Renee Simons Special Edition (15 page)

His cordial expression faded. She feared she'd said too much. Clearly, he hadn't expected her to know as much as she did. Would that drive him away or elicit something they could use against him?

"Raising these questions in print could cause problems, embarrassment being the least of them. If you give me answers, I'll offer facts and not innuendoes."

"Somehow, I imagined you to be above publishing unsubstantiated theories."

Don't lose him now, her guiding voice cautioned. "I'd like to think so, but this story is important to me. I'd rather not speculate in print, but if you don't supply the facts, what are my options?"

He shook his head. "I certainly can't fault your candor."

"If you give me my story, what do you expect in return?"

He looked directly at her, his dark eyes devoid of deception. "I want to know that you will write what I tell you, accurately and without equivocation. I want to know you’ll never reveal anything but what I give you permission to. Ever." His expression turned deadly. "To anyone."

Her heart thumped violently in her chest and her stomach turned over. What is he planning to tell me? "All right."

"I'll give you information, some of which you'll keep to yourself until you submit your story. Some you'll pass on to those people you're involved with."

"Why?"

"So you can help me destroy this partner no one can identify."

She slumped against the back of the bench as her mind struggled to accept several facts simultaneously. If she agreed, this deception was nowhere near being over. What he told her could make the state's case against both men. Hardest of all, she would have to trust a man who'd years ago proven he was unworthy of that trust.

Finally, after what seemed too long a time, she felt enough in control to turn and look at him. "Why would you want to betray your partner?"

His lips tightened into a thin white line and his eyes smoldered with hatred. "The man's a bastard. He's destroyed everything I ever cared about. Now you're going to help me do the same to him."

"Anything that results will affect you also. Why would you want to do that to yourself?"

He looked at her with pity. "You're such an innocent, my dear. There are ways to avoid destruction, as long as you see it coming. Besides, I'm not looking for absolution, just a fair chance - and a way to bring him down permanently and thoroughly so he'll never hurt anyone else."

"Then go to the police. They want him as badly as you do and they have the means. The system will give you what you want. Better than I can."

He gave a short, bitter laugh. "The system put him where he is today. You and I will crush him so that all the money and lawyers can't put Humpty Dumpty together again."

Her doubts felt as real as the pounding of her heart. "I've never done anything like this. What if I can't pull it off?"

"Let me give you something to stiffen your backbone." She stared at him. "Would you like to see justice done to the man responsible for the death of your parents?"

"What are you saying?"

"I know what happened to them, Jordy. My partner, as you call him, was responsible."

"No," she whispered. She hadn't heard that name in years and it hurt. The fact that he used it meant he’d recognized her. "My father killed himself out of shame. Over what happened to me. My mother died of...a broken heart."

"Well, you're right about the second part, but not the first." He looked around at the crowd moving through the square, then turned back to her. "I suspect by now your task force is itching to ID this man?"

"It isn't my task force, but you're right."

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper on which he wrote a date and an address.

"Give that to the surveillance team. I'll arrange for him to be there on that day. After you've seen him, you'll understand a great deal more than you do now. You'll have twenty-four hours to decide. Please forgive the presumption, but I can guess your answer."

Her curiosity overruled her judgment - again. "How did you find out who I am?"

"How could I not recognize my best friend's daughter? Even after fourteen years and her attempt at a disguise."

He climbed into the front seat of his limo and closed the door. Mesmerized, she stared at the spot the vehicle had occupied even after it pulled away.

As her mind struggled to absorb the conversation, she realized that the emotions warring inside her would have to dissipate before she could think clearly and logically. An urge to move picked her up and sent her walking aimlessly through the crowds.

A fleeting but sharp sense of danger signaled her to look up. Fifty feet ahead, two large men watched her. Their height and bulk identified them as the resident nemeses. She meant to avoid falling into their clutches and changed direction, hoping she hadn't outdistanced a possible tail.

Sure enough, a voice called out from her right. When she turned, Ethan motioned to her. Relieved to find him at her side, she followed him away from the two men and deeper into the crowd strolling the marketplace. Skirting push carts filling an area inexplicably called the "bull market," they wove their way among the tables of an outdoor café.

Equally grateful he’d found
Jordan
, Ethan ducked behind a huge sign that functioned as a directory to the mall and to Quincy Market. He pulled her along and shoved her back into a corner, then leaned forward until he could see without exposing himself to view. As the men came closer he spotted them towering above the crowd.
Jordan
peered out through a narrow opening where the sign joined the uprights. With a gentle hand, he kept her from leaning too far out and revealing their position. The men cleared the mass of people and stood almost abreast of the sign, then veered left and entered the building.

He glanced at her, expecting to find fear in her eyes. Instead, he saw anger, not the vital snap and sizzle that flared during one of their lively discussions, but something deep and steady and old. The intensity of emotion chilled him.

"C'mon, then, let's find the car," he said softly. She nodded her assent.

They crossed the street as vehicles thundered along the elevated highway. Near the Aquarium, Ethan spotted the surveillance car. He raised an arm, then followed her into the back seat when it stopped.

He waited with a mixture of concern and anger churning in his gut. When he started to speak, she gave him a warning look.

"Not now," she said through clenched teeth, then turned to stare out of the car window. "Please don't say anything right now."

They made the trip back to
Beacon Hill
in silence, but she seemed to welcome his touch when he took her hand.

