Jericho's Fall (30 page)

The wait was not long.

A fourth car drove into the field, moving very fast.

Two men got out, one about her age, one closer to Jericho’s. They climbed in, the older man beside her, the younger one in the front, and she guessed at once that the younger man was guarding the older.

The younger man flashed a different badge. “I’m Deputy Krukoff, United States Marshals Service. I am informing you officially that you are about to meet a protected witness. You may not repeat to any unauthorized person any information that you acquire as a result of this meeting. Do you understand?”

She sized up Krukoff in an instant: a lover of authority, but over women especially. Jericho without the dash and wit.

“I understand.”

“You are here because certain of your activities may place the protected witness at risk. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“The witness has chosen to talk to you alone. This is against my advice.” Having laid out his bureaucratic position, the marshal slipped from the car, lingering near enough to save his protectee should Beck pull a knife from her slacks.

The older man spoke for the first time. “Rebecca. What a pleasure to meet you at last.” He put out a hand. “Jack Notting.”

(iii)

“You’re very persistent,” said Jack Notting, and she knew at once that he was the sort of man who was interested in no one’s views but his own. He was a small man, almost boyishly slender, but he emanated the stony confidence of a successful manipulator of destinies. He spoke in the clipped, overly simple phrases of the morale officer. “You and Jericho both. How is the old bastard anyway? Cancer won’t beat him. Not the type. You watch. Back on his feet in no time. He’ll be back to blowing up the world or making his fortune or whatever turns him on this week. You’re leaving tomorrow?”

The question caught her off guard. “Yes.”

“Probably best. Jericho was a fine man in his day, but he’s wandered off the reservation. So have you.”

“I didn’t notice any boundaries.”

Jack Notting might not have heard. “I’m worth a couple of billion dollars. Did you know that, Rebecca? Two billion dollars, and I’m in witness protection. Want to know why? Because I decided to be a hero. To tell the truth. My partners lied their asses off in front of the grand jury, and I told the truth. Got it?” He did not wait to hear whether she had it or not. “Now, look. You’ve been asking lots of questions about Scondell Bloom. Time to stop. Keep it up and there won’t be a trial. Know why? Because there won’t be a witness. I don’t care how many marshals they put around me. I don’t care if they stash me in Saskatchewan. Keep this up and I’ll be dead.”

“I don’t understand,” said Beck. “How am I putting you at risk?”

“I told you. Asking the wrong questions, in the wrong places. It’s time to stop, Rebecca. Time to call a halt, go home, take care of your daughter.”

Her bewilderment was genuine. She had done a little research about Scondell Bloom, and she had called Tish, but she had not been going around digging. Not like—

“Lewiston Clark,” she said. “He was writing about your firm, wasn’t he?”

“I’d rather not discuss Mr. Clark, if it’s all the same to you. Whoever stops him will be doing all of us a big favor.”

“Who’s
us?”

Again he ignored her. Billionaires could be like that. “Rebecca, look. This all comes down to something very simple. Jericho and I both served our country. He served it longer than I did. He got medals, books about him, a Wikipedia entry a mile long. I made money. A lot more money than Jericho did. He’s upset about the way things ended up, so now he’s threatening to make trouble. I’ve offered him a payoff—-I don’t need the aggravation—and he’s turned it down. He’s sitting up there in that house all day, nursing grievances against the world. And now he wants you to help him. Well, don’t. Go home and
let him die in peace. Stay away from this. If you can make him stop, that’s bonus. But, even if you don’t, my associates and I will take care of you.” A pause. “And your daughter.” Another. “I hear she and your mom had a great time at Disney World. Personally, though, I wouldn’t have stopped for ice cream on the way back to Sarasota. There is such a thing as overkill.”

The bottom fell out of her world. The rest of his words registered, but only in the distant fashion of somebody else’s conversation. Her womb ached. There was no other way to put it. Pain sizzled where she had borne the child this man was threatening to harm.

“And you really need to teach your daughter not to lie, just because Grandma says it’s okay. American Girl doll, my ass. She bought your Nina a dog. He’ll stay in Sarasota with your mother, of course, but now your daughter will be begging you to take her down there all the time. See how mothers scheme? Glad I never had one.”

