Strong 03 - Twice (45 page)

“We
loved
each other, we
belonged
together. Even Eleanor could see that. Jealous old cow. She said I was evil, afraid that I was the manifestation of that stupid curse she obsessed about every fucking day. So she had her lover lock me away. Dr. Wetterau. They were lovers. Did you know that? She always went on and on about how my
father had been her one true love, that there would never be another. But it didn’t stop her from fucking around like a whore.”

“So they sent you away. To keep you from Julian,” said Lydia.

“But I escaped,” he said, and laughed.

“And where did you go?”

“Julian was at Chapin by then, in New York. So I went to her. But she didn’t love me anymore,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears. He turned away from them and stood before the hearth.

“They’d brainwashed her, convinced her that I was evil. She turned me away, told me she wanted a normal life, a
natural
love. I was ruined, destroyed. Started to believe that I
was
evil. I was never far from her, always shadowing her, watching over her.

“I lived like an animal for a lifetime. But now, as you can see, I’ve had a rebirth. I’ve claimed my children.”

“Did you kill Tad Jenson?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he said, and appeared truly remorseful. “I just wanted to see her, to touch her. And he wouldn’t
let
me. Things just got out of hand. You know how it goes … don’t you? The rage, that monster inside, just takes over.”

“And Richard Stratton?”

“The rage …” he said, and didn’t go on. He looked off in the distance now, into the past, a gallery of all his regrets and mistakes.

“The past is so unforgiving,” he went on. “But the future is a blank slate. We can make anything of it. That’s what I’m going to do for the twins. They represent everything I have lost … my love, my fortune, my family. In them, all things will be made right.”

“What about the curse? Where do Maura and Annabelle Hodge fit into this?”

“Oh, they were happy for the opportunity to destroy Eleanor and Julian. When I finally found the courage to return to this place,” he said, looking around him. “You know, to set the past right. I went to see Maura. Because we had a common enemy, Eleanor, we became allies. We both got what we wanted. Maura and Annabelle got
to see Eleanor’s worse nightmares come true and then they got to watch her die. It wasn’t really about the curse, you know. That’s just a myth. It was hatred pure and simple. Now Maura and Annabelle are long gone. Maura has her vengeance after all these years.”

“What did Annabelle get out of all of this?”

“I think Annabelle was more motivated by the payoff than anything. That and fear of her mother. Poor kid. And who wouldn’t be afraid of Maura? She’s fucking insane.”

In her zeal to classify all human motivation, Lydia had neglected maybe the most powerful of all … hatred. It had been the food Maura ate most of her life and apparently had fed to her daughter. In a way, Lydia felt bad for Annabelle; she was as much a victim as Lola and Nathaniel, used in the same way.

“Have you satisfied your curiosity, Ms. Strong? Do you know everything you want to know?”

“There’s just one thing. Our friend, Ford McKirdy.”

“Your nosey little friend almost ruined everything. Let’s make a deal, shall we? I’ll give you your friend, and you let me walk out of here. We’ll just pretend this little meeting never happened.”

“How about you tell us where Ford McKirdy is and I don’t blow your head off?” said Jeffrey, losing his patience. It was then that from somewhere deep in the house they heard a pounding, the sound of a voice shouting through layers of wood and concrete. They both turned to look in the direction of the noise, and when they looked back, James was gone, the gas cans with him.

L
ydia took off in the direction of the noise, heading toward the basement. In the distance she heard the wail of sirens, but remembered the locked gate at the bottom of the drive and wondered how anyone could get up to the house. She pushed down panic as she moved through the long hallway. Suddenly she caught the scent of smoke.

She stopped in her tracks. “Jeffrey,” she yelled. “There’s fire!”

But he didn’t answer her. She’d drawn the .38 she’d had in the pocket of her leather jacket and was watchful of the dark corners, not sure where James lurked or what his agenda was. The pounding grew louder as she drew closer to the basement door, but when she turned the knob, it was locked.

“Stand back,” she yelled to whoever could hear her. She gave it ten seconds and then she fired a round at the doorknob. The latch gave way and the door swung open and a dark stairway yawned below her.

