Cloaked in Blood (40 page)

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that,
Crevan, because you’re my brother and I –”

My cell phone rang.

We all froze.

“Who has that number?” Danny asked.

I glanced at Crevan.  “Only my father,
as far as I know.”

“Well, look at the caller ID for heaven’s
sake!” he said.

“It’s a blocked call,” Crevan said without
seeing the screen.  “Helen, did you tell anyone else what we
were doing?”

“No,” I said.  “It’s probably Dad.”

“I think you should shut it off.”

I agreed and flicked my thumbnail against
the power button.  “If it was Johnny, he wouldn’t have
called.  He’d just ping the signal so he knew where I’d gone,
where we’d all gone.”  I cast a defiant glance at
Crevan.  “Which is exactly why I insisted in leaving all
electronic tracking devices at the house.”

“Are you willing to risk that by staying
here?  He could’ve called to see if you would answer, and
still have us surrounded right now,” Crevan said.  He reached
for the keys hanging in the ignition.

“Crevan, we can’t leave until we find out
exactly who he came to the jail to visit.”

“Then we’ll find another way, we’ll call the
jail and ask the officer on duty.”

“And have him call Johnny to say he’d heard
from me?  No way.  That would be the dumbest move we
could make.”

“Just how did you plan to find out who he
saw anyway?  You can’t stroll in there and ask to see the sign
in book,” Crevan said.  “Neither can I, and despite the
youthful appearance of your new frenemy here, he lived for a couple
of months in that building.  Do you really think the guards
wouldn’t recognize him?”

“Saul Becker,” I said.  “He owes me a
favor.  He owes me a bunch of favors, actually.  He goes
off duty at eight.”

“How do you know he wasn’t the one calling
you?”

“Because, Crevan, he has no idea that I’m
here, or that I’m calling in a marker tonight, let alone the number
of this throw away cell phone.  I planned to contact him when
he leaves the jail.”

“It’s after eight now, Einstein.  If
you’re so sure he’s on duty, where is he?  Why hasn’t he
left?” Crevan asked.

“I don’t know.  But if he’s not out of
there in five minutes, believe me.  I’ll find out.”

Chapter 40

Wendell cursed under his breath and
unblocked the phone number on the new cell phone.  “Answer the
phone, Helen.  C’mon.  Pick up.  Pick up.”

It rolled immediately into voice mail
without a single ring.

Dammit.  She must’ve shut off the
phone.

Wendell sat in his black sedan a few hundred
yards away from Bay County Correctional Facility.  He’d been
following Aidan Conall all day, watching him flit from one useless
activity to another as though he didn’t have a care in the
world.

It was almost the truth.  Nearly
everyone who could identify him as the head of the human
trafficking ring was dead.  Everyone but Melissa
Sherman.  Knocking off a prisoner in the county jail was no
easy proposition, particularly when the jail had video
surveillance.  Wendell’s stint in Attica taught him to know
the usual places for the cameras, and he was able to carefully keep
his face averted to avoid a good view.  He was certain that
someone would review that footage just as soon as they realized
that Melissa Sherman already knew that Lyle Henderson was
dead.  The fact that he spotted Orion and the FBI fellow that
fancied himself Helen’s protector heading down the long and
desolate stretch of highway to the facility on the outskirts of
Downey cemented that fact. 

Only Johnny would recognize him
anyway.  He didn’t suppose the man would feel particularly
disposed to making a positive ID though.  Not only would it
implicate Helen, it would reveal Johnny’s complicity in his
escape.  That would lead to other questions Orion certainly
wouldn’t want to answer.

Wendell could’ve backed off.  He
could’ve let Johnny deliver the news to Sherman, to hear her
horrified whisper, the confession, the name of the man responsible
for all of this.  Maybe he should’ve let Johnny hear it. 
But he couldn’t take that chance.  If anybody else,
particularly those too close to the investigation, learned the
truth, Conall would never face prosecution for his crimes. 
Helen would kill him.  Johnny would either kill him or cover
up another one of Helen’s murders. 