A buzzing had joined the pain, not in her ear or even in her brain but everywhere in her body at once, as if a horde of mad bees were fighting a war inside her. So this, she thought to herself, is panic.

“You know what I think?” Jack Notting was saying. “I think your plans are fine just as they stand. I think you should stay put for now, and fly to Chicago tomorrow. There’s no need to make a special detour to Sarasota. Nina will be fine without you being there.” He let this sink in. “So—kiss Jericho goodbye in the morning, fly off to Chicago for your meetings, pick up your daughter Sunday as planned. By then it’ll be over. And you, Rebecca, will be a million dollars richer. And don’t worry. It’ll all be legitimate and aboveboard.” He pointed out the window. “I’m speaking on behalf of your government, of course.”

He opened the door, beckoned imperiously to Marshal Krukoff.

“We’re done here,” he said.

They drove off. An FBI agent led her to her car.

CHAPTER 29
The Sister

(i)

Jack Notting had not said she couldn’t call. He could have placed that restriction, and did not. As soon as she was free of the clearing, she tested her cell. Hooray, she had bars. She called her mother’s condo. The answering machine kicked in, and then there was Jacqueline, groggy with sleep, angry at being disturbed at this hour: after all, midnight in Colorado was two in the morning back east.

“I’m sorry, Mom, it’s just—”

“There is no way in the world I’m waking her up. Not at this hour. You should be ashamed of yourself, Rebecca.”

“I didn’t call to talk to her. I called to talk to you.” A pause as they both digested this innovation.

“About what?” said Jacqueline, cautiously.

“Is Nina okay?”

“Nina’s fine.”

“And you—you’re fine?”

“Yes, dear. What’s wrong?”

Beck looked out the car window, whirling head tipped against the glass. Beyond the glow of the headlights, the trees faded into heavy darkness. “Mom, listen. Did you buy Nina a dog?”

Defensive. “Well, you had one when you were little, Rebecca. Every little girl should have one. It’s not my fault your condo doesn’t allow—”

“Wait. Mom, wait. Listen. The dog. What color is it?”

“What earthly difference—”

“Please, Mom. I don’t mind about the dog. I swear I don’t. Just tell me what color it is.”

“It’s black. A black Labrador.”

“A Lab. You’re sure.”

“Of course I’m sure, dear. I may not know much, but I do know dogs. Besides, it says right on the pedigree—”

“When?”

“What?”

“When did you buy the dog, Mom?”

“Sunday. We went out and got it the day Nina arrived. She’s just a child, Rebecca. She missed her mother, and I wanted to give her a nice present. To cheer her up. Remember, dear, you won’t be coming back until the weekend. That can be hard on a child. I never left you alone this long when you were a—”

Beck was not listening. Sunday. Jacqueline bought the dog on Sunday, and an identical dog was killed in Jericho’s driveway on Monday. Impossible. But so was a helicopter sending messages to her cell phone. Dak had said they would come after her, and she had figured the house was a fortress. Until tonight, she had not considered that they might come after the part of her that was in Florida.

“Mom, listen. Are you listening?”

“Of course, dear. I was just saying—”

“Have you seen any strangers around? Watching the house? Watching you?” She swallowed. “Watching Nina?”

“Of course not. I’d report that—”

While Jacqueline continued to explain, Beck made her calculations. She was talking on her cell, so about fifteen of Dak’s interested parties were probably listening, but any phone would be as bad, because her mother’s was surely tapped. Well, fine. Let them listen. She was doing what any mother would do, and if they chose to treat it as a violation of the deal, no force on earth would stop her from killing Jack Notting.

Slowly.

“Mom. Mom, wait. Listen. I want you to leave.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t argue with me, Mom. Just do what I tell you. I want you to pack up the station wagon and take Nina to my cousin’s. Not in the morning. Now.”

“Brad? Why? His house is so cramped and messy, with all those kids running around—”

“Just do it, Mom. Please. I’m begging you. Stay with Brad and Cheryl. Trust me on this. Please. I’ll be there Sunday. I’d come before then, but I—I can’t.”

