A Rush to Violence (A Spellman Thriller)

by Christopher Smith

  She held up her hands. “But even if he did, even if it is true, there is no way that Papa would have gained the kind of momentum to land the way he did. He would have just rolled down the stairs. Instead, he flew above them, so high that he was above the trident. He must have been pushed for that to happen. Shoved. You know it as well as I know it. So, who did it?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “But you have an idea.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “It’s my aunts and uncles, isn’t it? They want his money. They always did and with Nana gone, they weren’t getting any of it. That’s no secret to either of us. There’s a reason Papa left everything to you and then to me should you die. He didn’t want them to have a dime. He never did.” She lifted her chin. “They killed him not knowing what was in his will. Then they found out, contested it and lost. But there’s that provision in the will. They’re aware of it. If we die, they get the money.”

  It was pointless to deflect the conversation any longer. Her daughter was too smart. She always had been. There was no getting this past her because she’d had time to think and was bright enough to figure it out on her own. “That’s right,” she said.

  “Are they all involved?”

  “We don’t know for sure if any of them are involved, Emma. All we have is a reasonable explanation for what happened to your grandfather. Motive doesn’t equal truth. Your grandfather was a powerful man. He had his share of enemies. It could be one or more of your aunts and uncles, it could be all of them or it could be someone your grandfather pissed off in a business deal. Don’t get ahead of yourself on this. I told you, when I was young, I never made any move without being completely certain about the person I was taking out.”

  “I know it’s them, Mom.”

  She started to get out of her chair. “It might be them.”

  “If it is them, they’ll come after us. For the money. They’ll murder us for it. You know that.”

  “No one is going to murder us.”

  “Why? Because you’re planning on murdering them?”

  She stopped in the center of the room, but didn’t turn around. Her voice was rooted in a controlled sense of anger when she spoke. “Whoever killed my father will be killed by me. Someone took away one of my best friends, a man who never judged me in spite of all that I did when I was young. If it turns out to be my brothers and sisters, they’ll die. If it’s someone else, that person will die.”

  “What was in the first bag, Mom?”

  “Guns. Rifles. Bullets.”

  “The man who dropped them off. Who was he?”

  “An old friend.”

  “Was he Sam?”

  Camille wouldn’t answer that. She started into the kitchen, where the scissors and the hair color were sitting on the countertop. But it was fruitless. She knew her daughter wouldn’t let go of this now.

  “Was that Sam?”

  “In my world, Emma, you don’t reveal names. Ever.”

  “Fine. Then was that my father?”

  She picked up the box of dye and turned it over in her hands. She could feel herself beginning to harden. Her world was closing down. Focus was tightening, becoming paramount. “I think we’re done here.”

  “I have more questions.”

  She reached for the pair of scissors. When she grabbed them, her father’s face flashed before her eyes and for a second, Camille’s focus was replaced by a deep sense of loss. “And I have work to do.”

  Emma stared at the scissors and a range of emotions flickered across her face. First, Camille saw fear, but within moments, that fear settled into bald fury.

  “If they killed Papa—”

  “We don’t know if they did. I’ve told you that.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Why are you in such a hurry?”

  “Because if they killed my grandfather, they shouldn’t be allowed to live another day. I want them dead for it. I don’t care about any of them. You know that. They’ve always treated me like a piece of shit and now I know why. It’s because of how you lived your life.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “I think you’re brave. I always have, but now it’s different. It’s deeper. You tried to change people’s lives. I get it.”

  She was uncomfortable hearing her daughter discuss any of it. She didn’t feel relief from the acceptance. Instead, she felt a rush of shame and embarrassment because she felt so exposed by the truth. Now that her daughter knew who she really was—a hired killer—she felt sick to her stomach because for years she had made every effort to protect Emma from that life.

  “I need to know what your timeframe is on moving forward with this?”

  “A few days.”

  “They could leave the city by then.”

  “They all live in the city, Emma. They’re not going anywhere.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “If they do, they always can be traced and tracked down. I’ve done it before.”

  “How will you know if they did it? If they killed him?”

  That’s the one question she could answer with certainty. She looked at her daughter and her words were a promise. “That’s the easy part,” she said. “The eyes always tell the truth. Never forget that. It’s always revealed in the eyes. If you’re about to lie, your eyes will flash to the right. Or up and to the right. Those are cues I learned early in life. Eyes never lie. And when I look into theirs when I confront them, that’s the moment I’ll know for sure whether they killed your grandfather.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In an area as large as Manhattan—never mind the surrounding boroughs—how does one find one woman out of millions of other women? It was different with every case, but there were two elements that always conspired to make it happen for Marty Spellman. Skill and luck.

  Mostly luck.

  While he’d like to think that the e-mail he sent to Camille Miller would turn out to be a mix of both, if that old account of hers was indeed active and she did reply, he’d be pointing straight at luck.

  Now, he had less than three days to find her. If he was unsuccessful, a member of his family would be murdered. While he wasn’t sure if that would happen given the safeguards he had in place to protect them, he wasn’t about to test the waters to find out. If they wanted his family dead, they’d find a way.

