Deceived

DECEIVED

Stella Barcelona

Deceived
Copyright © 2014 by Stella Barcelona

Stella Barcelona logo design, Copyright © 2014 by Stella Barcelona

Black Raven logo design, Copyright © 2014 by Stella Barcelona

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior express written permission of the author. Please report the unauthorized distribution of this publication by contacting the author at
www.stellabarcelona.com
or at P.O. Box 70332, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70172-0332.

This is a work of fiction. While the history of World War II provided inspiration for various story elements, the events that take place in
Deceived
are entirely fictional. This story is not intended by the author as a reflection of historical fact, nor is the story intended to minimize the efforts of the many valiant heroes of World War II. Any resemblance between the characters in this novel and any or all persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

To Mom and Dad, Thank you, with all of my heart, for creating a daydreamer and teaching her to appreciate, at a very young age, the life-enhancing value of reading.

To Bob, Thank you for…everything, especially for your unwavering understanding of my need to write, for encouraging me every step of the way, and for regularly taking me to beaches with crystal-clear blue water so that I can replenish my soul.

Prologue

Wednesday, June 29

New Orleans, Louisiana

Young mothers don’t deserve to die as collateral damage for the misdeeds of others. He shook off the random thought, blaming it on his fatigue and the mind-game that it played. He couldn’t afford to dwell on the tragic circumstances of what he was about to do. Lisa Smithfield, a graduate student who happened to be the single mother of a two-month old baby, was a gateway to freedom, which would come through the emotional destruction of others and also result in financial gain for him. By the fourth day of July, the lives of four women would end. Lisa Smithfield was first. Then he’d move on to the next three, the ones who really mattered. No one who needed to die bore responsibility for that necessity. They were simply the best pawns he had to play.

The 2800 block of Melody, a narrow, one-way street with potholes, had broken lights and sagging power lines. A few blocks away, the manicured grounds and stately buildings of Tulane University gave way to mansions. In the opposite direction, equally close, were slums. On Melody, abandoned homes sat amidst wood-frame doubles and cottages, where lights shone from within. Despite the dumpiness, a beautiful essence from sweet-olive trees infused the night’s moist air.

No humans were in sight.

Brilliant lightning etched the dark sky into a sizzling and ever-changing canvas, signaling a thunderstorm’s approach. Surveillance had indicated that Lisa worked on campus on weeknights in the student-faculty office. She left the office at ten, and she normally ran a few minutes late. He waited for her behind a hedge. Soft-soled shoes padded on the sidewalk. She walked past him without noticing he was there. The small bit of baby weight that remained on Lisa made the blue-eyed student even prettier. She juggled her backpack while searching her purse for keys, oblivious even as he walked towards her.

He gripped her ponytail with a gloved hand and wound it tight around his wrist. Before her sharp intake of breath could become a scream, he placed his pistol flush against her temple and braced for recoil. The silencer muted the noise. Particles of flesh, blood, and bone flew back, away from him. She fell against her car, then slid to the grass between the street and the sidewalk. He picked up her keys, then took her purse and her book bag. Lightning flashed as he drove away in his car. Two seconds later, thunder broke.

A few blocks away, he pulled over to check her book bag, where he found her laptop. Its data was part of his prize. Within minutes he was at Lisa’s tiny rental. As he let himself in with her key, the sky opened with dense sheets of rain. He shut her door then locked it and leaned against it, savoring his post-kill, pulsing energy. Most, if not all, of her belongings were in moving boxes. He took a mental snapshot of each room. Once Lisa’s body was found, the police would look to her home for clues. He had to make sure that he left no sign that he’d been there. Her murder needed to look like an armed robbery that went bad. While he wanted certain others to wonder about Lisa’s murder, he didn’t need the cops to think it was anything but random.

He opened and resealed boxes, taking research material. Under her mattress, he found the smoking gun, the document that proved that Lisa’s theory was correct. He stood still, holding the letter to his chest, shutting his eyes while relief and anticipation churned through him.

Time passed. He lost track of how many minutes.

Move. Get out of here. Now.

This deep inner voice was his failsafe compass. It moved him forward. He stuffed her research into his duffel, then reorganized the rooms.

