The Tesla Legacy (9 page)

“Need to call a friend,” he said.

“We need to take a statement,” said the cop who’d been knocked down. His truculent expression clearly showed that he held Joe at least partially responsible.

He had already speed-dialed Vivian.

“Torres,” she answered.

“Tesla,” he said.

The bloody-nosed cop glared at Joe, but the female cop put her hand on the guy’s arm and said something in a low voice, hopefully calming him down.

Joe kept talking. “I need you to find my mother, make sure she’s safe, and stick with her until you hear from me.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “What’s the nature of the threat?”

“Someone tried to take a suitcase she just gave me, and he was willing to use force.” He hung up and texted his mother’s phone number to Vivian. His mother was in the safest hands he could imagine—he’d watched Vivian take out a guy six inches taller than she was and armed with a knife without even breaking a sweat. But he wished he could go outside and look after his mother himself.

“We’re going to need you to come down to the station.” The male cop held a white tissue under his nose. “Give us a statement.”

“That won’t be possible,” Joe said. “I can give you a statement here.”

Detective Bailey reached for Joe’s elbow. “It’ll be quick.”

His heart rate soared, and Edison stepped up next to him, his nose nuzzling against Joe’s palm. “I will not leave this concourse.”

“I understand you’re upset, sir,” she said. “You’ve had—”

“Mr. Tesla,” called a voice from behind him. “Are you and that dog all right?”

Miss Evaline from the information booth hurried over. Commuters parted to make way for her round form. He bet even the nuns would have let the clerk through.

“He’s fine, miss,” said Detective Bailey. “He needs to come with us.”

The cop with the bloody nose stood straighter. “He does.”

“He most certainly does not,” said Miss Evaline. “This is Mr. Joe Tesla, and he’s not going anywhere.”

Detective Bailey let go of his elbow and gave him an appraising look instead. “We don’t need to leave the building, Mr. Tesla, if that’s too uncomfortable for you.”

Turned out, being a famous recluse, even if you weren’t related to Nikola Tesla, had its perks. Joe felt angry everyone knew about his agoraphobia, even when it worked to his advantage.

“Thank you,” he said. “How about we take a statement in the lobby of the Hyatt? It’s quieter.”

“That would do fine,” she said.

“You all right, Mr. Tesla?” Miss Evaline asked again.

He realized he was shaking. All that adrenaline had no place to go. “I’m fine.”

She knelt next to Edison and ran her hands over the dog, making sure he hadn’t been hurt, something Joe should have thought to do himself.

“What a brave boy!” she crooned. “A good, brave boy.”

Edison’s tail wagged. He knew he was a good dog. Joe wished he could say the same about himself. He fished out a treat and gave it to the dog.

As Detective Bailey led the way toward the Hyatt, Joe trundled after her with his suitcase and Edison. He couldn’t help but notice the detective’s simple grace. She was coordinated and surefooted, walking with easy confidence and without a trace of her partner’s swagger. She tilted her head to the side, her glance saying that she’d caught Joe looking.

Chapter 11

Vivian was glad she still had on her formal suit from the wedding. Otherwise, they probably never would have let her breathe the rarefied air of the Waldorf. The doorman would have sensed, with his doorman radar, that she could never afford to stay here and tossed her out on her butt.

As it was, she walked through the white and gold columns unmolested, careful not to slip on the marble floor, and made for the elevators. Nobody in the lobby seemed like a threat—rich folks and their bodyguards and children. Nothing unexpected.

When Vivian had called her, Tesla’s mother had given her the room number and promised not to leave until she got there. On the phone, she seemed more irritated than frightened. Only a few minutes after Tesla’s call, Vivian knocked on Mrs. Tesla’s door.

Hugh Hollingberry answered and showed her inside. He looked worried, and he locked the door behind her.

The suite was done in reds and silver, with a spindly looking table holding the television. She figured the table cost more than she made in a month.

“I’m sorry to be seeing you again under these circumstances, ma’am,” said Vivian.

Mrs. Tesla gestured to a silver tray on the table in front of her. “I’ve ordered tea.”

“I’d like to check that the suite is empty,” Vivian said.

Mrs. Tesla raised her eyebrows. “I’m sure any killer would have had the sense to strike before we brought in a bodyguard.”

“I understand, ma’am, but I still need to check.”

Mrs. Tesla raised her shoulders in an irritated shrug, and Vivian took that as a yes. She went through the bedroom. When she checked the closet, she was surprised by how many clothes Mrs. Tesla had brought. Nothing hiding in there and nothing in the bathroom or under the bed.

Hugh Hollingberry was still standing next to Mrs. Tesla, his hand on her shoulder, when Vivian returned.

“My son is a little paranoid. He gets it from his father.” Mrs. Tesla poured Vivian a cup of tea and handed it to her. “But I’m certain you know this already.”

Vivian wasn’t going to reveal what she did and didn’t know about Joe Tesla. “What was in the suitcase the thief tried to take from Mr. Tesla?”

“Odds and ends his father wanted Joe to have. Papers, mostly.”

There had to be more to it than that. “What kind of papers?”

“Whatever a father leaves a son,” she said. “I’m certain Joe knows more about it than I do. He’s an enigmatic man, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am.” Vivian wasn’t divulging anything, and neither was Mrs. Tesla.

“He’s a very good son, but he worries too much about his mother.” Mrs. Tesla smiled at Hollingberry. “It was kind of him to send you here, but unnecessary.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t think so.”

“He is not the one who determines such things.”

Vivian wasn’t sure how to respond, so she kept quiet. Mrs. Tesla clearly didn’t like being told what to do or being imposed upon. Vivian would probably react the same way.

“I need my privacy,” Mrs. Tesla said.

“I understand, ma’am, and I will stay out of your way as much as I can.”

Mrs. Tesla shook her head. “Please leave us in peace. I want no police, or security, or whatever you call yourself, watching me. I can look after myself.”

“Mr. Tesla was very clear that I remain with you until he says otherwise.”

“So I shall be very clear as well—he has no
say
here. He is my son, not my keeper.”

Hollingberry twitched ever so slightly.

“I’ll be outside if you need me.” Vivian didn’t need to sit in the woman’s lap to protect her, although it’d be easier if she stayed close.

Mrs. Tesla crossed to the door, unlocked it, and opened it. “It was kind of you to stop by.”

Chapter 12

Joe was damn glad the elevator was working again. He pulled the doors closed and lifted the lever to make the cage move. The suitcase bumped against the back of his knee. Usually, the elevator made him nervous, but not today. He’d been through too much drama on the concourse to have any worry left about the elevator.

He looked at the freshly cleaned crystal chandelier above and the custom-made Persian rug on the floor. Shame to think that modern elevators weren’t so fancy. This elevator was taking him home. Finally. Edison sat next to him, his eyes following the stone wall passing by outside the fancy wrought iron.

Detective Bailey had given him her card and told him to call if he remembered anything else. She’d written her personal phone number on the back. He touched the card in his pocket. Before New York, before Celeste, this would have been an invitation. But now that he was trapped inside, he felt neutered. It was meaningless for a woman to give a guy her phone number if he couldn’t go outside.

The elevator doors opened onto the ever-cool air of the deep tunnels. Here, the hot outside winds had lost their battle with the cool, dank air from underground. At this depth, the temperature was always stable at around fifty. The sweat on Joe’s skin turned icy. He ran his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair to let the cold soak in.

He checked the alarm he’d installed. All the lights were green—no one had opened the doors that closed off the ends of the tunnel on which his house sat, no one had moved inside the house itself, and no one had come out of the elevator before him. All clear. He’d worried a bit about the elevator inspectors, but they clearly hadn’t ventured into the alarmed zone. Good.

He kept Edison at heel while he switched off his alarm, then he wedged the lever open that controlled the elevator’s movement. Now no one could call the elevator up to the terminal level. No one could sneak up on him here.

His house was the safest place in New York City. But a shiver went down his spine as the suitcase’s wheels bumped along the wooden planks that lined his tunnel, and he looked over his shoulder. Nothing behind him, and nothing in front of him but Edison.

