Absolute Power (36 page)

The door opened to his knock and he walked in. As he turned, the door closed and she was standing there. Smiling. Dressed in a sheer white negligee that was too short and too tight everywhere that counted, she stood tiptoe in her bare feet to kiss him gently on the lips. Then she took his hand and led him into the bedroom.

She motioned for him to lie down on the bed. Standing in front of him she undid the straps holding up the flimsy garment and let it drop to the floor. Next her underwear slid down her legs. He started to rise up, but she gently pushed him back down.

She slowly climbed on top of him, running her fingers through his hair. She slid a hand down to his erection and nicked at it through his jeans with the tip of her fingernail. He almost screamed as the confines of his pants became too painful. Again he tried to touch her but she held him down. She slid his belt off and then undid his pants. They dropped to the floor. Next she freed his explosion of flesh. It sprung up at her and she cradled it between her legs, squeezing it tightly between her thighs.

She dipped her mouth down to his and then nestled her lips against his ear.

“Tim, you want me, don’t you? You want to fuck me so bad, don’t you?”

He groaned and clutched at her buttocks, but she quickly moved his hands away.

“Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted you so bad too, the other night. And then he showed up.”

“I know, I’m sorry about that. We talked and—”

“I know, he told me. That you didn’t say anything about us. That you were a gentleman.”

“That part was none of his business.”

“That’s right, Tim. It was none of his business. And now you want to fuck me, don’t you?”

“Jesus Christ yes, Gloria. Of course I do.”

“So bad it hurts.”

“It’s killing me. It’s goddamn killing me.”

“You feel so good, Tim, God, you feel so good.”

“Just wait, baby, just wait. You don’t know what good is.”

“I know, Tim. All I seem to think about is making love to you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Collin was in so much pain now his eyes watered.

She licked at the drops, amused.

“And you’re sure you want me? You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yes!”

Collin felt it before his mind actually registered the fact. Like a blast of cold air.

“Get out.” The words were spoken slowly, deliberately, as though practiced a number of times, to get just the right tone, the correct inflection; the speaker savoring each syllable. She climbed off him, taking care to apply enough force to his erection that he gasped for breath.

“Gloria—”

His jeans hit him in the face as he lay there. When he pulled them away and sat up, her body was covered in a thick, full-length robe.

“Get out of my house, Collin. Now.”

He dressed quickly, embarrassed, as she stood there watching him. She followed him to the front door and as it opened and he stepped across the portal, she abruptly pushed him through and then slammed it behind him.

He looked back for a moment, wondering if she were laughing or crying behind the door or maybe displaying any emotion at all. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He had clearly embarrassed her. He shouldn’t have done it that way. She had certainly paid him back for that embarrassment, bringing him to the threshold like that, manipulating him like some laboratory experiment and then bringing the curtain crashing down on top of him.

But as he walked to his car the memory of that look on her face made him relieved their brief relationship had ended.

*   *   *

F
OR THE FIRST TIME SINCE JOINING THE
C
OMMONWEALTH’S
Attorney’s office, Kate called in sick. Bedcovers pulled up to her chin, she sat propped up on pillows staring out at a bleak morning. Every time she had tried to get out of bed, the image of Bill Burton loomed up in front of her like a mass of sharp-edged granite, threatening to crush or impale her.

She slid down lower in the bed, sinking into the soft mat tress like immersing herself in warm water, just below the surface where she could neither hear nor see anything that transpired around her.

They would be coming soon. Just like with her mother. All those years ago. People pushing their way in and firing off questions Kate’s mother couldn’t possibly answer. Looking for Luther.

She thought of Jack’s outburst from the other night and tightly closed her eyes, trying to hurl those words away.

Goddamn him.

She was tired, more tired than any trial had ever made her. And he had done it to her, just like he had to her mother. Drawn her into the web even though she wanted no part of it, detested it, would destroy it if she could.

She sat up again, unable to breathe. She held her throat with her fingers, tightly, trying to prevent another attack. When it subsided, she turned over on her side and stared at the photo of her mother.

