Jericho's Fall, page 24
“I don’t understand,” said Beck. “How am I putting you at risk?”
“I told you. Asking the wrong questions, in the wrong places. It’s time to stop, Rebecca. Time to call a halt, go home, take care of your daughter.”
Her bewilderment was genuine. She had done a little research about Scondell Bloom, and she had called Tish, but she had not been going around digging. Not like—
“Lewiston Clark,” she said. “He was writing about your firm, wasn’t he?”
“I’d rather not discuss Mr. Clark, if it’s all the same to you. Whoever stops him will be doing all of us a big favor.”
“Who’s us?”
Again he ignored her. Billionaires could be like that. “Rebecca, look. This all comes down to something very simple. Jericho and I both served our country. He served it longer than I did. He got medals, books about him, a Wikipedia entry a mile long. I made money. A lot more money than Jericho did. He’s upset about the way things ended up, so now he’s threatening to make trouble. I’ve offered him a payoff—-I don’t need the aggravation—and he’s turned it down. He’s sitting up there in that house all day, nursing grievances against the world. And now he wants you to help him. Well, don’t. Go home and let him die in peace. Stay away from this. If you can make him stop, that’s bonus. But, even if you don’t, my associates and I will take care of you.” A pause. “And your daughter.” Another. “I hear she and your mom had a great time at Disney World. Personally, though, I wouldn’t have stopped for ice cream on the way back to Sarasota. There is such a thing as overkill.”
The bottom fell out of her world. The rest of his words registered, but only in the distant fashion of somebody else’s conversation. Her womb ached. There was no other way to put it. Pain sizzled where she had borne the child this man was threatening to harm.
“And you really need to teach your daughter not to lie, just because Grandma says it’s okay. American Girl doll, my ass. She bought your Nina a dog. He’ll stay in Sarasota with your mother, of course, but now your daughter will be begging you to take her down there all the time. See how mothers scheme? Glad I never had one.”
A buzzing had joined the pain, not in her ear or even in her brain but everywhere in her body at once, as if a horde of mad bees were fighting a war inside her. So this, she thought to herself, is panic.
“You know what I think?” Jack Notting was saying. “I think your plans are fine just as they stand. I think you should stay put for now, and fly to Chicago tomorrow. There’s no need to make a special detour to Sarasota. Nina will be fine without you being there.” He let this sink in. “So—kiss Jericho goodbye in the morning, fly off to Chicago for your meetings, pick up your daughter Sunday as planned. By then it’ll be over. And you, Rebecca, will be a million dollars richer. And don’t worry. It’ll all be legitimate and aboveboard.” He pointed out the window. “I’m speaking on behalf of your government, of course.”
He opened the door, beckoned imperiously to Marshal Krukoff.
“We’re done here,” he said.
They drove off. An FBI agent led her to her car.
CHAPTER 29
The Sister
(i)
Jack Notting had not said she couldn’t call. He could have placed that restriction, and did not. As soon as she was free of the clearing, she tested her cell. Hooray, she had bars. She called her mother’s condo. The answering machine kicked in, and then there was Jacqueline, groggy with sleep, angry at being disturbed at this hour: after all, midnight in Colorado was two in the morning back east.
“I’m sorry, Mom, it’s just—”
“There is no way in the world I’m waking her up. Not at this hour. You should be ashamed of yourself, Rebecca.”
“I didn’t call to talk to her. I called to talk to you.” A pause as they both digested this innovation.
“About what?” said Jacqueline, cautiously.
“Is Nina okay?”
“Nina’s fine.”
“And you—you’re fine?”
“Yes, dear. What’s wrong?”
Beck looked out the car window, whirling head tipped against the glass. Beyond the glow of the headlights, the trees faded into heavy darkness. “Mom, listen. Did you buy Nina a dog?”
Defensive. “Well, you had one when you were little, Rebecca. Every little girl should have one. It’s not my fault your condo doesn’t allow—”
“Wait. Mom, wait. Listen. The dog. What color is it?”
“What earthly difference—”
“Please, Mom. I don’t mind about the dog. I swear I don’t. Just tell me what color it is.”
“It’s black. A black Labrador.”
“A Lab. You’re sure.”
“Of course I’m sure, dear. I may not know much, but I do know dogs. Besides, it says right on the pedigree—”
“When?”
“What?”
“When did you buy the dog, Mom?”
“Sunday. We went out and got it the day Nina arrived. She’s just a child, Rebecca. She missed her mother, and I wanted to give her a nice present. To cheer her up. Remember, dear, you won’t be coming back until the weekend. That can be hard on a child. I never left you alone this long when you were a—”
Beck was not listening. Sunday. Jacqueline bought the dog on Sunday, and an identical dog was killed in Jericho’s driveway on Monday. Impossible. But so was a helicopter sending messages to her cell phone. Dak had said they would come after her, and she had figured the house was a fortress. Until tonight, she had not considered that they might come after the part of her that was in Florida.
“Mom, listen. Are you listening?”
“Of course, dear. I was just saying—”
“Have you seen any strangers around? Watching the house? Watching you?” She swallowed. “Watching Nina?”