“But I don’t understand, baby. Why do we have to move?”

“Because Brad’s a cop. He’s married to a cop. They both carry guns.”

(ii)

She needed some while to knock down her mother’s objections, but at last Jacqueline gave in. After hanging up, Rebecca tried Margaret Ainsley, despite the hour, but the Senator was not answering.

Beck would have to curse her out later.

She lifted her cell again, intending to call Sean. If anybody deserved to be awakened, it was he; and if she woke his wife, well, those were the breaks. But Beck remembered, in the nick of time, that Sean was off awarding a grant for a green bauxite plant in Africa.

Exquisite timing.

Sean was too busy to be at his father’s bedside, but failed to tell his sisters the true reason: that his investigator was out in Bethel turning over rocks. And, in case the whole mess went south, Sean possessed a perfect alibi.

“Bastard,” Beck muttered, remembering again that look of triumph when he thought he had snared her.

Sitting alone in her car in the darkness, fighting the tears, she felt like a prisoner serving an indeterminate sentence, the brooding mountains her walls. She was leaving Stone Heights in the morning, but a
part of her would never escape. She would be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life. She remembered Jericho telling her once how, up until the early nineteenth century, prisoners of war were routinely granted parole, meaning that they would be sent home, on their solemn promise not to return to the battlefield. She would happily have made the same deal, but she did not think Jack Notting was the sort of man who kept his word.

“Move,” she commanded herself.

Hurrying up the mountain, keeping a closer eye this time on the rearview mirror, she tried to work out the one connection that still eluded her. If Sean had hired Lewiston Clark, and Lewiston Clark had hired Pesky, who had told Pesky to kill the dog? She could not imagine Sean giving the order to harm a fly. Only one answer suggested itself: Jack Notting had penetrated Sean Ainsley’s ragtag team, and was dealing with Pesky directly. That was why the private investigator, ostensibly Clark’s employee, took the photos at Stone Heights without asking the writer first. And when Notting learned that Jacqueline had bought Nina a dog, he immediately—he immediately—he—

She pulled to the side of the road and at last let the tears flow.

(iii)

When Rebecca arrived back at Stone Heights, both daughters were awake, despite the hour. Evidently Jericho had taken a turn for the worse. His breathing was shallow, said Audrey, and his pulse was down a hair. There could be a lot of reasons, but they were thinking they might move him to the clinic tonight to get him stabilized, then on to Vail, or even Denver, in the morning.

Beck said she would go along with whatever they decided.

They looked at her in surprise. She knew she was listless, but she could not help it. She was scared out of her wits, and trapped. No doubt they were reading in her face that she was sorry she had ever come.

“Man trouble?” said Pamela, but Beck was too haunted to play her
games. She excused herself and went up the bedroom. She made a start at packing, then went into the study to call her mother again, but put down the phone before she finished dialing, because what she wanted more than anything was to hop on the next plane to Sarasota—an act Jack Notting had specifically forbidden.

She thought about the FBI agents. And Marshal Krukoff. How could they be protecting a man who would casually threaten her child? Did they suspect what their protectee was up to, and just not care? Or had he somehow kept them in the dark?

She wondered what Jack Notting could possibly know that would make him so valuable an asset that they would take the risk that Beck would go blabbing about her meeting with him. Unless, of course, they knew she had nobody to blab to. All at once, she found herself missing Jericho: the father figure he had been a decade and a half ago. Fifteen years ago, of course, nobody would have dared bother her. If they had, she would have run to his strong arms, sheltered her head against his chest, and let him call in a couple of friends to fix whatever was wrong.

By the time she came up for air, everything would be fine.

But as Jericho himself had told her this afternoon, that man no longer existed. The new Jericho could not help her. She would have to do it herself.

The trouble was, she lacked a weapon. She could hardly call her Congressman or the
Times
, not least because her daughter would be dead before they called her back, and she herself an hour later. They were listening, she reminded herself. If they could listen in on the great Jericho Ainsley, Former Everything, despite his many precautions, keeping track of Rebecca Marie DeForde would be child’s play.

Then she remembered.