He was all she had left. She almost laughed. Luther Whitney was all the family she had left. God help her.

She lay on her back and waited. Waited for the knock at the door. From mother to daughter. It was her turn now.

*   *   *

A
T THAT MOMENT, BARELY TEN MINUTES AWAY
, L
UTHER
stared again at the old newspaper article. A cup of coffee sat near his elbow, forgotten. The small refrigerator hummed in the background. In the corner CNN droned on. Otherwise the room was absolutely quiet.

Wanda Broome had been a friend. A good friend. Ever since their accidental meeting in a Philadelphia halfway house after Luther’s last prison term and Wanda’s first and only. And now she was dead too. Had taken her own life, the newspaper article said, slumped over in the front seat of her car with a bunch of pills stuffed down her throat.

Luther had never operated in the mainstream, and yet, even to him, this was all a little much to take. It could have been some continuing nightmare except that every time he awoke and stared in the mirror, cold water dripping from features that grew more and more grizzled, more and more sunken with each passing day, he knew he was not going to wake up from this one.

What was ironic, in the shadow of Wanda’s tragic death, was that the Sullivan job had been
her
idea. A miserable, terrible idea looking back, but one that had leapt from her surprisingly fertile mind. And an idea to which she had held doggedly, despite warnings from both Luther and her mother.

And they had planned it and he had done it. It was really that simple. And in the cold face of retrospection he had wanted to do it. It was a challenge, and a challenge combined with a huge payoff was too tough to resist.

How Wanda must have felt when Christine Sullivan hadn’t gotten on that plane. And no way for her to let Luther know that the coast was not nearly so clear as they thought it would be.

She had been Christine Sullivan’s friend. That part had been absolutely sincere. A last reminder of real people in the midst of the sybaritic life Walter Sullivan lived. Where everyone was not only beautiful, like Christine Sullivan was, but educated, well-connected and sophisticated, all things Christine Sullivan was not and never would be. And because of that burgeoning friendship Christine Sullivan had begun to tell Wanda things she shouldn’t have, including finally, the location and contents of the vault constructed behind a mirrored door.

Wanda was convinced that the Sullivans had so much, they couldn’t possibly miss so little. The world did not work that way, Luther knew, and Wanda probably did too, but that didn’t matter now.

After a lifetime of hardship, where money was always too scarce, Wanda had gone for her lottery win. Just like Christine Sullivan had, neither of them realizing just how high the price for such things really was.

Luther had flown to Barbados, would have gotten a mes sage to Wanda there if she hadn’t already left. He had sent the letter to her mother. Edwina would have shown it to her. But had she believed him? Even if she had, Christine Sullivan’s life had still been sacrificed. Sacrificed, as Wanda would have seen it, to Wanda’s greed and desire to have things she had no right to. Luther could almost see those thoughts running through his friend’s mind as she drove out, alone, to that deserted spot; as she unscrewed the cap to get at those pills, as she drifted into permanent unconsciousness.

And he had not even been able to attend the funeral. He could not tell Edwina Broome how sorry he was, without risking getting her pulled into this nightmare. He had been as close to Edwina as he had to Wanda, in some ways even closer. He and Edwina had spent many nights trying to dissuade Wanda from her plan, to no avail. And only when it dawned on them that she would do it with or without Luther did Edwina ask Luther to take care of her daughter. Not let her go to prison again.

His eyes finally turned to the personals in the newspaper and it took him only a few seconds to find the one he was looking for. He did not smile when he read it. Like Bill Burton, Luther did not believe Gloria Russell had any redeeming qualities.

He hoped they believed this was only about money. He pulled out a piece of paper and began to write.

*   *   *

“T
RACE THE ACCOUNT
.” B
URTON SAT ACROSS FROM THE
C
HIEF
of Staff in her office. He sipped on a Diet Coke but wished for something stronger.

“I’m already doing that, Burton.” Russell put her earring back on as she replaced the phone in its cradle.

Collin sat quietly in a corner. The Chief of Staff had not yet acknowledged his presence although he had walked in with Burton twenty minutes ago.

