By Blood Written (46 page)

Brett was already nursing a glass of wine when the maitre d’ led her over to the table. Brett stood quickly and opened her arms, then wrapped them around Taylor hard enough to draw stares from the surrounding tables.

“I have missed you so much,” she whispered.

“Me, too,” Taylor said.

The two sat down as the waiter came over. “May I bring you something to drink?” he asked. Brett pointed at her glass of wine.

“I don’t usually drink during the day,” Taylor said, then added, smiling: “Oh, what the hell.”

“That a girl,” Brett said. The waiter disappeared as Brett leaned in. “Okay, look, let’s get right to it. I have no idea how much you want to talk about this, but I have to ask. How are you? Really?”

Taylor shrugged. “I’ve had some bad nights,” she admitted. “A couple of times when I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. But you know the old saw, that which doesn’t kill you—”

“Beats the crap out of you and nearly kills you,” Brett interrupted.

Taylor found herself laughing in a way she hadn’t in a long time. It felt good, as if a weight had been lifted from her.

“You know,” she said. “You’re right. It feels like this nearly killed me. But it didn’t. I survived. And it feels great to be back at work and back here, and it’s wonderful to see you again.”

Brett smiled back at her, then turned serious. “Have they made any progress toward finding him?”

“You get the same news channels I do, honey. I haven’t heard a word. There’s an FBI agent that’s been really nice to me. We’ve talked a couple of times since I got back. Last I heard, they had nothing.”

“Amazing,” Brett said, then she lowered her voice. “Where the hell do you think he is?”

Taylor shrugged again. “Who knows? He could be anywhere.”

“What was it like when he disappeared? Did they just go nuts down there?”

Taylor nodded. “It was pandemonium. The first thing the judge did was throw Michael’s attorney in the slammer for contempt, then they hauled me in for questioning.”

“You?
What the hell did they think, that you helped him?”

“I think they were just more embarrassed than anything else. They should have been watching him a little better.”

“God, I feel like for the rest of our lives, he’s going to be the eight-hundred-pound white elephant sitting in the middle of the living room that no one wants to talk about.”

“I’m okay with it,” Taylor said as the waiter brought her wine. “Really. This is all going to work out. It’s going to be okay.”

The two ordered lunch and made small talk for a while.

Then the conversation turned to business.

“Jack decided to move up the pub date,” Brett said.

“That’s interesting. How come, as if I didn’t know?”

“He’d be crazy not to,” Brett answered. “Look, darling, advance orders for
The Sixth Letter
have broken all company records. We’ve never had a book come out of the blocks like this one.”

“You know,” Taylor said, a sadness settling over her face,

“when I really think about it, I hate that so much money is being made off human suffering. It’s evil what he did. We ought to give the money to the families.”

“Let ‘em sue him if they want to,” Brett said. “But this is the publishing business, and it’s a business fueled by this kind of media attention. We’d be crazy not to take advantage of it. You gotta make hay while the sun shines.”

“I know,” Taylor admitted. “Doesn’t mean we have to like it.” “So that brings up another subject,” Brett said. “All this money, the royalties, the sub rights income. Where’s it going to go? If the author is an escaped fugitive on the run, where do we send the checks?”

“Joan and I met with the lawyers on Wednesday,” Taylor said. “We’ve set up an escrow account to hold the money until he’s caught—or whatever. At some point, I would assume the courts will have some input into where the money goes.

I know they’ve frozen all his bank accounts. He couldn’t get to the money even if we did write him a check. He’s already had his passport confiscated. His options are really limited.”

“Then what’s he using for money?” Brett asked.

“Who knows? My guess is he had some stashed away somewhere.”

Brett and Taylor lingered over lunch for two hours, with two more glasses of wine each, then coffee afterward. Taylor enjoyed the company, the chance to get away from the office and to simply get lost in a crowd of people where if anyone recognized her, they had the good manners to not acknowledge it.

Just after two-thirty, the two left and hailed separate cabs.

