The Winner (54 page)

Jackson held his tongue at the mention of their father. The years had not cleared up his sister’s blindness in that regard. “Forget it, I’m not going to waste my time discussing Roger.”

“I want you to tell me what’s going on, Peter.”

“When did you meet Donovan?”

“Why?”

“Please just answer the question.”

“Almost a year ago. He did a lengthy piece on Father and his distinguished career in the senate. It was a wonderful, compelling testimonial.”

Jackson shook his head in disbelief. She would have viewed it that way: the exact opposite of the truth.

“So I called Thomas up to thank him. We had lunch and then dinner and, well, it’s been wonderful. Extraordinarily wonderful. Thomas is a noble man with a noble purpose in life.”

“Like Father?” Jackson’s mouth curled into a smirk.

“Very much like him,” she said indignantly.

“It’s truly a small world.” He shook his head at the irony.

“Why do you say that?”

Jackson stood up and spread his arms to show the entire sweep of the room. “Alicia, where exactly do you think all of this came from?”

“Why, from the family money, of course.”

“The family money? That was gone. All of it. Has been for years.”

“What are you talking about? I know that Father ran into some financial difficulties along the way, but he recovered. He always did.”

Jackson looked at her with contempt. “He recovered shit, Alicia. He didn’t earn a dime of it. It was all made long before he was around. All he did was blow it. My inheritance, your inheritance. He pissed it away on himself and his lousy dreams of greatness. He was a fake and a loser.”

She jumped up and slapped his face. “How dare you! Everything you have is because of him.”

Jackson slowly rubbed his skin where she had hit him. His real skin was pale, smooth as though he had lived his life in a temple like a Buddhist monk, which in one sense he had.

“Ten years ago,
I
fixed the national lottery,” he said quietly, his dark eyes glittery as he stared at her small, stunned face. “All that money, everything you have came from that money. From me. Not dear old Dad.”

“What do you mean? How could you—”

Jackson pushed her down on the sofa as he interrupted.

“I collected almost one billion dollars from twelve lottery winners, the very same ones Donovan was investigating. I took their winnings and I invested the money. You remember Grandfather’s network of Wall Street elite? He actually
earned
his money. I maintained those contacts over the years for a very specific purpose. With the fortune I amassed from the lottery winners, which Wall Street assumed came from the ‘family money,’ I was one of their preferred customers. I negotiated the best deals, was given first choice of all the initial public offerings, the sure-fire winners. That’s a well-kept secret of the rich, Alicia. They get first dibs on everything: A stock that I get at ten dollars a share right before it hits the market goes to seventy dollars a share in the twenty-four hours after it hits the market. I sell it to the ordinary folks, collect my six hundred percent return, and move on to the next windfall. It was like printing money; it’s all in who you know and what you bring to the table. When you bring a billion dollars, believe me, everybody sits up and takes notice. The rich get richer and the poor never will.”

Alicia’s lips had begun trembling halfway through her brother’s explanation, as his speech and mannerisms grew more and more intense, more and more feverish. “Where is Thomas?” Her question was barely audible.

Jackson looked away and licked his dry lips. “He was no good for you, Alicia. No good at all. An opportunist. And I’m sure he loved all of this. All that you had. All that I had given you.”

“
Was? Was
no good?” Alicia stood up, her hands clamped so tightly together the skin looked boiled.

“Where is he? What have you done to him?”

Jackson stared at her, searching her features for something. It suddenly occurred to him that he was looking for some redeeming quality. From afar he had long held idyllic visions of his only sister, putting her perhaps on a pedestal. Face-to-face with her he found that image was unsustainable. The tone of his response was casual, his words far from casual, as he finally made up his mind.

“I killed him, Alicia.”

She stood there frozen for an instant and then started toppling to the floor. He grabbed her and laid her on the couch, this time not so gently. “Now don’t be this way. There will be other men, I can assure you of that. You can walk the earth searching for Father. Donovan wasn’t him, but I’m sure you’ll keep trying.” He didn’t try to hide the sarcasm.

