Lethal Affairs (19 page)

Senator Terrence Burrows stretched out on the couch in his den, sipping coffee in his bathrobe while he pored over the latest popularity polls in the race for the presidency. He’d slept in until nine, which was virtually unheard of, but he would be up very late with his guests that evening, and he had to be on top of his game.

The
Washington Post
poll had him as the favorite candidate, but not by much, only three points ahead of the blond, blue-eyed formerwar-hero junior senator from Maine—which was within the margin of error. But he was throwing a backyard barbecue today for some of his wealthier supporters and expected to receive some hefty donations to his campaign war chest. A few more national ads, and he was confident he’d pull ahead of the pack.

His cell phone rang, and when he checked the display he was surprised to see his former political advisor was calling. He hadn’t talked to David Rabinowitz in more than six months. “Hi, Dave. Been a while. Is something up?”

“I just got a phone call I thought you should know about,” Rabinowitz replied. “She identified herself as a freelance reporter— Hayley Ward—and wouldn’t say who she was working for. Claimed to be investigating a story about organized crime in New York and said she came across my name in connection with the Angelo Castellano case. She also mentioned something about an organization called the EOO.”

Terrence sat up. “What did you say?”
“The truth. That I didn’t know anything about it,” Rabinowitz replied. “But I thought you should know. She also asked if I’d spoken to a Detective Manuel Vasquez, and she left me her telephone number in case I knew anyone who might help her.”
“I see. What’s that number?” Terrence walked to his desk and copied it. “All right, Dave. Thanks for the call. Let me know if she contacts you again.” He had let none of his inner turmoil show in his voice, but as soon as he disconnected, he started to pace. This whole thing had gotten out of control. How the hell did Hayley Ward get Dave’s name? He could see all he had worked for going down the toilet before his eyes. All he had wanted to do was get the EOO off his back.
Fuckers. Damn fuckers.
But he might have just dug his own grave. Now, not only might his association with them be made known, but everything else as well—his gambling problems, the lies, the diversion of campaign funds to cover his debts. And the Castellano murder. He thought that nightmare was over
.
It was more than his career he was talking about, now. This could send him to prison for years. He had to stop this while he still could.
Terrence heard the twins pass the closed door to the den, laughing.
Too much at stake.
He had to get rid of Hayley Ward
.
It seemed his best option. She already knew too much, and she was getting closer all the time to his dangerous secrets.
The loathsome voice of his father, long dead but still influential, reverberated through him unexpectedly.
“You never did think before you acted. That’s what makes you weak, Terrence.”
Terrence could see he was on the way to proving the asshole right.
No. Not going to happen.
He admitted to himself he might be thinking irrationally at the moment, so he’d do nothing until he calmed down and considered all his options
.
Think things through. No knee-jerk reactions.
Noise from outside drew him to the window. The caterers had arrived. As he watched them set up for the party, he mulled over a number of possibilities. Maybe he could take care of both of his problems without getting his own hands dirty.
First, he had to make sure the EOO knew it was Hayley Ward who was trying to expose the Organization. But he couldn’t make them suspect that he had sent her the tape. They’d want her so bad he could use her as a bargaining chip to get out from under them for good. It sounded like a workable plan.
He called Montgomery Pierce as soon as he was safely ensconced in his den. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked in his most outraged tone. “Some reporter named Hayley Ward has been sniffing around, bothering me. Asking an associate about that matter you took care of for me. The one you were
supposed
to have taken care of
permanently
,” he emphasized. “
And
she asked whether he’d ever heard of an organization called the EOO.”
“Where did she get her information?” Pierce asked.
“How the hell do I know?” he shouted. “That’s why I’m calling you. How did she get my name?”
“Calm down, Terrence. We’re working on this problem.” Pierce seemed to be less cocky than usual. “But it may be more complicated than we thought. It appears as though we’re having internal difficulties. We may need your help.”
“You can’t keep using me like this,” he argued. “I can’t keep taking these risks. What’s it going to take to cut me loose?”
“We don’t have the kind of agreement that expires. We’ll never cut you loose. Now do you want to save your precious career or not?” Pierce sounded angry. “I’ll get back to you.” The line went dead.
Terrence slammed the phone down.
Fuckers.
Pierce had bought his outraged-victim act. At least they wouldn’t suspect him. But he’d have to take care of Hayley Ward personally. And the EOO too, if he was ever going to get out from under them. He dialed Jack’s number.
“I want your men to detain our reporter friend. As soon as possible. Don’t harm her. Just keep her in seclusion until I give you further instructions. Let me know as soon as you have her.”

omino wasn’t surprised to see Hayley emerge from the
Dispatch
offices and hurry to her Mustang not long after the box had disappeared from beneath her desk. The look on her face— anxious, distressed—made a pang of guilt tear through Domino. But she was trying to protect Hayley, she told herself.

She still wore her disguise, and she’d added sunglasses, though any passersby in the
Baltimore Dispatch
parking lot would have had trouble seeing her at all in the back of the panel van. Manny’s box was at her feet. She’d just started going through its contents again more thoroughly when she spotted Hayley leaving work early. What was she up to?

She moved forward into the driver’s seat and followed Hayley to her apartment, staying well back in traffic to avoid detection because she knew Hayley would now be on high alert. A short distance from Hayley’s apartment, the Mustang pulled over unexpectedly and parked, then, after a couple of minutes, continued.

Once they got there, Domino decided to remain in the van for a while rather than return to the surveillance apartment across the street, to make sure Hayley wasn’t planning to go out again soon. In her increasingly paranoid state, anything was possible.

Keeping one eye on the Mustang, she returned to the back of the van and stripped off the wig and the rest of her disguise, then got into her own clothes, staying out of sight and wishing like hell she knew what Hayley was planning.

Hayley checked the rearview mirror often during the ride home from work. But traffic was far too heavy for her to determine whether anyone was following her.

Now she knew why Manny had all those locks on his door. Not that they’d kept them from getting to him. If they could sneak into the
Dispatch
offices in the middle of the day, they could certainly get into her apartment while she slept. She wasn’t safe there any more.

They might already be there. Waiting for her. The thought gave her pause—she pulled the car to the curb with shaking hands with three blocks left to go. She had to make this very quick, leave the door open, maybe, so the neighbors could hear. Before she drove the final distance, she made a mental checklist of what she needed to pack.

Where to go? She didn’t want to involve her family or friends and endanger them, too. Better to find a nice quiet motel somewhere, she decided. Pack a bag, maybe have her landlord keep an eye on her place, give her a call if someone came around.

She parked in front of her building but didn’t get out immediately. She studied the cars in the lot, and the people coming and going, for signs of anything unusual.

Finally she got out and approached her apartment with leaden steps, taking deep breaths to calm her racing heart. She gently tried the knob to reassure herself it was still locked, then put her ear to the door, half-expecting to hear voices inside. Nothing.

When she reached into her purse for her house key, she brushed her cell phone.
Hey. That’s not a bad idea
. It wouldn’t hurt to have someone on the phone with her who could call 911 if she encountered a problem. She dialed her sister’s number and waited for her to answer before she put the key in the lock to click it open.

“Hey, Claudi, how’s it going?” It took an effort to sound nonchalant.
“Hey, Hay. What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Hayley replied, as she gingerly pushed open the door and listened for sound from within. “Just called to say hello.”
“The boys have been asking when you’re going to come over for a rematch at Scrabble,” she said, as Hayley began to quickly reconnoiter her few rooms to reassure herself she was alone.
“Soon, I promise,” she told Claudette, cradling the phone between ear and shoulder so she could throw a few clothes into a bag. “It’s been crazy lately with work, but I’ll get there as soon as I have some time off.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that more than a time or two,” her sister replied, more with humor than reproach. “And Dad’s started complaining to
me
, by the way, about how you haven’t been over for dinner once in the last month.”
“What else is new? I’ll call Mom soon, I promise.” Hayley took her bag into the bathroom and threw in a few essentials, then carried it to the living room and set it on the coffee table. “Say, Claudi, I’m going to be in and out a lot the next few days. If you need me, call my cell.”
“You work too hard, Hayley. You need to get a life. Speaking of… did you ever get a call back from that art restorer?”
Luka. She’d forgotten all about her date tonight. She made a mental note to call her and cancel, once she reached the motel. “Sure did, and as a matter of fact, she’s turned out to be somebody special.” She gathered up her cell-phone charger, checkbook, and a few other essentials and stuffed them into her bag. “You’ll get the full story the next time I see you, I promise. Don’t have time now.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a piece of paper half tucked under one of the couch cushions. It was an evidence receipt that had evidently fallen out of one of Manny’s case files while she had been looking at it the night before. Nothing significant to the Castellano case, or the EOO, but it prompted her to search the couch thoroughly to see if she’d missed anything else when she’d packed up Manny’s things in such a hurry that morning.
When her hand found the cool, smooth rectangle and dug it out from behind the cushion, her blood ran cold.
A domino.
She dropped it like it was on fire.
Stop it. It can’t be. You’re letting your paranoia run away with you
. It didn’t mean anything, didn’t prove anybody was here. It was only a toy that one of her nephews or nieces had left here ages ago. They were always forgetting game pieces and little army men.
“Hay? Did you hear what I said?” The blood pounding in her ears distorted her sister’s voice. “Want to bring this new woman in your life over for dinner sometime?”
“Gotta go. Call you back.” Hayley snatched her bag and bolted for her car.

Hayley ran out of the building like the devil himself was after her and peeled out of the lot so fast that Domino, surprised, had to hustle back into the driver’s seat to keep behind her.

On a busy one-way street halfway to the expressway, Hayley braked without warning, causing a cacophony of horns, and pulled to the right curb in front of an ATM. Domino heard another blare of horns as a sedan with tinted windows in the left lane abruptly stopped to park on the opposite curb.

Damn.
Hayley evidently had a tail again. Domino wondered if it was yet another beagle. There was nowhere for her to park except beyond both vehicles. As she passed, she watched Hayley jump out and head toward the ATM. No one left the sedan and she couldn’t see inside the reflective windows.

Domino parked at the right curb in the next block and kept both cars in sight through her side-view mirror.
Hayley returned to her Mustang and pulled back into traffic. The sedan followed suit, following five cars behind in the same lane. Domino managed to slip between them, two cars behind Hayley, and a block farther on she saw her opportunity.
The blinking pedestrian light at the crosswalk in the intersection ahead told her the light was about to change, so she slowed. Horns blared behind her, but she ignored them. The sedan tried for the other lane to get around, but the cars there were bumper to bumper as well and wouldn’t let it in. Hayley made it through the intersection, and Domino stopped as the signal turned yellow, blocking the sedan.
When the light turned green again, she kept to a crawl, trying to give Hayley as much time as possible to put some distance between them. By the time the sedan managed to pass her, she knew they had lost Hayley, because the tracking device on the Mustang told her Hayley was now two miles away on the expressway, heading south.
She picked up Hayley again a few minutes later and followed her to a two-story motel in the countryside, a half hour outside Baltimore. After registering at the office, Hayley let herself into a ground-floor room on one end and closed all the curtains.
It was all Domino could do not to get out of the van and knock on the door. She wanted to comfort Hayley and find out what exactly had happened during her brief time in her apartment. Certainly the theft of the box had rattled her—but something else had obviously transpired there to panic her.
She stared at the closed curtains for a long time, willing them to open, wishing she had the equipment to monitor what was going on inside.
What are you up to, Hayley?
To pass the time, she resumed her meticulous examination of the contents of Manny’s box. Once she was satisfied nothing else there could endanger the Organization, she thought about Hayley and the night before.
The look in Hayley’s eyes. The complete purity of her surrender. The shiver she’d known at the slightest touch of Hayley’s hand. And the way she had let Hayley look at her. Let her really see, not fearing Hayley would reject her for what might be there, because once again Hayley had made her feel like nothing else mattered and nothing ever had.
To betray or hurt such purity and innocence, when they belonged to a pawn in someone’s dirty game, would violate her beliefs. She’d been taught the cause sanctifies the means and had come to not only live by the credo but believe in it as well. She had, however, never hurt someone innocent in the process. Harming Hayley would mean the end of that conviction.
She looked at her watch. Almost eleven thirty. They had a date tonight. Would Hayley remember? Would she call?
Ever since she could remember, she had been loyal to the Organization and her life had been theirs. She’d based her beliefs on what they’d taught her, to never get emotionally involved or attached so she’d never compromise herself or the operation. She’d always lived by the rules, given the Organization her best for taking her in and raising, educating, and training her—manufacturing someone to fix what was wrong with the world.
They’d been the closest she’d ever come to a family. Especially Grant. Joanne Grant had been the one person she’d felt comfortable turning to during those turbulent, lonely years growing up. And Grant had never failed to be there when she needed her. How was she supposed to lie to her family, redefine her already redefined ethics?
She picked up her cell phone and cradled it in her hand. Pierce would be wondering why she hadn’t called with an update. But regardless of what she said at this point, the Organization would still not risk that she was wrong. She wasn’t holding simply a phone, but Hayley’s life. One call about the box and its contents, and Hayley could be only a memory by tonight.
Domino wanted to find the bastards who were trying to hurt them as much as they did, and she would do whatever was necessary to track them down. But she couldn’t involve Hayley, and she didn’t know if she could lie to them. How ironic, when she’d made a career of living under half truths, fake emotions, and borrowed identities. They had taught her to do and to be whatever necessary to get the job done, but most of all they had taught her to trust her instincts. Remembering that lesson helped her regain her focus, and she made her decision
.
She put the scrambler on her phone and dialed Pierce’s number. He picked up on the third ring.
“Domino.”
“Safe line?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“I haven’t heard from you in days.” Casual words, but she heard the reprimand.
“I don’t have anything new on Strike.”
“I see.”
“Any news concerning her source?” Domino asked.
“Nothing,” Pierce replied.
“Do you still suspect an inside job?” Domino watched as Hayley briefly parted the curtains of her room, then closed them again.
“Do you know of any reason why I should?” he asked.
“No, I don’t. Strike is clueless. And she hasn’t talked to anyone about it, either. She’s completely solo on this one.”
“Has she been to see anyone else?” Pierce asked. “Is she still asking questions?”
“Not from her house phone.”
“It’s time we tap her work phone, then.”
“I’ll do it tonight.”
“Call me back tomorrow after you’re done,” he instructed. “And Domino—we’ll be listening in on that line so you can concentrate on surveillance.”
She could give only one suitable reply. “Done.” She hoped he couldn’t hear her reluctance.