never knew was that Kyle got the jump on O’Callaghan and had tortured O’Callaghan into giving up the plan before he killed him. Kyle was unable to resume his life, so he just stayed out of sight and spent years plotting to rip off Frist and Company, using a number of associates to help him. And even after he got the money back, he kept going. All these years, he’s had his thugs sabotage the real estate projects, bleeding his brother dry to the point that Kevin couldn’t sustain the company any more. That’s when Kevin sold a good portion of the company to the venture investment firm and came up with the idea of blowing up Phase One to get the insurance money and cover up the shoddy construction.”

  “Where does Christine fit in?” I wondered. “Did she break up the first marriage for Kyle’s benefit?”

  “And then some. The idea was to use her to ruin Kevin. It looks like she was pretty successful. Not only was she feeding Kyle the financial information, she was meeting him regularly for sex.”

  “Which must mean Kyle has been nearby all this time? How did he pull that off?”

  “A lot of plastic surgery. And yes, he’s been living in Greenwich, Connecticut all this time. He’s called himself a venture capitalist.”

  “Oh, let me guess. That investment firm that bought the controlling shares of Frist and Company is owned by Kyle?”

  “You got it. Kyle is Blue Ridge.”

  “Great. When do you get Kyle?” I wanted to know. I wasn’t going to rest easy until he was in a maximum security prison, under lock and key, without access to the outside world.

  “The federal judge signed off on the warrant an hour ago. We’re just waiting for a special team to assemble and move in. The concern is that Kyle has his mansion booby-trapped to blow and an arsenal of weapons at his disposal to fend off any efforts to apprehend him.”

  “Right.” I nodded, still processing the information. “How come Christine gave him up so easily?”

  “Good question. Turns out Kevin treated her a hell of a lot better than Kyle did. She developed feelings for the bastard. Lately, she had a case of the guilts and started slipping up. Last month, Kyle beat the crap out of her during a visit. She told her husband she was mugged.”

  “Nasty stuff, Will.”

  “This case is going to be big, Gabriella. Very sad, but very big.”

  “You’re going to be tied up for a long time,” I sighed. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  No wonder he was blue. Nettie was off-limits until the conclusion of the trial. The star-crossed lovers were separated by fate. Too bad, because this guy clearly had it bad for my cousin.

  “What’s the plan for Annette?”

  “The doctors want to treat her for psychological trauma. She’s likely to have nightmares for a long time,” I confided.

  “No doubt.”

  “But I have my own plan.”

  “You do?”

  “Yup. I’m going to arrange to transfer her to a hospital up in Vermont. There’s a great doctor up there who specializes in PTSD. When the Klarsfeld family was taken hostage last year, they needed a lot of psychological support after they were threatened and tortured. I have a lot of confidence in this particular doctor because I saw the results of her therapy. Annette and I had already talked about her moving up there permanently. We even talked about how she could earn a living. She needs to be with her family.”

  “She does,” he conceded sadly. She was slipping out of his fingers. Say goodbye to the love that never got a foothold. “She really wants this?”

  “I think so. There are a number of jobs to choose from on Black Forest Farm. She’ll have a nice, safe life,” I reassured him.

  “Good.” He swallowed hard, choking up. His eyes were on the sleeping beauty in the bed. His fingers were gripping the end of the hospital bed like it was a raft in rough seas. The man was a study in miserable.

  “What are your plans? Are you going to stay with the FBI?”

  “That was always the plan,” he agreed.

  “And now?”

  “Still the plan,” he insisted, but I didn’t think his heart was in it.

  “A cop’s wife has a miserable life. Always wondering if the guy is going to come home. The long hours on the job. Family holidays disrupted. The constant and unrelenting challenges.”

  “I know.” There is was. Acceptance. He knew that he would be impacting Annette’s life in some really difficult ways. It didn’t change his feelings for her. He still wanted her. But he was willing to walk away from her to give her the life she deserved.

  “A smart guy might figure out a way to minimize all that,” I said, tossing him a bone. “Maybe he’d ask for a transfer to the Albany office and start the romance out slow, while she healed.”

  “Really?” There was that puppy dog hope in the eyes. Will really did care about my cousin.

  “You might be able to get together once in a while to discuss the case, right? That would be legitimate.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And since I got dragged into this mess, I could probably chaperone from time to time, if you two wanted to get to know each other better, especially if you managed that transfer.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be Albany, you know. There’s Boston, Springfield, even the resident office in Burlington.” He was already working the possibilities. Suddenly, his career was less about the prestige and more about real life. He was willing to settle in as a career agent than a superstar. No executive service for Will. He was a man in love.

  “You look tired. Did you want to get some sleep? I’d be happy to sit with her.” There was a plea in his eyes. I didn’t have the heart to shut him off cold turkey from his fix. “I’ll make sure she’s safe.”

  “Sure. Maybe I’ll go back to Annette’s place for a bit.”

  One of the FBI agents had handed me Annette’s dainty little purse when the ambulance arrived to take her to the emergency room. I had tucked it into my big hobo bag. Now I checked it for her house key
s. The pair was tucked in a zippered pocket, building key and front door key. Holding them tightly, I went down to the hospital entrance. A security guard was stationed nearby.

  “Any chance I can catch a cab at this time of night?”

  “Sure,” she told me. “Let me get you the phone number.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was dropped at the entrance of the building. I took the elevator up, let myself in, and groaned. My overnight bag was still in the parking lot at 1423, in Annette’s car. No toothbrush or clean underwear for me. I grabbed a seltzer from the fridge, helped myself to a dish of chocolate chip ice cream, and made my way back to the living room. Exhausted, I flopped on her sofa, flipped on the television, and gasped.

  This just in. A series of explosions leveled a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut just about forty minutes ago during a raid to apprehend a man wanted for murdering his own brother. Kyle Frist, who disappeared....

  My fingers were already flying through my contacts list. I punched the call button.

  “Will!” I said breathlessly, “have you heard?”

  “I’m watching it now.”

  “Does this mean....”

  “No trial. I think so. Maybe.”

  “Merry Christmas to you, buddy. Looks like Santa came early this year.”

  “Yes, indeedy!” There was relief in that voice. Hansel and Gretel were out of the witch’s oven and soon would be leaving the gingerbread house. Let’s hope they could find their way out of the forest without running into more predators.

  I watched the news a little longer, hoping to find out if Kyle survived the blasts. Ironic that he planned to blow up 1423 with his brother’s body in the Phase One building. That dismembered body would have been incinerated, along with my cousin. I wondered how Kyle had hoped to spin that. Would Kevin have been accused of the financial fraud? Would the reinvented Kyle have raked in the bucks as Blue Ridge Investments? We might never know now.