She wasn’t listening to him, however. The tears stained her cheeks.

He continued despite her tears, pacing in front of her, the professor in front of his class of one. “You’ll have to leave the country, Alicia. I erased your phone message to Donovan, so the police won’t have that to go on. However, since your relationship has endured for a year, it must be well known to others. The police will come calling at some point. I’ll make all the arrangements. As I recall, you’ve always loved New Zealand. Or perhaps Austria. We had several lovely times there as children.”

“Stop it! Stop it, you animal.”

He turned to find her on her feet.

“Alicia—”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Let me be quite clear. You know too much. The police will ask questions. You have no experience in these matters. They will get the truth from you quite easily.”

“You’re right about that. I intend to call them right now and tell them everything.”

She started for the phone, but he blocked her way. “Alicia, be reasonable.”

She hit him with her fists as violently as she could. They did no physical damage to him; however, the blows conjured up the memory of another violent confrontation with another family member. His father, back then, had been physically stronger than he, was able to dominate him in ways that Jackson had never let himself be dominated since.

“I loved him, damn you! I loved Thomas,” Alicia shrieked in his face.

Jackson focused a pair of watery eyes upon her. “I loved someone too,” he said. “Someone who should have loved me back, respected me, but who didn’t.” Despite the years of pain, of guilt and embarrassment, Jack’s son still held long-buried feelings for the old man. Feelings that he had never dwelt upon or vocalized until now. The resurgence of this emotional maelstrom had a violent impact on him.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her roughly on the sofa.

“Peter—”

“Shut up, Alicia.” He sat down next to her. “You’re leaving the country. You are not going to call the police. Do you understand?”

“You’re crazy, you’re insane. Oh, God, I don’t believe this is happening.”

“Actually, right now, I’m absolutely certain I’m the most rational member in the family.” He stared into her eyes and repeated the words very slowly: “You’re not talking to anyone, Alicia, do you understand?”

She looked at his eyes and suddenly shivered to the depths of her soul. For the first time during this confrontation, terror had suddenly replaced her anger. It had been a long time since she had seen her brother. The boy she had happily romped with, and whose maturity and intelligence she had been fascinated by, was now unrecognizable to her. The man across from her was not her brother. This manifestation was something else altogether.

She hastily changed course and spoke as calmly as she could. “Yes, Peter, I understand. I . . . I’ll pack tonight.”

Jackson’s face took on a level of despair that it had not carried for many years. He had read her thoughts, her fears; they were so plainly written on the thin parchment of her soft features. His fingers clutched the large throw pillow on the sofa between them.

“Where would you like to go, Alicia?”

“Anywhere, Peter, anywhere you say. New Zealand, you mentioned New Zealand. That would be fine.”

“It is a beautiful country. Or Austria, as I said, we had good times there, didn’t we?” He tightened his grip on the pillow. “Didn’t we?” he asked again.

“Yes we did.” Her eyes dipped to follow his movements and she tried to swallow but her throat was too dry. “Perhaps I could travel there first and then on to New Zealand.”

“And not a word to the police? You promise?” He lifted up the pillow.

Her chin trembled uncontrollably as she watched the pillow come toward her. “Peter. Please. Please don’t.”

His words were stated very precisely. “My name is Jackson, Alicia. Peter Crane doesn’t live here anymore.”

With a sudden pounce, he pushed her flat against the couch, the pillow completely covering her face. She fought hard, kicking, scratching, gyrating her body, but she was so small, so weak; he barely felt her fighting for her life. He had spent so many years making his body hard as rock; she had spent that time waiting for a precise replica of her father to stride gallantly into her life, her muscles and her mind growing soft in the process.

Soon, it was over. As he watched, the violent movements diminished quickly and then stopped altogether. Her pale right arm slid down to her side and then dangled off the couch. He removed the pillow and forced himself to look down at her. She at least deserved that. The mouth was partially open, the eyes wide and staring. He quickly closed them and sat there with her, patting her hand gently. He did not try to hold back his own tears. That would’ve done no good. He struggled to remember the last time he had cried but couldn’t. How healthy was it when you couldn’t even recall?

