Twisted Shadows Page 32

  “Get off,” he mouthed.

  “Have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up before Terri could say anything else, then turned to him. “How did you know the schedule?”

  “I was there three months ago on business.” He took the phone and dialed Gray’s cell phone. It took eight rings, then Gray answered. As he’d listened in on her conversation, now she did the same.

  “Had to duck out, buddy,” the disembodied voice said

  “What did you find out?”

  “Very little. Your man Maddox seems on the level. He is ex-CIA. Has a company in Flagstaff. He’s well liked, well respected.”

  “And Simon?”

  “Not so lucky. Can’t find a Simon in Durango. Checked all the local airfields. I have a list of private plane owners but it’s extensive, and I have to be careful.”

  “That’s okay,” Nate said. “Drop it. You gave me what I needed.”

  “The photos of those officers will take time,” Gray said.

  “I need only one,” he said.

  “Which one?”

  “McGuire.”

  A long silence. Too long.

  “You’ve got to be wrong.”

  “I might be,” Nate said. “But if you can find one of him as a patrolman, e-mail it to me. I’ll find a computer someplace.”

  “Done, but I think you’re wrong.”

  Then Nate took a step away from her, and she knew he wanted a few words in privacy.

  She left the telephone and walked to the door. Waited.

  In another minute, Nate met her there. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing her hand and walking swiftly back through the station and on board the train. They went to the compartment, and it had been transformed back into a sitting room. A newspaper was on the table.

  Nate took a quick visual check of the room, then they walked to the dining car as the train started once more. They walked—or lurched—through three cars as the train gathered speed.

  A few more hours of peace, then… all hell was going to break loose.

  Nick picked up the telephone.

  “Hi, it’s Terri.”

  Just the sound of her voice brightened his day.

  “I have to talk to you,” she continued.

  “Breakfast?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Where?”

  “The coffee shop next to the hotel down the street.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Good.”

  He shaved hurriedly. He’d already had a cup of coffee and read the national paper that had appeared at his door.

  She was seated in a comer table. Her hair was pulled back in a braid, and she wore jeans and a dark blue shirt. “Sam called,” she said.

  Relief flooded him. “She’s all right?”

  “At the moment.”

  “Where—?”

  “I don’t know, but she said she would meet you at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago at eleven a.m. tomorrow.”

  “How did she contact you?”

  “I don’t know where she called from,” Terri said. “But she called me on my cell phone.”

  “How long was she on it?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you really think someone’s tracking my cell phone?”

  “I don’t think we can dismiss the idea.” He took a sip of coffee. “Is she still with McLean?”

  “She didn’t mention it, but I think so.”

  “Good.”

  “I didn’t think you liked him.”

  “I don’t, and I’m still afraid he will try to use her, but he’ll do his damnedest to keep her alive.”

  “You’re going to go, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Why?”

  “She’s my friend.”

  “And you’re afraid I might hurt her?” An unexpected pain struck him.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think that. But you might need someone to run interference.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I won’t stay around except for the meeting,” she said. “Please.”

  “What about the gallery?”

  “We can close it for several days.”

  He shook his head, then ran a finger along her cheekbone. “I would like to have you with me, but you could endanger everyone. If I have to look out for you, I can’t look after Samantha.”

  It was the one argument he thought might work. And it did. Her face fell.

  “I’ll come back,” he said.

  Her expression was disbelieving.

  “Believe it,” he said.

  She smiled and looked up straight in his eyes and through to his soul.

  And he knew it was one promise he would keep.

  * * * * *

  Nathan and Sam left the train in Naperville, the station before the Chicago terminal. “Time to use the cell phone,” he said.

  Sam dialed the number Maddox had given them when they’d arrived in Fort Collins. The same man answered after half a ring.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Samantha.”

  “We’ve been worried about you.”

  “Mr. Maddox?”

  “He’s fine. He arrived a few hours ago.”

  “Jock, too?”

  “Yep. They used my plane. Where are you now?”

  “Is this line safe?”

  “I would stake my life on it.”

  “Naperville.”

  “How did you get there?”

  “Train.”

  “Paid with cash?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Go to the Riverwalk. Be at the foot of Chicago Avenue and Main Street at eight tonight.”

  “Who do I look for?”

  “Don’t. I’ll find you.”

  The phone went dead.

  Sam and Nathan looked at each other. Five hours to kill and they should have some answers. At last.

  The house where Sam was to meet her mother was in an area north of Chicago, in a lake community of large wooded lots and contemporary houses. Simon drove up a long, curving driveway to a stone house. It was shielded from other houses by a stand of trees.

  The man in the driver’s seat of a plain black sedan had been mostly silent since he’d approached them on Chicago Avenue. A quiet, wiry man who walked soundlessly and said little, he, like Maddox, had a certain vitality about him.

  He’d merely nodded at them and said, “Follow me.”

  He wasn’t any more talkative as he drove. His mouth had tightened when he heard about the calls to Terri Faulkner and the proposed meeting with Nicholas Merritt.