  And God help them if they did.

  Tonight, he was having dinner with his family at a public restaurant to celebrate his oldest daughter’s birthday. Beth was turning fifteen. With the exception of Jennifer, who knew nothing yet, his ex-wife Gloria and the rest of his family already knew there was a situation at hand that needed to be dealt with.

  As much as he wanted to change their plans, they couldn’t change. Carr’s people would be in the restaurant watching them while they ate, and they’d likely be listening while they talked. The good news? His ex-wife, her new husband and his children, had been trained. If anything like this happened, Marty was reasonably confident of their training. The only person he questioned was Katie, who was just eleven and not as sophisticated as her older sister. As for Jennifer, the moment they sat next to each other, he had to give her only one discreet sign for her to know trouble was afoot.

  He considered Camille Miller.

  In his line of work, he dealt with a high-end clientele who generally wanted to know a handful of things from him. In some cases, they wanted to find a missing spouse or a child, while other times they wanted to know the real reason a loved one was murdered or whether their partner was cheating on them. In the PI world, it was routine stuff, only for Marty, it came with better-paying clients.

  What he was involved in now was different than anything he had experienced in his years as a private investigator. He had been charged by a sophisticated group to find a woman whose former life was spent as a gifted international assassin.

  Marty learned from Carr and from the paperwork Carr gave him that Camille Miller didn’t
live in this country. France was her home. Paris was her city and had been for twenty-one years. Although her family lived in New York, she kept no home here, not even a pied-à-terre retained for her and her daughter’s privacy when they came to visit. Instead, she and Emma stayed with her father in his penthouse on Sutton Place, which suggested a close relationship because, if anyone could afford to buy his daughter an apartment in New York City, if she wanted one, it was Kenneth Miller.

  Earlier, he wondered if she’d already left the States. It was a reasonable question, but a quick call to Roz, his contact at the FBI, suggested otherwise. Camille and Emma Miller had boarded no plane, private or otherwise, since they arrived to deal with the contesting of her father’s will. Had they left by car or by bus? That was a possibility, but Roz confirmed that no bus ticket had been purchased in Camille’s name and no car had been purchased or rented.

  Not that any of this meant much. Camille and her daughter likely had alternative identities and the appropriate IDs to back them up. They could take a plane or a bus with few worries. Also, cars were for sale by owner all over the city. All Camille Miller had to do was buy one, steal some plates and she’d be off without a trace. Given her record as an assassin, she’d know that was the smartest move if she was going to get her and her daughter out of the city. And for good reason. Everything had been left to Camille. Upon her death, Emma would receive her grandfather’s fortune. And upon Emma’s death? Finally, the rest of Camille’s siblings would receive what they perceived as their fair share of the Miller pot.

  Marty sat on the sofa in his office and picked up the photograph of Camille and Emma that he printed off earlier. The way Kenneth Miller structured his will was loaded with danger. Had he not seen that? Did he believe that his other children wouldn’t turn to murder to get their hands on his money? It was possible. As bright as Miller sounded in his letters to Camille, murder was so far on the fringe of what his other children might do given Camille’s past, he likely would have dismissed it even if it had occurred to him.

  A few letters Marty read earlier needed to be read again. Of the hundred or so Carr gave him, these particular letters Marty felt were the most important because of what they revealed about the relationship shared between Kenneth and Camille, and why he believed she was in the city now.

  One was dated July 16, 2006. It from was Kenneth to Camille, written “somewhere over the Atlantic. I’ve had three martinis and I still loathe the red eye. Should I have another drink? Would a fourth put me into a trance? Would I float above the cabin and have an out-of-body experience? Probably not. I’d just get off the plane loaded, which I’m sure would thrill my doctor. I’m sitting here next to a woman who apparently doesn’t understand that perfume should be an intimate experience, which is something your mother always knew, thank God. But I’m rambling. Maybe the martinis are working, after all. Anyway, kid, there’s something I wanted to tell you before I left, but I knew it would just disrupt a beautiful visit with you and Emma, so I didn’t. I decided to save it for this letter. It’s no secret that I’m getting old and that people are paying attention to the clock. With age comes opportunists, at least in our family. (You’re the exception. You always have been.) But your brothers and sisters are another story. Your brother, Scott, came by the house about a week before I visited you and suggested that he be the executor of my will, so if anything happens to me—a stroke, a heart attack, perhaps being struck down by a mysterious car hired by him—he could step in if I was a vegetable (or a dead vegetable) and take over from there. I told him I wasn’t at the point of choosing an executor yet. He left in a fit and I haven’t heard from him since. The vultures are circling, I’m afraid. I expect more of that as your mother and I grow older.”

  Another letter, this one from Camille, dated April 28, 2011.

