Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 03 - Insatiable (2 page)

In the letter I explained that Jackie’s husband, Joseph Saperstein, was murdered by Kurt Jessup. I explained the reason Kurt killed Joseph was that Joseph planned on stealing a lot of money from Kurt and running off with his mistress. I didn’t mention that I was going to steal that money. The letter was full of bold sentences full of fact: “Mayor Kurt Jessup shot your husband in the face without remorse. He thought setting you up for it was appropriate because you should have kept your husband at home.”

I wondered at Jackie’s reaction to this letter. To make it public, what was she thinking?

The letter went on to describe how Kurt killed my brother, James Humbolt. I paused at the sentence that read “I clearly misunderstood my place in this game and Kurt Jessup took advantage of my ignorance. But don’t worry, Mrs. Saperstein, I’m going to kill him.”

When I wrote that letter it was like a promise to myself that I would do something right in all the wrong. I knew I couldn’t bring my brother back, but I thought I could do something meaningful. I was not afraid to run from my life and leave everything behind. However, you cannot, as most of us know, leave everything behind.

But none of that mattered. Kurt Jessup was dead when I found him. And Joy Humbolt was guilty of a crime she didn’t commit. But I was the only who knew that. Well, me and Bobby Maxim.

I pounded on the desk next to the keyboard in frustration. Blue raised his head and looked over at me, his ears alert. I shook my head at him but he slipped off the couch and came to my side just the same. I rested a hand on his head and tried to calm down.

It felt like a lifetime ago that I’d worked as a dog walker on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was Bobby’s dog, Tobby, an out of control, spoiled Golden Retriever who ran down the alley where I found Joseph Saperstein’s body. That discovery changed my life, embroiling me in the complicated and unsavory world of Manhattan’s elite.

It was at a private club with low lighting and lush furnishings that I first met Bobby Maxim. I was on the arm of his friend but that didn’t stop Mr. Maxim from hitting on me. He wanted to do some very nasty things to me. Judging from our conversation, he still did. But I bet there wasn’t a blonde on the planet Bobby didn’t want to spank or be spanked by. His sexual proclivities aside, the fact remained that he was not to be trifled with.

Even if Maxim didn’t know Kurt Jessup was a killer he must have suspected; how could you be the head of one of the biggest P.I. agencies in the world and lack the ability to sniff out a murderer? But he still made him Mayor of New York. Nobody becomes the king puppet of that city without Bobby’s say so.

As I looked at the letter, I marveled at what a fool I’d been and how clear that was to me now, only three years later. The question was how would I look back on this moment, was I sabotaging my life again? Should I accept the pardon? End this game?

With a sigh, I read the last paragraph of Joy’s letter. “I know that Joseph and you were not at your best but at one time you did love one another. Even in the face of betrayal and loss of identity we cannot give up. Don’t let this stop you. Don’t let anything stop you. There can never be enough.”

The last paragraph’s script deteriorated until the last sentence was barely legible. It looked like the letter of an insane person. I laughed out loud. It looked like a split personality.

I scrolled past the letter to people’s comments.

Where ever you are Joy, I’m thinking of you and I hope you have found peace.

I can’t believe you are all praising this woman for murdering someone! Does no one care about the rule of law!

Joy Humbolt suffered a severe trauma and clearly needs to be treated in a secure psychiatric facility
.

And then half of them were pleas for help.

I don’t know what to do. I wish I had Joy’s strength. If you’re out there please help me.

My daughter has been missing for two years. Please help me find her
.

The comments went on and on. I hovered over the tab for the forum but turned away, sickened by all of their opinions and needs. Who were they to judge me? Ask me for help? Why had Jackie exposed me in this way? And then it occurred to me that they were talking about Joy Humbolt, who really didn’t exist at all anymore. I was Sydney Rye, my new identity suited me just fine. I worked for a small detective agency and lived in Central London. Joy Humbolt was gone.

But all these people didn’t know that. They thought Joy was still out there just waiting for the right invitation to come back. I didn’t want to pardon Joy Humbolt, I realized. I wanted to kill her. That would end the manhunt, end the website, and free me once and for all.

I turned my phone back on and waited for it to come back to life. Mulberry was at the top of my list of favorites and I touched his name. The phone began to ring.

“Sydney? Is something wrong?” A beat of silence passed while I wondered what to say.
You bastard, you sold me out to Bobby Maxim. I thought you were my friend. You’re the only one I have left, how could you do this
? “Syd?”

“I got a phone call from Bobby Maxim this afternoon.”

Mulberry sighed. “I know.”

“You know?” Of course he knew, I realized. They were in this together from the beginning right up until this moment. “I don’t even have a choice, do I?”

“You always have a choice, Sydney.”

“Shut the fuck up.” I heard Carlos move in the bedroom and retreated toward the kitchen lowering my voice. “I trusted you.”

“I know, look, I thought I was doing what was best at the time. There was no other way.”

“No other way? How about just let it happen the way I wanted.”

“You did get what you wanted. He’s dead. You killed him. Without Bobby I never could have gotten you where you are now.”

“What?”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

Mulberry didn’t know that Jessup was dead when I got there which meant that… “Do you work for Bobby Maxim? Is our agency affiliated with Fortress Global Investigations?”

“He didn’t tell you.”

“I guess he figured that was your job.”

“Sydney, I’m sorry. I wish there was some way to say I was sorry enough for you to understand.” I didn’t answer him. There was no point. “I love you, Sydney, you’re my best friend.”

“Friends don’t do this Mulberry.” I felt tears burning in my eyes. “Friends do not-” I cut myself off knowing I couldn’t make it through without crying. Deep breath in and then out.

“Sydney-”

I hung up. Holding the phone in my hand I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on what I needed to do. There was a text from Bobby Maxim with a phone number telling me to call when I was ready. I touched the number.

“Took longer than I thought,” Bobby said.

“I don’t want a pardon,” I told him. “I want Joy dead.”

“Dead?” I could hear a smile on his lips. “But why?”

“You don’t need to know anything more than what I want. If I get this girl back for you, I want Joy’s body to end up somewhere. I want the manhunt to end and I want those idiots on that site to know that she’s not coming. Joy Humbolt is dead.”

“Long live Sydney Rye.”

A GAME OF SORTS

Within 24 hours I was at the airport waiting for a man. We were flying to Mexico pretending to be husband and wife. The missing girl, Ana Maria Hernandez Vargas, was the daughter of a senator and a very successful businessman. They didn’t want anyone knowing they’d lost their precious little bundle so my new partner and I were playing a game of sorts.

People moved between the rows of seats under a soaring ceiling of metal beams and glass. Outside, planes taxied, took off and landed. The bright sun glinted off their wings making me squint.
 

Several times I saw tall men with sandy blonde hair and sat forward, but as they approached I realized it wasn’t my new partner. Blue sat on the floor, his head hovering above my knee. He kept his one blue eye and one brown focused on me. Every move I made he calculated if it was a request of him.

“Hello, darling,” a man said behind me. A light kiss brushed my neck. Blue stood and raised his hackles. With a small wave I told him to lie down. What kind of a wife has a dog that doesn’t trust her husband’s touch?

“I missed you, Peter,” I said, and smiled as the man stepped to my side.

“I missed you, too, Melanie,” he smiled at the alias. Peter Franks was really Blane Nichols, head of all operations in Mexico for Fortress Global Investigations. Blane was tall and well-built, his eyes were a murky green, the same shade as well-worn money. He was young for his position and I wondered what working with such an ambitious man would be like. I crossed my legs and he watched the slit in my skirt open and close.

“It’s good to see you, too, Fluffy,” Blane said to Blue, then reached out to pat his side. I laughed. No one but Melanie Franks, wife of almost billionaire Peter Franks, would name a dog like Blue “Fluffy.” Fluffy was an emotional support animal allowing him to fly. According to the file Bobby Maxim sent me, Melanie had anxiety that only Fluffy could ease.

