The Winner (29 page)

LuAnn had sent Beth, her former coworker, enough money to start her own chain of restaurants. Johnny Jarvis from the mall had received enough to pay for several advanced degrees at the country’s most prestigious universities. Duane’s parents had received enough money to keep them secure in their retirement. LuAnn had even sent money to Shirley Watson, a guilty reaction to having lashed the woman with a negative reputation in the only place where Shirley would ever have the ambition or courage to live. Finally, LuAnn’s mother’s gravesite was now marked with a far more elaborate monument. The police, she was sure, had done all they could to track her down through this largesse, but without success. Jackson had hidden the money well and there had been absolutely no trace for the authorities to follow.

In addition, half her yearly income had been donated anonymously to a number of charities and other good works that she and Charlie had identified over the years. They were ever on the lookout for more deserving homes for the lottery money. LuAnn was determined to do as much good as she could with the money to atone, at least in part, for the manner in which she had acquired it. Even with all that, the money came in far faster than they could dispose of it. Jackson’s investments had paid off more handsomely than even he had envisioned and the anticipated twenty-five million dollars in earnings each year had actually exceeded forty million per annum. All money unspent by LuAnn had also been reinvested by Jackson and the surplus had kept compounding until the assets LuAnn now held in her own name were almost half a billion dollars. She shook her head at the thought of the staggering sum. And the original lottery prize money, one hundred million dollars, was to be returned to her very shortly, the ten-year period having expired, as her contract with Jackson had stated. That mattered little to LuAnn. Jackson could keep it; it wasn’t as though she needed it. But he would return it. The man, she had to admit, had been utterly faithful to his promise.

Over all these years, every quarter the detailed financial statements had arrived, no matter where they happened to be in the world. But since only the papers and never the man showed up, LuAnn’s anxiety finally had passed. The letter accompanying all the financial packets was from an investment company with a Swiss address. She had no idea of Jackson’s ties to this firm, nor did she care to explore that area further. She had seen enough of him to be respectful of his volatility; and more disturbingly, of the extreme consequences which he was capable of causing. She also remembered how he had been prepared to kill her if she had rejected his offer. There was something not quite natural about him. The powers he seemed to possess could hardly be of this world.

She stopped at a large oak. From one of its branches a long knotted rope dangled. LuAnn gripped the rope and lifted herself off the saddle, while Joy, already quite familiar with this ritual, waited patiently. Her arms moving like wonderfully calibrated pistons, LuAnn swiftly climbed to the other end of the rope, which was tied around a thick branch almost thirty feet off the ground, and then made her way back down. She repeated the process twice more. She had a fully equipped gymnasium in her home where she worked out diligently. It wasn’t vanity; she had little interest in how it made her look. She was naturally strong, and that physical strength had carried her through many a crisis. It was one of the few constant things in her life and she was loath to let it disappear.

Growing up in Georgia, she had climbed many trees, run through miles of countryside, and jumped many ravines. She had just been having fun; the concept of exercise hadn’t come into the equation. And so, in addition to pumping the iron, she had built a more natural exercise course across her extensive grounds. She pulled herself up the rope one more time, the muscle cords in her arms and back tight as rebar.

Breathing hard, she settled lightly back into the saddle and made her way back to the horse barn, her heart lightened and her spirits raised by the invigorating ride through the countryside and the strenuous rope climb.

