Razor Sharp (5 page)

C
osmo Cricket lumbered out to his state-of-the-art kitchen, where he made coffee. While he waited for it to drip through, he walked back down the hall to the front door to pick up the morning paper, which had been shoved through the mail slot. He carried it back to the kitchen, his thoughts on Lizzie Fox and her arrival later in the day. Right then, right that minute, right that second, that nanosecond, all he could think of was Elizabeth Fox and how good it was going to feel when she was snuggled in his arms. Whatever news the paper held was of absolutely no interest to him. That wasn’t usually the case. Normally, he read it from cover to cover, line by line.

But Cosmo Cricket was a creature of habit, and his habit was to get up, brush his teeth, shower, shave, and have his first cup of coffee while he skimmed the headlines of the
Las Vegas Review-Journal
before he got down to serious reading.

Cosmo picked up a pair of reading glasses off the kitchen counter. It made him nuts that he had to wear the eye-cheaters, but when Elizabeth said he looked like a forbidding, crack-the-whip law professor, he bought a couple dozen pair and had them everywhere. He had three pairs in his briefcase, four or five pairs in the office, and a pair in every room in his house, even in all three bathrooms.

Glasses in place, Cosmo checked the weather. Cool and dry. He moved on to the horoscope section, read his daily blurb and Elizabeth’s, too. He smiled. Perfect. He’d die before he would admit, even to Elizabeth, that he religiously read his daily horoscope.

As he sipped coffee, which seemed exceptionally hot that morning, he flipped the pages of the newspapers. Iraq, Afghanistan, National Guard from somewhere going someplace. Like he could do anything about it. A flood in Florida from some kind of tropical storm that dropped twenty inches of rain. Nothing he could do about that either except to stay home and out of Florida. A woman was just getting out of jail even though her missing child hadn’t been found. What kind of mother was she for refusing to tell what she knew, and what kind of authority would let her out of jail to begin with? Some people didn’t deserve to have children. His own parents would have turned the world upside down if he’d gone missing. A crane collapse someplace in New York City. No injuries this time around.

Cosmo turned the page, looked at the kitchen clock. Seven o’clock. Ten o’clock in Washington, D.C. In six hours Elizabeth would be at his side. He could hardly wait. The big problem was, what was he going to do during the six-hour wait? He replenished his coffee and sat back down. He almost turned the page until he realized he hadn’t yet scanned the page he was on. It was just a small article and he almost missed it. He bolted upright, his coffee forgotten as he read the short piece.

“Son of a bitch!” The words exploded out of Cosmo’s mouth like bullets. Well, now he knew what he was going to be doing for the next six hours, since he knew for a fact that there was no next of kin to notify concerning Lily Flowers’s untimely demise.

Suddenly Cosmo was like a caged lion as he stormed his way around the kitchen, the floor rumbling and creaking as he stomped about. Accident? Or a crash made to look like an accident?

Lily Flowers had struck him as a woman who had her stuff together in one sock, or rather one giant handbag. Single-minded, with tunnel vision. Her only objective was to get away to a safe place as soon as possible. Which meant she had to have had a plan in place, which she had indeed verified. Some plan, since she was now dead. She would have had her car checked from top to bottom, down to the tires. He could almost guarantee it. She would have been traveling light, no baggage to speak of to drag her down and certainly nothing in her purse to incriminate her. She probably had a small suitcase or one carry bag. He didn’t know all that much about women, but he assumed that Lily Flowers would buy whatever she needed when she got to the first leg of her destination, which apparently was San Bernardino. From San Bernardino it was anyone’s guess where she had intended to go. Somewhere far from American shores was his first thought. He knew in his gut that Lily Flowers had been a woman with a long-range plan.

“Crap!”

Cosmo tried to remember what exactly it was that he had secured in his safe when Lily Flowers came to see him. He knew better than anyone that you always followed the money trail. He wondered what he would find when he got there. Nothing good, he was sure.

Cosmo spent another ten minutes tidying up the kitchen before he poured the last of his coffee into a traveling cup, grabbed his briefcase, and left for the office.

The minute Cosmo got there, he called his secretary into the office and rattled off a list of things she was to do ASAP. “Put everything on hold. This takes precedence. I want to know the name of the trooper, any witnesses, and where they took the body. Call a funeral home, make arrangements. At the moment, I’m thinking cremation.” Cosmo blinked. Where did that decision come from? Didn’t he want an autopsy? Then cremation? Or did he want a burial? What would he do with Lily Flowers’s ashes? She had struck him as a person who would want to be scattered to the four winds. Nameless. He had no idea where that insight came from either. How could he make such an important decision based on the few minutes he’d spent in Lily’s company? He realized he wasn’t entirely comfortable with that decision, so he rescinded the last part of his instructions temporarily, pending further investigation.

Cosmo closed and locked his office door, but not before he told his secretary not to bother him and to cancel a meeting he’d scheduled for ten o’clock. “And don’t put any calls through either until I open this door,” was the parting shot over his shoulder.

Cosmo opened the safe and carried everything Lily Flowers had given him to his desk. Did he really think there would be a clue among the books and ledgers that would give him some indication as to who she really was and where she was going to start a new life? He convinced himself that she would go wherever her money was or at least in close proximity to it. Of course, she wasn’t planning on ending up dead, so maybe she hadn’t left any clues for him. He winced at the thought.

Cosmo sat down and started going through the pile of books. He was still at it at noon when his stomach started to rumble. He leaned back in his custom-crafted rocking chair, removed his glasses, and rubbed at his eyes. He was three checkbooks and one little black book down, and he hadn’t even made a dent in what needed to be done. There were no brokerage statements, which surprised him. One thing he knew for certain was that Lily Flowers, or whoever she was, had been a hell of a businesswoman. Her business accounts tallied to the penny. Her personal checking accounts under all her various aliases also tallied. Expenditures, nothing more. Everything looked normal. She paid her bills on time. She ordinarily didn’t use credit cards even though she had several. Every so often a charge would appear, along with a bill, just to keep the accounts activated. Apparel stores, drugstores, and, once in a while, she charged a restaurant tab. Every bill was current and up-to-date. A record of utilities being canceled under all her identities was stapled into a neat packet. Two apartment leases had been canceled and paid to date under the names of Crystal Clark and Ann Marie Anders. The two houses in the names of Lily Flowers and Caroline Summers were owned free and clear, the utilities cut off. Property taxes had been paid ahead for five years on both properties. Did she do all this herself or did she use an accounting firm?

Cosmo shook his head. The lady had it going on. She walked away, believing she’d tied up all her loose ends. But, she’d had the good sense to come to him and leave all her records. He wondered if she had a suspicion something would happen to her. That alone had to mean she trusted him as her lawyer to do whatever would have to be done if something did occur. And now she was dead.

Just how wealthy was Lily Flowers?

What was it his mother used to say in instances like this? Oh, yes.
“This is a fine kettle of fish.”
His father would have said,
“Grab that bull by the horns and wrestle him to the ground.”
What fish or a bull had to do with anything was beyond Cosmo’s comprehension.

Cosmo reached for his glasses and went back to work. Over and over he mumbled, “Who were you, Lily Flowers?”

It was one o’clock, almost time to break for lunch, when he carried one stack of check registers and books back to the safe. When he returned to his desk he shifted the remaining pile of black leather books, and that’s when he saw that what he’d thought was another book was actually a case with a laptop inside. “Ahhh,” he said happily.

Twenty-four hundred miles away in the nation’s capital, Jack Emery parked in front of Harry Wong’s
dojo.
Harry and Bert were waiting for him at the curb, small duffel bags at their feet. One look at Harry told Jack the martial arts expert was pissed that they weren’t taking his Ducati. “Forget it, Harry. Get your ass in here and enjoy the scenery. Obviously, three people cannot ride on one motorcycle. You just sit there and plot my death, that will give you something to do while Bert and I talk about normal things like women, baseball, women, money or our lack of it, women and women.”

“Your mistake, Jack, was putting me in the backseat. All I have to do is lean forward, extend my index finger, and you are toast. Before Bert can lean over to try to help you, his head will explode. So, sit back, drive, and enjoy the ride,” Harry snarled good-naturedly.

“Harry, you are one ugly, cantankerous, evil, did I mention ugly, ungrateful son of a bitch! I’m the brother you never had, the brother you love with all your heart and soul, the brother you would die for. Where is all this negativity coming from? I’m doing you a tremendous favor by driving you to the mountain so you can see the love of your life. You will arrive looking like the avenging saint that you are, not some bedraggled, homeless derelict riding a motorcycle. Women don’t care if it’s a Ducati or not. They only want you to smell nice, be well groomed, and not be barefooted. I’m saving you from disgrace. Please apologize for your bad behavior.” Jack risked a glance in the rearview mirror. It looked like Harry was going into a trance. He wondered what it meant.

“I think he said for you to kiss his ass,” Bert cackled.

“Some other time,” Jack said.

“I do have a bit of gossip if anyone cares to hear about it,” Bert said.

“Shame on you! Since when have we been reduced to listening to gossip?” Jack asked. “As the director of the FBI, you should be above such…such shenanigans. What? Don’t leave anything out. Harry thrives on gossip.”

“What is it?” Harry demanded, coming out of his trance. He had to admit he did love juicy gossip, especially if it involved someone he knew. More so if it was someone he disliked.

“Alexis and Joe Espinosa text each other all the time!” When there was no noticeable reaction to this information, Bert carried on. “And Isabelle is mooning over that guy she socked in the eye in Vegas last year. Maggie Spritzer told Ted who told Espinosa who then told me that Isabelle asked Maggie to ask her hacker friend Abner Tookus to try and get a handle on the guy who went to the Caymans. She even has a name, not that the schmuck would be using his real name. She even went so far as to ask Maggie if she could hire a private dick to track him down. What do you think of that?”

“If that’s the best you can do, I’m dumping you out of this car right now. Harry and I know all that, don’t we, bro? Well, to be honest here, we didn’t know the part about Isabelle and the dick or Abner.”

“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” Bert said.

“I was hoping for like…you know,
news.
Are you telling me the FBI is suddenly buttoned-up? What’s coming out of the rumor mill?”

At last they were down to male talk. “Shit like you wouldn’t believe. The whole damn town is hunkering down. Big stuff going on, but no one is talking out loud. Lots and lots of whispers. Hell, I made seven trips to the White House this week. Ain’t good, boys.” Bert’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper even though there was no one in the car to hear him but Jack and Harry. “I heard
in the White House
several staffers whispering, and since I have such keen hearing, I didn’t have to try too hard to listen. The scuttlebutt is one of two things. The dumb-ass money seems to be on the Vigilantes coming to town as per someone’s request and the smart money is on the Vigilantes coming to town of their own accord, which means a red alert is going out.

“And, are you ready for this? I’ve heard resignations are flooding the president’s office, but I can’t confirm who and why. If I did know and told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“That’s pretty funny,” Harry said from his perch in the backseat. “I don’t doubt for a minute that you could take Jack on, but you’d be dead before you could lay a finger on me.”

Bert knew it was true, so he didn’t belabor the point.

“So why were you at the White House seven times this week?”

It took Bert so long to respond, Jack had to prod him.

“Something kind of strange. Seems there is this woman in Las Vegas named Crystal Clark who runs a cathouse out there. It’s legal, as you know. The Las Vegas Field Office was getting ready to put a tail on her, but she up and disappeared. My guy out there said she did it like magic. One minute she was there, then poof, she was gone. The…employees are all gone. Even the maintenance and groundskeepers—gone, with the exception of one old guy. He said he was paid through the end of the month, and he didn’t take money for no work. No trace whatsoever. Now, here’s where it gets a little…
sticky.
Somehow or other Cosmo Cricket’s name came up at the White House.”