Usually when I travelled with Blue, I flew private. That’s one of the upsides of stealing millions of dollars worth of treasure, you get to fly on whatever kind of plane you want. However, for this trip, Bobby wanted our arrival to be obvious so we were flying commercial. First class, of course.

A petite brunette wearing a blue and white scarf around her neck stepped behind the desk marking the gate and picked up the phone to announce the boarding of our flight. First class passengers were invited to join the elderly and disabled on deck. Blane kept his hand on my lower back as the three of us headed down the gangway. He carried a light brown attaché case made of a very soft leather and I noticed a gold watch peek out from under his French cuffs. This close to him, I smelled a mix of clean soap and light aftershave.

I ordered champagne because, why not? It did more to ease my anxiety than Blue’s hot breath on my shoulder. The champagne helped me fall asleep, and though restless (I kept waking up realizing my jaw was hanging open), it was better than spending the flight analyzing whether each noise the plane made was normal or the last sound I’d hear before plummeting to my death.

When I woke it was dawn and we were descending into the Mexican capital. Blane leaned over me to look out the window as we crossed the mountains and were suddenly above the city. It filled the valley, buildings pressed together, a regular bowl of humanity. Communities of shacks spread like tendrils out of the mass of urbanity up the hillside. None of them crested the top. There are some things Mother Nature will not allow.

As the plane lowered I could make out individual streets lined with bright purple flowering trees. The traffic moved quickly on the highways we cruised over. As the plane bumped down on the runway I held my breath and squeezed the armrest. An image of the wind picking up, the plane tipping until its wing scraped the tarmac in a shower of sparks then tumbling wing over wing and finally exploding in a mushroom cloud of orange and black raced across my brain. A round of applause broke out as the plane taxied safely toward our gate. I joined in. Blane shot me a look. Melanie would never clap at being alive.

A man wearing a driver’s cap and holding a sign with ‘Franks’ printed on it was waiting for us. He smiled when Blane nodded to him and immediately took our luggage. Blane started to speak in very quick Spanish as we moved through the crowd. I struggled to understand. My Spanish, never great, spent the last two and a half years being forgotten. Blane on the other hand conversed easily.

My experience with Mexico was limited to less than a year spent on the Sea of Cortez. And most of that time was wasted drinking and feeling sorry for myself. That is until Mulberry came and offered me a new life, a new identity. Another couple of months of training and one murderous blood bath later, I was shipped to London where Mulberry hoped the only blood baths I’d be involved in would be at his direction.

Our driver, a man named Tito, led us to a limo that was blocking traffic. He had a quick, heated discussion with a parking cop. A couple of crumpled bills and a minute later we were on our way. The tinted windows shielded us from the bright sun as we headed into the heart of the city. I leaned back against the black leather seat and watched the city pass underneath the elevated highway. It’s hard to grasp the size of this place from within it. I tried to equate the image I’d seen from the sky with the sprawl outside my window.

Graffitied walls and crumbling structures gave way to meticulously maintained parks and soaring skyrises as we entered the center of the city. I pictured it as the center of the valley with the rest of the city radiating out toward the mountains. The beauty of it surprised me.

Puerto Penasco, the town I’d lived near, was a dusty place with broken bottles lining the sandy streets. There was nothing of Mexico City’s aesthetic there. This city was thoughtful. Everywhere I looked was a detail to be admired. Complicated topiaries lined the boulevard and delicate flowers were planted in the median. The sky was clear and blue as we moved through the thickening rush hour traffic.

Continuing into older neighborhoods the buildings became private. From the street all I could see were the tops of flowering trees peeking over tall stuccoed walls covered in bright green vines. Soon we were in Planco where the stout buildings housed Gucci and Hermes. We arrived in front of a four-story adobe building covered in a vine that blossomed with bright pink flowers.