  “Just got off the phone with big brother Michael and I had to write. He’s almost out of money, which in our family means he’s down to the last few million Mom gave him. He was all panicky and upset and asking if I’d loan him some money because you won’t. He actually said he’s in “dire straits.” I told him to take a hike to the poorest parts of the Bronx and New Jersey, and then to reassess his condition. He wasn’t having any of it. He went on and on about how he could turn my ass in for all the unlawful things I did when I was young. He made the point of calling me a murderer, which I couldn’t argue with. He told me he never loved me and that I’d regret this one day. The whole conversation was ugly, not that that surprised me much. At the end, he started to beg again, which was so pathetic, I just hung up. What’s weird is that Sophia pulled the same thing a few weeks ago. I don’t think I told you about our conversation. She wasn’t nearly as harsh as Michael, but she has her delicate ways and if you read through them, you know they’re all backed by hammers and knives. I sent her a check for five dollars and told her to play the lottery. That should go over well. I expect I’ll hear from the others soon because with their lifestyles, their money will run out. They know you’re hands off, which is how I want it. At this point, I’d rather take the phone calls so they don’t burden you. It’s time they got off their asses and got jobs. Isn’t that what all those swanky educations were for? OK, that’s my weekly rant. I love you. Could you please spot me a twenty? That would be super! XO —C.”

  Marty continued to read the handful of other letters he set aside, all of which underscored an undeniable urgency from the other siblings that their financial situations were critical. In each letter, they either were reaching out for money or verbally crucifying Camille and her father when they refused to help them.

  “One of these days, we’ll be gone, Dad,” Camille wrote in a letter three weeks before his death. “And when that happens, what’s next for them if they don’t get on their feet now? Sometimes, I want to help them, just as you do (I think). But I have other responsibilities. I’ve made enemies that affect every important decision I make. At any point, someone could target me for something I did years ago and I’d be dead. It’s just one of the countless ways I’ve screwed up my life. If something does happen to me, what happens to Emma? She’s set for life financially, but she has two years to go before she’s an adult. I have to stay alive that much longer so there’s no question that money will remain hers. If not, you’ll take my place and she’ll be fine until she’s a legal adult. But if you’re not here, one of my sisters or brothers will take my will to court and try to contest it in an effort to raise her and to get to her money. Maybe we should just give them what they want. Maybe they’ll go away if we did. Sometimes, I think it would be easier. Sometimes, especially when they ratchet up the drama, I also think it would be safer. —C.”

  Marty folded the letter and put it down next to him. He went over to his laptop and checked for messages. None from Camille, but that didn’t surprise him. He’d be shocked if he hit that mark.

  He looked out the window and down Fifth, where the streets and sidewalks were alive and bustling with cars and people. Out there, in the sunlit melee of midafternoon, he had dozens of contacts, people he had relied on throughout the years to share information with him just as he shared information with them when they needed it.

  Those people tended to be detectives and journalists. But right now, the one person he wanted to see was neither a detective nor a journalist—depending, of course, on how you defined “detective.”

  She was one of his best friends and perhaps, with the exception of Gloria, the one person he had been closest to the longest. There was a time when he doubted her talents, but that no longer was the case, particularly the last time he went to her for help. She nailed events that were so spot on, his opinion of her and her gifts changed.

  He checked his watch and saw that it was just after two. She’d be wrapping up the lunch crowd now. He went to his desk, retrieved the satellite phone, grabbed the manila envelope Carr gave him and then stopped when the thought came to him.

  If he went to see anyone with this chip embedded in his shoulder, he co
uld implicate them. He wasn’t certain how accurate the device was, but he wasn’t willing to take a chance that it was inaccurate, and so he knew there would be times when he’d need to temporarily disable it if he was going to protect his friends. But how to do so?

  Tape a magnet over it and scramble the signal.

  If Carr questioned why the blip that was Marty Spellman suddenly disappeared off their screens, he’d just show him his shoulder, prove the chip was there and say that he must have hit a dead zone. “Just like with cell phones,” he could hear himself saying. “It happens. There’s nothing I can do about it if you want me on these streets trying to find Camille.”

  Charged by the idea, he went to the kitchen and looked at the refrigerator. It wasn’t covered with as many colorful drawings as it used to be—his girls now painted on their iPads. But Katie still drew him the occasional picture and when she did, up on the fridge it went. He looked at some of them and tried not to think of the dream he had last night. His daughters were gunned down. So was he, but what did it mean? Stress? Probably. He needed to think it was just stress.

  He shook the thought and returned his attention to the fridge.

  There were several magnets not in use. He took a thin round one and put it in his pocket. He opened one of the kitchen drawers, retrieved a package of tape and put it in his pocket. He grabbed the manila envelope again and left for the door.

  Outwitted by tape and a magnet, he thought. Fuck you, Carr.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Tarot Café was located in the partitioned basement of an old warehouse on Prince Street. Owned by three psychic sisters from Flatbush, the café served imported coffees and herbal teas, ginseng extracts and mushroom shoots, exotic-looking desserts and homemade breads, soups, sandwiches, as well as glimpses into their clients’ futures.

  The latter cost extra.

  It was through his ex-wife, Gloria, that Marty came to know about the place, which was narrow and dim and often smelled of freshly baked bread and patchouli oil. And it was through Gloria that he had met the three sisters Buzzinni—Roberta, Carlotta and Gigi.