Deadly Fall (32 page)

* * * * *

Laura Woo compared the two X-rays in her hands for a moment before placing one on top of the other, superimposing the dental X-rays provided by Adam Langan’s dentist and the dental X-rays of the charcoaled body recovered from the remains of his home.

After a minute, she gave a defeated sigh. There was no way the two X-rays belonged to the same person.

She reached for the phone.

* * * * *

Even through the layers of her trench coat and the sweater underneath, Augusta imagined she could feel the muzzle of the pistol, a small, cold spot on her skin. For a second, it felt as if all her internal bodily processes stopped. Then, with a violent lurch, they all started up again but at double-speed. Or, at least her heart was doing twice the normal rate and pounded like it was trying to break through her rib cage.

Augusta cast her eyes left, right and left again, even though she knew her police detail had been recalled. And where was a reporter when you actually needed one?

“No sudden moves,” warned a low, husky voice. A low, husky
female
voice. “Now put the box in the trunk, close it, and turn around and hug me like I’m your best friend.”

And that order confirmed the heavy suspicion this wasn’t random or simple or going to end with her being alive to allow Nick Markov to comfort her.
Nick
. Pain, red and hot and breathtaking, sliced through her at the mere thought she might never see Nick again, never touch him again, never have him bully her again.
Oh, God.
Augusta inhaled deeply and silently. Anger came on the heels of pain, equally red and hot and breathtaking. After everything she had been through she deserved a good forty or fifty years with Nick.

And, damn it, she was going to make sure she got it. She just had to think. And think quickly.

Resolve gelling the mush that was her innards, Augusta did as she was ordered, forcing herself to keep her movements from being unnaturally jerky. When she turned around and saw the woman who was threatening her future with Nick, part of her wasn’t surprised.

Daniela Castelletti’s photo didn’t do her justice. She was wildly beautiful, having inherited her father’s thick hair, dark eyes, olive-toned skin and classically elegant bone structure. She was dressed in a long, black cashmere coat that failed to disguise a body that would’ve made Botticelli weep and reach for a paintbrush. A black silk scarf was draped casually over one gloved hand, camouflaging the pistol Augusta knew was there. Big, shiny ebony curls tumbled down in a choreographed disarray Augusta knew she could never achieve with her own hair. Not that she had ever put in that much effort. Red, lush, perfectly shaped lips were curved in a smile that, had she not felt the gun, would’ve convinced Augusta she really was greeting her best friend. With her lush looks and acting skills, Daniela Castelletti could’ve been a success in Tinsel Town.

Except for the eyes. Daniela Castelletti couldn’t quite dim the overly bright, crazed glitter in her eyes.

Chilled by more than the autumn wind, Augusta reached up and hugged the other woman, careful to quell the urge to grab fistfuls of the other woman’s hair and bring her face down to meet Augusta’s knee. The gun dug into her middle as Daniela Castelletti sank her fingers into Augusta’s upper arm and bent down until her mouth was by Augusta’s ear.

“I want you to get in the car, give me the keys, then wait for me to get in the passenger seat. We’re going for a drive. No heroics and no running.” The gun jabbed sharply into her belly. “I have excellent aim and a fully loaded nine-millimeter.”

“Drive where?” Augusta was glad she didn’t croak. She wasn’t too proud to admit she was afraid. Hell, she would be stupid
not
to be afraid. Fear was good. Fear meant adrenaline. However, she couldn’t let fear overwhelm her.

“I’ll tell you when we’re in the car.”

Augusta obeyed once again, knowing she had to wait until Daniela Castelletti’s gun wasn’t aimed directly at her, or better yet, jabbed into her body.

“You know who I am,” said Daniela Castelletti after Augusta turned onto the I-95. She cruised at the speed limit, as instructed by Daniela Castelletti. After all, they didn’t want highway patrol to pull them over.

“The family resemblance is remarkable.” Augusta hesitated. “I didn’t think your father would send you to do the dirty work.”

Daniela’s laugh was raw and bitter and still chillingly sexy. “My father would never trust a woman to do any work.”

Augusta decided not to comment. At their lunch meeting, Daniele Castelletti had struck her as Old World. His manners, his speech, his gestures. It wasn’t much of a leap for her to believe that he would be old-fashioned in his views on women, especially his own flesh and blood.

But Daniela Castelletti could’ve found a more productive, less violent method of introducing her father to the independent woman.

“You used Drew.”

Again that laugh. “He and I used each other.” Augusta caught the careless shrug in her peripheral vision. “There would’ve been a happy ending if he wasn’t so stubborn.”

“Using sex to manipulate a man isn’t the way to prove your father wrong.”

Utter silence, but the instant rage was like a choking cloud of cheap perfume. Augusta knew had she not been the one behind the wheel, Daniela Castelletti would’ve hit her. Not a girly open-handed slap, but a clenched fist planted square in her face.

“I didn’t use sex.” The words were uttered tightly.

“No. That’s right. You tried to use sex. It failed.” Augusta put a little more pressure on the gas pedal. “Then you tried violence and torture.” The words were low and raw. “The two men—the Salvos—they were following your orders.”

“They didn’t have the balls to disobey my father,” she said, contempt dripping from each word. “At least not all by themselves.”

“So you used them as well.”

“Stefano was in love with me. He would’ve done anything for me.”

“Including murder?”

Her passenger took so long to reply Augusta didn’t think she would. Then, “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

Now it was Augusta’s turn to laugh, but there was nothing humorous in the raw sound. “You didn’t think a henchman who was in love with you would be jealous of the man you were sleeping with?” Her voice rose even as tears stung her eyes, blurring the road before her. “Did you think he would only calmly slap your lover around a bit and that would be the end of that?”