He placed her arms across her chest but then decided to have them clasped at her waist instead. He carefully lifted her legs up on the sofa and put the pillow he had used to kill her under her head, arranging her pretty hair so that it swept out evenly over the pillow. He thought she was very lovely in death despite the utter stillness. There was a peace there, a serenity that was at least heartening to him, as though what he had just done wasn’t all that terrible.

He hesitated for a moment and then went ahead: He checked her pulse and laid her hand back down. If she’d still been alive, then he would’ve left the room, fled the country, and left it at that. He wouldn’t have touched her like that again. She was family after all. But she was dead. He rose and looked down at her one last time.

It needn’t have ended this way. Now all the family he had left was the useless Roger. He should go kill his brother right now. It should have been him lying there, not his cherished Alicia. However, Roger wasn’t worth the effort. He froze for an instant as an idea occurred to him. Perhaps his brother could play a supporting role in this production. He would call Roger and make him an offer. An offer he knew his younger brother would be unable to resist as it would be all cash; the most potent drug in existence.

He gathered up the elements of his disguise, and methodically reapplied them, all the time making little darting glances at his dead sister. He had coated his hands with a lacquer-like substance, so he wasn’t concerned about leaving fingerprints. He left by the back door. They would find her soon enough. Alicia had said her housekeeper had gone out to run an errand. It was a better than even chance that the police would think Thomas Donovan had continued his homicidal rampage by murdering his lady friend, Alicia Morgan Crane. Her obituary would be extensive, her family had been very important; there would be much to write about. And at some point, Jackson would have to come back, as himself once more, to bury her. Roger could hardly be trusted to do that.
I am sorry, Alicia. It shouldn’t have come to this.
This unexpected turn of events had come closer than anything he could remember to completely immobilizing him. Above all else he cherished complete control and it suddenly had been stripped from him. He looked down at his hands, the instruments of his sister’s death. His sister. Even now his legs felt rubbery, his body not in sync with his mind.

As he walked down the street, still reeling from what he had just done, Jackson’s mental energies finally were able to focus on the one person he clearly saw as responsible for all of it.

LuAnn Tyler would experience the brunt of everything he was now feeling. The pain that slashed so viciously through him would be multiplied a hundredfold upon her until she would beg him to just finish her, make her stop breathing because every breath would be a hell, would be beyond what any person could endure. Even her.

And the grand part of it all was that he would not have to go looking for her. She would come to him. She would run to him with all the speed and strength her extraordinary physical specimen of a body could inspire. For he would have something that LuAnn would go anywhere, do anything for. He would hold something that LuAnn Tyler would die for.
And so you will LuAnn Tyler slash Catherine Savage.
As he disappeared down the street he swore this, over the mental image of a still-warm body whose dear face strongly resembled his own.

F
or the tenth time Riggs looked around the Mall and then checked his watch. In cutting his deal with the FBI, he had just shimmied out onto the most fragile limb in the world and LuAnn was three hours late. If she never showed up, where did that leave him? Jackson was still out there, and Riggs doubted if the knife would miss its mark a second time. If he didn’t produce Jackson, fulfill his deal with his former employer, and have his cover reestablished, the cartel members who had sworn to kill him five years ago would soon learn that he was alive and they would surely try again. He couldn’t return to his house. His business was probably already going to hell, and to top it off, he had five bucks in his pocket and no car. If he could have screwed up his life to any greater degree he was at a loss as to how.

He slumped on a bench and stared up at the Washington Monument while the cold wind whipped up and down the flat, open space that stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the United States Capitol. The sky was overcast; it would be raining again soon. You could smell it in the air. Just wonderful.
And you’re right between a rock and a hard place, Mr. Riggs,
he said to himself. His emotional barometer had dropped to its lowest point since finding out his wife had perished in the gang attack five years ago. Had it really been less than one week ago that he had been leading a relatively normal life? Building things for wealthy people, reading books by his woodstove, attending a few night classes at the university, thinking seriously about taking a real vacation for a change?