The Darkness Gathers (36 page)

“Yeah, he’s still alive.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Jeffrey asked.

“I imagine he’s pretty upset. I don’t blame him. I could have finished this the other night. He’d be out of your hair and mine. Why are we keeping him on ice?”

“Lydia doesn’t want his death on our hands.”

“He killed her mother.”

“ ‘Two evil acts don’t equal a good one,’ or something a bit more eloquent than that,” Jeffrey said, still not sure if he agreed with her on any of this.

“So, what are we going to do with him? I can’t board him permanently, you know. I have other clients.”

Jeffrey told Dax what they were planning for midnight in Van Cortlandt Park. Dax lowered his head when Jeffrey was done and paused a second before commenting, “That’s the worst plan I ever heard.”

chapter thirty-eight

L
ydia was sure she had been followed as she stepped off the number 9 train at 242nd Street in the Bronx. There were more people riding the train than you’d expect at midnight, and about thirty or forty other people exited at its final stop. As she walked down from the elevated platform, Van Cortlandt Park yawned deep and black to her left as cars sped by on Broadway to her right. She stood for a second at the bottom of the steps and saw out of the corner of her eye a figure in black stop up at the top. She didn’t turn around to look, but walked onto the path that led her into the darkness. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears and felt a flutter deep in her belly.

With her hands in her pockets and her head low, she prayed that she hadn’t fucked them all with this plan, but so far, it was working exactly as she’d thought it would. The sound of the heels of her boots on concrete and the street noise fading as she moved deeper into the park were all she could hear. She looked around her and behind her, but she saw no one.

The call to Detective Ignacio had been a lure, Lydia banking on the possibility that either his calls or hers were being monitored by someone who was reporting to Nathan Quinn. The phone rang not five minutes after Jeffrey had left the apartment.

“Let’s deal, Ms. Strong,” said Nathan Quinn. Lydia had shuddered as she remembered his voice on the DVD.

“I was expecting your thugs to show up in a limo. Something more dramatic than a phone call anyway.”

“I think we’re beyond that now. Don’t you?”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want. The question is, What do you want?”

“I want you to arrange for Jed McIntyre to be picked up and put behind bars tonight. Forever.”

“I don’t know where he is,” answered Quinn.

“I do.”

“If you know where he is, why don’t you take care of him yourself?”

“Because I don’t want to play God, Quinn. I just want him back where he belongs.”

“And you’ll tell me where I can find Tatiana.”

“And who took her. And why.”

“How do I know you’ll tell me the truth?”

“You can always arrange to have Jed McIntyre released again if I haven’t.”

“I guess I was right after all, wasn’t I, Ms. Strong?”

“How’s that?”

“Everybody wants to get paid sooner or later. I figured out your price.”

“I guess you did. But not before I figured out yours.”

He laughed, but it sounded fake and evil, like something recorded for a house of horrors.

“When and where?” he asked.

If the call Jeffrey was to make from his cell phone went half as well, you’ll be having a regular party tonight, she thought.

V
an Cortlandt Park, on 1,122 acres in the ridges and valleys of the northwest Bronx, was New York City’s third-largest park. Originally the land of the Weckquaesgeek Indians, it was “sold” to the Dutch West India Company in 1639. It passed through a couple of hands before being given to Jacobus Van Cortlandt, who would one day be mayor of New York City. In 1748, Jacobus’s son Frederick built the Van Cortlandt Mansion, a stately stone home right out of a history textbook, with gaslights outside and the inside furnished in the height of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century home fashion. It stood there still, the oldest building in the Bronx.

Parks in New York City, no matter how nice they looked during the day, were scary at night. All that wide-open darkness in the heart of the Bronx was not a good idea, as far as Lydia was concerned. But it served their purposes tonight.

Lydia walked off the concrete path and approached the Van Cortlandt Mansion from a rocky trail. She noticed that the floodlighting that usually illuminated the building at night and the lights within were dark. She imagined that Jeffrey and Dax had something to do with this. At least she hoped so. Across the path from the house was a wide staircase with narrow overgrown steps that led to the picnic grounds. If things were going as planned, this was where Dax and Jeffrey were. She wondered if she’d made a mistake. Ideas that she had when she was pissed and scared generally didn’t turn out the way she had planned. Maybe she should have just let Jeffrey handle the situation the way he thought best and put it out of her mind forever. She heard footsteps behind her and she knew it was too late.