He left, getting back in his car and heading to Central City. Calliope Street, which bordered high-rise projects, was suitably quiet and disreputable. Rain fell so fast and hard that not even dogs were out. Narrow rivers of water swirled along both sides of the street, heading to drains that were clogged with old newspapers and beer cans. He pulled over, but couldn’t toss her stuff out of the window because the water in the street and gutter would carry it away, and the cops needed to find it here. He opened his car door, stood, took a few steps onto higher ground, and dumped Lisa’s purse on the sidewalk, along with the book bag, which he had robbed of all but meaningless papers. He drove to his boathouse, parked in the garage, put a new license plate on the car, dismantled his firearm, then got into his boat. Under the shelter of the boathouse, he waited out the worst of the rain. Guided by moonlight, he enjoyed the trip, with only the whirr of the boat’s engines for company. Along the way, he dropped the weapon’s pieces into the dark, murky water. A weight that he tied to the old license plate made it sink. As the plate disappeared underwater, an idea formed. One of his next three victims would sink, drowning, beneath murky water. More weights, he thought, adding that item to his ever-growing kill list. At the camp, he cooked eggs, bacon, and toasted fat slabs of bread. He made a phone call. “Got it.”

“Lisa?”

“As planned.”

“Dear God.”

“He has nothing to do with this. Two million, from you, now. I’ll deliver my demand in the morning. Twenty-five million.”

There was a long pause. “These men are not that desperate. George Bartholomew will never agree to that figure.”

He thought of his next three targets, particularly the one who George Bartholomew would care about the most. He smiled. “We’ll see.”

Chapter One

Thursday, June 30

Upon seeing his home, Taylor Bartholomew received her first clue that her expectations of Brandon Morrissey were off. At eleven a.m. she approached the address that she’d been given by New Orleans Police Officer Joe Thompson and his partner Tony Abadie, the homicide detectives who were working the prior night’s murder of Lisa Smithfield. The address was in a tree-filled neighborhood of spacious homes and meticulous gardens, a few hundred yards outside of Orleans Parish. Taylor double-checked the number that she had scribbled, glanced again at the residence that bore the address, and parked on the street, behind Joe’s unmarked white sedan.

Morrissey was a lawyer. He defended high-profile criminal defendants and represented plaintiffs in class action, personal injury cases. He used television commercials to feed his firm’s personal injury practice. Every night, in the middle of the local news, he sponsored “The Morrissey Minute,” in which he reduced complex legal problems to understandable terms, then asked the public to hire his firm. Taylor shuddered at the thought of his commercials. The very nature of a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer was antithetical to Taylor’s old-line, well-bred world. Morrissey’s manner of practicing law had led her to expect crass and tacky, yet his modern-styled residence blended green-gray flagstone, creamy stucco, and etched glass windows into a subtly elegant and tasteful home. The house was centered on a corner lot with sprawling oaks, camellias, azaleas, and clusters of white caladiums.

Taylor checked her reflection, wiped away a faint smudge of mascara, ran her fingers through her long hair, and applied a fresh swipe of coral-colored lipstick. Once out of the car, she smoothed the knee-length skirt of her butter-yellow linen suit, checked to make sure that the kick-pleats were folded, buttoned the sleek bolero jacket, and reached for her purse and matching portfolio. If she had known that she’d end up at a murder interrogation, she might have chosen a suit in a more conservative color, and maybe she wouldn’t have worn nude patent peep-toe shoes with six-inch heels. She shrugged. At least the style of the suit was conservative. She breathed deeply, pushed her shoulders back, went to the front door, glanced at the security camera that was poised above it, and rang the bell.

From inside the house, there was a baby’s cry. The sound was jarring, loud, and unhappy. The door opened and the star of the Morrissey Minute barely glanced at her as he tried to console a baby who was nestled in the crook of his arm. The baby wore nothing but a diaper. Bare feet, balled-up hands, and fat legs were exposed. He had a plump belly with a tiny bellybutton and a face that was red from crying. The unhappy infant presented a human package that seemed improbably tiny next to Morrissey.

Tiny, but loud.

“Thank God you’re here,” Brandon said. “I can’t calm him. I changed him. He ate.” Light green eyes glanced into hers for a second, then returned to the baby. “Here. Let’s trade.” At first, she had no idea what he meant, but it became obvious fast. With his free hand, he reached for her purse and portfolio and took them from her, then leaned forward with the arm that held the wailing baby, so that the baby and his arm almost touched her chest. Surprise at the quick exchange momentarily robbed Taylor of the ability to react.

“Take him,” he said. “You’ve got to be better at this than me.”

Her arms closed around the wriggling baby, whose miserable state became more important than introducing herself. The baby weighed ten, maybe twelve pounds. He had fat cheeks, full lips, and a full fringe of eyelashes that would have made a supermodel envious. His face was flushed, and tears flowed from his unfocused, gray-blue eyes. She held him against her shoulder as she turned her face to his ear.

“Aw, you’re going to be fine. You’re okay, sweet little thing. All good,” she said, inhaling the sweet scent of baby lotion. She pressed her palm against his tiny back, attempting to soothe his warm, bare skin. Taylor wasn’t a mother, but she had volunteered throughout high school in church nurseries. She drew upon that experience, and after a couple of seconds where the only thing she did was hold him tightly and whisper to him, his cries became less desperate. Her hair had fallen over the baby, and when she tried to push it back with a head shake, she discovered that he had grabbed a clump. She let him hold onto it.

Taylor continued whispering to the baby as she followed Brandon into a living room with flagstone floors, cream-colored walls, high ceilings, crown molding, and soft light. Modern furniture alongside antiques provided an eclectic feel, but the large room was too sparse to seem finished. No pillows were out of place on the creamy linen couch. There were no photographs or other personal touches. The room overlooked a pool and gardens. She could see silver reflection orbs of a tall garden sculpture moving in a slow, graceful dance that reflected the pool’s glistening water, and lush green gardens, under a bright blue summer sky.

Either the Morrissey family consisted of neat freaks, Taylor thought, or they had other issues. There was no hint that an infant lived there, but for the moment, the baby didn’t seem to mind. He was quiet, his head was turned to hers, and his eyelids were getting heavy.

She looked at Brandon, who was looking at the baby, and she whispered, “Success.”

“Amazing,” he said, studying her hold on the baby, how the baby’s chest hit right above her chest, and how his fist was entwined in her hair. When Brandon glanced at her, his green eyes captured her attention. Serious, tired undertones flooded his eyes, as his gaze travelled over her suit, the rings on her fingers, and his eyes fell to her high heels. “The set-up for him is in the kitchen and the casual living room that’s next to it, for now,” he said. “The nanny service said it would be at least two hours before someone could get here, but they’d try to be faster. I appreciate that you got here so quickly.”

Forget that his home far exceeded her expectations. The man was nothing like what she’d expected. She met his gaze, where there was none of the cocky bravado that he showed on his commercials. Instead, he looked like a man who had more than a healthy dose of frustration and fatigue. In person, Brandon seemed nothing like the slick, uber-confident man who appeared on television in crisp white shirts, subtle silk ties, and expensive business suits. Faded jeans and an untucked, close-fitting t-shirt revealed a lean, yet muscular, body. He was as sturdy and rugged as his home was neat. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and looked younger and slimmer than he did on television. A large, multi-colored fleur-de-lis art-like tattoo covered the part of his right bicep that was visible beneath his short sleeve. The tattoo was bordered in black, or something lighter, maybe midnight blue, while the inside resembled an intricate, stained-glass mosaic. The colors shimmered, as though layered with gold dust.

Keeping her voice just above a whisper, she shook her head and said, “I’m not with the nanny service.”

“If you’re not with the nanny service, who are you?”

“Taylor Bartholomew,” she said, keeping her tone soft as she kept a firm hold on the baby. “I’m an assistant district attorney, and I’m here for your interrogation. The police are already here, right?”

He frowned. He still held her purse and portfolio. “I’ll take him. Sorry.” He reached towards the baby, gently pried her hair from his grasp, and took him from her with one strong arm. “I made an assumption that I shouldn’t have.”

He returned her purse and her portfolio to her and, even before the feeling of the baby’s weight and warmth faded from her arms, the baby started crying.

She studied his one-armed hold on the infant. “Use both arms,” she said, realizing that he had no clue what to do with the child, and she wondered why. “Security is what it’s all about. Think swaddling.”

He glanced at her. “What?”

“Wrapped for comfort. Place him against your shoulder with a hand on his back. Hold him tightly. He really needs a blanket. Clothes, at least.”

The baby’s cries began to fade as he made adjustments with his arms. The front door burst open, and a thirty-something-year-old woman charged into the house, wearing loose-fitting black pants and a button-down white shirt. Her long, dark hair was pulled into a ponytail. She entered the foyer, then halted. Her eyes widened as she focused her attention on the baby, then Brandon, then the baby. Brandon crossed through the living room, towards her. He kissed the woman on the cheek while he patted the baby on the back. From the infant, there was a faint whimper, almost a sigh, then silence. “Kate, meet Michael. My son,” he paused, “your nephew. And this is…” his eyes fell on Taylor, then he was silent.

“Taylor Bartholomew,” she said, realizing that he hadn’t listened when she first said her name, and that even now he wasn’t focused on her, or her name, or really anything about her. He was focused on the baby, and holding his breath and hoping like hell the baby was going to be quiet.

Kate nodded to Taylor. “I’m Kate Morrissey. Brandon’s sister.”

“This is my son, Michael.” Brandon said the words slowly, as though they were new. He whispered, “Shush,” in the baby’s ears, and looked again at his sister, whose eyes had welled with tears. Taylor was intruding on a personal moment, but she couldn’t stop staring at Brandon, Kate, and Michael. Kate’s hands were shaking. Brandon shifted the baby off of his shoulder, giving both Taylor and Kate a view of fat cheeks, a tiny turned-up nose, and eyes that were almost closed, as he shifted the baby into Kate’s arms.

“Hold him against your shoulder. Talk to him.” He turned his attention to the baby and said, “This is your Aunt. Kate. Aunt Kate’s got you.” He stroked his son’s cheek as he said to Kate, “We have plenty to talk about, but later. Thanks for coming. I need to be in this meeting. The nanny service is sending someone. It wasn’t a problem for you to get off of work, was it?”

Kate shook her head. “Oh, my gosh. He’s so tiny.”

“For now, this is between us.” Brandon and his sister shared a long, silent glance.

“Mom doesn’t know?”

“Not yet.”

Worry lines appeared on Kate’s brow. “Have you heard anything about Victor?”

“No,” Brandon frowned, “I haven’t heard anything yet, but Sebastian’s company is checking on his whereabouts. They’ll find him.”

“Mom’s frantic. I talked to her earlier today,” Kate said. “He’s never not called her on her birthday, and now it’s been a month.”

“Let’s talk about it later,” Brandon said. “For now I really need your help with Michael, because I can’t put off this meeting any longer.” With a glance that encompassed Taylor and Kate, but mostly Kate, Brandon said, “Michael has finished the last of the final bottle that Lisa had fixed, which gives me about three hours to figure out what brand of formula he’s on. I changed him a few minutes ago. Esme was off today,” he explained, referring to his housekeeper, “but she’s coming in this afternoon. She’ll run to the store, once we figure out what we need. When this interview’s over, I’ll see if I can get a better handle on things from Lisa’s house.”

Kate and Michael disappeared down a hallway.
Lisa
, Taylor thought.
Lisa
’s house. Taylor knew from information that Joe had given her that Lisa Smithfield, the murdered Tulane graduate student, had been a new mother. She had only known that Brandon was a person of interest, but there had been no explanation regarding why. Now she understood that Brandon was the father of Lisa’s child, a fact that no one had told her. While understanding dawned, Brandon stared at her, arms folded, full lips drawn together. Dark lashes made his light eyes inviting, but his razor-sharp gaze was a caution sign. He had high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, and enough stubble on his square jaw to reveal that the lawyer who was always sleek and well-groomed in his television commercials hadn’t shaved that morning. A thin white line formed a three-inch scar that traveled along his right cheekbone. His hair looked as if nothing but his fingers had been used to comb it. A small bit of gray that shot through the temple-region of his black, wavy hair could have given him a distinguished look. Instead, the gray, coupled with the hard expression in his eyes, gave him a tough edge.

There were reasons why their social circles didn’t overlap, why Taylor had never met Brandon in person. Yet for one reason in particular, she knew of his family, and he, no doubt, knew of hers. His grandfather had been in business with Taylor’s grandfather at one time, and had been convicted of attempting to sell military secrets to the Nazis. Besides his unfortunate family history, Brandon had chosen a path that would have him shunned by people in her circles. Brandon’s commercials had frequently aired as Taylor sat by the sickbed of her mother, Rebecca Marlowe Bartholomew, Bitsy for short. Each time the lawyer with the rock-star good looks reduced legal concepts to a sound bite, Bitsy would shudder and say, “
Those people are not our type. We are kings and queens of Mardi Gras. The Morrisseys, well, they’d be lucky to get a good viewing spot on the street
.” Her father, George Bartholomew, was not as concerned about social graces, or the lack thereof. George hated plaintiff’s lawyers in general, considering them to be parasitic bottom-dwellers that fed off the hard work of legitimate businessmen. Two years earlier, in the last month of her mother’s life, in the long evenings when Taylor and her father had kept vigil over Bitsy’s sickbed, George would say, during the Morrissey Minute, “
The arrogance. How dare he purport to teach the public about the law? That bloodline should have been eradicated when his grandfather was convicted.”