In the large storage building next to the horse barn, one of the groundspeople, a beefy man in his early thirties, had just started splitting logs with a sledgehammer and wedge. LuAnn glanced at him through the open doorway as she rode by. She quickly unsaddled Joy and returned the horse to its stall. She walked over to the doorway of the outbuilding. The man briefly nodded to her and then continued his work. He knew she lived in the mansion. Other than that, he knew nothing about her. She watched the man for a minute and then took off her coat, lifted a second sledgehammer off the wall, squeezed a spare wedge between her fingers, testing its weight, set a log up on the block, tapped the wedge into its rough surface, stepped back, and swung cleanly. The wedge bit deep, but didn’t cleave the log in two. She hit it again, dead center, and then again. The log broke clean. The man glanced at her in surprise, then shrugged and kept splitting. They both pounded away, barely ten feet from each other. The man could split a log with one swing of the hammer, while it continued to take LuAnn two and sometimes three blows. He smiled over at her, the sweat showing on his brow. She kept pounding away, though, her arms and shoulders working in precise unity, and within five minutes she was cracking a log with one blow, and before he knew it she was doing it faster than he.

The man picked up his pace, the sweat falling faster across his brow, his grin gone as his breaths became more painful. After twenty minutes, he was taking two and three strikes to crack a log as his big arms and shoulders started to tire rapidly, his chest heaving and his legs rubbery. He watched in growing amazement as LuAnn continued, her pace steady, the strength of her blows against the wood totally undiminished. In fact, she seemed to be hitting the wedge harder and harder. The sound of metal on metal rang out louder and louder. Finally, the man dropped the sledgehammer and leaned back against the wall, his gut heaving, his arms dead, his shirt drenched in perspiration despite the chilly weather. LuAnn finished her pile of logs and, barely missing a stroke, finished off his stack as well. Her work complete, she wiped her forehead and replaced the sledgehammer on the wall hook before glancing over at the puffing man as she shook out her arms.

“You’re very strong,” she said, looking at the substantial pile of wood he had split as she put her coat back on.

He looked at her in surprise and then started laughing. “I was thinking that too before you came along. Now I’ve half a mind to go work in the kitchen.”

She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. She had chopped wood virtually every day of her life from the time she had started school until she was sixteen. She hadn’t done it for exercise, like now; back then she had done it to keep warm. “Don’t feel bad, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

As she walked back up to the house she took a moment to admire the rear facade of the mansion. The purchase and renovation of this house had been, by far, her greatest extravagance. And she had done it for two reasons. First, because she was tired of traveling and wanted to settle down, although she would’ve been happy in something far less magnificent than what she was staring at. Second, and more important, she had done it for the same reason she had done most things over the years: for Lisa. To give her a real home with a sense of permanence where she could grow up, marry, and have children of her own. Home the last ten years had been hotels, rented villas, and chalets, not that LuAnn was complaining about existing in such luxury, but none of them were home. The tiny trailer in the middle of the woods all those years ago had had far deeper roots for her than the most extravagant residence in Europe. Now they had this. LuAnn smiled at the sight: big, beautiful, and safe. At the thought of the last word, LuAnn suddenly huddled in her coat as a wind broke through the stand of trees.

Safe?
When they had gone to bed last night they had been safe and secure, or as much as one could be living the kind of existence they all did. The face of the man in the Honda sprang up before her and she closed her eyes tightly until it finally went away. In its place came another image. The man’s face stared at her with many emotions passing across it. Matthew Riggs had risked his life for her and the best she could do was accuse him of lying. And with that response she had only served to make him more suspicious. She pondered a moment, and then sprinted toward the house.

Charlie’s office was straight out of a men’s club in London, with a magnificent wet bar of polished walnut occupying one corner. The custom-built mahogany desk had neatly sorted piles of correspondence, bills, and other household matters. LuAnn quickly flipped through his card file until she found the one she wanted and plucked it out. She then took out a key Charlie kept high up on a shelf and used it to open a drawer in his desk. She took out the .38 revolver, loaded it, and carried it upstairs with her. The weight of the compact weapon restored some of her confidence. She showered, changed into a black skirt and sweater, threw on a full-length coat, and went down to the garage. As she drove down the private road, one hand tight around the pistol in her coat pocket, LuAnn anxiously looked around, for the Honda could be lurking. She breathed a sigh of relief when she hit the main road and was still all alone. She glanced at the address and phone number on the business card and wondered whether she should call first. Her hand hesitated over the car phone and then she decided just to chance it. If he wasn’t there, then maybe it was best. She didn’t know whether what she was planning would help or hurt matters. Ever one to choose action over passivity, she couldn’t change her ways now. Besides, it was her problem, not anyone else’s. She would have to deal with it eventually.

