Behind the Green Curtain (35 page)

Visibly drained by the question,
Caton leaned tiredly against the doorframe. “There was a man arrested in Sao
Paulo about a year ago. He told Slater he exchanges tokens with his associates
when they complete a deal. Like souvenirs. He claims he gave that box to Jack
after they did some business in Panama.”

“What kind of business?” Amelia
asked, and Caton returned instantly to her intentional silence, eyes pleading
with Amelia to let it go. Pulling at once at the lid of the box, Amelia
discovered there was a trick to it and felt along the edges for a way in. “How
do I open it?”

Staring unceasingly at her, Caton
refused to provide answers, and Amelia fumbled with the box, a breath away from
smashing it on the floor when she finally found a piece that gave. Sliding it
free, the lid popped instantly open, and Amelia pulled it up to find the box
empty. When she glanced to Caton in confusion, she knew she was in the right
place by the concern that remained on Caton’s face, and, finger running over
the inside of the box, she felt the lining give way.

“Amelia, don’t please,” Caton
pleaded as Amelia pressed her finger against the wood cutout that lay beneath
the lining, feeling it too come free.

“Is this what you put here?” she
asked, pulling the tightly folded paper from the hidden compartment and
glancing up with satisfaction as she unfolded it. When Caton again refused to
answer, Amelia turned her attention to the evidence in her hand. Nothing more
than a list of names and dates, it was more disturbing than illuminating.
“Miguel Almeida, Marina Carvalho, Yasmin Costa.” Each name further tightened
her throat. “What is this?” Glancing up, she watched Caton’s eyes flutter
downward, truth concealed as she stared at the floor. “What is this?” she asked
more forcefully. “If you don’t tell me, Caton, I will only think worse.”

“You can’t think worse.” The reply
came in a pained whisper, and tears formed instantly in Amelia’s eyes as Caton
looked up at her, gaze so sympathetic, Amelia knew what she would say next.
Pushing off the door, Caton took tentative steps to the edge of the desk, close
enough to touch. “Those are people who have gone missing over the past two
years in Brazil,” she explained softly, haltingly. “The man who was arrested
admitted to kidnapping or buying each of them, transporting them to Eastern
Europe and selling them. He claims Jack is his bankroll, that Jack covers the
expenses and splits the profits.”

Head already shaking, Amelia didn’t
want to hear any more, and needed to hear it. “Go on,” she prompted when Caton
was too decent to continue.

“According to Slater, this man is
not Jack’s only partner. The companies Jack works with in South America,
Central America, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, they are all
fronts. They look like legitimate businesses, but they make their money
trafficking. That has been Jack’s only truly successful business venture. It’s
probably how he met you.” Caton’s tone turned impossibly gentle. “It’s probably
why he was there.”

“No,” Amelia heard her own voice,
felt her head shake more emphatically. “Jack is a bastard, but he isn’t... I
would know.”

Collapse imminent, she watched
Caton come another step closer, wishing Caton would give her more. Too numb to
seek comfort, Amelia would give into it if it was offered.

When it wasn’t, she felt too tired
to hold herself up. Hands on the edge of Jack’s desk, she dropped to her knees,
handles of the drawers digging into her back as she turned to lean back against
the wood. Anyone else and she could have chosen not to accept it, but, if there
was one thing she believed without doubt, it was that Caton would never tell her
this if she wasn’t convinced herself.

“You think one piece of evidence is
going to convict him?” Amelia questioned, voice tight and thick in her throat.
“That is not going to happen.”

“Probably not,” Caton acknowledged.
“But it’s enough for them to make the connection. They already have his
partner, and, when they investigate, they’re going to find out about Jack’s
meetings with his lawyers, about his changes in behavior, about the money he’s
moved.”

Nodding numbly, Amelia finally felt
the tears on her face and absently wondered how long they’d been falling.
“You’re making him hang himself.”

“He already has,” Caton said, and
Amelia closed her eyes, not sure what she felt. If she felt anything.

Then, suddenly, Caton moved,
dropping down before her, one hand on the corner of Jack’s desk inches from
Amelia’s shoulder, and a tremor of warmth moved through Amelia’s body.
Following Caton’s free hand as it reached out to her and stopped, she willed
Caton to just touch her and take away the pain.

