Heartless: a Derek Cole Mystery Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thriller Book 1) (30 page)

“You read the reports of the man who has kept me as his lab rat for twenty-two years, who subjected me to countless tests all in the name of science, and you wonder why he may feel that I am dangerous?”

“If I unlock this door, Alexander, and you attempt to harm me or to escape, my men will put you down. Understood?”

“Why would I want to harm or escape from my own father?” Alexander said, again through his empty smile.

“I need time to get the key.”

“I have one,” Alexander said, holding a brass key up to the windowpane. “Straus keeps his key somewhere and gave me this one in case of emergency.”

Alexander bent down slowly and slid the key under the small gap of the door. The key sat inches from Ken O’Connell’s feet. He reached down, picked up the key, turned, and nodded to his armed assistant who was dutifully at his post.

“I am trusting you, Alexander and hope that you trust me as well.”

“You will not be disappointed… Dad.”

As Ken lifted his hand holding the key closer to the lock, Alexander moved a few steps away from the door.

“In case you change your mind and choose to close the door, my increased distance should afford you more time to do so,” Alexander whispered.

Ken slid the key into the lock, turned it quickly and heard the bolt slide into its home. Ken O’Connell was not a man who approached anything from a place of fear, but as he pushed the door open, he felt his legs grow weak.

“I will sit if that makes you more comfortable, dad.”

“No need,” Ken said, stepping into the room. “I think we understand each other just fine.”

Ken could easily remember how willing a partner Alexander agreed to be. How quickly he was to offer suggestions and make corrections when the information that Ken had regarding Straus was incorrect. He recalled how quickly Alexander learned how to use and to understand the Smartphone that he gave him. And how patient Alexander was when he told him the plan needed to be executed only when the timing was perfect.

When Alexander acted without thinking and killed two of the doctors whom Ken was relying on for a fair amount of his payment for silence, Ken worried about his partner. His rage was more powerful than Ken had expected. And when Straus never showed for their scheduled meeting, Ken began to realize that choosing Alexander to be a part of the plan was a critical mistake.

He had, at first, wondered if Alexander could have become an addition to his family. He was, after all, his son, and as his son, Alexander was entitled to a life well beyond the reach of most. Even when he first saw the photographs of Alexander and read the reports his team had delivered, Ken still wondered.

It was when he first saw him, through the thick glass of hallway window, that he knew. Alexander would never become part of his family or any other family for that matter. He was too different.
 
Too unique.
 
Ken needed to maintain his position in the business community and the expected media frenzy over a human being living without a heart would cause unwanted exposure.

He had a gift, it was an ability to ignore emotions. Pushing them down deep to the place his father used to call “the garbage pit of your soul.”
 

He took Alexander to a “safe house” he had rented in Manhattan where Alexander agreed to focus his time on learning the fine art of applying make-up and learning how to “control his temper.”
 

When Ken learned that Rinaldo and Zudak had been murdered, he instructed his men to “eliminate Alexander and to hide the body in the ocean.” He needed to find Straus and Mix and salvage what was left of his plan.
 
When he killed Curtis and Adams, Alexander and his rage cost Ken millions of dollars. The thought of Alexander getting to Straus before he had a chance to apply the intelligently crafted threat of extortion he had in mind, was a possibility that Ken could not accept.

“Worst case scenario,” he said to his hired assistants, “is that we eliminate everyone who knows anything, and we walk away with lessons learned.”

“And best case?” he was asked.

“We squeeze Straus, Mix, and Lucietta for three million and walk away richer with lessons learned.”

The next day, when Ken learned that Lucietta was murdered in his office, he sent a resource over to make sure Alexander was still in the apartment.

“No sign of Alexander,” the report came back. “He must have taken care of Lucietta and is probably looking for Straus right now.”

Ken still had Mix and Straus to count on to prevent his plan from being a total disaster, but when Derek Cole reported that Mix had left the resort and that Mix didn’t look like he was going to last much longer, everything was down to finding Straus.

That’s when the entire plan fell apart. What angered Ken the most as he sat, tied to the cold metal chair in the rat-infested warehouse, is that he never saw it coming to this. He never fully trusted Alexander, but never thought he would actually resort to this.
 