“What are you doing here, Lydia?” asked Jacob Hanley.

Her breathing came quick and shallow as she turned to face him.

“Jacob … you sure do get around,” said Lydia, trying to sound surprised. “I could ask you the same question.”

“I heard you were about to sell us out to Nathan Quinn. I came to talk you out of it,” he said, removing what looked like the Glock his cronies had confiscated from her back in Albania. It was then that she saw on Jacob’s right hand the insignia ring she’d seen on Nathan Quinn and on the men in the snuff film. She blinked as if she might clear the sight from her eyes. Since her conversation with Detective Ignacio, Lydia had been thinking about all that money that Jenna had supposedly stolen. And she remembered the moment back in Albania when Sasa had told Jacob that the terms of their agreement had changed. She remembered the uneasy look Jacob had cast at her and Jeffrey.

“I trusted you to do the right thing for Tatiana,” said Jacob, his stare menacing and his lips turned up in slight smile. “That’s why we let you go.”

“I’ve never seen that ring before,” she said, surprised to hear her own voice quaver slightly.

“I only wear it on special occasions, and this certainly qualifies,” he said.

“You’re one of them?” she asked.

“Not really. Not a member of the Council, exactly. Obviously, I’d be a much wealthier man if that were the case. But we all come from the same Ivy League fraternity. I just do a little freelance enforcing now and again, if you know what I mean.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Those against Quinn on the Council needed someone to get his hands dirty with the FBI and Sasa Fitore. Someone who could help them get Nathan Quinn and save Tatiana, as well.”

“Right,” she said, and laughed. “It was all about Tatiana, right, Jacob? Saving Tatiana and putting Quinn away. How does the one hundred million dollars Jenna stole from Nathan Quinn fit into this? How much of that money belongs to you?”

A cool wind picked up and blew the leaves above their heads, lifted some of the dirt at their feet. Lydia felt a sudden drop in temperature, and a chill moved through her body.

“What are you talking about?” he said, his tone dull and cold.

“I have to admit, you nearly had me convinced back there. You almost had me thinking you were doing the right thing. Or as right a thing as anyone could do under the circumstances. But then I started thinking about what Sasa said before he died, about the terms changing. And tonight, when Detective Ignacio told me about the money, it all made sense. For you, it wasn’t just about taking Nathan Quinn down; it was about taking his money. It’s all about stealing money.

“Jenna Quinn and Sasa Fitore couldn’t kill Nathan Quinn. She couldn’t divorce him. Either way, they risked not getting the money. They couldn’t just siphon money from Quinn Enterprises into American Equities and run away from him, because she knew he would use his influence and go to the ends of the earth to find Tatiana. There would be no hiding from him. When the FBI approached her, she must have thought it was her lucky day. With their help, with your help, she staged the abduction and murder of Tatiana. She gives the FBI the evidence they need, Quinn winds up in jail and eventually ‘commits suicide,’ and Jenna Quinn lives happily ever after. Everybody else gets their cut, right, Jacob? And if Marianna and Valentina hadn’t contacted me, no one ever would have suspected a thing.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I always knew you were off your rocker, Lydia. But this is totally out of line.” But even in the relative dark, she could see his Adam’s apple moving up and down in his throat.

Jeffrey walked up from the darkness and came to stand beside Lydia. “That’s why you didn’t want me to see the books and why you didn’t want to bring Lydia in as partner. How long, Jacob, have your involvements been so fucking dirty?”

As Jeffrey, from his hiding spot on the stairs, had listened to Lydia talk, he realized the truth in her conclusions, a truth he had never considered—or maybe never allowed himself to consider. Though, maybe he had known it since the night in the darkened hotel room years ago. Friendship and loyalty are funny things. You never want to believe the bad things of the people you love; you only want to see them as you hope they are. As maybe they once were, when you first loved them.

“How long, Jacob?” Jeffrey repeated.

