Shattered Trust (15 page)

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Authors: Leslie Esdaile Banks

BOOK: Shattered Trust
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He listened to the water go on in the bathroom and affixed his gaze to the mug of java Najira had been kind enough to slide under his nose. They had to go back to Grand Cayman, simple as that. If they reentered the island, spoke to the detective, cop to cop, maybe, just maybe, they could use the chaos of Carnival Batabano as a cover to come up with a joint sting operation.
Laura allowed the weak shower spray and chilly water to cover her body and help her think. James had been right. All of this, even their interlude this morning, had been too open, too exposed, and too unplanned, and as a result a lot of people were involved that shouldn't have been. She thought hard about it all as she washed off and got out of the shower. They had to go back to Grand Cayman alone, draw whomever was chasing them there, and put an end to the nightmare for multiple families.
When she passed James in the kitchen, their eyes met and a common understanding bound them. Later in the bedroom, alone, after breakfast, they'd talk. She just hoped he'd understand.
 
 
James Devereaux sat numbly watching the morning news. Polanski, shot in his own home? He reached for the telephone and called George Townsend. George picked up on the first ring.
“I want out,” he said quietly, not even bothering with a formal hello.
“Me, too,” George said in a shaky whisper. “But how?”
“We have to let them stand on their own. I'm diverting what I had to family connections.”
“They won't let you just do that without a fight.”
“I know.” Devereaux paused.
“What are you going to do?”
“I'm not sure. I just wanted you to know that I'm getting out.”
Devereaux hung up the telephone without saying good-bye. His next call was to a few friends very high up at the federal level. He knew people that had always wanted in on prime lands he owned, and he stared at his wife and children's pictures on his desk.
“I have a family,” he said quietly into the telephone receiver. “I want to make a statement, and I want amnesty. I'm stepping down from my board position at Micholi, and whatever I owned down in the Gulf is negotiable, if you can provide me and my family protection.”
“Not on the telephone,” the voice said. “I'll come to you.”
“No,” Devereaux said quickly. “I just saw what happened to Polanski while he waited for someone to come to him. They did. The wrong person. I'm sure my phones are tapped.” He hung up and dashed through the house, finding his wife in the garden. “Get in the car,” he ordered. “We'll pick up the children from school on the way.”
Disoriented, her blue eyes shone with fear, but she stood and looked at her husband. “James, what's wrong? What's happened?”
“I'll tell you on the way. Mike's dead.”
“What?!” she shrieked, but followed him as he hurried her into the driveway, and pushed her into their silver Mercedes.
He turned to her. “I love you,” he whispered. “No matter what, I did everything for you and the kids.” He rubbed his palms down his face and inserted the key in the ignition.
“I love you, too,” she said quietly, but never got to finish the thought.
The moment he turned the key, the car exploded.
“Polanski was a show of good faith; Devereaux and his wife were personal. We didn't like how he treated my nephew, any more than we liked how Sutherland did. Vladimir has been avenged. So, in that regard, my friend, I salute you for doing us a favor. Were you here, I'd raise a vodka to you.”
“Yeah, salute. Just after you put a bullet in my head. So we're even. So squash the shit like men, and your stores and whatever else you peddle stays on your side of the line, untouched.” Joey Scapolini pushed back in his leather chair and surveyed the casino floor below him, then hung up.
Tony Rapuzzio looked at his boss as he hung up the phone. “Did they do their part, Joey, or is it war with the Russians?”
“They did their part,” Scapolini said carefully, studying his henchman's face. “The thing that's bothering me, though ... I can't put my finger on it. There's an opportunity here; I can smell it. This all got wrapped up too fast, too neat, and there's gotta be someone higher up that has his hands dirty. If we know, then we can put a little pressure on the son of a bitch for a favor one day.”
Tony nodded. “I hear you, boss. It would make it easier to take Eddie's death. At least there would have been a reason. The shit still gets under my skin just thinking about it.”
Joey nodded and stood. “A lot of things get under my skin, Tony.” He smiled suddenly and shook his head. “That Laura Caldwell broad is one of 'em. But she's always dead-on.” He looked at Tony hard and polished off his drink. “An honorable thief. They don't make 'em like that anymore.”
“Sounds like she's a little more to ya than just business, boss. Be careful. She may be dead-on, but she's also deadly—all barracuda.”
“She's gonna make me divorce my wife one day, or get killed.”
“Probably both, if your wife finds out.” Tony chuckled and went to the bar to fix them another drink.
Chapter 15
T
echnology had once been her friend, but now it had become her mortal enemy out in the bush. Cell phones had died, batteries needed charging, and there were no chargers to be had. Wireless laptops couldn't get a Wi-Fi signal. None of the gadgets that would have connected her to the States and the news at large were working, and Brother B's television had a wire coat hanger stuck in a hole where the antenna once was. Out where they were, power dipped and swayed like it was doing a waltz, and the plugs in the wall matched nothing they would have had on them anyway.
Sitting on the side of the bed in defeat after stilted conversation at breakfast, Laura looked at James, who had obviously come to the same conclusion when he flung his cellular on the dresser. Then it dawned on her: the FedEx box. They'd missed a delivery!
“James, we have to go back into Kingston and go to Lillian Braithwaite's house.”
He closed his eyes briefly and let his breath out in a rush. “Damn. The FedEx.”
“Yeah. The FedEx.”
“But if that house was safe, then Brother B would have taken the whole crew there from the getgo.”
“I know,” she said, standing and chewing her bottom lip. “Here's the thing, though. Megan came into the country using Brother B's dead wife's name and her old family property. That's the shell game, that's where the box is supposed to be delivered, and if anyone came calling there, we need to know to secure the rest of the people with us.”
He nodded, hating that she was right, and that peace had just been a fleeting, twenty-four-hour experience. “All right,” he said, giving into the inevitable. “Just make sure that Brother B drops us off to a cab, and is far enough away from the house when we enter that nobody can follow his station wagon back here.”
 