“Ford,” she yelled. But there was no answer and the pounding had stopped. A horrible moment passed during which Lydia feared that Ford had been standing behind the heavy door and she had just shot him. She reached in for a light switch and found one. But when she flipped it, no lights came on … naturally. Then she heard a croaking voice in the darkness. “Lydia.”

“Ford?”

She heard a weak groan.

She ran down the stairs to find him bound to a chair. He’d knocked himself to the floor and had apparently gotten one leg free and was kicking at the wall. That was the pounding they’d heard. He was dirty and looked awful but seemed unharmed.

“Ford. Thank God.”

“I thought I was going to die down here,” he said.

“Not if I can help it,” said Lydia, dropping to her knees and starting to work the knots in the ropes that bound him.

“I smell smoke,” said Ford.

“I think there’s a fire,” said Lydia, glancing up the stairs and wondering where Jeffrey was. Then she heard the sound of a gun firing. Her stomach twisted as she pulled on the bindings. The ropes were damp from the moisture in the basement and Lydia struggled with the tight knots, but was finally able to get him free.

“Can you walk?” she asked as she helped him to his feet.

“Yeah.…”

“Let’s go.”

B
y the time they reached the top of the stairs, the house was starting to fill with smoke. They turned the corner and were headed toward the door when Jeffrey jumped out at them through the black cloud that was gathering. He had his shirt pulled up over his nose. Ford and Lydia quickly did the same.

“Where’s James?” asked Lydia.

“I shot him, but he got away from me. He went deeper into the house. I tried to follow him, but this place is going up like kindling. We have to get out of here. He’s still in here. The Lexus is still parked outside with the twins in it.”

Jeffrey grabbed Ford and dragged him the rest of the way out of the house, as Ford seemed to lose strength. Lydia paused before exiting, looked at the grand home being eaten by flames, and she wondered if this was James Ross’s funeral pyre. Then she ran out the front door.

Outside, police and fire vehicles were moving up the drive, their blue and red lights casting the night in a bizarre strobe.

Jeffrey helped Ford away from the house. Lydia, smashing in with the butt of her gun the front passenger side window, unlocked the Lexus and took the terrified, screaming twins from the car. She picked them up, one on each hip, and moved quickly behind Jeffrey and Ford. Though they’d only met her once, the twins clung to her. The five of them made quite a sight to Henry Clay as he stepped out of his prowler. And he would remember that as they passed him and moved toward the waiting ambulance, there seemed to be a moment of silence, when the house and the woods around them took a deep breath before an explosion blasted them all back at least ten feet. It was an explosion of such force that Henry Clay had his eyebrows and what was left of his hair singed to ash.

•  •  •

T
he house burned for hours. Every time it seemed that the flames might be dying, the fire appeared to reignite itself. The firefighters could only struggle to keep it under control as much as possible, keep it from spreading to the surrounding trees.

Lydia watched from an ambulance, where she sat on a stiff white seat, the twins lying against her. They had collapsed on her like puppies seeking warmth and comfort from her body heat. And she had draped an arm around each of them. They probably didn’t realize it, but they were comforting her, as well.

Jeffrey had ridden in another ambulance with Ford, and Lydia had chosen to stay with the twins until someone could come for them. They didn’t really know her, but she was more familiar to them than anyone else on the scene and they seemed calmed by that.

“My daddy used to take me to see the penguins at the zoo,” said Nathaniel solemnly.

“He used to take
us
to the zoo,” corrected Lola. “He took both of us.”

“Your daddy loves you very much,” said Lydia, using the present tense without really thinking.

“He
loved
us,” said Lola. “He’s dead now. Dead people can’t love you.”

“Lola,” said Lydia, thinking of the dream she’d had recently about her mother, “that’s not true. It’s not true at all.”

W
hen Lydia and Jeffrey walked into his broom closet of an office, Ford McKirdy was cleaning out his desk. And though it was a bright cold day, he wore a festive Hawaiian shirt and a pair of khakis. A big down parka rested on the chair by the door.

“So you’re finally getting a life,” said Lydia with a smile.