“When does he want the money again?” Burton looked at her.

“If a wire transfer does not reach the designated account by close of business, there will be no tomorrow for any of us.” She swept her eyes across to Collin and then returned them to Burton.

“Shit.” Burton stood up.

Russell glowered at him. “I thought you were taking care of this, Burton.”

He ignored the stare. “How does he say he’s going to work the drop?”

“As soon as the money is received he’ll provide the location where the item will be.”

“So we gotta trust him?”

“So it would seem.”

“How does he know you’ve even gotten the letter yet?” Burton started to pace.

“It was in my mailbox this morning. My mail is delivered in the afternoon.”

Burton collapsed in a chair. “Your fucking mailbox! You mean he was right outside your house?”

“I doubt if he would have allowed someone else to deliver this particular message.”

“How’d you know to check the mailbox?”

“The flag was up.” Russell almost smiled.

“This guy has got balls, I’ll give him that, Chief.”

“Apparently bigger ones than either of you.” She concluded the statement by staring at Collin for a full minute. He cringed under the gaze, finally looking down at the floor.

Burton smiled to himself at the exchange. That was okay, the kid would thank him in a few weeks. For pulling him out of this black widow’s web.

“Nothing really surprises me, Chief. Not anymore. How about you?” He looked at her and then at Collin.

Russell ignored the remark. “If the money is not transferred out, then we can expect him to go public somehow soon thereafter. What exactly are we going to do about it?”

The Chief of Staff’s calm demeanor was no sham. She had decided that she was through crying, through vomiting every time she turned around, and that she had been hurt and embarrassed enough to last the rest of her life. Come what may, she felt almost numb to anything else. It felt surprisingly good.

“How much does he want?” Burton asked.

“Five million,” she replied simply.

Burton went wide-eyed. “And you got that kind of money? Where?”

“That doesn’t concern you.”

“Does the President know?” Burton asked the question knowing full well the answer.

“Again, that doesn’t concern you.”

Burton didn’t push it. What did he care anyway?

“Fair enough. Well, in answer to your question, we
are
doing something about it. If I were you I’d find a way to pull that money back somehow. Five million dollars isn’t going to do much to someone not among the living.”

“You can’t kill what you can’t find,” Russell shot back.

“That’s true, that’s so true, Chief.” Burton sat back and recounted his conversation with Seth Frank.

*   *   *

K
ATE WAS FULLY DRESSED WHEN SHE ANSWERED THE DOOR
, thinking, somehow, that if she were in her bathrobe the interview would endure longer, that she would appear more and more vulnerable as each question came her way. The last thing she wanted to appear was vulnerable, which was exactly how she felt.

“I’m not sure what you want from me.”

“Some information, that’s all, Ms. Whitney. I realize you’re an officer of the court, and believe me, I hate to put you through this, but right now your father is my number-one suspect in a very high-profile case.” Frank looked at her with a pair of earnest eyes.

They were sitting in the tiny living room. Frank had his notebook out. Kate sat erect on the edge of the couch trying to remain calm, although her fingers kept fluttering to her small chain necklace, twisting and turning it into small knots, tiny centers of bedlam.

“From what you’ve told me, Lieutenant, you don’t have much. If I were the ACA on that case I don’t think I’d even have enough to get an arrest warrant issued, much less a bill of indictment returned.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Frank eyed the way she played with the chain. He wasn’t really there to gather information. He probably knew more about her father than she did. But he had to ease her into the trap. Because, as he thought about it, that’s what it was, a trap. For someone else. Besides, what did she care? It made his conscience feel better anyway, to think that she didn’t really care at all.

Frank continued. “But I’ll tell you some interesting coincidences. We have your father’s print on a cleaning van that we know was at the Sullivan place a short time before the murder. The fact that we know he was in the house, and in the very bedroom where the crime was committed, a short time before. We have two eyewitnesses to that. And the fact that he used an alias and a false address and Social Security number when applying for the job. And the fact that he seems to have disappeared.”