 
George Townsend sat with his attorney at FBI headquarters in Philadelphia, quietly horrified as he slowly related his story. Sutherland had had his throat slashed in prison? Devereaux and his lovely wife had been murdered in a car bombing? Polanski had been shot in the head by an assailant that had entered his home? The executive director of Micholi, Polanski, and the foundation's treasurer, Devereaux, gone, and now, he, the secretary and CFO was the only one left from the old guard?
Hell no. He'd spill his guts, sing like a canary, give up whatever information he had for federal witness protection and having his name kept out of the press, so that he could quietly live abroad for a few years, returning once the storm had passed. Elizabeth Haines could take the helm of that sinking foundation. They could then hire whomever they wanted to fill the other two key vacancies—Devereaux's and his. He had friends at the State Department.
 
 
Rick stared at his boss in disbelief. “I'm laid off? Me? After all these years? Why, John?”
“Knight-Ridder is consolidating. You know that. All the newspapers in Philly are going through a trim down, and all us old-timers are on the chopping block. They can get two fresh-out-of-college journalists to replace you as part-time freelancers, with no bennies. You and I cost too much. I can't do anything about it. I'm sorry.” His boss looked away ashamed and raked his fingers through his profusion of white, scraggly hair. “This shit sucks.”
Rick stood and folded up the lay-off notice into his pocket. Fuck that. He had a wife and kids in college to feed. It was time to negotiate and take any info he could find to the highest bidder. It was time to call in all markers and Laura for a favor.
 
