Genevieve started to argue—that was her mother and aunt in there, after all, not to mention Jim.
And Sean.
She noticed how Franklin’s expression had gone hard and implacable again. She nodded in agreement, although she secretly wondered if she’d be able to handle the anxiety of sitting there, waiting to hear if everyone she loved most in the world was safe. She wished she’d have been able to reach Sean or her mother on the twenty-five-minute trip from the city, but neither of them had picked up. Franklin’s scowl after she’d told him of her futile attempts had made her all that much more nervous.
“All right, but
hurry
,” she charged Franklin.
She watched Franklin’s bulky, but graceful form as he walked toward her aunt’s house. The sun had begun to set, casting the neighborhood in a pink-hued haze filled with shadows. She sat forward in the seat tensely when she saw Franklin knock. Her heartbeat began to thrum in her ears when, after a pause that seemed like it lasted for an eternity, the detective turned the front doorknob and entered the house.
Just before he was blocked from her view, Genevieve saw him reach for his gun.
She opened her car door, the throb of her heart now a hammer in her head. She wasn’t sure if she had waited Franklin’s prescribed thirty seconds or not before she heard a sound like a muted firecracker.
She rushed out of the car, fumbling for Franklin’s cell phone.
Sean winced when the heavy oak door opened with a squeak of protesting hinges. Picking the ancient lock had taken him longer than he’d have expected. He must be losing his juvenile delinquent skills.
He quickly shut the door behind him, not wanting the cool air to warn Rook of his presence if the squeaky hinges hadn’t already. He couldn’t be sure where the others were in the house, but the rear door entered into the basement.
He found himself in a narrow room that contained neatly arranged plywood shelving and a washer and dryer. The room was dim, but through the crack of a nearly closed door he saw a light and heard what sounded like a heavy object being scooted along the old cement floors.
“I don’t understand. Who are you? What do you want?” a woman asked shakily.
Sean went still, surprised that Rook had ordered his captives down into the basement. He couldn’t be sure if it was Genny’s mom or aunt who had spoken.
“That’s not for you to worry about. Just keep your mouth shut and I’ll be gone before you know it. There’s something here that’s mine.” Sean heard a grunt of satisfaction. “Here it is.” Sean moved closer to the door and peered through the crack into the outer room.
He saw Rook in profile, the three other adults facing him. Rook stood in the midst of a pile of fire-singed items. He held up Max’s attaché case. The supple leather sheath that used to cover it had been burned off. The fire had scored and dulled the metal, but it remained largely intact.
Sean tensed in preparation to spring into the room when he saw Rook crouch.
“What’s this?” He held up what looked like a scorched picture frame.
“Get your hands off that. That’s none of yours, Rook. You take what you came for and go,” Jim shouted angrily.
Rook glanced up. A viperlike grin spread on his thin face. “You want to be able to set this photograph of Max next to your bedside table, Rothman, so you can stare at the love of your life every night before you fall asleep?” Rook’s voice rang out sarcastically in the empty basement. “He used to laugh at you behind your back, you know. Max knew what you were, even if you didn’t, old man. You thought it was loyalty, but Max knew the truth—that you’re a pitiful old fag hopelessly in love with his master.”
Jim drew himself up proudly. “You’re the pitiful one, Rook. You killed him, didn’t you? You murdered Max.”
Rook’s smile looked a little demented. He tossed the picture frame onto the floor. Glass tinkled as he cocked his weapon.
“Yeah, I did, old man. And you’re as stupid as I always thought you were for asking me to admit it in front of you. Now I’m going to have to kill all three of you.”
“Don’t move, Rook. You’re gonna get a bullet right in your brain if you so much as twitch,” someone barked from the other side of the room. Sean saw Detective Franklin hurrying down the stairs, his gun drawn and trained on the side of Rook’s head.
“Drop the gun.”
Rook’s eyes popped in disbelieving fury. Sean saw the subtle movement of Rook’s hands tightening on the gun. He moved around the door, aimed and shot at the same time that Rook started to swing his weapon in Franklin’s direction.
Rook fell to the basement floor clumsily, finally collapsing onto his back. He cursed in pain and rolled onto his side.
Sean stared down at Rook as he kicked his fallen gun across the room. Rook’s green eyes widened as he struggled to breathe; he winced.
“Kennedy.” The single word seemed to carry all the hatred that Albert Rook possessed in his wiry, strong body.
Sean didn’t say anything. Instead he picked up the carbon attaché case and dangled it over Rook. An ugly snarl twisted Rook’s face as he stared impotently at Max Sauren’s treasure chest of secrets. Out of the corner of his eye, Sean saw Franklin approach.
“Thanks,” the detective said as he withdrew his cell phone from his pocket while still training his weapon on Rook.
“The pleasure was all mine,” Sean drawled, his gaze locked with Rook’s. No one spoke as Franklin put in an emergency call for an ambulance and backup. When Franklin hung up, Sean handed the fire-scored attaché case to Franklin.
“I think you’ll find a
fine
reason inside of that case for why Rook here decided to kill Max Sauren. You see, Rook here sold military secrets to the Chinese while he was a weapons systems analyst for Navy intelligence. Max had proof of his treason, and it’s inside that attaché case. I’d bet my life on it. Do you want to tell the detective here about that evidence you contrived to try to make it look like Genevieve Bujold had killed her husband?”
Marietta Bujold made a sound of distress. Her sister put her arm around her shoulders and made soothing noises. Sean gave Genny’s mother an apologetic glance. He was about to suggest that Jim take Marietta and Roberta upstairs when he noticed a pair of white tennis shoes coming stealthily down the basement stairs.
He recognized those shoes.
“Genny?” he bellowed.
“Sean?”
He gave Franklin an incredulous, irritated glare.
“You told me to watch out for her, and she
insisted
on coming here. Refused to tell me where her aunt and mother lived if I left her at the hospital.” When Sean didn’t seem pacified, Franklin added sheepishly, “I
did
warn her not to get out of the car.”
Genny vaulted down the stairs, all caution forgotten.
“Mom?
Sean?
” Her huge gray eyes took in Rook lying there on the floor. Her gaze darted to Sean’s face. She rushed over and embraced her mother and aunt, asking them and Jim repeatedly if they were all right. Once she’d satisfied herself that they were fine, she went over to Sean and gave him a fierce hug.
All the icy coldness that had flowed through Sean’s veins from the moment he’d seen Albert Rook standing in the living room upstairs melted. He shut his eyes tightly and inhaled the sacred scent of Genny’s hair.
He cracked his eyelids open a few seconds later when he heard Rook make a raspy sound of disgust. He continued to hold her tightly as he met the man’s stare over the top of Genny’s head.
“Jealous, Rook?” he asked softly.
“You’re welcome to her,” Rook replied scathingly. “Max used to watch you two carry on. Do you think he didn’t notice?”
“I doubt there’s much Max Sauren
didn’t
notice,” Sean said wryly. He heard the sound of sirens in the distance. “Go ahead, Rook. Why don’t you tell the detective about the trumped-up evidence—your clever scheme to frame Genny for Max’s murder?”
Rook just gave him a disgusted look as he held a hand over his side and panted.
“It was clever enough to keep your mouth shut, Kennedy. You didn’t seem to have much problem believing your girlfriend had murdered her husband.”
He felt Genny stiffen in his arms. Sean rubbed her back in a soothing motion.
Rook groaned as a spasm of pain shook him. “What the
fuck
,” he muttered bitterly to himself a few seconds later.
Sean thought he understood the acid in Rook’s tone. “Treason pretty much trumps any crime you’ve committed, Rook. Including murder—which you just admitted to in front of everyone in this room, by the way.”
Rook’s furious glance told him that particular reality had just come crashing down, as well.
“Max and I used to watch you and Genevieve shooting at the Sauren firing range sometimes. He would joke about how long it would actually take before you cut the crap and just nailed her like you did every other woman that came within ten feet of you.” Rook paused, wincing and clutching his side.
“All I had to do was collect some of the casings you two left after shooting at the range. You taught Genevieve how to load her own gun. Her prints were all over the shells. It was Max’s idea.” Rook’s lips twitched. Sean couldn’t tell if he was in pain or recalling Max fondly until he continued. “That was Max for you. He always wanted to be ready with a plan for extenuating circumstances.”
Sean distantly recalled that Genny and he had practiced at the firing range early on that fated New Year’s Eve. It’d been the holidays, and the company had been closed. It would have been easy enough for Rook to retrieve the casings they’d left behind, either on that day or any other day during the holidays.
“So you’re saying it was Max who masterminded your whole blackmailing scheme?” Sean said.
Rook looked insulted. “I came up with most of that on my own. What do you think? That Max planned it from the morgue?”
Sean recalled that smug expression on Max Sauren’s face in death. “You never know, with Max,” he muttered under his breath. He wondered if Genny had heard him when she slowly lifted her head from his chest and turned to look at Rook.
“We used my nine-millimeter to practice at the firing range, so the shell casings could have conceivably come from either Max’s gun or your own.” Sean continued, wanting to get as much out of Rook before he had a chance to recover and retract or alter his story. “So whose gun did you actually use to kill Max?”
Rook was starting to respond when a fit of coughing struck him. Sean heard the dull thump of several vehicle doors shutting in the distance.
“I’d better go meet them,” Franklin said, referring to the approaching police and EMTs.
“No. You stay put,” Sean said, still staring at Rook. “Jim? Can you go? You might find a few of my operatives up there along with the police. Tell them we’re safe, will you?”
Jim nodded willingly and headed up the stairs. Everyone else in the chilly basement stared at Albert Rook with tense expectation.
“Go on, Rook. Whose gun did you use?” Sean prompted.
“Max’s. I knew where he kept it in the car. Afterward, I policed my brass and destroyed the evidence. After I’d collected the shell casings with Genevieve’s prints on them, I—” Rook gasped, his face clenched with pain.
“You cleaned Max’s gun of any prints and planted it along with Genevieve’s shell casings on the Sauren mansion grounds,” Sean continued for him. “Then you photographed all the evidence and brought it to me, hoping to blackmail me into giving you money or Sauren stock in exchange for your silence during that pivotal time during the police investigation.”
Sean noticed in the periphery of his attention that Genevieve turned her head again and was staring incredulously up into his face.
Rook shot Sean a look of pure loathing. “But you fooled me with that fake briefcase and your stories, didn’t you? You said you’d give it to the police if I came near your sweetheart. But you were a damn liar, weren’t you, Kennedy? I knew that when I saw Max’s briefcase lying on the Sauren mansion front lawn after that fire destroyed his house.”
The sound of pounding feet emanated down through the ceiling.
“So why did you do it, Rook? Why did you shoot Max?”
Rook’s face suddenly crumpled with anguish. It shocked Sean. Albert Rook was the last person on the planet he would have expected to show such intense emotion. To see him suddenly transformed by misery was damned unsettling.
“I don’t know why he did it,” Rook wailed. “He just turned on me all of a sudden—out of nowhere. He said I’d gotten too clingy . . . too needy. He said he wanted me to leave the company . . . that everything we had was finished.”
Sean glanced down at Genny when he felt her muscles jerk. She once again turned and stared at Albert Rook at the same time a man shouted down the stairs. Franklin went over to the foot of the staircase and held up his badge, identifying himself as a CPD homicide detective.
“Everything is under control. A man has been shot. Send down the EMTs, but have your men stay put for a moment. It’s crowded enough down here,” Franklin shouted in his authoritative, deep baritone. There was a sound of men calling out and shuffling feet.
“And then Max threatened to give the documents in that attaché case to government officials, didn’t he?” Sean prodded, ruthless, even in the face of Rook’s misery to see the truth exposed.
Rook’s low growl was no longer furious, only defeated and pitiful. He rested his cheek on his upper arm. Sean could almost see the energy draining out of him.
“Yes. After everything we had together, everything we shared. He used to say I was the only one who truly knew him. But that night . . . he said I was nothing more than a convenience. He didn’t
want
me anymore.”
Sean started when Genny lurched out of his arms and staggered toward Rook.
“He wanted you to do it. That’s why he purposefully made you so angry. Max
wanted
you to kill him,” she said hoarsely.