Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (29 page)

I looked around, making sure no one had moved near to the alcove. “You’d have won that bet.”

He smiled to himself, nodded his head. I started to leave, but he still hung on to my jacket.

“You think he’d be interested in future…transactions?”

“He told me to lose his number,” I said, remembering Raymond Joseph pushing me out his door.

“That’s not really an answer.”

I shrugged. “He’s done it and survived. Has a taste. He might find he wants more.”

“Is that how it happened to you?”

I looked beyond Vince, into the darkness of the other walls of the exhibition, all draped in black velvet. “Probably, who knows anymore,” I said with a sigh.

“If you had to place odds on whether you’d hear from your point guard again, what would you make it?”

“Even,” I said sadly, then left Vince amongst his things of beauty.

I
walked into the house. My house. Our house.

Lorelei had worked her magic and gotten everyone out. Even Gus, though he was probably thankful to get outdoors for a bit.

There’d still been a patrol car parked out front and I’d waved to the officers, but there was nothing strange about me coming to my own home.

I wondered if they’d call Jack and let him know I was there. I figured I’d better get a move on; find out what I’d come in search of.

I moved to the back of the house, where it split into the U. Gus, Ben and Lorelei’s rooms were to my left. Mine, Saul’s and the office to my right.

I took a deep breath and moved down one of the halls until I got to the room I wanted. I knocked on the shut door, but didn’t expect any answer. When met with silence, I opened the door and entered the room, leaving the door open. I wanted to make sure I heard if Lorelei and the boys came home before I was done. I was pretty sure what I was looking for, but I started carefully searching the room for anything out of the ordinary. If I was totally off base, I’d want no signs that I’d been rummaging around.

I didn’t find anything in the bedroom, so I moved to the adjoining bath. I got on my hands and knees and moved everything out of the under-sink area. There wasn’t much, but it was creatively arranged to hide a bundle in the back.

My heart sank as I reached as far back as my arms would go and carefully grabbed on to the heavy package. I pulled it out. Whatever it was, it was completely engulfed in a black garbage bag.

It was heavy and shaped like a gun, but the gun was wrapped in something. I peeked inside the garbage bag, careful not to touch the surface of the gun with my hands.

Not a problem, the gun was wrapped in a Pittsburgh Steeler’s Terrible Towel.

I wondered about just leaving it and calling Jack, but this was my home, so I was pretty sure that anything I found would be considered admissible in court. It wasn’t like I needed a search warrant for my own house.

Admissable in court. God, was that where this was all going to lead?
 

My question was answered by a soft throat clearing from behind me.

I whipped around, my hands still holding the package.

“What have you done?” I asked the person in the doorway. Stupid, but that’s all that came out.

Then I saw the gun they were holding.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“O
h, Saul, why?” I whispered.

But I knew. I’d learned from Jack.

I thought the word just as Saul said, “Revenge.”

He stepped back, out of the doorway. “Come out here, Hannah darling, this is not a conversation for the bathroom.”

I eyed the gun he held. Felt the heft of the one in my hands, wrapped in a towel and then plastic garbage bag. Could I move it so that I’d be able to shoot? Could I reach the trigger through the layers?

Was it even loaded?

“No,” Saul said as if I’d thought it out loud. “That gun is not loaded. But this one is.”

“Where’d you get that one from?”

“My car. I left it there when I came to stay here.” He shrugged. “Who knew when an opportunity would present itself?”

I put the garbage bag down on the bathroom floor and raised myself up. Saul could have been bluffing; the gun could have been loaded. But that would have meant I was prepared to shoot Saul.

I wasn’t.

Not yet, anyway. Hopefully it would never come to that.

I moved toward the door. He stayed well out of my reach, the gun trained on me the entire time. I really didn’t think Saul had it in him to hurt me, but until a couple of hours ago I would never have thought he’d kill his friends, either.

I didn’t want to underestimate him physically. He was much more agile than Ben. Just thinking about him shooting at Ben and then sneaking in through the side doors in time to come running into Ben’s room filled with concern made me realize his capabilities were much more than I’d originally thought.

He waved me over to one of the upholstered leather chairs that sat in the sitting area of the large room. I sat. He looked around as if he was wondering what to do next.

So was I.

“Saul, you know there’s no good way out of this,” I said.

He sighed. “I know,” he said. But it wasn’t regret in his voice. It was resignation. That’s when I knew that he didn’t intend for me to walk out of there.

I cursed myself for having Lorelei keep the boys away for a few hours so I could search the place. Jack would stay with them. I wasn’t sure how Saul had made his way back here, but Jack wouldn’t have been too concerned due to the patrolmen out front.

Those officers had probably seen Saul come in, but that wouldn’t be unusual to them. Saul had been staying here since Gus was shot. They would stay out there unless I could signal them in some way.

Hopefully not by gunshot.

He pulled the other leather chair back a few feet, so there was a good distance between us, and sat down. He let out a weary oomph as he sat.

Time. That was the only thing that was going to help me now. Either that or make a move for Saul, but I didn’t see how I could do that without one of us getting hurt.

Even though it seemed that I was right; that Saul had killed Danny and tried to kill Gus and Ben, I still wasn’t prepared to do him harm.

He had been like a second—well third, behind my own and Ben—father to me for the past ten years.

