by Erica Orloff
Madison padded into the bathroom and rubbed cold water on her face. In her mind, she could picture Charlie offering to go into the store for them. Then the car being blown to bits. Her only consolation was he hadn’t sufferedand it was very, very small consolation.
Madison squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she sighed, rinsed her face again, then opened the toothbrush and toothpaste the agents had picked up for heralong with a hairbrush and mouthwash. She guessed they’d also go shop for some clothes for her. Though she doubted she’d be dressed in Ralph Lauren. More like whatever was on sale at the local department store. She brushed her teeth and ran the brush through her hair, then resolutely left the bathroom, ready to lay out her suspicions for the FBI.
“Guys…I’m ready to go over my theory now.”
“Great,” Troy said.
The motel room was shabby, and included a kitchenette with an ugly, brown Formica table and four uncomfortable chairs. Commandeering the table, Madison opened the briefcase and asked the agents to each take a seat.
“Okay, gentlemen, see if you can follow all this…. Many years ago, my uncle, the infant William Charles Pruitt III, was kidnapped and murdered. He was the second child of my paternal grandparents. My father hadn’t been born yet. The case created a frenzy. Even the president of the United States at the time called the local police, as well as the head of the FBI, asking them to put all their manpower into solving the crime. It looked like an inside job. Eventually, suspicion pointed to Victor Karaspov, a Russian immigrant employed by the household as a caretaker.”
Madison pulled out old photos and a couple of books from the library on the kidnapping. She had paper clips marking pages of photos. Most were in black and white.
“Victor claimed a lot of things. First, that he had no interpreter, so he didn’t understand the charges. Then that he was framed.”
“Aren’t they all?” Lawson, a solidly built agent with black hair and an olive complexion, said, rolling his eyes.
“I thought so, too,” Madison said. “But there’s more than meets the eye. Eventually, he changed his story, saying that he had kidnapped the babybut not murdered himby then the body had turned up, burned beyond recognition. He said he had a child, and he could never do anything so cruel, that he was the fall guy for a larger group of men. Later, they said a botched rescue attempta police raidmay have hastened the murder.”
“Was he framed?”
“Well, no one believed him. But in his interviews he came across as anything but a criminal mastermind. Eventually, Victor died in prison, still professing his innocence. That’s where the story ended, except for some enterprising journalists. One of them, a man named Harrison, was originally from the town where the body was discovered. He had grown up fascinated by the case and did his own investigation. He found evidence that Victor’s family received a payoffno one knows from whom. They took the money, moved away, and changed their name. Victor spent the rest of his years in prison with no visitors from his family. But his wife remarried eventually, and his daughter was apparently quite well provided for.”
“Okay, so how does this intersect with you?” Troy asked. “Other than the attack at the cemetery in Venetian Lake and a false social-security number for a long-dead baby.”
“Ask me the last name of the man Mrs. Karaspov married.”
“I’ll bite.”
“Gould.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Mark Layton asked.
“Christ…” Troy said, “that’s the name of Bing Pruitt’s assistant. Katherine Gould.”
“You got it…. And there’s more. Okay…so the reasonaside from the incident at Venetian Lakethat I looked at this, was that the papers Katherine gave me don’t match the ones I got from Claire’s safe-deposit box.”
“What do you mean…don’t match? They’re both cooked books.”
“Yeah. But Claire’s cooked books all point to Bing approving the payments to the nonexistent William Pruitt. His signature is on a lot of the papers. And Katherine’s cooked books all point to my father.”
“I don’t get it,” Troy said, leaning over as Madison spread out both sets of false papers.
“Well, let’s say Claire was on the up-and-up. She was a whistle-blower who wanted to figure out what was going on. And it would have killed her insideif she really did love my fatherto think he’d approved the false social-security number, the bogus companies, and so on. But bottom line, she would have come forward, because she was an attorney and she was moral, and that was just Claire. But someone killed her before she could meet with the FBI. Her books say Bing was behind the bogus companies, the mastermind. So who would want her dead? Bing. And if my father was setting her up, it’s not like she would have these fictitious books out of thin airthus, if she already had papers and ledgers proving it was Bing, then my father could let her blow the whistle, and he gets the girl, and his brother out of the way, and his company’s illegal millions keep rolling.”
“So the fact that the papers she had pointed to Bing leads you to believe they’re the legit fakesand Bing wanted her out of the way.”
“Right. And if I hadn’t gotten this other set of fakes from Katherine, I would have let it go from there. But since she doesn’t know what I have from Claire, I think Katherine wants to mislead me, intentionally, and send me gunning for my own father who, on the face of things, I am angry with for having an affair with my best friend. Unbeknownst to her, he and I reconciled at a dinner this week.”
Troy opened one of the library books. There was a picture of Victor’s wife and daughter leaving the courthouse.
“So what did you find out about Katherine?”
“Well, according to the writer of the book, her mother married another Russian and moved to a Russian enclave in working-class Brooklyn. This became a key area for the infiltration of the Russian mob after the fall of Communism and glasnost.”
“What do your personnel records indicate?”
