The Winner (45 page)

“All of it.” Riggs looked blankly at her. LuAnn said, “He had control of the money for ten years; that period just ended. He invested the money and paid me some of the income from those investments.”

“He had a hundred million to invest. How much did you earn each year?”

“Around forty million on the initial principal. He also invested any amounts I didn’t spend. I earned tens of millions more on that each year.”

Riggs gaped at her. “That’s a forty percent return on your lottery money alone.”

“I know. And Jackson made a lot more than that, I’m certain. He wasn’t in this out of the goodness of his heart. It was a business transaction, plain and simple.”

“So if you made forty percent, he probably made at least that and maybe more. That’s a minimum of eighty percent return on your money. He could only have done that through illegal channels.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“And at the end of ten years?”

“I got the hundred million back.”

Riggs rubbed at his brow. “And if there were twelve of you at, say, an average of seventy million dollars each, this guy had almost one billion dollars to invest.”

“He’s got a lot more than that now, I’m sure.” She looked at him, saw the worry lines. “What, what are you thinking?”

He looked at her steadily. “Another thing that’s had the FBI’s dander up.” She looked puzzled. Riggs started to explain. “I know for a fact that for years now the FBI, Interpol, and a few other foreign law enforcement agencies have been aware of something: Tremendous amounts of money have been funneled into lots of activities across the globe, some legit, others not. At first the Feds thought it was drug cartel money, either from South America or Asia, partly to launder it. That didn’t turn out to be the case. They picked up threads here and there, but the leads always fizzled. Someone with that much money can cover himself really well. Maybe that someone is Jackson.” Riggs fell silent.

“You’re sure the Feds don’t know about the lottery?”

Riggs looked uneasy. “I can tell you, if they do, they didn’t learn it from me. But they do know of my inquiries about you. There was no getting around that.”

“And if they’ve figured it out for themselves? Then we have Jackson
and
the federal government coming for us. Right?”

Riggs looked away for a moment and then stared her directly in the eye. “Right.”

“And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure which one frightens me more.”

They looked at each other, similar thoughts running through their minds. Two people against all of this.

“I need to go now,” LuAnn said.

“Go where?”

“I’m pretty certain that Jackson’s been following my movements closely. He’ll know we’ve seen each other several times. He may know I’ve met with Donovan. If I don’t report back to him right away”—here she took a painful swallow—“well, it won’t be pretty.”

Riggs gripped her shoulders tightly. “LuAnn, this guy is a psycho, but he must be brilliant as well. That makes him even more dangerous. You walk in there, the guy gets the least bit suspicious . . .”

She gently rubbed his arms with her hands. “Well, I just have to make sure he doesn’t get suspicious.”

“How in the hell are you going to do that? He already must be. I say we bring in the troops, set the guy up and take him.”

“And me, what about me?”

Riggs stared at her. “I’m sure you could probably work a deal with the authorities,” he said lamely.

“And the folks down in Georgia? You heard Donovan, they want to lynch me.”

“The Feds could talk to them, they . . .” Riggs broke off as he realized absolutely none of what he was saying could be guaranteed.

“And maybe I work a deal with all of them. I give back the money. It might surprise you, but I really don’t care about that. And then maybe I get a sympathetic judge, or judges, and they give me a break. Cumulatively what could I be looking at? Twenty years?”

“Maybe not that much.”

“How much then?”

“I can’t tell you that. I don’t know.”

“I’d make a real sympathetic defendant, wouldn’t I? I can see the headlines now: Drug dealer-turned-murderess-turned-dream-stealer-turned-fugitive LuAnn Tyler living like a queen while people blow their Social Security checks on the lottery. Maybe they’d give me a prize instead of throwing away the key. What do you think?”

Riggs didn’t answer and he couldn’t manage to look at her either.

“And let’s say we set Jackson up. What if we miss and he gets away? Or what if we nail him? Do you think with all his money, all his power, he might beat the rap? Or maybe he just might pay someone to carry out his revenge for him. Given that, what do you think my life is worth? And my daughter’s life?”