As for Aidan’s whelp Crevan, well, Wendell
wasn’t sure what to make of the young man.  Loyalty, even to a
horrendous parent, could be a difficult obstacle to surmount. 
From what Helen told him, Crevan had a knack for denial.  He’d
probably insist that his father was innocent.

Like Helen insisted you were innocent. 
They’re not so different after all, are they?  Fiercely loyal,
and just as fiercely conflicted about their feelings for their
fathers.

Wendell focused on the keyboard on the cell
phone.  Amazing what happened to technology while he was on
the inside.  Back then, before his freedom ended, Motorola
touted an enormous cellular phone that came in a leather bag. 
Now these gadgets were small enough to hide in the palm of his
hand. 

He dialed Helen’s number again.  “Pick
up, sweetheart.  I’ve got to tell you what’s going on.”

But for the third time, Helen simply wasn’t
there.

Johnny felt it in his bones. 
Weariness.  Defeat.  The death of all hope for anything
better.  Helen’s words from what felt like years ago echoed in
his mind. 
You deserve better than me, Johnny
. 
She said it only a couple of days before his frustration turned him
into a stranger, a man he barely recognized anymore when he looked
in the mirror.

What if he’d done things differently? 
What if he’d gone to David Levine with his suspicions regarding
Helen instead of turning to a criminal for advice?

Helen would be in prison.  Wendell
wouldn’t be on the loose, out there God only knew where, doing God
only knew what.  Datello would still be public enemy number
one.

Jerry Lowe might be back on the outside,
killing young girls too.

The Jacksons would probably be blissfully
manufacturing methamphetamine and plotting how to introduce a
lethal crop of cassava root into countries where the colors of skin
were offensive to at least one of the Jackson brothers.

Mitch Southerby would still be presumed
dead, but really at large, preying on innocent victims.

Fulk Underwood would’ve probably at the very
least, attempted to murder Johnny’s best friend.  Crevan, if
he had survived, would likely still be living miserably in the
closet.

Little girls and young women would still be
for sale, courtesy of Darkwater Bay’s habit of turning a blind eye
for profit.

But would Johnny be happier?

He stood staring at the framed photograph on
the mantle of their bedroom.  His sons, shown in vivid
three-dimension from the most recent ultrasound, already had spiky
little eyelashes and tiny fingernails.  He could see their
mother in the bone structure of their faces, wondered if when their
eyes finally opened and the murky color that existed cleared if
they’d have her green eyes or if they’d be blue like his.

More than anything, he wondered if Helen and
he would ever get past the rotted foundation of their
relationship.  Would they raise their children together? 
Or more likely, would he spend the rest of his natural life
wondering what sort of danger sniffed after his wife, spilled onto
their children by proximity to a parent who was a magnet for
evil-doers.

Clearly, if Helen wasn’t sharing
information, he couldn’t keep up with where her mind went. 
And Johnny had no doubt that right now, his wife was out there
somewhere in Darkwater Bay stalking the man responsible for nearly
four decades of slavery.  It started with Helen – not that
she’d been subjugated to the horrors that some had.

They thought it started with her.

What if they were wrong?

Johnny stared into the amber liquid in the
glass he held.  “It makes sense, that’s why.  Over and
over, this thing keeps coming back to Helen.  It led us to
Henderson’s involvement when Kathleen Conall recognized the nurse
that abducted her daughter.  Marie Eriksson.  It comes
straight back to Helen.  But why?”

“Maybe because she was the first,” David
said softly from the doorway.  “Back in the ‘70s, snatching an
infant from a hospital was easy.  Florence Payette proved that
with the right pieces in place, it’s not as hard now as I’m sure
we’d like it to be.”

“If she was the first…” Johnny sighed. 
“Why?  Why is the first one so goddamned important to these
people, David?  What difference does it make now?  She’s
an adult.  She’s not really a threat to them now.”

David arched one eyebrow.  “If either
one of us believed that were true, we wouldn’t be worried about her
continued absence, Johnny.  They of all people, are completely
aware of the threat she poses.”

“So why didn’t they kill her in March when
they had the chance?  Why risk her coming back to haunt
them?  Why try to sell her?”