“Her background is impeccable. She has a great education, and she clearly has elevated herself above where she came from. I see her in the office. She dresses beautifully, carries herself like an aristocrat.”
One of the agents stood and went to the small refrigerator and got a bottled water. “So how do you know it’s not a coincidence? Gould isn’t all that unusual a name.”
“I thought about that, too. So I went digging further. It’s her mother, all right, who was married to Victor. Then I did some discreet asking around on the office grapevine. Turns out, I never knew, but when she first joined the company years before, she worked for my father.”
“Your father? How come you didn’t know that? You work there, too.”
“Yes. But this was long before I was working at the company, around the time of my parents’ divorce. I was eleven or twelve. Office scuttlebutt has it that Katherine and my father had an affair. My mother found out about it…the affair was one of a thousand indiscretions on my father’s part. So it wasn’t like anyone put much stock or credence into it. It was never common knowledge. But the timing of the whole affair was unfortunate. Even if it was just rumor, my father didn’t need to give my mother’s lawyers ammunition. Right around that time, Katherine suddenly goes to work for Bing.”
“So who’s idea was the whole scheme to set up the offshore accounts, to have William on the books, the whole nine yards?” Troy asked.
“Well, I think Katherine carried the torch for my father for years. Call it woman’s intuition. If she and Bing began an affair, I think she introduced him to the Russian connection…and I’m not sure why he took the bait, but he bit all right.”
“So how do we catch the bastard? And her?” Troy asked.
“He thinks I’m dead. What if I show up to a private meeting with him? Confront him. Shock him with the fact that I’m not dead. I wear a wire. I get him to fess up. You cowboys sweep in, you get the bad guys, I get my old life back. We’re all happy. Case c
losed.”
“I don’t know if I like that,” Troy said. “Too many variables. Bing is volatile. Gould has connections to the mob. I don’t like it. I really don’t. Preliminary look at the limo points to C4. Fucking C4 explosives. These people don’t play around, Madison.”
“And neither do I. Treat me like an agent, Troy. Not a friend. I don’t think you’d hesitate to send one of your female FBI agents into harm’s way. And I am not staying in this sorry motel for the rest of my life. I already miss my Egyptian-cotton sheets.”
Troy finally cracked a smile.
“Great…This is what I get for working with heiresses.”
Chapter 21
The night before Madison was due to confront Bing, she couldn’t sleep.
In the first place, she was emotionally exhausted by the relentless coverage of her death. And she was tormented by guilt at seeing her fatherand Ashley, and even her mother, who normally could drive her insane just by being on the same continentall torn to pieces by the funeral. The FBI told her that they couldn’t risk placing the people she loved in jeopardy by revealing she was alive. Their grief had to look realthe better for the confrontation with Bing. They even provided her father and mother with ashes, which were buried in the family plot in Rye, New York. Bing served as a pallbearer, which infuriated Madison. She had never been particularly close to him. After all, the Pruitts were known for their stoicism. It wasn’t like she’d grown up with warm, fuzzy memories of him.
Then there was lower-key, but still in the papers, coverage of Charlie’s funeral, attended by old pals from Vietnam, as well as her father and other people from Pruitt & Pruitt who had gotten to know Charlie over the years.
Madison tossed and turned restlessly. She missed John. She missed talking to him. She missed sleeping next to him. She wanted to go back to the life she was trying to create.
Finally, she gave up and went out to the kitchenette where Troy was already drinking coffee.
“What’s your excuse?” she asked.
“Hmm?” he mumbled sleepily. “My excuse for what?”
“For not sleeping. What’s up with you?”
“You know, working side by side with you these last couple of weeks…it’s hard to then separate the friendship and know I’m going to put you in a vest and surround you with snipers and hope this guy doesn’t go off the deep end and try to kill you. They’ve nearly run you off the road, shot at you, blown up your car…”
“Next thing you know, they’d have put cyanide in my martinis.” She tried to make him smile, but Troy was grim-faced.
“I ever tell you I lost my first partner?”
“No,” she whispered. She pulled up a chair.
“Yup. A woman. Great person. Had just found out she was pregnant, too, and was going to ask for a transfer to a desk job. Husband was an awesome guy, completely gaga in love with her. A secret-service agent. They met in D.C. We were all on assignment there. I was an usher in their wedding party.”
“How’d she get killed?”
“We were undercover on a case involving money laundering. Not unlike this one. Drug kingpin, in that case. He somehow got wise to hershe was acting as one of his kids’ nannies. She traveled with him and his family. He had two wives of all things. Some kind of sick fucker. Anyway, he killed hershot her stone cold in the center of her foreheadright in front of his eleven-year-old son. Told the kid he had to be able to do things like that if he wanted one day to be the kingpin himself.”
“Oh, my God…” Maddie whispered. She patted Troy’s hand.
“I…she didn’t see it coming. None of us did. I was grateful it happened in a split second, but I took a leave of absence for a month. Really had to think about whether I could handle this job.”
“I’m glad you didn’t quit. We might never have met.”