He stopped what he was doing and looked at them. “Thanks to you two, yeah,” he said. He walked over and embraced each of them.

“Have a seat,” he said, hanging his parka on a hook behind the door.

“We’re going to Europe,” he said, with the excitement of a kid on his way to Disneyland. “Me and Rose. Can you believe it?”

“That’s great, Ford,” said Jeffrey, smiling broadly. “We’re happy for you, man.”

“Hey, I’m happy for you guys, too. Dax says you’re finally getting hitched. I know you’ll do a better job at it than I did. But I’m going to make up for it now.”

Jeffrey put his arm around Lydia and smiled into her eyes. Lydia had never seen Ford so animated, and it made her happy; it also made her think twice about why they’d come to see him.

“Hey, speaking of Europe, you guys’ll be happy to know this,” he said, sitting behind his desk. “Interpol picked up Maura and Annabelle Hodge in Paris yesterday. They had a palatial apartment and a big fat bank account. Anyway, they’re bringing them back to face
conspiracy-to-murder charges. James Ross might be dead, but someone’s going to pay for all of this.”

The explosion and fire had consumed the Ross house so totally that James Ross’s body had not yet been recovered in the debris. The explosion had come from a rudimentary bomb in the kitchen and had been so powerful that the house was completely leveled. It had been three weeks and investigators were still sifting through debris. The remains of Anthony Donofrio had been recovered, investigators believing that his body had been on one of the top floors of the house. But they had yet to find James Ross. This detail hadn’t rested well with Lydia, and in thinking of it, a couple of other details weren’t sitting so well, either. That’s why they had come today to talk to Ford.

“So when’s your last day?” asked Lydia, looking at him guiltily.

“Tomorrow,” he said, turning his cop’s eyes on them, his voice shading suspicious. “Why?”

“There are just a couple of things nagging at us,” said Jeffrey, giving Ford an apologetic look.

“Man, you guys need to learn how to let things
go
. He
confessed
to you … didn’t he?”

“Yeah … but there are just a few things that don’t add up,” answered Lydia, sitting down. “If you can put them to bed for us, we’re on our way to Hawaii to meet my grandparents and to get married.”

He leaned back and looked at them, scowling, but Lydia could see the gleam of curiosity in his eyes.

“Like what?”

“Like where did he get all that money? The money to buy the Lexus and the new clothes? Presumably, now that you mention it, to pay Maura and Annabelle Hodge for their services. Remember he’d been declared dead. He had no funds, no assets.”

Ford nodded, seemed to consider the question. “What else?”

“Don’t you think it’s an awfully big coincidence that Julian Ross
would wind up living in a building that had one of those Prohibition tunnels, convenient to her crazy tunnel-dwelling twin who happens to be stalking her?”

Ford shrugged. “What else?”

“That night in the house,” said Jeffrey. “I shot James in the foyer. He had a choice to run from the burning house, hop in his Lexus, and take off with the twins. But instead, he turned and ran up the stairs … into the flames. Why didn’t he just take off? Our car was all the way down on the street; he knew I wouldn’t leave you and Lydia in the house to chase after him. He would have had a clean getaway.”

Ford seemed to think about it. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Well, the police were heading up the drive at that point, right?” said Ford, hopeful.

“And the other thing,” said Lydia, “may be the most important. James told us he took the twins so that he could reclaim his family and his fortune. But how would kidnapping the twins accomplish the recovery of his fortune? There was no way for him to claim their money when he was their
kidnapper
. We already know that Orlando DiMarco was named legal guardian of the twins. It doesn’t make sense.”

“So what are you getting at?”

“Now Julian, miraculously recovered, her evil twin dead, is cleared of her husband’s murder and reunited with her children,” said Lydia, mimicking a society column entry. “Even more fabulously wealthy than ever before, she’s about to embark on a new life, in a new country. She leaves for Switzerland next week, where her dear friend Orlando has a villa where she’ll stay until she and her children have found appropriately luxurious accommodations.”

They were all quiet, listening to the bustle of the busy precinct outside the office. Lydia looked at Ford and saw that none of what she’d said surprised him, that he’d been turning over the same questions in his mind. He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes.