“Perhaps,” Rachael said, “Mr. Cullifer didn’t call you because he considered it a confidential matter.”
“There are no confidences in a family, Ms. Janes. However, regardless of any legalities, I will never recognize you as an Abbott. I want you to get out of here. I never want to look at your face after today. You managed to bilk my brother out of his money and his property, that wonderful house in Chevy Chase where we all grew up. It’s in your hands, a stranger’s hands. Bastard or not, you have won. Get out of here before I call security.”
Rachael said easily, “I brought security with me, Mrs. Kostas. Don’t you remember? This is Special Agent Jackson Crowne, with the FBI.”
Laurel put out her hand. Short buffed nails, clear polish, but the thumbnails were chewed to the quick. Jack handed her his shield, watched her study it for an aeon before handing it back. “So,” she said, “this pathetic girl managed to talk the FBI into revisiting this national tragedy. Has she accused us of murdering Senator Abbott?”
“Actually, ma’am, we have a lot of questions, not only about Senator Abbott’s death.”
“You won’t for much longer,” Laurel said, reaching for her phone, and she turned her back to them. Jack hoped she wasn’t calling her lawyer. He really didn’t want to have to deal with that.
Jack had faced down monsters during his years in the FBI’s Elite Crime Unit, and remembered every single one of them with utter clarity, but in this woman’s presence, listening to her low, clipped voice, he felt a sort of black coldness in her.
He purposefully turned away and led Rachael to the huge window that looked toward the Inner Harbor, lined with tourists, the blue water of the harbor dotted with pleasure craft, ferries, and fishing boats. It looked intensely alive, very different from this frozen world so high above it. He was losing it.
He said, “I know a little restaurant right on the Inner Harbor where I’d like to take you for dinner.”
Rachael nodded.
Jack couldn’t wait to get away from this cold, driven woman. It was very likely she wouldn’t talk to them. Had she held the family’s reputation so dear, had she believed her brother’s confession to the world would not only destroy her brother but cause irreparable damage to the family and to the Abbott holdings so much that she murdered her own brother? He couldn’t imagine it himself, it was too over the top.
They heard Laurel Kostas hang up the phone, and turned.
By the look on her face, she hadn’t gotten what she wanted. Jack was tempted to applaud, but he didn’t. He watched her face smooth out, and he knew to his gut that when this woman managed that slick-as-glass expression, she was in full control again.
She radiated power and malice.
“I spoke to my lawyer. He said he would call your superiors, who would deal with you, Agent Crowne. You will leave now. I will not speak to you.”
Rachael said, “But Mrs. Kostas, don’t you want to know if your brother’s death really was an accident? Don’t you care that someone might have murdered him and gotten away with it? Didn’t you love your brother?”
Jack saw feral rage on her face. She leaned forward, her palms splayed on the long expanse of smooth blond birch. “My brother’s drinking was unfortunate. Quincy and I told him many times to stop—at least not to drive when he drank too much—but he never listened to us, or to anyone. Quincy and I have wondered why he would drink to such an extent when his supposed precious daughter had magically returned to him. Both of us have wondered if he didn’t change his mind about you, if he was about to demand DNA tests, but didn’t have the chance—he died. Greg Nichols agrees it is strange, all of it, your appearance, my brother’s death.
“You should be thanking me that we didn’t push the police to investigate you, particularly since
you
are the only one to gain by his death. Why have you involved the FBI? You think they wouldn’t consider you a prime suspect?”
TWENTY-FIVE
S
he was good, Jack thought, very good, a deft manipulator. She’d managed to turn it all around, and what she said made sense. It was obvious to Jack that Rachael had never considered this. She looked poleaxed.
Jack said, “Ms. Kostas, I understand your father was quite the autocrat, that Rachael’s mother was so afraid of him she didn’t tell Rachael who her real father was until after Carter Blaine Abbott died.”
“That is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. My father was a great man, a brilliant man, a man with extraordinary vision. Look around you—he founded Abbott Enterprises fifty years ago with a small strip mall, and look what it is today: a power not only in the U.S. but in the world. Abbott is both respected and admired, and that is because of my father’s legacy.
“To his family he was kindness itself. But I will tell you this—he couldn’t abide fools or liars; he protected his children, took care of them. When he saw your mother, young as she was, he knew what she was, and so he saved his son from her.
“Did you show up on my brother’s doorstep because that scheming mother of yours needed money and you were the one who was to get it for her?”
Rachael wanted to kill her on the spot, to put her hands around her neck and . . . but she said, her voice calm, even pleasant, “That was very well done, Mrs. Kostas. You put me on the defensive, a skill Jimmy said you have in spades. I would not like to own a company you wanted to acquire.
“But finding out about my father’s death isn’t about your spite, isn’t about your dislike for me. It’s about getting justice for a very fine man.”
Laurel slammed her fist on the desktop. “I know the truth, and it’s quite horrible and needless enough, without implying anyone else was involved. If you didn’t kill him, then the senator was drunk and he lost control of his car.”
“Surely you knew your brother didn’t have a single drink since he killed that little girl, Melissa Parks, in Delancey Park eighteen months ago, nor did he drive a car after that evening.
“You had meals with him, saw him in social settings. Surely you noticed he no longer drank, never drove? This is the truth. I know it to be the truth. Actually, he always drank club soda. Therefore, he couldn’t have been drunk, nor could he have been driving. Someone else was.”
“I will not speak further about this.”
“I know Jimmy told you and your husband, and Quincy, about what happened eighteen months ago. Moreover, he told you he couldn’t stand living with the guilt anymore and that he was going public with all of it. He said you and Quincy were both furious when he told you what he planned to do, that even though he would be the one ruined by his confession, you and Quincy didn’t agree. You felt it would blacken the family name, call into question the family honor, make business partners question the Abbott honesty. He said you and Quincy were enraged. He was disappointed because he wanted you both to understand, to support his decision to go public.”
Laurel drew herself up to her full five-nine height. She looked faintly bored. “Whatever aberrations my poor brother suffered from at the end of his life, they are no longer of any concern to anyone. I loved my brother very much. I admired him, but he wasn’t a strong man.”
“Not strong? I didn’t know him very long, ma’am, but I’d say he was one of the strongest people I ever met.”
“I want you to go now. I have nothing more to say to either of you.”
Rachael said, “There is something else, Mrs. Kostas. Did you and your brother, perhaps that lecherous husband of yours, drug me and tie my feet to a block of concrete and throw me in Black Rock Lake because you knew I was going to tell the world what my father had done?”
“You leave my husband out of this, you little bitch! You claim someone tried to kill you? Threw you into a lake?” She laughed, tossed her hands. “How very melodramatic you are. Who would possibly believe someone like you? You are nothing more than a temporary annoyance. Get out.”
Rachael said as she turned, “Actually, I’m far more than a temporary annoyance, Mrs. Kostas. I own Jimmy’s house. I have a third of his money, a third of his stock. I hope you contest the will. I hope you demand DNA testing. Yes, let’s do it, as publicly as you like. It will give me a chance to announce to the world what vipers you and your brother are.”
Laurel leaned forward on her desk, her hands fisted on the desktop. “Get out of here now!”
“I know why you’re trying to kill me. You’re afraid I’ll make Jimmy’s announcement for him. You’ve had three tries—three!—and yet here I am, standing in your office. Jimmy’s death was no accident, and you well know it. Just think about the reporters sleeping in your front yard, Mrs. Kostas, once everyone knows the truth.
“Enjoy this cold, soulless office while you can, ma’am, because you’re not going to be in here much longer.”
“What is going on here, Laurel? Julia told me the FBI was in your office. Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here, Ms. Janes?”
“She looks a bit red in the face, Quincy,” Stefanos Kostas said, stepping around his brother-in-law.
Jack and Rachael turned to see Quincy Abbott and Stefanos Kostas. Quincy was what Jack expected an Abbott to look like—very expensive Italian suit, black with very thin red stripes, a white shirt, a red tie. He was elegant, polished, and at that moment he looked more bewildered than angry. But there was one thing that was off—it was the toupee he wore. The color was perfect, but the style didn’t quite fit the shape of his head.
As for Kostas, Jack thought he looked like a dissipated playboy, a man who lived only for his own pleasure, for his own whims. He was handsome, Jack supposed, fit, well-dressed, but there was something off about him, too, and it wasn’t a toupee. He didn’t know at that moment what it was.
Rachael turned and said pleasantly, “Uncle Quincy, this is Special Agent Jackson Crowne. He’s here to find out what happened to my father and who tried to kill me last Friday night, Monday, and—goodness—yesterday, as well. But I’m sure you know all about that, don’t you?”
Quincy Abbott laughed, then looked sideways at his sister and said, “Sounds to me like a boyfriend gone nasty. Who have you been sleeping with?”
Rachael thought about her one-time fiancé from Richmond. What a fiasco that had been.
Stefanos waved his question away. “What’s this about killing you?”
Jack said pleasantly, “Perhaps you, sir, Mrs. Kostas, and Mr. Abbott could tell me where you were on Friday night.”
Quincy raised a brow. “I was at Mrs. Muriel Longworth’s welcome party for the new Italian ambassador. Stefanos, you came in later, as I recall.”
Stefanos nodded and looked at Rachael’s breasts.
“I will not dignify your question with a reply,” Laurel said.
Rachael said, “Uncle Quincy, Jimmy told you about killing that little girl.”
“Perhaps he did. I wasn’t much interested, to tell you the truth. Oh well, who cares now? The senator is dead and buried. I just wish he hadn’t left you our house. As for the stock, at least you don’t have enough to cause trouble.” He brightened. “You said someone is trying to kill you? Well then, have this FBI agent go find him and throw him in jail.” Quincy Abbott nodded to both of them, gave his sister a long look, turned on his designer heel, and left Laurel Kostas’s office.
Stefanos leaned against the door, arms across his chest, and said to his wife, “I’ve been shopping. Guido called me about this very lightweight wool I’m wearing. What do you think?” He looked at Rachael’s breasts again, knowing his wife was watching. If she’d been Laurel, she’d have shot him dead. But Laurel said nothing, didn’t appear to notice anything amiss.
The three of them, Rachael thought, didn’t appear to live on the same planet.
Rachael walked out, Jack right behind her.
Jack’s last memory of Laurel Abbott Kostas was of the cold, ripe malice in her eyes, her husband leaning against the door, like a beautifully suited lizard. He thought about Jukie Hayes, owner of a junkyard in Marlin, Kentucky, a good ole boy who visited neighboring towns. He killed people and buried them under ancient wrecks of cars, between stacked tires, stuffed inside car trunks. He told Jack he liked the smell of the decaying bodies. Jack still had nightmares about Jukie, and the stack of bones he’d uncovered beneath a tarp thrown over a dozen steering wheels. Odd that a wealthy Greek playboy would remind him of Jukie, but he did.
Both of them breathed in the sea air as they walked down Calvert Street to the Inner Harbor. Jack laughed. “She’s a terror, Rachael, scares the crap out of me. Quincy doesn’t like her, but he knows she has the power. Is he afraid of her? I wonder.”
“I need to take a shower,” Rachael said. “That Stefanos Kostas is a dreadful man. And she didn’t appear to even notice he was eyeing me.”
Jack stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, put his hands on her shoulders, and said, “You held it together. You went after her. That was well done. I’m proud of you.”
Rachael stood very still, aware of people moving around them, aware that she felt good about herself too, and pleased at what he’d said. “Thank you. You said Quincy is afraid of his sister. Why?”
Jack dropped his hands and he and Rachael moved back into rhythm with the crowds of tourists. “He’s smooth as silk, terrified someone won’t believe he’s God’s gift to the world, and weak. He’s not in his sister’s league. As for the toupee, nothing said is too much. This was only the first salvo, Rachael.”
Madonna’s voice blared out “Like a Virgin.”
Rachael’s eyebrow went up when Jack pulled out his cell. “Yeah?”
He listened. His hand tightened on the phone. He listened for a very long time.
When he slipped his cell back into his jacket pocket, he said, “That was Savich. The guy I shot in the shoulder yesterday in Gillette’s kitchen—the woman on the walkie-talkie called him Donley—they ID’ed him from a blood sample from the kitchen floor. His name is Everett, Donley Everett. Turns out he showed up in Clapperville, Virginia, went to a local doctor’s house and forced the doctor to treat him. He didn’t kill the guy, thank God. Evidently Donley thought the doctor lived alone, and so he left him bound and gagged in the basement. Turns out the doctor’s wife had been on a business trip. She arrived home an hour after Everett left. They called the police, who put out an APB on him.”