“Yeah…but it never gets easier. Not really. You toughen up. You learn to tell yourself it’s all part of the risks. That we’re all working for the greater good. That it’s the eternal battle of good versus evil, white hats versus black hats. That we’re on the side of the righteous. But if you care about people, you never get used to watching them go out there in a vest.”
“You know, going through all this…it makes me more determined to be an agent. I’m really proud that Renee asked me to join.”
“Even if you always have to hide that side of your life from John?”
She nodded. “I told him no more secrets. But I guess I tell myself this is different. Like you said, it’s for a greater cause. But I’m also good at it. I was the one who put the puzzle together. I can do this, Troy. Renee’s faith in me wasn’t misplaced. She was right. I can make a difference in a way I never thought possible.”
“All right then, Agent Pruitt…go wash up and get ready. Today’s the day.”
“We’re going to get him, Troy.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
Madison rose and turned to go to the bathroom. Two agents were posted outside the motel room.
“Maddie?”
“Hmm?” She turned her head to look at Troy.
“Do me a favor? Wear this?” He took a silver chain from around his neck, a ball design like the kind for dog tags. Suspended at the bottom was a medal.
“What’s this?”
“It’s Saint Christopher. It was my partner’s. I guess I’m superstitious. I want you to wear it.”
“Then I will,” Madison said. “Thank you, Troy.”
Maddie turned from him, her eyes wet with tears. She’d be damned if she was going to let Troy lose another partner.
Chapter 22
The plan was to surprise Bingand Katherine.
Bing was scheduled to speak at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the waterfront tower property. KatherineTroy found out by hacking into her scheduler at workwas going to accompany him. Troy had managed to plant a bug on the lapel of Katherine’s suit jacket, which she had left that morning on the back of her desk chair for a few minutes, so the FBI was listening in on their conversations in the limousine.
After the ribbon-cutting, Bing and Katherine were driving to look at a piece of property farther south. It was a fairly open space, also waterfront, and snipers would be posted on the tops of the four warehouses surrounding the area. Once Bing and Katherine got out of the limo, ostensibly to meet the Realtor who’d told them she would be arriving in a Mercedes, Madison would exit the car instead.
In the Mercedes would also be three agents, all crouching. On the way to the meeting site, Madison tested and retested her own wire. She tried to breathe normally, despite the weight of the vest and the way it constricted her rib cage. And she told herself over and over again they were going to get them.
In the vacant lot, the minutes ticked by. Madison saw two vans full of agents, but they were battered old vans that would never arouse suspicion. She reminded herself they were full of men and women ready to protect her at all costs.
Troy reassured her, “Look…he’s expecting a Realtor, not you. Most especially not you. You’re armed, you’re wearing a vest. We’ve got you covered from every angle. The bottom line is, we’re looking for something to hang him and Katherine withrather than risking that they somehow twist this and pin the whole scheme on your father, or worse, cover their tracks so well they hire a Dream Team defense and get away with it. So we’re looking for a confession of sorts.”
“What if they see you guys?”
“We’ve done this a hundred times before, Madison. Again, they’re not expecting this. You see that van. You see the guys on the roof. They see an abandoned warehouse area and a piece of property they want to buy. They see the Mercedes of the Realtor they’re meeting.”
Madison inhaled and exhaled a few times. Troy’s cell phone rang.
“Yeah…? Okay. We’re ready.”
He hung up. “They’re five minutes away.” He spoke into his wristband, which had a walkie-talkie built into it. “Five minutes, people. Remember, Madison is goin
g to be in the thick of things. At all costs, she is to be protected. Hold fire unless I give the signal. No one get trigger-happy. Let’s do this. And let’s get them.”
Five minutes later, Bing and Katherine’s long, black limo pulled into the gravel area in the center of the four old warehouse buildings. Their driver parked and leaned his seat back, expecting to wait for the two of them as they toured the land. Madison saw him take out a newspaper and start reading.
Bing and Katherine climbed out from the back of the limo, shut the car door, and were talking. Katherine pointed through the warehousesyou could glimpse the Hudson River through the buildings. Madison knew how their minds worked. They loved the property. Hell, if she wasn’t on the case, she’d buy it herself.
Madison waited until their backs were turned slightly, and then she climbed from the Mercedes after a whispered “Good luck” from Troy. Almost involuntarily, she fingered the medal around her neck.
“Hello, Bing. Katherine…” she said as she stood and they faced the direction of her voice.
“Oh, my God,” Katherine said.
Bing’s face was drained completely of color. “How…? How…?”
Madison shut the door of the Mercedes and took a couple of tentative steps toward them.
“Surprised to see me?”
Neither one of them said a word.
“Yeah…shocking, isn’t it? I just refuse to die. You blew up my limo driver, but miraculously I didn’t get blown to smithereens. I’m still standing.”
Bing glared at Katherine. “I thought you said you’d take care of everything.”
“I did.”
“Well, someone screwed up. It’s obviously not taken care of if we still have the former acting CEO of Pruitt & Pruitt standing right in front of us.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Madison stared at them coolly. “Katherine…why?” Madison asked. “I’ve sung your praises at work…thought you were absolutely someone who was essential to our organization. Why? I mean, not only did you frame my father, but you were willing to kill me…and Claire?”