“Nobody’s going!” Brenda yelled, panicked. “You’re both being stupid.”
“We are if we don’t have some kind of plan. And if Krista’s got a gun, we’d be walking straight into an ambush.”
“Shit!” I said.
My mind raced.
How could we save Maggie without getting ourselves killed? There had to be a way . . . .
“Sam’s got a gun,” I said, and reached for the phone, stabbing the touch-tone buttons.
“You really think he’d loan it to you?” Richard asked.
“I’ve fed him two exclusives in the past year. Now it’s my turn to call in favors.”
The phone rang four times.
“
Buffalo News
, Sam Nielsen.”
“Sam, it’s Jeff Resnick. Your handgun. Didn’t you tell me it’s not registered?”
Sam hesitated. “Yeah. Why ask?”
“Will you loan it to me?”
“What for?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Sam exhaled. “What kind of trouble are you in, Jeff?”
“Nothing I can tell a reporter. But maybe after it’s over, I could tell a friend.”
“Damn this have anything to do with Grace Vanderstein’s death?”
Damn! Had he combed the death notices?
I didn’t answer.
The noisy newsroom bustled in the background.
Sam’s and my friendship was tenuous at best. I was asking an awful lot.
What would we do if he refused my request?
“When do you need it?”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Now.”
Another long pause.
“Meet me at my place in twenty minutes.” He hung up.
I looked at Richard. “Is your cell phone charged?”
“Always.”
“We’ll take the Lincoln,” I said. “It’s more establishment—will draw less attention in that swanky neighborhood.”
“But the steering—” Brenda protested, shrugging back into her jacket.
“It’s fine,” Richard said, his tone telling her there’d be no debate. “And where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m sure as hell not staying home alone while you guys go out and try to get yourselves killed.”
“Brenda, you’re pregnant.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m helpless? Besides, I’m the one who reads thrillers. You need me to help you figure out what you’re going to do.”
“She can be our ace in the hole,” I told Richard. “We can arm her with a cell phone and drop her off at a safe location. If we don’t report back to her in say an hour—”
“She can call the cops,” he finished.
“You got it.” Our gazes locked and held for a long moment. Neither of us wanted to do this. “Have you got a map that includes the shore of Lake Ontario?” I asked.
“In the car.”
“Then let’s go for it.”
Chapter 21
“We are now officially criminals,” Richard said, as he steered past the Grand Island tollgate on I-190.
“Technically, I’m the criminal.” Jeff reached beneath the seat to take out Sam Nielsen’s snub-nosed revolver. “You guys are just aiding and abetting.”
“Will you put that thing away?” Brenda scolded. “If a trucker looks down from his cab and sees you playing with it—”
“I’m not playing with it. I’m checking it over. Getting familiar with it, in case I have to—”
Use it.
None of them dared voice that fear.
Neither Richard nor Brenda had ever handled a gun, but Jeff not only had practice during his Army days, until he’d been robbed the year before, he’d held a pistol permit and owned a thirty-eight caliber handgun.
Jeff finished loading the gun, and then replaced it in its hiding place. He palmed the extra shells Sam had given him. More than enough to play cavalry and save the day.
Jeff glanced over his shoulder at Brenda in the back seat. “Let’s go over it again.”
“First, you’ll dump me off at some as-of-now undetermined location where I can wait for you to get yourselves killed! I enter widowhood, and my daughter won’t have a father or an uncle to play with—ever.”
“Nobody’s going to die,” Jeff said.
“Famous last words,” Brenda countered.
“Stop it, you two.” Richard clenched the steering wheel tighter.
Brenda’s barbs weren’t just a tension-breaker. Their flight to the lake with a loaded gun had them all feeling a bit reckless, and time was running out.
“Okay,” Brenda grumbled. “We’ll find a place to drop me, then I wait an hour before I call the cops.”
“I’m not sure that’s enough time,” Jeff said.
“I think it’s fifty-nine minutes too long,” Brenda said, and Richard glared at her via the rear-view mirror.
“No, really, once we case the place, it might be a five or ten minute drive to drop you off. If you waited an hour from then, that might only give us fifty minutes to deal with whatever we find.”
“Which is still about forty-five minutes too long.”
“If it doesn’t take as long, we’ll call you,” Richard said.
“Maybe we shouldn’t try to make any concrete plans until we see the lay of the land. Literally,” Jeff said. He unfolded the map for at least the tenth time. “The area looks to be mostly rural. A silver Lincoln zipping back and forth may be a bit obvious.”
“What do you suggest?” Richard asked.
“Let me go in on foot, reconnoiter, then we’ll regroup and make plans. We’ve got plenty of time.”
The dash clock read four-fifty; Krista had given them until eight.
Richard’s cell phone trilled. They’d taken the precaution of forwarding calls from home to that number. He took out the phone, ready to hit the receive button, when Jeff stopped him.
“Don’t let them know we’re already on Grand Island.”
Richard nodded. “Hello?”
“Where are you Dr. Dick?”
Timberly.
“On my way to see Krista Marsh. I assume we’ll have the pleasure of your company, too?”
“Very likely.”
“What is all this, Wes? Being chair of the capital campaign isn’t that big a deal. What are you really up to, and why are you so intent to get rid of me?”
“That’s none of your business. Is your brother with you?”
Richard didn’t answer.
“He’d better be,” Timberly said, the menace rising in his voice.
“Jeff’s got nothing to do with whatever problem you think you have with me.”
“Krista told both of you to come.”
“That wasn’t possible. You’re damn lucky I went over to feed his cat, otherwise I’d have never seen his answering machine blinking and heard Krista’s message.”