“Of course not. I’d report that—”
While Jacqueline continued to explain, Beck made her calculations. She was talking on her cell, so about fifteen of Dak’s interested parties were probably listening, but any phone would be as bad, because her mother’s was surely tapped. Well, fine. Let them listen. She was doing what any mother would do, and if they chose to treat it as a violation of the deal, no force on earth would stop her from killing Jack Notting.
Slowly.
“Mom. Mom, wait. Listen. I want you to leave.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t argue with me, Mom. Just do what I tell you. I want you to pack up the station wagon and take Nina to my cousin’s. Not in the morning. Now.”
“Brad? Why? His house is so cramped and messy, with all those kids running around—”
“Just do it, Mom. Please. I’m begging you. Stay with Brad and Cheryl. Trust me on this. Please. I’ll be there Sunday. I’d come before then, but I—I can’t.”
“But I don’t understand, baby. Why do we have to move?”
“Because Brad’s a cop. He’s married to a cop. They both carry guns.”
(ii)
She needed some while to knock down her mother’s objections, but at last Jacqueline gave in. After hanging up, Rebecca tried Margaret Ainsley, despite the hour, but the Senator was not answering.
Beck would have to curse her out later.
She lifted her cell again, intending to call Sean. If anybody deserved to be awakened, it was he; and if she woke his wife, well, those were the breaks. But Beck remembered, in the nick of time, that Sean was off awarding a grant for a green bauxite plant in Africa.
Exquisite timing.
Sean was too busy to be at his father’s bedside, but failed to tell his sisters the true reason: that his investigator was out in Bethel turning over rocks. And, in case the whole mess went south, Sean possessed a perfect alibi.
“Bastard,” Beck muttered, remembering again that look of triumph when he thought he had snared her.
Sitting alone in her car in the darkness, fighting the tears, she felt like a prisoner serving an indeterminate sentence, the brooding mountains her walls. She was leaving Stone Heights in the morning, but a part of her would never escape. She would be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life. She remembered Jericho telling her once how, up until the early nineteenth century, prisoners of war were routinely granted parole, meaning that they would be sent home, on their solemn promise not to return to the battlefield. She would happily have made the same deal, but she did not think Jack Notting was the sort of man who kept his word.
“Move,” she commanded herself.
Hurrying up the mountain, keeping a closer eye this time on the rearview mirror, she tried to work out the one connection that still eluded her. If Sean had hired Lewiston Clark, and Lewiston Clark had hired Pesky, who had told Pesky to kill the dog? She could not imagine Sean giving the order to harm a fly. Only one answer suggested itself: Jack Notting had penetrated Sean Ainsley’s ragtag team, and was dealing with Pesky directly. That was why the private investigator, ostensibly Clark’s employee, took the photos at Stone Heights without asking the writer first. And when Notting learned that Jacqueline had bought Nina a dog, he immediately—he immediately—he—
She pulled to the side of the road and at last let the tears flow.
(iii)
When Rebecca arrived back at Stone Heights, both daughters were awake, despite the hour. Evidently Jericho had taken a turn for the worse. His breathing was shallow, said Audrey, and his pulse was down a hair. There could be a lot of reasons, but they were thinking they might move him to the clinic tonight to get him stabilized, then on to Vail, or even Denver, in the morning.
Beck said she would go along with whatever they decided.
They looked at her in surprise. She knew she was listless, but she could not help it. She was scared out of her wits, and trapped. No doubt they were reading in her face that she was sorry she had ever come.
“Man trouble?” said Pamela, but Beck was too haunted to play her games. She excused herself and went up the bedroom. She made a start at packing, then went into the study to call her mother again, but put down the phone before she finished dialing, because what she wanted more than anything was to hop on the next plane to Sarasota—an act Jack Notting had specifically forbidden.
She thought about the FBI agents. And Marshal Krukoff. How could they be protecting a man who would casually threaten her child? Did they suspect what their protectee was up to, and just not care? Or had he somehow kept them in the dark?
She wondered what Jack Notting could possibly know that would make him so valuable an asset that they would take the risk that Beck would go blabbing about her meeting with him. Unless, of course, they knew she had nobody to blab to. All at once, she found herself missing Jericho: the father figure he had been a decade and a half ago. Fifteen years ago, of course, nobody would have dared bother her. If they had, she would have run to his strong arms, sheltered her head against his chest, and let him call in a couple of friends to fix whatever was wrong.
By the time she came up for air, everything would be fine.
But as Jericho himself had told her this afternoon, that man no longer existed. The new Jericho could not help her. She would have to do it herself.
The trouble was, she lacked a weapon. She could hardly call her Congressman or the Times, not least because her daughter would be dead before they called her back, and she herself an hour later. They were listening, she reminded herself. If they could listen in on the great Jericho Ainsley, Former Everything, despite his many precautions, keeping track of Rebecca Marie DeForde would be child’s play.
Then she remembered.
The printouts.
Jericho’s printouts from the library. His Internet research.