He remembered the paranoid email his father had sent before his death.
I’ve said things I shouldn’t, to people I shouldn’t. I’ve set them on paths.
His father’s paranoia wasn’t crazy at all. Something in this box was worth stealing.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you
, his father’s voice rang in his ears. What if someone had been out to get his father? What if someone was out to get Joe now?

It wouldn’t be the first time. He thought back to his last day in the outside world. He hadn’t known it would be his last day, of course. He’d come to New York for what was supposed to be a victory tour. Pellucid had been set to go public, and he was supposed to ring the bell to open the New York Stock Exchange, but he had never made it there, too afraid to go out the Hyatt’s front doors and into his waiting limousine.

At first, he had thought his condition came from a common change in brain chemistry. Agoraphobia came late in life to many, and the reasons were often unclear. His condition was no different than 1.8 million (cyan, purple, and a long row of black) other people who had developed the symptoms of agoraphobia out of the blue. Like them, he had no idea why he was suddenly unable to do something ordinary—walk out the front door.

But blood tests had revealed that his brain had changed because of chemical interference—he’d been poisoned.

He ticked off suspects in his head as he walked along the gray boards toward his house. First up: the flight attendant who had served lunch, Betty Bauer. Unlikely. He’d never met her before, but he’d checked with Virgin Airlines, and she’d been a flight attendant there for seven years. Probably not a hired poisoner.

For dinner he’d had a meeting with colleagues and a few members of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA had fought Pellucid in court and tried to prevent the company from going public, citing reasons of national security. He had been their chief opponent, but they had lost, so why bother to poison him? They had nothing to gain from crippling him, save revenge. Agent Bister had seemed like a guy who was willing to do a lot to take revenge, and his partner, Agent Dobrin, was a wild card. So, Joe had hacked into the CIA database and downloaded everything he could about them both, then hacked into their emails. Neither had ever been involved with operations where anyone was poisoned. They seemed to have given up on intimidating Pellucid after the IPO and moved on. Nothing indicated they might have done it.

If it hadn’t been them, it might have been one of the others at that table: George Greenblatt, CEO; Sunil Sharma, CFO; Mary Mitchell, CMO; and a couple of investment bankers, Alvin Ross and Thomas Lee. Joe’s crusade against the CIA might have cost them the fortunes they had all realized when the firm went public, but, again, by that day everything was already decided. They’d all won.

Still, he’d compiled dossiers on all of them and hired detectives to dig deeper, looking always for a hint that any of them might have had a reason, and access to the drugs that had poisoned him. Dead ends, so far.

His colleagues and the CIA made good villains, but they weren’t the only ones who’d had access to his food and drink that day. That night his friend, Leandro Gallo, had invited Joe to a party. The Gallos were descended from the original engineer for whom the underground house was built, and Joe had always wanted to see it. He’d never imagined he’d end up living there when Leandro called. Joe had long since gotten the guest list from Leandro and had compiled dossiers on them as well, but all seemed harmless—rich socialites who would have had no motive to poison him. He checked this, too. None of the other guests had since come down with agoraphobia, or any other mental disorders.

No one seemed to have anything to gain from trapping him inside for the rest of his life. But that didn’t change the fact that someone had poisoned him.

He unlocked the door, and Edison trotted ahead of him into the house. It was a real house, not a hidey-hole, no matter what his mother said, and he was grateful he’d found it.

With a sigh, he pulled in the suitcase, closed the door, and hung Edison’s leash on the hall tree. He trailed a finger along the pale pink paint, called ashes of roses, which decorated his front hall. His mother would love the old-fashioned color.

He hadn’t changed any of the house’s details. He liked the feeling of stepping into a Jules Verne novel. He’d left everything intact, concealing his high-tech gadgets—a giant TV, high-speed Wi-Fi router, air filters, and an alarm system—in cabinets or gilt frames.

He lit the electric fire in the parlor, and faux flames glowed comfortingly under the carved black mantel. He rubbed his hands over the orange glow, although he was no longer cold, because that’s what he always did.

While Edison lapped at the water in his bowl in front of the fireplace, Joe took off the dog’s service vest. Then Edison flopped down in front of the fire. He dropped his head on his outstretched paws and closed his eyes. He was off duty and had earned a nap.