“Where is he?” Timberly demanded.
“I won’t tell.”
“Then maybe your wife will.”
Richard’s cheeks flushed with heat. “I’m not stupid enough to risk my family’s lives when you’ve already threatened to kill one of our friends.”
“Two friends,” Timberly corrected. “And if you don’t do as I say, their deaths will be on your conscience.”
“Let them go, Wes, before this goes too far.”
“It’s already gone too far. And Krista’s got nothing to lose.”
“What about you?”
“Never mind me. Where are you, and how soon are you going to show up?”
“I just got in the car.” The phone crackled in his ear, as though to belie that. “And I’m not even sure where I’m going. I’ll have to stop and get a map.”
“I’ll call you back in half an hour with instructions.”
Timberly hung up. Richard put the phone down on the seat.
“I didn’t know you could lie that well,” Jeff said.
“Only in a good cause.”
“Why didn’t you tell him Jeff was coming?” Brenda asked.
“Never give the enemy any ammunition,” Jeff said. “Richard shows up at the door, alone, then I bust in like John Wayne only moments later. The element of surprise, my dear Watson, is the only real weapon we have.”
“We also can’t expect them to be stupid enough not to figure out this brilliant plan,” Richard pointed out.
“I still don’t understand why that idiot Timberly is doing all this,” Brenda said. “What’s he got to gain? He’s only losing a dumb volunteer job.”
“Not so dumb when it involves millions of dollars.”
“So, he can’t get his hands on it.”
“I think he already has,” Richard said.
“How so?” Jeff asked.
They reached the second Grand Island Bridge, with Richard grateful the traffic would soon be behind them. “Remember I told you about Wally Moses’s murder? Wes had to be behind it. Wally had the computer know-how, and from what I gather, Wes is no slouch, either. Working together they may very well have fleeced the Foundation for a hell of a lot of money. Maybe even hid it in bogus accounts within the hospital’s own accounting system. And without a partner—”
“There’s a lot more for Wes,” Brenda finished.
“So where does Krista fit in?” Jeff asked.
“How about a former—maybe even current—lover? He’s got to be blackmailing her, too,” Richard said.
“Then she could be in as much danger as we are,” Brenda said.
Richard nodded.
“Good.”
“Brenda!”
“Well, she hurt our Jeffy and she’s taken my best friend hostage. How else am I supposed to feel?”
“Get off at the last US exit and head north on Route 104,” Jeff said, folding the map so only a portion of it was visible.
They were quiet for the next ten minutes until they hit the exit. Richard left the expressway, heading north toward Route 18. Once there, he stopped for a traffic light and wrenched the wheel, which was suddenly sluggish in his grasp. “Damn power steering,” he grated. He made the turn and the wheel freed up.
“I knew we shouldn’t have brought this car,” Brenda griped.
“Tell me where to turn,” Richard said.
Jeff studied the map. “You’ve got a ways to go up the parkway. Maybe seven miles.”
They drove in silence past miles of farmland and orchards.
This is stupid
, Richard told himself. Brenda’s pregnant with our baby.
I’m going to walk into an ambush and be killed. I’ll never know my daughter. Maggie and Doug will die. Jeff probably will, too. Dear God, why did you let this happen?
“Make a left up here,” Jeff said.
Richard spun the wheel, grateful the power steering held. The side road was dirt and gravel; a cloud of dust roiled in the Lincoln’s wake.
“We’re going to draw attention to ourselves,” Richard said.
“Can’t help it,” Jeff said. “We’ve got to scope it out. Whose house is it, anyway?”
“It must belong to Wes, or his wife. I heard she came from money.”
They passed hundreds of trees in well-tended groves. Occasionally a drive, with a mailbox at its end, marked the different property lines.
“It should be coming up soon,” Jeff said.
Richard slowed the Lincoln. Number 4476 winged past. Just another mailbox on a post. No house discernible from the road.
Richard kept driving. “Well?”
Jeff shrugged. “I’d have a better chance of sneaking up on the place if it was dark.”
“It’ll still be light at eight. And Wes already knows I’m on my way. So what do you want me to do?”
“Keep going—about three-tenths of a mile,” Jeff said.
Richard watched the odometer and slowed the car to a halt. “Okay, now what?”
“I’m taking a walk,” Jeff said, unbuckling his seat belt. He retrieved the gun from under the seat.
“Be careful,” Richard warned.
Jeff nodded and got out of the car, shoving the gun into the waistband at the back of his pants, pulling his denim jacket down to cover it. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he started walking back the way they’d just come.
Brenda rested a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “After everything we did to save his life on Sunday, how can we just let him walk away like that?”
“It’s his turn to save someone,” Richard said. “What goes around, comes around.”
Now if they could only pull this off.
My heels
kicked up dust motes as I walked down the dirt road. Not for long, though. The threatening sky was going to let loose some time soon. That could either work for or against us.
It was lucky for us that Timberly hadn’t obliterated the old orchard surrounding his property. I staring down the rows of trees, most of which stood no higher than ten feet high. If nothing else, they’d give me cover. The drive might be a quarter of a mile long. According to the map, the road followed the shore of Lake Ontario. I passed the last mailbox before Timberly’s property and took a shortcut down a line of trees, heading east. The wind picked up, rustling millions of new leaves all around me, giving me goose flesh.
I still hadn’t tuned into Maggie’s wavelength. At the country club Saturday night, I could’ve reported her pulse rate. Now I got nothing. Krista was just nasty enough to kill her without even waiting for us to show. She’d known Maggie was my Achilles heel and hadn’t wasted a second to use her against me.