A Rush to Violence (A Spellman Thriller)

by Christopher Smith

  “I guess that’s your problem, isn’t it?”

  “Depends on how you look at it.”

  “You were ordered to keep your mouth shut.”

  “I never said a word.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “All I did was hire a team to protect my wife. Nobody knew anything beyond that.” He paused. “But I’m betting you already know that.”

  This time it was Carr who said nothing. He looked at Jennifer, who was staring straight ahead, her face an unreadable mask, and then he looked back at Marty, who was staring at him.

  “I’m assuming you won’t make the same mistake again?” Carr said. “If you do, we won’t be as forgiving next time, especially after what you just pulled with him.” He nodded over at Alex, who was trying to support his broken jaw with one of his bloody hands.

  Marty was about to speak when Carr interrupted. “And you’re correct. You are running out of time. This little birthday bash you’re throwing tonight? No time for it. Call your wife, tell her you can’t make it. I couldn’t give a damn what you tell your daughter. She’ll be dead soon, anyway.”

  “You know something I don’t?”

  “Camille is smarter than you, Spellman. You’ll screw up, you’ll lose one of your girls and then you’ll refocus. That’s when you might stand a chance. That’s when you might actually be angry enough to bring her in.”

  They were approaching a traffic light, which was red. Carr told the driver to pull over and then handed Jennifer a handkerchief to wipe her mouth.

  “The blood does nothing for you, dear,” he said. “Dab this with your tongue and pat it away. You’ll be fine, though I don’t recommend going on live tonight. The mark will read. People will wonder. ‘Is she abused?’ ‘Does her husband beat her?’ ‘Was she slapped by Alex?’ You know how they are. And there’s no need for rumors. In your business, rumors can kill a career just as easily as I could have killed you.”

  * * *

  When they were out of the car and on the sidewalk, Marty took Jennifer’s hand and watched the limousine swing around the corner. When it was gone, she jerked her hand out of his as he turned to hail a taxi.

  She had every right to be angry with him, but he wasn’t about to discuss anything on the street. She also knew better and kept her mouth shut, even though he could feel her rage searing the distance between them.

  While he looked for an available cab on Prince, it occurred to him that Carr said nothing about him disappearing from their system during the short time he was wearing the magnet. Had covering the chip worked? He wasn’t sure. Not long after he left Roberta’s, Carr’s limousine appeared, though it did appear after he removed the magnet and thus enabled the chip’s transmission to start working again.

  Perhaps they were following him all along. When he winked out, they lost him. When he became visible again, they tracked him down with the limo. It was a guess, but a solid one.

  A cab pulled beside them. They got inside. “Sixty-Third and Fifth,” they said in unison.

  He gave it a moment, then turned to her. “Are you all right?”

  “You knew about this when you left home this morning.”

  “I didn’t want to involve you or concern you.”

  “You knew about this two days ago,” she said. “He told me so.”

  “I needed to see if I could stop it on my own.”

  “Apparently, you can’t. If I’d known about it, they wouldn’t have jumped me because I wouldn’t have gone to work. I would have stayed home, where I would have been safe. Or reasonably safe.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What the hell was that back there?”

  “They’ve given me seventy-two hours to find Camille Miller.” He looked up at the driver, who was glancing at them in the rearview mirror. He chose his words carefully. “If I don’t, they’ll choose one of the girls.”

  That caught her off guard. For a moment, her face softened. “What’s this about? Who’s Camille Miller?”

  Marty wasn’t comfortable discussing any of this here. “Call work. Tell them you won’t be back because you’re not feeling well. I’ll fill you in on everything when we’re alone at home.”

  * * *

  When they arrived at their penthouse, Jennifer slung her bag on top of the kitchen counter, went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. The left side of her face was beginning to bruise, but if she was in pain, she refused to show it.

  When they got married, they promised each other that if anything like this happened, he would tell her. More than anyone, she knew firsthand that his job could be dangerous. She herself almost died a year ago when one of those jobs went wrong.

  That he hadn’t come clean is why she was angry with him now. When they threatened his family, he hired protection for her, thinking she would be safe until he could meet Carr face-to-face. Even so, he had made a mistake. He knew she had every right to be furious with him, especially after what she’d just been through.

  “In the living room,” she said.

  There were two sofas facing each other in the center of the room. Each chose their own, sat and looked at one another. Jennifer took a drink of water and put the bottle down on the coffee table between them. He looked at the blood on the collar of her beige suit and the swelling on her lower lip. He wanted to go to her, but by the look on her face, they obviously were going to talk first.

  “This morning you told me you were meeting Lia Costa.”

  She was referring to the woman whose husband was strangled to death in their home the week before. It was major news. Costa’s husband was the former head of Citibank. “That’s right.”

  “And that was a lie.”

  “It was.”

  “I thought we had an agreement.”