They made plans for dinner the following Friday night and agreed to talk before then. Taylor was relaxed and drowsy as she settled into the back of the cab. The driver headed across town back to the office on East Fifty-third.

As he pulled to a stop in front of Joan Delaney’s brownstone, Taylor’s cell phone went off. She stuffed a ten-dollar bill through the tray in the clear plastic shield between the front and back seats, then scrambled out onto the sidewalk.

She fumbled in her purse for the cell phone, then pulled it out and flipped the cover open.

“Hello,” she said.

“Taylor,” a voice said.

Taylor froze. Everything around her seemed to go quiet and still, the people around her shifting into slow motion, the traffic noise hushed.

“Michael?” she gasped.

Thursday afternoon, Manhattan

“What’re you— My God, where are—?” Taylor stammered.

She felt like she’d been body slammed. It was all she could do to remain upright.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, as if he’d been away on holiday.

“Michael, where are you?” she asked.

“I’m in the city. You’ll pardon me if I can’t be more specific.”

Taylor’s mind raced. How to handle this? What to say?

What had Hank told her?

Don’t get into it with him
, he’d said. But what did that mean?

“How did you get here?”

“It’s a long story, but let’s just say I had to take a very circuitous route.”

Yes
, Taylor thought,
and how many dead bodies did you
leave behind on the way?

“Look, Michael,” she said, trying to keep herself and her words calm, “why are you calling me?”

“Because I missed you,” the disembodied voice said with a thin layer of cell-phone static over it. “And because I hoped you’d be glad to hear from me.”

Taylor stood there. The wind picked up off the East River, funneled down through the city streets by the rows of buildings. She shivered, wondered if she should just walk on to the office, but she knew from experience that her cell phone wouldn’t work inside the building.

The silence was broken by a low hiss and crackle. She wondered if she’d lost the signal.

“And because I need your help,” he said.

“My help? Are you crazy? I can’t help you, Michael. You need to turn yourself in. Get this over with. They’re coming after you and they’ll eventually get you.”

“Turn myself in so they can kill me? Is that what you want?”

“They haven’t passed sentence yet, Michael. You don’t know that that’s what’s going to happen.”

“C’mon, Taylor. You and I both know that if the state of Tennessee doesn’t do it, somebody else will. They’ve got it in for me.”

“Michael, what do you want from me?” Her voice stiffened, sounded cold even to her.

“I know things are over between us,” he answered. “I’ve accepted that. But surely you can’t want them to kill me. I have to get out of the country.”

“They’ve got your passport!” she said. “You can’t leave!”

“I can sneak into Mexico,” he said. “And if I can get there, then I can go anywhere else. Someplace where they won’t extradite capital cases. France, maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far.”

“That’s crazy, Michael. How are you—”

“I need money,” he interrupted. “Cash is the only thing that’s going to get me out of here. They’ve frozen all my accounts. I can’t even use an ATM machine. But I’ve got money hidden, Taylor. Overseas. Lots of it. Enough to disappear forever. All I have to do is get to it.”

“And what about the girls, Michael? What about all those girls, and God knows who else?”

There was a long beat of silence before Michael spoke again. “I know what you must think, Taylor. But I really am not guilty of everything they say I’m guilty of. Besides, I’ve lost my taste for it. It was something that got out of control because of the writing, because I was so far into the writing.

I’ve got it under control now, for good.”

“You make it sound like a drug problem, Michael. But it wasn’t a drug problem. You were killing people!”

“You don’t understand, Taylor. You don’t understand what it’s like.”

“Of course I don’t. I hope I never do! There is no understanding, Michael. You were
killing
people.”

“Look, I can’t stay on this phone forever. They’re probably listening now. So I’ve just got to come out and say it: Are you going to help me or what?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

“Taylor, how much money have I made for you and the agency and that damn publisher? You owe me. Just call it an advance on royalties. And besides, they’ll kill me if you don’t. And while I know you don’t anymore, remember, you once loved me.”

Taylor felt her head swim yet again. Would this ever go away, ever be over with? “Look, I don’t know. I need time to think, Michael. I just need a little time to think.”

“How much time?” he asked, his voice just on the edge of desperation.

“Call me tonight,” she answered. “I’ll be home after seven.

Call me on my cell tonight.”

“I’m trusting you, Taylor. My life’s in your hands.”

She cringed. “Don’t say that, Michael. Please don’t say that.”

He clicked off, and the phone went silent. She stood there a moment, staring as the steady stream of pedestrians shifted to avoid bumping into her. Taylor held the phone out in front of her and squinted to read the screen in the harsh sunlight. She pulled the number up and didn’t recognize the area code.

He could’ve gotten it anywhere, she thought. Could’ve taken it from anyone…

She hurried down the block to the agency, then up the stairs to her office. She pulled off her coat, locked her office door, then sat down at her desk. She stared out the window for a moment, thinking.

Then she knew what she had to do.

Taylor met them at the door in a white blouse and pair of jeans. She looked pale, Hank thought, tired and shaken. Her handshake was firm, though, as she took his hand.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, shutting the door behind them.

“I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances,” Hank said.

“Taylor, this is Joyce Parelli. She runs the New York Field Office.”

Taylor nodded. “Hi. Pleased to meet you.”

“Me, too,” Joyce said. “So how’re you holding up?”

Taylor led them into the living room, where her cell phone lay on the coffee table like a time bomb waiting to go off.

“I’m hanging in there,” she said, “but frankly, just barely.”

She turned to Hank. “I thought you said he wouldn’t call me.”

Hank shook his head. “I didn’t think he would. I thought he’d be smarter than that.”

“He’s desperate,” Taylor said. “He needs cash. He’s got money out of the country, but he can’t get to it.”

“Did he tell you how much he needs?” Joyce asked.

Taylor shook her head. “No. I assume that’ll come when he calls me tonight.”

“If he calls,” Hank said.

Taylor turned to the kitchen. “Oh, he’ll call. Don’t worry.

I could tell it in his voice. I need a glass of wine. Are you guys off duty?”

Hank and Joyce glanced at each other. “I’m good,” she said. “Don’t need a thing.”

“If you’ve got a can of soda,” Hank said.

“Diet Coke okay?” she called from the kitchen.

“Sure.”

Taylor came back in few moments later with a glass of white wine and a tall glass full of soda and handed it to Hank.

“What am I going to do?” Taylor asked. “When he calls, what’s the game plan?”

“A lot of that’s up to him,” Parelli said. “What he wants you to do and how he wants you to do it.”

“Can’t you just tap the cell phone and find out where he is, then go pick him up?” Taylor demanded.

“We can monitor the calls,” Hank explained, “and we will.

But especially if he’s on a cell and moving around, which he will be, then it gets really tough. Unless he stands still and talks to you a very long time, then by the time we figure out where he is, he’s not there anymore.”

“Shouldn’t you go ahead and move whatever equipment you need up here now?”

“We don’t need anything up here now. We’ve got a van outside now that’s got everything in it we need.”

Taylor paced back and forth in the living room. “This is driving me crazy,” she said, exasperated. “We’ve got to get this over with.”

Hank, concerned, looked over at Joyce for a moment.

Joyce made a slight motion of her head toward Taylor.

“Taylor,” Hank said, his voice reassuring, “we need you to hang in there with us just a little while longer. When he calls, I want you to listen to him, be calm, and I want you to agree to anything he says.”

He crossed the living room and stopped in front of Taylor.

He reached out and touched her forearm. She stopped pacing and looked up at him.

“Can you do that for me? Can you help me with this?”

Taylor gave him a look that was half smile, half sneer.

“Men … You’re all just looking to get something for free.”

Hank smiled back at her. “I knew I could count on you.

Now, we wait.”

Ten minutes later, the cell phone rang. Hank nodded at her. She hit the connect button and turned the volume up as loud as it would go. Hank stood next to her, straining to listen.