Riggs did answer this time. “Nothing. Okay, I hear where you’re coming from. But listen, why can’t you report back to the guy over the phone? You don’t need to see him in person.”

LuAnn considered this for a minute. “I’ll try,” was all she could promise.

LuAnn stood up to her full height and gazed down at him. She looked twenty again, strong, rangy, confident. “Despite having zillions of dollars and traveling all over the world, I’m not the FBI. I’m still just a dumb girl from Georgia, but you might be a little surprised at what I can do when I set my mind to it.” Lisa’s face was conjured up in her thoughts. “And I’ve got a lot to lose. Too much.” Her eyes seemed to look right through his, seeing something far, far down the road. When she spoke, her voice carried the full measure of her deep Southern roots. “So I’m not going to lose.”

G
eorge Masters stared down at the file intently. He was sitting in his office at the Hoover Building in Washington. Masters had been with the FBI for over twenty-five years. Ten of those years had been spent in the FBI’s New York office. And now Masters was staring down at a name that he had become intimately familiar with ten years ago: LuAnn Tyler. Masters had been part of the federal investigation of Tyler’s flight from the United States, and although the investigation had been officially closed years ago due to basic inertia, Masters had never lost interest mainly because none of it made sense. Things that didn’t make sense bothered the veteran FBI agent greatly. Even after transferring to Washington, he had kept the case in the back of his mind. Now there were recent events that had ignited that spark of interest into a full flame. Matthew Riggs had made inquiries about LuAnn Tyler. Riggs, Masters knew, was in Charlottesville, Virginia. Masters knew Riggs, or who Riggs used to be, very well. If someone like Riggs was interested in Tyler, so was Masters.

After failing to prevent LuAnn Tyler’s escape from New York, Masters and his team had spent considerable time trying to reconstruct the last several days leading up to her disappearance. He had figured that she would have either driven up from Georgia to New York or taken the train. She didn’t have a driver’s license or a car. The big convertible she had been spotted in had been found in front of the trailer, so she hadn’t used that vehicle. Masters had then focused on the trains. At the station in Atlanta, Masters had hit the jackpot. LuAnn Tyler had taken the Amtrak Crescent to New York City on the day the authorities believed the murders were committed. But that wasn’t all she had done. LuAnn had made a phone call from Otis Burns’s car phone. Burns was the other dead man in the trailer. The FBI had traced the phone call. The number was an eight hundred number, but it had already been disconnected. Investigations into who had leased the phone number had run into a complete dead-end. That had gotten Masters’s curiosity up even more.

Now that he was once again focused on LuAnn Tyler, Masters had instructed his men to go over NYPD records looking for any unusual events occurring around the time of LuAnn’s disappearance. One item his men had just discovered had interested Masters greatly. A man named Anthony Romanello had been found dead in his New York apartment the night before the press conference announcing LuAnn as the lottery winner. The discovery of a dead body in New York City was hardly news; however, the police had been suspicious of Romanello’s death because he had a long arrest record and was suspected of hiring himself out as an assassin. The police had probed into the details of what he had done on his last day among the living. Romanello and a woman had been seen at a restaurant shortly before Romanello had died; they had been observed having a serious argument. Barely two hours later, Romanello was dead. The official cause of death had been ruled cardiac arrest; however, the autopsy had revealed no sign of heart trouble in the youthful and strongly built man. None of those details had gotten Masters excited. What had gotten his adrenaline going was the description of the woman: It matched LuAnn Tyler precisely.

Masters shifted uncomfortably in his chair and lit up a cigarette. And then came the kicker: Found on Romanello’s person was a receipt for a train ticket. Romanello had been in Georgia and returned to New York on the very same train with LuAnn, although they had been seated in separate compartments. Was there a connection? Drawing on information that had been long buried in his mind, the veteran FBI agent was beginning to piece things together from a clearer perspective. Maybe being away from the case all these years had been a good thing.