Eventually, she would have to deal with it all.

J
ackson had just arrived back from a cross-country trip and was in his makeup room divesting himself of his most recent disguise when the phone rang. It was not his residential phone. It was his business line, an untraceable communications linkage, and it almost never rang. Jackson called out on the line often during the business day to convey precise instructions to his associates across the globe. Almost no one ever called him, however; and that was the way he wanted it. He had a myriad of other ways to ascertain whether his instructions were being carried out. He snatched up the phone.

“Yes?”

“I think we might have a problem here, or it may be nothing,” the voice said.

“I’m listening.” Jackson sat down and used a long piece of string to lift the putty off his nose. Then he removed the latex pieces adhering to his face by tugging gently on their edges.

“As you know, two days ago we wired income from the last quarter to Catherine Savage’s account in the Caymans. To Banque Internacional. Just like always.”

“So? Is she complaining about the rate of return?” Jackson said sarcastically. He tugged firmly on the back edges of his snow white wig and then pulled up and then forward. He next removed the latex skullcap and his own hair sprang free.

“No, but I got a call from the wire department at Banque and they wanted to confirm something.”

“What was that?” Jackson cleansed his face while he was listening, his eyes scanning the mirror as layer after layer of concealment was removed.

“That they had wired all the monies from Savage’s accounts to Citibank in New York.”

New York!
As he absorbed this stunning news, Jackson opened his mouth wide and removed the acrylic caps. Instantly, dark, misshapen teeth became white and straight. His dark eyes glittered menacingly and he stopped removing his disguise. “First, why would they call you if it was her account?”

“They shouldn’t have. I mean they never have before. I think the guy at the wire desk down there is new. He must have seen my name and phone number on some of the paperwork and figured I was a principal on the receiving account instead of being on the other end of the transaction, the sending account.”

“What did you tell him? I hope you didn’t excite any suspicion.”

“No, not at all,” the voice said nervously. “I simply thanked him and said that was correct. I hope I did the right thing, but of course I wanted to report it to you right away. It seemed unusual.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything you want me to do on follow-up?”

“I’ll handle it.” Jackson hung up the phone. He sat back and fiddled absently with the wig. None of LuAnn’s money was ever, ever supposed to end up in the United States. Money in the United States was traceable. Banks filed 1099s with the IRS, and other documents detailing income and account balances. Social Security numbers were communicated and kept as part of the official record; filings with the IRS on behalf of the taxpayer were required. None of that was ever supposed to happen in LuAnn’s case. LuAnn Tyler was a fugitive. Fugitives did not return to their homeland and start paying their taxes, even under assumed names.

He picked up his phone and dialed a number.

“Yes, sir?” the voice asked.

Jackson said, “The taxpayer’s name is Catherine Savage.” Jackson provided her Social Security number and other pertinent information. “You will find out immediately whether she has filed a U.S. tax return or any other type of documents with the IRS. Use all the sources at your disposal, but I need this information within the hour.”

He hung up again. For the next forty-five minutes, he walked around his apartment, wearing the portable phone and headset, a requirement when you liked to pace and your apartment was as large as Jackson’s was.

Then the phone rang again.

The voice was crisp. “Catherine Savage filed an income tax return last year. I couldn’t get full particulars in such a short time frame; however, according to my source, the income reported was substantial. She also recently filed a change of address form with the IRS.”

“Give it to me.” Jackson wrote the Charlottesville, Virginia, address down on a piece of paper and put it in his pocket.

“One more thing,” the voice said. “My source pulled up a very recent filing in connection with Savage’s tax account.”