Jacob would never have a chance to answer that question. Right before his head exploded in a volcano of blood and brain, there was a look of shame and resignation on his face that Jeffrey would never forget.

In a hail of gunfire, Jeffrey threw himself on top of Lydia. He could hear the bullets hitting trees and the ground around them and then felt them both being dragged away, sliding on their bellies over gravel down the flight of stairs leading to the picnic grounds. Dax, all 250 pounds of him covered head to toe in black body armor, including a hood, pulled them onto the first landing and lay on top of them, acting as a shield. The gunfire continued for what seemed like hours, until a heavy silence fell. Jeffrey could hear Lydia’s frightened breathing beside him, and his whole body shook with adrenaline.

In the silence, they all waited. Then after tense moments, Dax rolled off of them and crawled back up the steps, aiming the assault rifle he had slung around his shoulder. There was silence.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” whispered Jeffrey, the last moments of Jacob’s life burning into his mind. He crawled up behind Dax, Lydia right behind him. “Did you see who it was?”

Dax shook his head. “There was a vehicle without its lights on. A Hummer. It’s gone now. Bloody quiet, it was. I’ll have to get one of those,” he said, his voice muffled by the hood he wore. “Funny thing … it was the same vehicle that brought him in.”

“But who was it? Who wanted Jacob dead?” asked Jeffrey, shock wearing off and emotion creeping into his voice.

“Maybe Jenna Quinn didn’t want to share her hundred million with him?” suggested Lydia. “Or maybe he had served his purpose with the Council and shared more information than they felt comfortable with.”

Jeffrey looked at Jacob’s body lying in a bleeding pile in the dirt, and he felt a wave of intense sadness, profound loss. But more than anything, he was angry that Jacob had let it come to this for all of them. He thought of Jacob’s wife, his children, and the moment when he would have to tell them that Jacob was gone. He put his head down in his hands and felt Lydia’s shoulder on his back.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “There was nothing you could have done.”

He nodded, not sure if she was right and not sure it mattered either way. He’d always carry this with him, regardless of where the blame lay.

“What now, then?” asked Dax, seemingly unperturbed by the events.

“I’m meeting Nathan Quinn in Croton Woods in twenty minutes,” answered Lydia, still looking at Jeffrey with concern. “It’ll take us that long to get there on foot. The entrance is on Two Hundred and Thirty-third Street.”

“No worries—I’ve got the Rover.”

“Where’s Jed McIntyre?” said Lydia, a question she’d hoped never to ask in her life. And hoped never to ask again after tonight.

“Back in the dungeon.”

“I thought you were going to bring him with you.”

“No … too risky. Can’t keep an eye on him and the two of you, now, can I?” He winked and gave a smile totally incongruous to the situation. And Lydia thought he might have a screw loose.

“Go get him and wait for me at Two Hundred and Thirty-third Street,” she said with a frown.

“Meet
us
at Two Hundred and Thirty-third Street,” Jeffrey said, correcting her as he snapped back into the moment. “I’m going with you.”

“Nathan Quinn is not going to hurt me. I’m the only one who knows what happened to Tatiana.”

“You know, it always comes to this. We split up and the shit hits the fan. I’m staying with you. Dax can handle McIntyre.”

“Pick your psycho,” said Dax, with a short, hard laugh.

“What about Jacob?”

“We’ll have to come back for him later,” said Jeffrey, his voice flat and unemotional as he avoided looking at the body. Lydia looked at Jeffrey. His face was stone, expressionless and cold. Lydia was starting to feel like she was in a video game where everyone who came into her view screen wound up dead in some awful way.

T
he old Putnam Division railroad track had ceased operation in 1958 and was now the corridor that passed through the wetlands and divided Van Cortlandt Golf Course. It had originally been part of a route that ran between the High Bridge and Brewster, New York. Now a gorgeous and serene nature trail during the day, it was a dark and treacherous trek at night. But this was the path they chose to Croton Woods, rather than the sidewalk that ran along the edge of the park, preferring the darkness to the exposure of the street. The night was cold and alive around them, wind whistling through the oak and maple branches, which had already dropped most of their leaves. She heard something small and four-legged rustle to their left, and it sent a jolt of adrenaline through her. Lydia pulled a small Maglite from her pocket.