Inside the house the inquisitors were furious. Lieutenant Torres ushered
Jordan
into the library. Captain Mahan, A.D.A. Dominique Santorelli and the lawyer waited in their usual places at the table. Ethan followed her in and took his seat.  Barely in control of his anger, the captain spoke first.

"You'd better have a damned good explanation for what just happened, although I can't imagine what would satisfy me."

Jordan
dug out the slip of paper and handed it to him. "Try that."

"What the hell is this?" he bellowed.

"Conlon gave it to me. It's the date, time and place where we'll be able to see his elusive partner."

He looked at the information. After starting it on its trip around the table, he looked at her with a sly, almost nasty expression. "How come he was so generous to you? You got something on the man?"

Dominique looked at Mahan. "Ease up, Gerry. Let her talk." She turned to
Jordan
.  "Why don't you tell us what happened?"

As she recounted the afternoon's events, Jordan’s mind raced ahead, carefully selecting what to tell them and what to leave unsaid, like some slightly out-of-whack computer sorting and selecting data. Tell them about the call, but don't tell them about the tunnel. Give them the cab but not where you picked up your ride. Let them have the conversation but nothing about Conlon's connection to your father. Beep.

Tell them he's willing to be interviewed by you, but don't give away the price you'll have to pay, if you agree. Will you agree? Beep. They have the rendezvous, but don't need to know about your interest in the partner. Who is he? Beep.  Give them some, but not all. SELECT! SELECT! When the crazy computer quieted and her mind went blank she knew she'd finished her narrative.

"Why do you think he's willing to give us this guy?" Dominique asked.

"He doesn't like him very much." Telling the truth helped her relax.

"Why you?" Patterson asked.

"I guess he trusts me." That wasn't exactly a lie, either. She relaxed a little more.

"How did you explain our presence?" Mahan asked.

"I didn't. He assumes I'm here to spy for him and get a story."

"Don't you think that's a little strange?"

She shrugged. "Why look a gift horse in the mouth?"

"If you remember," Mahan replied patiently, "that horse held destruction for the trusting fools who didn't look inside."

"What does he want in return?" Dominique asked.

Uncomfortable again,
Jordan
replied, "He hasn't said," and avoided Dominique's eyes.

"Watch out for this guy, Jordan. You might think you're using him, but that isn't how it works. He'll use you up and swat you like a fly."

"I'll be careful," she said, in a deliberately reassuring tone, though something told her "being careful" had become irrelevant.

On the appointed day,
Jordan
found herself excluded from the surveillance team. Though infuriated, she kept her feelings under wraps. Driven by a desperate need to see the man, she used the tunnel again and took her car out of the lot. After an uneventful drive downtown, she pulled into a spot across from the bank where Conlon and his partner would transact that morning’s business.

The surveillance van and support vehicles stood in position, disguised as service trucks. She got out a pair of binoculars and trained them on the bank entrance, adjusting the focus. Then she sat back and waited.

At precisely ll:00 o'clock, Conlon's limo pulled into a spot at the curb reserved for deliveries. The driver held the car door for him. Another man exited at the curb and stood for a moment or two, adjusting the jacket of his gray sharkskin suit.

Through the high powered lenses he seemed only inches away. His features filled the viewing field - black hair, olive complexion, high cheek bones, thin lips set in a hard flat line and the chilling yellow eyes that had haunted her dreams for years. As he moved away, she lowered the glasses and watched the two men enter the bank.

She sat for a long time, battling her emotions into submission. When the anger and pain had receded into the corner of her brain long reserved for them, she meditated away the giant knot in her stomach. The limo and surveillance vehicles would remain in position until the men came out of the bank. She had no reason to stay.

She drove for a long time, trusting some sixth sense she hadn't known existed to guide her through traffic and away from the city. Road signs and traffic lights, billboards and the weathered siding of
New England
salt boxes mingled with the man's face in a confusion of line, color and motion.

During the years between sixteen and twenty, she'd often wondered how she'd feel, what she would do, if she ever saw him again. She'd never known his name, but his features had been burned indelibly into her memory during the thirty-six-hour-long captivity that ended in her father’s death.

The further away she moved from the incident, emotionally and physically, through years of therapy and just plain living one day after the other, the more she realized how slim were the chances they'd ever meet again, especially after Uncle Dino turned his back on her. The rest of the family followed his example, leaving her no doubt that all ties with Dino's world had been severed, although no one had ever told her why.  She hadn't the heart to undertake a crusade to find the man on her own. She’d wanted to heal and get on with her life. Eventually, even the wondering stopped.

Now here she was, once again facing the problem, without any warning and totally unprepared for whatever happened next. Or was she?

That question brought her up short. Ahead, a green and white sign pointed to the beach. She pulled off the road and parked on a small area of blacktop overlooking the bay.  With her sneakers looped over one shoulder, she took a path down a low sand dune to the beach. Walking along the shore and listening to the lazy slap-hiss of the surf, she picked up her last thought. Had the years left her unprepared to face what lay ahead or was she in the best position possible?

True, she'd had some bad moments lately and would probably have more, but she hadn't crumbled, not completely anyway. If things got no worse than they'd been in the shed a couple of weeks earlier, she'd survive.

Behind her stood a custom designed support system aching to bring this guy down. Facing each other from opposite sides of the law, both worked toward the same goal. If Conlon proved true to his word, the task force would end up with the ammunition necessary to satisfy its need. She could look forward to seeing justice done, maybe not for what had happened to her and her parents, but justice all the same. Best of all, she would have a hand in making it happen.