 
They exited the cab and looked at the small, clapboard house that sat within the crush of close-together homes in the center of Kingston proper. A missed-package sticker was on the door. FedEx had obviously come, and no one was home.
James glanced at Laura, and as their eyes met, the silent message was clear. Let him go in first, packing heat. He calmly extracted the antiquated weapon that Brother B had given him and shoved it into his waistband, pulling his shirt over it to hide it from neighborly view. During the four-hour trek from the hills into town by way of narrow, slow-moving roads and then through thick urban traffic, they had their nerves on edge.
“Maybe I should try to find a cybercafé somewhere first, or see if I can buy a temporary cell phone to dial into my voice mail remotely?” she offered, glancing up at the house, her nerves raw.
“Six in one hand, half a dozen in the other,” he muttered, beginning to round the house to see if there were any signs of forced entry.
“James, what if the door is rigged to blow?”
He hesitated, watching the few lean stray dogs snuffle at curbside garbage. “And what if we miss the second delivery attempt, and all our shit gets shipped back to the States?”
She sighed and nodded, but kept her eyes on the dogs in the street. His line of vision went to them as well.
“There's a food vendor not far down the block,” he said in a faraway tone, glancing down the street.
“I can't believe you're hungry!”
“I'm not,” he said calmly, motioning to the dogs with his chin. “But they are.”
She wasn't sure what he meant, but she followed him down the street and watched him buy a grilled pork sandwich, and then hit another corner grocery store for some duct tape. It was amazing, just watching him work, as he tore off bits of food to ball in his hand as he loosely wrapped the sandwich, taped it to the back doorknob, inserted the key to turn the lock and then took cover by the adjacent house, tossing a handful of food toward the hungry dogs that scoured the streets for a meal.
Before long, several dogs had picked up the scent and snuffled their way toward the back door, snapping at each other through yelps and low whines, and then began to pull at the sandwich that had been affixed to the door. The dogs' aggressive efforts rewarded not only the street scavengers that finally got the meat away from the knob, but also Laura and James, as the back door eerily creaked open without incident. No bomb. They were in.
“Whoa ...” Laura breathed out, once the dogs had run down the street battling over a ragged pork sandwich. “Where'd you learn that MacGyver shit, James?”
He didn't answer her as he cased the house, smelling for a possibly broken gas line, and searching for a hidden intruder. “Don't turn on the lights or open the front door,” he said carefully as he continued to scout the tiny, neat home for any evidence of tampering. “They wouldn't expect us to come in through the back door. But I don't know what else has been rigged.”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around her waist. “What do we do now?”
“We wait until four o'clock for FedEx to come. When they ring the bell, we go out the way we came in through the side alley, get the package, come back in, open it, get what we need, then we're out.”
She looked at her watch, her gaze taking in all facets of the home for any clue. They had an hour. This house, like Brother B's, was neat, old-fashioned, with furniture too big and too formal for it, with all mantles laden with family photos, but not much more. Her line of vision briefly lingered on a yellowing photo in an oval, silver frame that contained her uncle, Lillian Braithwaite, and Brother B in a candid beach shot from years gone by. Both she and James simultaneously looked at the telephone, and she went to it first. James simply nodded.
There were three messages on her cellular that she had to access remotely. The first was from Megan. The second was from Rick. The third one almost made her heart stand still.
Megan's message was very short and very concise: “My father says that it's best that we end our association, and I agree. This last bit of information that my cousin sent you is our way of saying good-bye under good graces. Don't try to return my call or his. Our cell-phone numbers will be disconnected after this and our phone records to you purged. Be well. Take care of yourselves and Donny.” The message ended without any signature or name, but she knew the frightened female voice well by now.
Rick's message was less cryptic and contained a level of urgency that gave her an idea. It simply said: “Laura, what the
hell
is going on? I just got fucking laid off from the paper! Where are you? Call me. I need a favor, some contacts to get me back in the game and positioned well. Don't leave me hanging. I love you, and you're still my favorite girl. Tell me you've got a marker you can call in and a story I can use to bargain my rusty ass back into a media job somewhere.”
Yeah ... she might be able to accommodate Rick, after all.
Then came the call she'd never thought she'd receive again in life, the one from Elizabeth Haines.
“This is Liz. I know it's been ages, but I don't know what's going on, Laura,” a nervous female voice said in a heated whisper. “Someone murdered Sutherland in jail. Polanski got shot in his own home.” There was a long, static-ridden pause. “James Devereaux and his wife were blown to bits in their family driveway. No one knows where George Townsend is ... and
people
want me to become the new executive director of Micholi. I'm afraid. I don't want to be a part of this, and I want my son to be all right. Do you know what's happening? Please call me on my new cellular, and here's the number.” A quick number was rattled off, and then the voice mail electronic message came on to denote that Elizabeth's urgent call was the last message in the queue.
“Talk to me,” James said, his eyes holding a steady, intense beam of worry as he watched Laura's expression.
“Our friends are bailing,” she said, and then relayed the three messages word for word for him.
“Lemme use the phone,” he said, taking the antiquated receiver from her. “I might have something on voice mail that could prove interesting.”
Sure enough, he had one message—from Captain Bennett. It told him all that he needed to know. The shit was getting rugged, and George Townsend was in with the feds, cutting a deal. While that took some of the spotlight off them as key players, and could help them bargain with the authorities in the Caymans, it also meant another long trial was in the offing that would ultimately drag them back to Philadelphia as material witnesses.
That was an unacceptable option, until they found out exactly who was after them, why they wouldn't just crawl back into the hole they'd slithered out of, and how to diffuse the bounty that was on their heads.
“What?” Laura said, her eyes glued to his as he slowly lowered the telephone.
James quietly relayed Cap's message as she remained mute and still, trying to formulate a plan in his head as he spoke.
“I need to get my laptop up and working,” she said quickly, rummaging in the knapsack he'd brought along. “Once I see what Megan and Sean sent as a parting gift, from there I can feed enough of it to Rick to give him a media-in to bargain with—which will give our side of the story further credibility way before we try to negotiate with Cayman authorities.”
“Yeah,” he said calmly. “Let me get a call off to Cap, tell him we need some courtesy cover through his boys on the fed team as an entrée to the squad down in Grand Cayman. I'd rather be treated like VIPs who are coming down there to help them solve a case as freelance PIs, rather than be met at the airport and taken into custody in cuffs.”
“Make the call,” she said, nervous perspiration wetting her skin with sheen. She got out her laptop, waited until James had finished his call to Bennett, and then searched for a place to plug it in. “Shit!”
“What's wrong?” James folded his arms over his chest.
She held up the old phone cord and sighed. “It's not a plastic adapter. This is old, hardwired to a four-pronged wall jack!” She rubbed her palms down her face in total frustration. Being in a foreign country had its merits and distinct limitations. The dusty, thick air in the house was stifling. “I've gotta find a cybercafé. That's all to it.”
“Then we wait for FedEx,” he said, trying to remain calm.
“Why don't you do that thing on the front door with the dogs, so we can just open it and act normal when they get here?” she said, frustration making her tone brittle, and the request come out as a command.
“After FedEx comes and goes. Whatduya think will happen if the door possibly blows before then?”
He walked away from her in frustration, his nerves tight enough to pop.
“OK. I'm sorry,” she said, stuffing her laptop back into the knapsack. “We're both edgy. I just hate sitting here in the house, waiting.”
The sound of the doorbell almost made her squeal; she was ready to jump out of her skin. They both dashed to the back door, but James held up his hand, shoving his gun into his pants waistband under his T-shirt again.
“Let me slide out of the house, then go around the front, in case it isn't FedEx. You peep through the shades on the side and give me the nod if you see a real FedEx truck. Cool? But stay away from the window.”

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