  “We don’t have to meet him,” Nathan said. “But I wanted him in a place where we can find him if we do need him. He says he knows who did it.”

  Sam noticed that Nate didn’t add that he knew, too, or thought he did. He was waiting, she suspected, to see what the others knew. She also knew he’d checked his weapon just after they got in to the car and that he’d insisted on the backseat.

  She wondered whether there would ever be a day when such precautions wouldn’t be necessary. But right now, she felt a thrill of excitement at seeing her mother. It increased as the driver parked in front of the house. He opened the door to her side while Nate exited the other.

  The house door opened before they could ring the bell or knock. Sam saw her mother standing there, a broad smile on her face. They embraced for a moment, and then Sam stepped back and studied her face.

  It had been only a few days, but it seemed a lifetime.

  Patsy Carroll looked different. Older. Yet there was also an ease about her that hadn’t been there before. It was almost like a tremendous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  Nathan had entered and stood to the side. Her mother turned to him. “You must be Nathan McLean.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.”

 
Nathan didn’t say anything, but Sam watched his eyes evaluate her mother. There was reservation in his voice, in his face, but she was familiar with that.

  “Whose house is this?” Sam asked.

  “Friends,” Simon said. “They’re out of the country and friends often stay here when they’re gone. The neighbors are used to comings and goings.”

  He led the way into a kitchen. Sam smelled coffee and knew it would probably be a long evening. Papers were spread across the table. So were photos. Nate sat down and looked at the names on the list, then the photos. “Do you have a computer here?”

  The man called Simon disappeared and returned with a small laptop, plugged in the modem and turned it on.

  He turned to Nate with a question in his face.

  “Find McGuire,” said Nate. “Terrence McGuire. Boston.” Simon showed surprise for the first time, and his fingers raced over the keyboard. He went to the Boston Globe site, then searched on McGuire. Articles and a photo appeared. He turned it around for Patsy to see.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It was so long ago…”

  Simon was reading one of the articles. “Nominated for the Federal Appeals Court. Former police officer, assistant district attorney, then district attorney.”

  “He’s a favorite of ours,” Nate said. “He leaned over backward to give us search warrants and other orders.”

  Simon mumbled something that sounded like a curse. Patsy looked at the photo again. “It could be. He had dark hair then and was thin. I thought he had a… hungry look.”

  But the photos now were of a well-fed man with gray hair. He looked benign, not hungry.

  But then maybe that was because he’d eaten his fill of what he wanted.

  “He’s Irish,” Sam said. “Why would he connect with the Merrittas?”

  “Good for both of them,” Nathan said. “No one would suspect him. And he might have had knowledge of the Irish families that Merritta wanted, and vice versa.”

  “How could he have kept it quiet all these years?”

  “I’d guess he quit when he went to law school. People died. And I’m sure he had a lot of insurance of his own.” Nathan’s glance turned to Patsy. “What exactly happened?”

  She looked at Simon, and he nodded.

  Her hands twisted together in front of her. “Lucas Gaberra was a driver and often chauffeured the children and me. I saw him as the only way out. I thought he… he liked me, and to my everlasting shame, I used that.

  “But his interest, apparently, was not me. He was an undercover federal agent. A police officer had been taking payoffs from my father-in-law and heard there was a snitch in the family. Paul’s father and the officer narrowed it down to Lucas.

  “They’d bugged the car. They knew what he was and that I had asked him to help me get away. Paul’s father was furious. Beyond furious. I had appealed to the enemy. I had betrayed Paul. I would take his children over his dead body.”

  She paused, swallowed hard. “It was Lucas’s body instead. I saw the officer go into the study with my husband and father-in-law. Several minutes later, two men went after Lucas. I knew what was going to happen. I knew it by their faces. And I couldn’t do anything about it. Victor and another man dragged me to another room.

  “I heard a shot, then a second. I ran out before they could reach me and saw Paul coming out of the room. He brushed past me, as if he didn’t see anything at all. He had blood on his clothes.

  “Then Paul’s father left, carrying a gun wrapped in a handkerchief. There was blood on that, too. I thought then that Paul had killed Lucas.

  “I couldn’t stand to have him near me after that. His father, who had never liked me because I wasn’t Italian or Catholic, became openly threatening.

  “I kept expecting a bullet myself, but instead I was isolated. I knew I had to get away, but I also knew I didn’t have the resources to escape the family’s reach. I had no doubt they would kill me if they found me unless I had something of value to them.

  “The only possibility was the safe in Paul’s father’s study. I’d been in the study once when he’d opened it to give me a family heirloom at Paul’s insistence. I knew where it was and that it was a combination lock, and I prayed there would be something in it with which I could bargain.

  “I started working on a collection of safe combination possibilities. His birthday. His late wife’s birthday; the day of her death; Paul’s birthday; Nick’s birthday. Anniversaries. Anything I could think of.