“Drew should’ve given Stefano and Tommy what they wanted.”

Augusta blinked rapidly, but her vision only cleared a second before blurring again. “What
you
wanted, don’t you mean?”

“Yes. What I wanted.”

Augusta took a deep breath and blinked rapidly once more. Control. She needed her emotions under control. A few tears trailed down her cheek, but her vision cleared. She sneaked a quick glance at her passenger from the corner of her eye. Daniela Castelletti was sitting rigidly in the seat, the scarf still wrapped around her hands was stretched taut, near tearing point. Under the scarf, the gun was pointed at her, but at least Daniela Castelletti had taken her finger off the trigger.

Even as her foot eased down on the gas pedal, Augusta shook her head, as if disappointed. “You slept with him, yet you didn’t know the first thing about him. Drew would’ve done anything to protect his family.”

“He’s not doing such as good job now that he’s dead, is he?”

I wouldn’t be too sure of that
.

“You’re doing such a swell job yourself. Two murders and you still don’t have what you want.”

“That’s why I have you.”

Augusta ignored the goose bumps that rippled over her skin. “You think I have whatever it is you want.”

“I follow my father’s movements very carefully.”

Augusta knew her best chance of extricating herself from her current dilemma was coming soon. She played it out in her head over and over again, grateful the road was pretty much deserted. She would only get one chance and she couldn’t fuck it up.

“Am I supposed to take you to it?”

“Oh, no. You’re the bait. That lovely Detective Nick Markov is going to bring me what I want in exchange for you.”

Her defenses cracked as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. Her knuckles whitened as her hands spasmed on the steering wheel. From the moment she had been instructed to turn around and hug the other woman in the parking lot, Augusta knew her kidnapper planned to kill her. People like Daniela Castelletti did not free people who could finger them.

“I see you begin to understand.”

Augusta forced her jaw to unclench. “Leave Nick out of this.”

“Oh, I had no intention of involving him at the beginning. Adam was supposed to be the bait. The detective’s involvement is all your fault.”

Augusta swallowed and fought back the red haze clouding her brain. Control, she thought once again. She had to maintain control. Afterwards, she could lose it, she promised herself as the speedometer needle passed one-thirty. The beauty of the S4 was the ride is so smooth, you don’t notice how fast you’re going until you look at the speedometer or at the scenery flying by in a blur outside the side windows.

“Kind of hard to use someone as bait when you kill them so publicly. A bomb exploding is not the most subtle method. And neither was a body falling twenty-seven stories in the Upper East Side.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Augusta’s mirthless smile made a reappearance. “You have no control over your men.”

The slam of the butt of the gun against the dashboard reverberated through the car, visibly jarring Augusta. However, she collected herself within moments. She was thankful the car remained steady and, glancing out of the corner of her eye, that the gun was no longer pointed in her direction.

“It’s all his fault!” Her captor pounded the dashboard again, her chest heaving with emotion. “If my father treated me with the respect I deserve, as he would if I’d been born a boy, the men would too. It’s not fair!”

She was like a teenager railing against her parents for not letting her take out the car for the weekend, Augusta thought. But this was no typical teenage rebellion. Not with two dead bodies so far and her own a possible third in the very near future. “It didn’t have to be like this,” she said quietly.

“Oh, yes, it did,” her captor gritted out. “The great Daniele Castelletti isn’t just going to wake up one day and realize a woman can run things just as well as he.”

“Probably not,” Augusta agreed. “But I meant with Drew and Adam and all this. Drew and your father had a deal…of sorts. Drew had every intention of keeping his end of the bargain, as long as your father kept his.”

“There was no guarantee of that. My father shouldn’t have been so trusting.”

“Drew had no intention of exposing any of this unless he had no choice. It wouldn’t have reflected well on Adam, and Drew would’ve done practically anything to protect his brother.”

Daniela Castelletti made a sound of disgust. “Someone as weak as Adam Langan deserves what he gets. Drew was a fool to try and protect him. And you.” Bitterness and venom filled her voice as she whipped her head around to glare at Augusta, those glossy curls flying about. “My father came home singing your praises. How clever you are,” she mocked in a singsong kind of tone. “How strong.” She gestured at Augusta with the hand still holding the gun. “Not so clever now, are you?”

“You think your father will thank you for what you’re doing? Drawing unwanted police attention to him?”

That aristocratic chin lifted. “I’m doing something he should’ve done in the first place.”

“You don’t have the Salvos to take the heat for my murder.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’ve worked it all out. There won’t be any evidence left behind to connect me to a double murder out in the middle of picturesque New England,” she boasted, finally looking around at said landscape through her side window. “A fire— What are you doing? You bitch! Slow down!”

“Whatever you say,” Augusta muttered grimly as her right hand shot out and pressed the release button on the passenger seat’s buckle. She tensed as she slammed hard on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel to the left. As her seatbelt locked and jerked her back against her seat, Augusta instantly turned her head to the left and brought her arms up to protect it, eyes shut tight.

The next few seconds were a chaotic mix of screams, tires squealing and the heavy sound of flesh and bone hitting then bouncing off unforgiving surfaces as the car spun in dizzying circles. Daniela Castelletti crashed into her twice, sending jarring pain shooting from her shoulders and elbows. She banged into the doorframe of the car, but the arms she had up to cage her head absorbed the brunt of the force. However, she still saw stars behind her eyelids.

It seemed as if the car would never come to a stop. When it finally did, Augusta still didn’t move right away. She couldn’t until the adrenaline subsided and she was sure her heart wasn’t going to beat straight through her chest.