Buy time. Wait for Lorelei, Ben and Gus to get back. Though the thought of those three walking into this scared me to death, I knew Jack—or Frank Botz—would be with them. I’d worry about the logistics of getting Jack in here without endangering the others when the time came.

Assuming Saul hadn’t shot me by then.

“How did you know?” Saul asked. Good, he wanted to talk. Was probably dying to talk to somebody about this. He and the boys shared every secret, talked for hours everyday at breakfast. Keeping this to himself was probably killing him.

“When Ben was shot…” I started. Saul nodded. “You knew Jack was in the woods.”

He went back in time in his thoughts, but came up with nothing.

I wasn’t surprised; I didn’t catch it at first either. It was only after that crazy dream when my sub-consciousness was so hazy that I’d latched on to it.

“You went to your room. Ben went to his a little later…”

“Yes?”

“Jack came over
after
that.”

He nodded for me to continue.

“When Ben was shot, Jack went to him on the patio, then out to the woods, where he disappeared because of the trees and darkness.
Then
you came into Ben’s room.”
 

“Yes?”

“You wouldn’t have—shouldn’t have—known Jack was even there. You would have been surprised to see him, asked where he’d come from… something… at the very least not known he was in the woods.” I leaned forward. Even though we were too far apart for me to touch him, Saul leaned back. “But you knew he was there, because you’d seen him come out to Ben’s side from where you were hiding. Somewhere in the trees.”

 
“And that was it? That knowing Jack was there was enough for you to believe I’d done these things?” He chuckled, looked at the gun he was holding.
 

I shrugged. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

His eyes narrowed at me.
 

“But there were other things, too,” I said, stalling for time. “Things that didn’t add up.”

“Nothing added up,” he said, his anger dissipating, pride taking its place. “That was the beauty of it.”

I shrugged again, waited.
 

“Such as?” he asked, impatience tingeing his voice.

“Such as the guys from Pittsburgh. The
Sports Illustrated
article.”

He hooted—actually hooted—with laughter. For the first time I realized that this was not the Saul that had taught me Pai Gow. I didn’t know this man in front of me.

Something had snapped in Saul.
 

And now that I knew about his secrets, there was even less of a chance he’d just let me go. I eyed his gun again, knowing now that it would probably be him or me.

He leaned his head back, then seemed to remember he was on guard duty and snapped back to attention. “Oy, that was a sight to behold. Everybody chasing their tails over some big shooters in Pittsburgh.”

“So, there was no big loser in Pittsburgh from the Superbowl?” I thought about Chuck and Ralph’s emotions when that game had been mentioned. They had both lost big in that game, I’d bet on it.

“Oh, there was a loser all right, or at least the betting went that way. Probably more than one with the kind of money that came in. You might even have met them when you took your little field trip to Pittsburgh, Hannah.”

The surprise showed on my face.
 

“What? You think I didn’t know where you were? Jimmy’s not the only one who can get information you know.”

I started to ask how, but it didn’t really matter. Saul had wanted us distracted by the Pittsburgh crew and we were.

“The day that article came out.” He tapped his head. “I knew. I knew I finally had the smoke screen I needed.

 
“What if I hadn’t thought of the Pittsburgh connection?”

“Somebody would have figured it out eventually. Those detectives wouldn’t have been able to keep the information about the Towels out of it for too much longer. They knew there was a Pittsburgh connection.” He stopped, smiled, and tapped his forehead again. “They t
hought
there was a Pittsburgh connection. They would have had to outright ask us about what we knew about the Steelers soon, and somebody would have made the connection.”

“I just sped up the process,” I said.

“Yes, Hannah, darling, you did.”

 
“Planting those Terrible Towels at the scenes was just a way to get the red herring of the Pittsburgh gamblers started.”

“That’s why you’re such a good card player, Hannah…your ability to think like your opponent.”

“You’re not my opponent, Saul,” I tried. “You’re my friend. And I love you.”

“I love you too, dear,” he said, but I could tell I hadn’t gotten through. He was going to kill me. He wouldn’t want to, but he’d feel he’d have to.

“Danny was shot point blank, and yet you only shot Gus in the leg. You missed Ben outright. Why?”

He leaned back. “Another anomaly that left the police scratching their heads. The truth is Hannah, only one member of The Corporation was supposed to die. Only one
deserved
to die.”

He leaned forward, his eyes boring into mine.

“Can you guess which one, Hannah?”
 

Chapter Twenty-Five

“O
nly one member
deserved
to die you said?”

Saul nodded.

“And you mentioned revenge already.”

He nodded again, motioning for me to go on. Unwrap his riddle. He was enjoying this. Yes, the Saul I’d loved was gone.

“On Ben I take it,” I said.

He leaned forward, waiting for more.

“For Rachael.”

He looked satisfied. But then a frown crossed his face. “He told you? He told you about him and my Rachael?” There was fury in his voice and his hand shook. The hand that held a gun pointed right at me.

“No. No, Saul. Ben never said a word. I just put it together the other day.”

“The picture?”

“Yes.”

He leaned back in his chair. Pointed to the small table near me. “
That
picture.”

I noticed a framed photo turned face down on the table, amongst a checkerboard, set up in mid-game, and odds sheets. I turned it over. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing from the sideboard, but then, I probably hadn’t been back in the dining room since the day that I’d asked Saul about it.

Saul closed his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. I thought about making a move, but he seemed to remember the situation and quickly opened his eyes, sat up straighter.