“Greed,” David said.  “It’s usually the
motivation behind most crimes.  Someone stands to gain
something they want very badly.”

“It was more than the money,” Johnny
said.  “And she knows what it was.  Couldn’t be bothered
to tell
me
, but she knew.”

“I’m not making excuses for her reticence,
Johnny, but considering that Helen has… trust issues, is it really
so surprising that she’d be reluctant talk about what happened to
her out there on that ship?”

Johnny’s chin dipped to his chest.  “I
asked her, you know, if Gillette touched her.  Considering how
we found her, how we found him…” Fingers clenched tightly around
the glass in his hand until the delicate crystal cracked.

“Of course she denied it,” David said. 
“She would to you especially, Johnny.”

“She said they wanted to break her
spirit.  Who would ever want to do such a thing?  Her –”
he swallowed thickly.  “Her spirit is what I think I love
about her the most.  Even when her stubbornness infuriates me,
and her lies frustrate me to no end, and her –”

“Wait,” David said.  He strode across
the room and stared at Johnny intently.  “They wanted to
break her spirit
?”

“Yeah, but I’m sure you can imagine how
someone like Helen would try the patience of a saint, let alone
someone who demanded subservience from women.”

“Yes,” David said.

Johnny sobered.  “Demand subservience
from women.  Like… biblical subservience.”

“Someone who would take particular delight
in seeing
Helen
broken too.”

“Like her mother was.”

David’s eyes narrowed.  “Have we looked
closely at her parents, Johnny?  Her father in
particular.  Helen shared with me that he seemed to think he
had the right to run her out of Darkwater Bay, demanded that she be
fired from the police department before she retired for what, the
third time?”

“He knew Lyle Henderson.  They were old
church buddies.”

“And he was a supporter of Terrell
Sanderfield.  He was at that fundraiser in Darkwater Bay the
night Helen was abducted.”

“Shit,” Johnny said.  “He’s the
philanthropist, the guy with his finger in everybody’s piece of the
pie.  He’s the one.  He fits Helen’s profile of the guy
pulling the strings behind the curtain, the one who had so much to
lose, he wouldn’t want to give up his position in Darkwater Bay to
simply open up shop somewhere else.”

“Where does he live?”

“I’ll drive,” Johnny said.

Crevan drove quickly away from their vantage
point a quarter of a mile away from the correctional
facility.  He ignored Helen’s questions, ignored Datello’s
pleas that whatever he was thinking, to just calm down and be
rational.

Rational? 

Not fucking likely.

The more Helen talked, the more the pieces
fell into place, from the lie that his twin was a dead brother and
not a sister, the objections to Crevan becoming a police officer,
the belittling he endured – that he’d have never gotten his
promotion to detective if Aidan hadn’t pulled strings.

And all the while, while he lived his pious
lies, he was a dirtier sinner than anyone Aidan Conall had ever
condemned.

If everything boiled down to genetics, it
was no wonder he and Helen were both screwed.  They came from
bad seed, all right.  Aidan Conall’s bad seed.  How it
must’ve galled him to know that his daughter was more butch than
the son that he kept to himself, that he saved because of the
little appendage that hung between his legs. 

“You wanted me to be a man, Dad.  Well,
this is it.  I’ll show you once and for all,” Crevan said.

“Honey, stop the truck.  Where are you
going?  Don’t do anything rash.  Please, Crevan, I know
it’s a shock, but we have to move carefully now.”

“
Carefully
?” Crevan barked a
disbelieving laugh.  “You suggest caution
now
? 
Jesus, Helen, you’ve never conducted yourself with a speck of
prudence when it comes to closing a case, and now you tell me to
slow down?  To stop?”

“You’re angry, upset.  Believe me, I
understand this better than you could possibly realize.  Do
you think it was any different for me when I realized that my
father wasn’t the man I thought he was?”

“Right,” Crevan drawled.  “Your father
was
exactly
who you thought.  He was a good man who did
the right thing when the
system failed
.  My dad? 
Well, he’s the one that counted on those failures, exploited the
loopholes so that he could make a profit off the misery of
others.”