He had finished poring over the files he had accumulated on LuAnn Tyler, including records from the lottery. The winning ticket had been purchased at a 7-Eleven in Rikersville, Georgia, on the day of the trailer murders, presumably by LuAnn Tyler. Pretty nervy for her to stop and buy a ticket after a double homicide, Masters thought. The winning ticket had been announced on the following Wednesday at the drawing in New York. The woman fitting LuAnn’s description had been seen with Romanello on Friday evening. And the press conference announcing LuAnn as the winner had been held on Saturday. But the thing was, according to Amtrak records and the ticket found on Romanello, both Tyler and Romanello had taken the Crescent train on the
previous
Sunday getting them into New York on Monday. If so, that meant LuAnn had left for New York City
before
she had known she had even won the lottery. Was she just running from a possible murder charge and coincidentally chose New York in which to hide, and then just happened to win a hundred million bucks? If so, she must be the luckiest person in the world. George Masters did not believe that anyone could be that lucky. He ticked off the points on his hand. Murders. Telephone call. Purchase of lottery ticket. Train to New York before winning ticket announced. LuAnn Tyler wins the lottery. Romanello and Tyler argue. Romanello dies. LuAnn Tyler, a twenty-year-old with a seventh-grade education and a baby, walks right through a massive police net and successfully disappears. She could not, Masters decided, have done that alone. All of this had been planned well in advance. And that meant one thing. Masters suddenly gripped the arms of his chair tightly as the conclusion hit him.

LuAnn Tyler knew that she was going to win the lottery.

The implications of that last thought sent a deep shudder through the grim-faced agent. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen that possibility ten years ago, but he had to admit it had never even occurred to him. He was looking for a potential murderer and nothing else. He drew solace from the fact that ten years ago he didn’t have the Romanello angle to chew on.

Masters obviously wasn’t old enough to remember all the lottery corruption from the last century, but he certainly remembered the game show scandals in the 1950s. Those would seem laughable by comparison to what the country might be now facing.

Ten years ago someone may have corrupted the United States Lottery. At least once, possibly more. The ramifications were truly terrifying to think about. The federal government depended on the revenue from that lottery to fund a myriad of programs, programs that were now so entrenched politically that it would be impossible to repeal them. But if the source of those funds was contaminated? If the American People ever discovered that fact?

Masters’s mouth went dry with the thought. He swallowed some water from a carafe on his desk and downed a couple of aspirin to combat the beginnings of what would still become a torturous headache. He composed himself and picked up his phone. “Get me the director,” he instructed. While he waited for the call to go through, Masters sat back in his chair. He knew this eventually would have to go up to the White House. But he’d let the director talk to the attorney general and the A.G. could talk to the president. If his conclusions were right, so much shit would hit the fan that everyone would eventually be covered in it.

J
ackson was again in his suite and was again staring at his laptop. LuAnn had met with Riggs several times now. Jackson would give her another few hours to call. He was disappointed in her nonetheless. He had not tapped LuAnn’s phone line, an oversight that he had decided was not worth remedying at this point. She had caught him a little off-guard by sending Lisa away so quickly. The associate he had retained to track LuAnn’s movements had been compelled to follow Charlie and Lisa, thereby depriving Jackson of a valuable pair of eyes. Thus, he did not know that LuAnn and Donovan had already met.

He had contemplated sending for more people so that all bases would be covered, but too many strangers lurking around town would probably raise suspicion. He wanted to avoid that if possible. Particularly because there was a wild card out there he was unsure of: Matt Riggs. He had transmitted Riggs’s fingerprints to the same information source and was awaiting a reply.

Jackson’s mouth sagged as the information spread over the screen. The name that appeared as the owner of the fingerprints was not Matthew Riggs. For a moment Jackson wondered if he could have lifted someone else’s prints in the cottage by mistake. But that was impossible; he had seen the exact area the man calling himself Matt Riggs had touched. There could have been no mistake there. He quickly decided to check the other source of a possible mistake. He dialed the number and spoke at length to the person on the other end.