  “We do.”

  “So, when did that end?”

  “It hasn’t. I thought I could protect you. I hired people to protect you.”

  “They did a great job, Marty. About ninety minutes ago, the guy you just kicked the shit out of, came up behind me, told me he had a gun and for me to get into the limousine. When I stepped inside, I grabbed a fistful of his hair and he slapped me. The old guy yanked me close to him and we took off. Next thing I know they’re telling me we’re picking you up on Prince.”

  “How did they know I was on Prince?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Because you were in the car with them.” He unbuttoned his shirt and showed her the bandage on his shoulder. “This morning, they implanted a chip beneath my skin. It’s a tracking device, but I think I can manipulate it with a magnet, which throws off the transmission.”

  “They did what to you?”

  “Think back. Did they say anything about not being able to track me?”

  “The driver said something. He said you went off grid. The geezer asked why, but before long, you were back again. They didn’t make a big deal of it.”

  So, it worked. He felt at once relieved and elated. “Do you remember Kenneth Miller’s death?”

  “Of course, I remember it. I covered it. He tripped over his dog.”

  “No, he didn’t. He was murdered, likely by one of his children. Or all of his children. I’m not sure how deep it goes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The geezer in the limo? He goes by Carr. I doubt if that’s his real name, but we’ll call him Carr for now. He gave me information on Camille.”

  “Did she do it? Is that why he’s after her?”

  “Camille had nothing to do with it. In fact, out of Miller’s seven children, she’s the last one who would do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she loved her father. Carr gave me letters written between them. He thought they might offer clues as to where she is now, but what they really revealed is how close she was to her father. Near the end, not long before Kenneth died, each had a feeling that something might happen to him.”

  He described Kenneth Miller’s tense relationsh
ip with his six other children, how Kenneth’s wife had financed them when she was alive and how that financing ended with her death.

  “He left everything in his will to Camille and her daughter, Emma, but nothing for his six other children, at least not directly. Should Camille die, Emma receives the money.”

  “I don’t want to hear the rest.”

  “And if Emma dies, they get the money.”

  “But it’s so blatant,” Jennifer said. “The police will question it. They’ll know Camille and her daughter were set up. They’ll know that Miller’s other children were next in line to receive his fortune if anything happened to them. If they’re behind this, they’re just hanging themselves.”

  “Not necessarily. What you don’t know is that when Camille was young, she was an assassin. Everyone in the family knows it, though they were ordered by their father to keep it quiet. Still, because of her past, she will always be someone’s target for revenge. It could be a friend or a relative of someone she once murdered, but the truth is that there always is going to be someone out there hoping to take her down. That’s what the Miller family knows and that’s what they will document to the police when Camille and Emma are found dead. It was someone else who killed them, not the Miller family. If Carr succeeds, they will be free and clear to accept their father’s money.”

  “When was Camille an assassin?”

  “When she was eighteen, she went to Paris. She fell in with the wrong group, fell hard for the wrong man and learned everything from him. She got out when she was twenty-three.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “She got pregnant with Emma, who’s sixteen now. She never went back. Her daughter became her priority.”

  Jennifer looked confused. “Who is this woman? She’s done terrible things, yet she did the right thing by her daughter. And she loved her father. I can’t get a read on her.”

  Marty told her about the people she and the group targeted.

  “That’s all well and good, Marty, but killing a serial rapist or some freak who puts children into pornography is still murder.”

  “The moral line is skewed.”

  “That’s why we have a judicial system.”

  “Which is great when those people are caught and actually brought to justice. Often they’re not, which is what Camille’s group was about. Look, I’m not making excuses for her. But if your head is in the wrong place when you’re eighteen or twenty or twenty-three, you might think you’re doing some good in the world by taking out those kinds of people.”

  “You said you read correspondence between her and her father. What was your impression of her?”

  He shrugged. “I liked her. She knows what she did in her past affects her present. She’s done everything she can do to keep her daughter out of it. She’s made every effort to be a good mother.”

  “Does her daughter know what she did?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be there if she found out. I can’t imagine it.”

  A silence passed between them. Jennifer took a drink of water and touched the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry, Jennifer. I didn’t mean for anything like this to happen.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  “I thought I could protect you until I learned more. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.”

  “I overreacted. It’s not your fault.” She shook her head and something close to a smile played upon her lips. “I almost feel bad for Alex. You really kicked his ass.”

  “He deserved it.”

  “I’m not saying he didn’t. I’ve just never seen you like that. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  “When you lose your parents at a young age and find yourself on the streets, you learn how to fight.”

  “Apparently.”

  She came over and sat next to him. She kissed the spot on his shoulder where the chip was implanted and then wrapped her arm around him while he kissed her on the forehead. She tapped his shoulder. “What do we do about this?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Does Gloria know what’s going on?”

  “Since they targeted the girls specifically, I had no choice but to let her know so she could get them to safety fast.”

  “They’re with the Moores?”

  He nodded. “But not for long. Old friends of ours have an apartment they keep in the city, but they live mostly in Spain and rarely use it. At this point, Gloria has been in touch with them. They’ll move to that location later tonight.”

  “But Carr will find out that they’re gone.”

  “In time.”

  “He’ll demand that you tell him where they are.”

  “If he can get hold of me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m leaving tonight. You’ll stay with Gloria, Jack and the girls. Nobody moves until this is finished. It’s the best way to keep all of you safe.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  “Jennifer—”

  “I’m not. And you already know I’m not, so there’s no use fighting me over it. You need me with you. My contacts rival yours. We can find her together. And don’t give me any bullshit about me slowing you down. I’ve done this for years in my own line of work and it’s safe to assume I’ve been pretty successful at it.”

  “Being shot on camera isn’t the same as shooting a gun.”

  “Maybe not, but having the right contacts when you’re on the street and in the heat of the moment can make all the difference.”

  “I’m not going to argue about this. The best way you can help me is to just listen to me. While I’m out there, I can’t be worried about you.”

  “Who are you kidding? You’ll worry anyway.” She stood and looked down at him. “Call Gloria. Cancel tonight’s party. Talk to Beth. I have friends of my own who leave the city to stay in the Hamptons for the summer. I’ll find us a place. We’ll call Skeen and have him remove the chip properly. We’ll find Camille and Emma. And then we’ll shut down Carr and the Millers for good.”

  * * *

  Only it wouldn’t go that way. Unless he had no other choice, he wasn’t putting Jennifer in the sort of danger he was in now.

  In spite of all the issues he had with Gloria in the past, she at least respected his decisions when it came to these situations. She always had. She was as strong-willed as Jennifer, but in different ways. When it came to protecting family, that was her first priority.

  He removed the satellite phone from his pocket, went to his office and called Gloria to give her the news about the party.

  Only she didn’t answer, which concerned him because more than anyone, she knew that her phone needed to be tied to her at this point.

  He tried the Moore’s private line and waited for someone to pick up. They didn’t. He phoned Gloria’s apartment and listened to the endless rings while a knot of worry formed in his gut.

  Nothing.

  She knew not to call him on his cell phone, but as unlikely as it was, she may have forgotten the number to the satellite. He checked the phone and saw that it was turned off.

  He remembered why. Earlier that morning, when Carr and his people checked his phone, he discretely turned it off before putting it back in his pocket. He turned it on and found no messages. He was about to shut it off when instead, he noted there was a text message waiting for him.

  He checked it. It was from Beth. She sent it thirty minutes ago, when he and Jennifer were talking in the living room. He opened it. Read it. And the knot in his gut became an anchor. His lips parted when he saw the word, which likely was typed so quickly, it accounted for the misspelling:

  “Helkp,” it said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She didn’t know where they were in the city—if they even were in the city—but they were in a basement. At least she knew that.

  It was cooler here than it was outside, but the basement was damp from t
he storm that hit the night before. There was a thickness to the air that was uncomfortable. Sticky. Worse, there was nowhere to sit.

  Her mother, Jack, Katie, herself and the Moores were either crouched or leaning against a stone foundation. Across the room, sitting in a chair beneath a bare bulb that shined low from the ceiling, was one of the men who brought them here. His eyes were on the adults, likely because he felt they posed the greatest threat. Beth Spellman watched him and waited for him to turn to her or Katie. He didn’t, not even when she coughed.

  She thought about the advantages of this scenario while she watched him.

  He seemed somewhere around her father’s age. Maybe younger. Maybe mid-thirties. Maybe not. Hard to tell with the shadows playing across his face.

  He was dressed in jeans and wore a thin, long-sleeved shirt. At the end of his left wrist was an oversized watch that was too shiny for its own good. Black boots on his feet. His hair was dark and parted on the side; it gleamed in the light, likely from whatever gel he’d put in it. He was smoking a cigarette while keeping his free hand on the rifle beside him. Each time he took a drag, he blew the smoke straight at them.

  If he were her age, she figured this was the kind of guy her parents would have warned her about. She wouldn’t have disagreed.

  Their abduction began with a knock at the door.

  Everyone had been in the living room, discussing their plans for the evening and how they would get out without being seen. Her mother already had been in touch with the Huntings, who said of course they could use their apartment for as long as they wanted and that they were sorry they were in trouble. Was there anything they could do? “No,” her mother said. “It’s the same plan. We’ve just never had to go to you before. We’re so grateful, Connie. This is just routine. A precaution. It’ll be over soon.”

  But then came the knock. When they heard it, Brian and Barbara Moore looked at one another and then at her mother, who shook her head and seemed to grow tense before Billy’s voice sounded beyond the door.