“But...” Caton turned the approach
into a weak gesture. “If they find nothing when they serve the warrant, it will
be over.”

“What?” Amelia uttered.

“Slater is not going to get another
chance,” Caton continued in a rush. “He put his career on the line. He has been
quietly after Jack for a long time. He knows if he goes after him now and he
finds nothing, he will be discredited. That’s why I’m here.” Caton seemed to be
appealing to Amelia, though Amelia wasn’t sure what Caton wanted from her
anymore. “I put that there weeks ago.” Caton gestured to the box above Amelia’s
head. “I came to get it back.”

“Why?” Amelia shook her head.
“Isn’t this what you want? To see Jack hang?”

“Not anymore.”

The response striking her as
insanely bizarre, helpless laughter burst from Amelia’s throat. “Why? Suddenly
you can’t do that to him?”

“I can do it to him.” Caton was so
hard and unforgiving, the laughter died on Amelia’s lips. Then, eyes roaming
Amelia’s face, Caton’s gaze softened, her voice fading to a murmur. “I can’t do
it to you. Apparently.” Leaning in, she cast shadow over Amelia as her hand
finally closed around a bare calf. “Even if Jack isn’t convicted, Slater is
going to do whatever he can to make Jack’s life hell. They will take
everything. You will lose everything.”

Amelia didn’t want to feel it, the
surge of longing that battered her fragile defenses. Longing for a different
life, for a return to ignorance, but mostly for Caton, who was too near to let
her shatter in peace and too distant to catch her. For days, she had been
wishing her life with Jack to a close. Jack always did tell her to be careful
what she wished for, because she just might get it. Not once had she ever
mistaken her husband for the greatest man in the world, but it had honestly
never occurred to her he might be one of the worst.

When she felt Caton’s hand move
away, as if she just realized she was touching Amelia, Amelia no longer felt
weak. Just alone. Pulling herself up, she could feel Caton rise beside her, and
watched her move back to the edge of the desk, putting some distance between
them. She could tell Caton was just waiting for the command, to get rid of the
evidence, to untangle the web they had weaved together and hand Amelia her life
back as it was before. As if that was possible.

“When are they coming?” Amelia
asked, folding the paper and sliding it back into the hidden compartment,
before pressing the wood piece back into place and smoothing the felt atop it.

“First thing in the morning,” Caton
replied.

Eyes rising to Caton, Amelia saw
concern and remorse and something she didn’t want to see. She was furious, she
realized with sudden tension. More than she had ever been. More than she would
ever be. She’d had years to get used to Jack’s lies. She’d expected different
from Caton.

“Put everything back the way you
found it,” she ordered. “Then, you should go.”

“Amelia...” Caton began to protest.

“Put it back,” Amelia snapped, and
Caton did as she was directed, returning the box to its place on the shelf and
positioning the other trinkets around it. Watching them fall into place, Amelia
wondered if they too were souvenirs.

Task complete, Caton turned from
the shelves, and Amelia prepared herself for Caton’s departure, for the burden
of silence that would fall in her absence. When Caton took a step, though, it
was in entreaty, not retreat. Watching her close in, Amelia didn’t back down,
but she couldn’t submit. As angry as she was, though, when Caton’s arm closed
around her and Caton’s lips captured hers, it was impossible for Amelia to
remain detached. Hands clutching at Caton’s shoulders, she tried desperately to
hang onto the one feeling that remained good, despite everything she knew.

Breaking away, Caton leaned her
head against Amelia’s. “Amelia, I...” she breathed, and Amelia anticipated the
next words on her lips, knowing she would forgive Caton any and all trespasses
against her if she said them.

Caton couldn’t forgive herself,
though. Hands abandoning Amelia to the cold room, she exhaled a last uneven
breath and dropped Amelia’s gaze, as if she had no right to be looking at her.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered, hastening to the door and disappearing beyond
it.

The first few footsteps down the
hall were clear, but the sound of Caton’s departure quickly faded into the
creaks of the house, as if she was never really there.

Chapter 53

The vibration against the
nightstand woke Marcus Slater from a dead sleep, sending him reaching for a gun
he didn’t have on him. Lifting his head with a grunt when he realized where he
was, he reached for the offending device, squinting at the identifier on the
screen, and realized he should use more logical aliases if he was going to have
to decipher them mid-sleep.

“Caton,” he answered gruffly. “It’s
the middle of the night.”

“I know what time it is,” she
returned in a way that forewarned a drawn-out conversation.

Groaning beneath his breath, Slater
regretted anew ever leaning on the woman to help him. Half the time she spent
mourning people she’d never met. The other half she spent vacillating between
utter conviction and deep doubt as to whether she was doing the right thing.
Caton was conceivably the worst inside man who had ever existed. She was also
his last and best chance at making Jack Halston pay for the crimes he committed
without conscience, which was why he had devoted so much time in the past
months to talking her down, despite the fact that, when he’d taken his career
aptitude test in high school, therapist came in dead last as a career choice.

“Caton, I have a busy morning,” he
reminded her calmly. “I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Don’t hang up,” Caton uttered.

“Fuck, seriously,” Slater sighed.
“Unless you have something important -”

 “Shut up and listen to me.” The
firm command surprised him into silence. “When you get to the Halston house
tomorrow, you are going to find what you want, but I need you to fix this. You
need to take some money, make it disappear.”

“I can’t do that,” Slater returned,
wiping the sleep from eyes in an effort to wake his brain.

“Really?” Caton’s voice was
unnaturally stern. “I am certain you can.”

“I’m not taking that risk,” he
clarified. Reaching for his cigarettes on the nightstand, Slater crushed the
carton in his hand upon finding it empty.

“All the other risks you’ve taken,
and you won’t take one more?” Caton questioned in disbelief.

“So, you want paid now?” Slater
asked, scrubbing his hand over his face, realizing for the millionth time
everyone truly was alike, no matter how they seemed at the outset. He had paid
so many “good” people to help him take down bad people, he could scarcely see
the line anymore. “I thought you were in it for the greater good.”

“Fuck,” Caton uttered. “It isn’t
for me. They are going to lose everything. Amelia... and Jack’s daughter. They
didn’t do anything wrong. They don’t deserve this.”

“Way of the world,” Slater replied.
“You should know who you’re getting into bed with.”

“Goddammit!” Caton screamed. “I
have done everything you asked me to do! Do this for me!”

“I can’t,” he snapped, frustration
getting the better of him.

“Then I’m going to come clean,”
Caton threatened.

The words like a bucket of ice
water dumped on him, Slater sprung up in the bed, fully awake in an instant.
“What the fuck, Caton?” he returned. “You do realize you’ll go to jail, right?”

“I don’t care.” Caton sounded so
calm, he felt his career and life slipping through his hands. “If Amelia goes
down, I’m going down and I am taking you with me.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Slater hissed.
Ever since Jenna told him, he had been waiting for this particular snag to come
into play. “I know you have feelings for this woman, but it doesn’t change what
Jack Halston has done,” he argued. “It doesn’t change the fact that he is a
despicable human being who will keep getting away with whatever he can get away
with for as long as he can. Is that what you want, to save this one woman and
let a thousand other people suffer the consequences?”

He wasn’t sure it would matter. It
had always been enough to convince her in the past, but Caton had never sounded
as certain in anything she was saying.

“Please,” Caton pleaded, the sudden
change in tone reviving Slater’s intermittent belief that she was a single
screw away from being completely unhinged. “Please. Give her something.”

There was more. He could hear it.
Jenna told him Caton was sleeping with Jack’s wife, but clearly she saw only
the partial truth. He’d had a lifetime of listening for what people didn’t say,
and there was so much Caton wasn’t saying, he could write a book about it.

Still, it didn’t change the stakes.
Even with a live wire like Caton in play, everything had gone as planned. Hours
away from the fruits of his years of tedious labor, he couldn’t risk a dumb
mistake.

“I can’t,” he said again, and could
only hope Caton would come to understand.

“Then go to hell,” Caton responded,
and Slater sat listening to the dead line.

It sounded like the prelude to his
own demise.