  “Two weeks went by before I had a chance, then there was a baptism for Anna. Everyone in the family was going but me. I was to stay with the children.

  “While everyone was at church, I asked my minder to look after the children while I went down and made formula. I made several bottles, then went into my father-in-law’s office. I found the safe and started turning the combination lock. I won’t tell you how terrified I was, how my fingers wouldn’t work properly, but on the third number—his wedding anniversary—the lock clicked.

  “I heard one of the babies screaming, and I knew my minder would be down soon. I looked inside. Money. Then, toward the back, in the shadows, I saw an object wrapped in a handkerchief. It was a pistol wrapped in a bloodstained cloth. I knew it was my one chance to escape. I grabbed it, was able to hide it in a towel.”

  “Why,” Nathan asked, “would he keep the pistol?”

  Patsy shook her head. “I’ve thought about it all these years. I don’t think he trusted the police officer. The killing was also staged to keep Paul in line. I think Paul was wavering, that he wanted out, but now he was an accessory to the murder of a federal agent. He could never leave the family.”

  Sam was stunned. She couldn’t even imagine how her mother had survived, much less escaped. “How did you leave?”

  “I knew I didn’t have much time. They would find the gun was missing. The next day, when Paul and his father were gone, I put heating pads on both your faces. I’d mentioned earlier in the day you were both fretful.

  “Then I screamed that you had to go to the doctor. You had unbelievably high temperatures. I think they were afraid not to take me. Paul and his father worshiped Nicholas. He was their heir.

  “I won’t go into details, but I called a cab from the doctor’s office and was able to slip out while the bodyguard was in the waiting room. I reached Chicago before Paul found me. He knew I would go to my sister’s for help. I was careful in arranging to meet her, but I underestimated Paul’s reach.

  “But by then I had put the gun in a safe deposit box. I wanted to take it to federal authorities, but not in Boston. I didn’t trust anyone in Boston. My only friend had been killed. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to do when Paul appeared. He had men with him. He could have taken my children and killed me. He even threatened my sister’s children.” Tears rolled silently down her face. “He offered me a deal. He would take Nicholas. I would take Nicole. Otherwise his father had ordered me killed, along with my sister’s family.

  “Paul said he would hunt us all down if I ever tried to contact Nicholas. When I agreed, he promised that my sister would not be touched, or any of her family. He kept that promise.”

  Pain was in every word. Sam could only imagine having to make that choice. And her biological father was the one who forced that choice.

  The man who had called her to Boston.

  “The devil’s bargain,” he had called the arrangement.

  But he had been the devil.

  thirty-two

  “That’s not enough," Nathan said, a cold clamp on his heart. “It wouldn’t be half enough to convict someone of McGuire’s standing. No body. No live witness. Only a gun with prints.”

  Simon nodded. “But questions would certainly derail his nomination.”

  “He’d still be alive to come after the people who destroyed his dream,” Nathan said.

  Sam broke in. “Nicholas says he knows who it is, too. Maybe he knows something we don't.”

  “Or maybe
he wants to know exactly what we know,” Nate said.

  Sam’s face fell, and he took her hand. “If it is McGuire, he must be desperate.”

  “I suspect that Paul Merritta assured him that she was either dead or under control. When Paul got sick, McGuire could have learned about you and your mother through FBI tapes of conversations in the Merritta family. He must have had heart palpitations. Especially coming at a time of intense political and media scrutiny.”

  “In other words… my father’s timing was very poor.”

  “I think Paul wanted to see his daughter before he died,” Patsy interjected quietly. “I believe he really thought he could protect you.” She hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about him a lot, remembering little things. I think what he did thirty-four years ago came from his father, that he knew his father would kill me without regret. He used the only weapon he knew to keep me from going to the authorities, and that was my children and my sister’s children.”

  Heads turned toward Sam. “What exactly did Merritta tell you?”

  “All he said was that I was unfinished business.”

  “Nicholas,” Patsy said. “He’s the key.”

  Simon looked at the three of them. Patsy Carroll. Sam. And finally Nate. “You know him. What do you think, Nate?”

  It was the time to sort out feelings. To discard the prejudice he had against Nick Merritt because he was a Merritta. In his mind’s eye, he saw Merritt throw himself in front of Sam when a car speeded by his front step, hearing Sam’s words that he leaned into a bullet for her that night his car was run off the road.

  If Nate was wrong, he could be signing Samantha’s death warrant.

  “I think we should talk to him,” he said.

  Simon nodded. “That was an interesting selection of meeting places.”

  “It was the only crowded place that came readily to my mind,” he admitted. “I don’t know Chicago that well, but the planetarium is one of my favorite places. I stop there whenever I come to town. I know its nooks and crannies.”

  Simon stood. “Jack and I will go early tomorrow and scout it out.”

  “Where is he?” Sam asked.

  “After the little tussle in Fort Collins, we figured he ought to stay away from this place. He’s in Chicago, though. He flew in on a private plane.”