She had finally figured out the trick. Dak was telling the truth, but so was Lewiston Clark, and, in his way, Jack Notting. Jericho must have begun by squirreling away his national-security secrets, and then, as his breakdown accelerated, moved on to include the collapse of Scondell Bloom. This was, indeed, his revenge on the world that had tossed him aside at the height of his powers. He might be dying, but he would make them all watch—and pay for the privilege.
Whatever information Jericho had gathered—whatever form it took—it had proved sufficient to keep at bay the forces of governments and billionaires alike. Here, then, was the best protection, for herself and her daughter. If Beck could only possess whatever Jericho had hidden, she could hold them off as effectively as he had. And so, methodically, she got to work, searching through the office file cabinets, then moving into the sickroom, where Jericho snored heavily from the bed. She could not get over how strong he looked. She wondered how a disease could so thoroughly ravage one’s insides while leaving the outside untouched. But as she made her away along the shelves, she remembered a girlfriend who had died, very young, of breast cancer, and had shown few overt symptoms even when they told her she had only six months to live.
And here were the printouts. They were in two accordion files on the windowsill, hidden in plain sight if they were hidden at all. She leafed through them, and, sure enough, found instructions about rebuilding virtually every system in the house.
Perfectly sensible, she realized.
Jericho would have researched the systems before tearing up the house. He would have hidden his secrets in only one, leaving the others as wisps.
She carried the files back to her bedroom, figuring that neither Pamela nor Audrey would miss them. And if they did, too bad. Rebecca had between now and midmorning tomorrow, when she had to leave for the airport, to outguess the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to find what neither a scheming billionaire nor an ambitious Senator nor the government of the United States had been able to uncover.
For her daughter’s sake, she dared not fail.
(iv)
The clue was in the madness. By tracking the ravages of the disease through his brain, she could track his successive hiding places for what Lewiston Clark had called names, dates, and figures.
And what had he done, in his madness? What was the single concrete act of insanity to which both sisters could point?
He had rebuilt his house.
And so Rebecca sat in her suite, surrounded not only by the printouts, but by whatever she could cull from Jericho’s files: the original architectural plans for Stone Heights, the survey showing plot lines and elevations, the receipts for the new roof and the alarm system and the electric wiring and the well pump and the new plumbing and the new windows and half a dozen other systems she had not thought of until now. She puzzled over wiring diagrams and instruction pamphlets and correspondence with contractors.
He always went to talk to the workers, Audrey had said. Whoever was replacing or rebuilding or restructuring, Jericho chatted with them while they worked. And to at least one of them—Beck was really rolling now—to at least one, Jericho had said, Oh, by the way, I wonder if you could do me a favor. No doubt cash had made an appearance, and then Jericho’s documents or computer disks or whatever wound up sealed behind drywall or stuffed beneath a shingle.
But which? She could hardly tear down the whole house. She lacked the basic tools even to pry up a single floorboard.
She was deep into her reading when, half an hour later, Audrey knocked on her door. She was serving cookies and milk in the kitchen, she said. From a bakery this time, she promised, leading Beck out into the hall despite her objections: for Rebecca had been deep inside the owner’s manual for Jericho’s new Asko dishwasher, looking for hidden spots that remained dry, and hated to have her concentration broken.
But she went, and not to be polite. If she was to solve this puzzle, she might need help. She dared not tell the sisters what she was looking for, not with Jack Notting and his friends listening in. She could, however, ask questions about their father.
And so she did.
No, said Audrey. She did not remember whether Jericho’s obsession extended to hiring a different contractor for every job, or whether he tended to use the same ones.
Yes, said Pamela. Jericho paid the people who repaired things very well, often throwing in an extra couple of hundred, because “times are so tough out there.” This habit of overpayment had won him affection throughout the valley. The affection, in turn, led to a protectiveness among the people of Bethel, and their vigilance provided Jericho an effective early-warning system against strangers, Beck suspected.
Yes, said Audrey. She had been here during some of the renovation. She remembered that Jericho had a terrible screaming argument with the roofer—
Jericho’s buzzer sounded.
“My turn,” said the nun.
When Audrey had gone, Pamela turned to Beck. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
“I don’t have time.”
“Oh, you’ll make time for this one.” Her voice was pitched low, the tone gentle: the voice of the peacemaker. “It’s about your daughter.”
Panic. Visions of Jack Notting. “Nina? What about her?”
“Her father was that lawyer you married, right?”
“Larry Vayner.”
“Sean says he was a stuck-up asshole.”
“He was appropriately surnamed,” Beck said, voice strained as she remembered Larry’s big plans to exploit her life story for money; and his fury when she refused.
“I have no doubt,” said Pamela. “Now, listen. I’ve been doing a little studying. That file I mentioned. The one Dad kept on you. Had a chance to read it yet? I didn’t think so. You’ve been so busy reading up on the house you’re hoping to inherit—”
“What!”
“Well, anyway, you’ve missed the forest for the trees. The file’s in Dad’s desk drawer, if you want to see it. Not even locked in the safe. And, believe me, it makes interesting reading. I had no idea that his obsession was so…ongoing.”