The fire that Alexander lit before telling Ken how much he appreciated his assistance and that he “so wished that things had been different and that they would’ve had memories together of picnics in the park and playing catch in the road” was beginning to spread. As designed.

The rags were damp with an oil and gas mixture that was designed to slowly ignite but, without doubt, burn completely. One by one, Alexander placed them in a long, straight line that ended against a heaping pile of discarded pallets stacked in the corner of the abandoned warehouse. Ken’s screams of anger and of pleading were largely wasted on Alexander. He went about the business of arranging the rags and pallets to ensure that the wick of rags would ignite into a raging fire.

“Alexander,” Ken said as Alexander had finished arranging the rags, “I have resources that are instructed to find me if I don’t check in every hour. I haven’t spoken to them in over three hours, meaning that they will be here any second. And when they arrive, I will have to beg them to spare your life.”

“Daddy,” Alexander said softly. “Your only resource left in this world was assumed dead on arrival twenty-two years ago.”

With that, Alexander lit the long stretch of rags, which accepted the offered match and slowly turned to low flame. “This fire will certainly capture the attention of the local fire department, but I am afraid to tell you that the department is a volunteer one. Their response will be tardy. And, given the assumption that there is nothing worth risking a life over in this warehouse, they will risk nothing. What I am telling you, dear daddy, is that no one will know you are in this warehouse, screaming and pleading for your life until you can no longer scream or plead.

“Your imagined plan of vengeance was, in fact, nothing more than a way to line your pockets. Mine, however, has nothing to do with revenue. Didn’t you wonder why I suggested that your name and your other son’s name should be included on our ‘lists?’ You assumed having your family listed as targeted victims would provide you cover. I included your names not as a clue but as a thorough list. You were so quick to agree to add your own family’s names to the list of targets, yet you never questioned why I wanted to add them.”

As the flame slowly worked its devouring way from one rage to the next, Alexander walked to the door. As he reached it and pushed it open, he turned, faced Ken and said, “It is nice, isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about, you sick, twisted freak?”

“Your twin boys, together again. It’s nice, in its own sick, twisted way.”

The door slammed shut.

Derek understood that his presence anywhere near the vicinity of Hilburn would not be welcomed by the state police or by the NYPD who were certain to have been informed of his “freelancing” involvement. Captain Smith was probably too busy to be tracking his cell phone but not too busy to pass along his name and picture to the NYPD detectives.

When his Google Maps indicated that he was within a mile of Hilburn, Derek pulled in the nearest strip mall, parked his car, grabbed his backpack and started off towards Hilburn on foot. A quick glance at the time suggested that he find a way to kill some time so he could use the cover of darkness to conceal his entrance into Hilburn, which he was certain was being watched by at least several pairs of eyes.

As he spotted a Thai restaurant in the strip mall, he decided that consuming some spicy duck would be as good a way as any to spend a few hours. As he walked in the door, his cell phone rang.

“Derek Cole,” he said.

“It’s Janet O’Connell. I can’t get in touch with either my husband or my son. I need you to find them and make sure they are alright.”

“Janet,” Derek said, “if I’m right about my suspicions, I’m within a mile of them right now.”

“I’m getting on a plane in thirty minutes to fly home. Please, call me the second you see them and let me know everything.”

“I will.”

“And Derek?” Janet added. “Please don’t hurt Alexander. He’s my son, too.”

Janet paused after ending her call with Derek. As she glanced at the boarding pass she had printed out and was holding her hands, she wondered if what she was planning would cause problems. She was told, after all, to stay put, to not talk with anyone, and to wait. Her husband was always very good at giving clear directions.

Janet and Ken met shortly after she had graduated from college. She, the daughter of a self-made millionaire, and he, a struggling entrepreneur with a drive and passion that both attracted and concerned her. She never doubted that Ken would be wildly successful. He wouldn’t have accepted anything less. And with Janet’s father providing a generous amount of startup capital, she knew it would only be a matter of time before her husband would be even more successful that her father.

It took only three years for Ken’s business ideas, hard work, and determination to pay off. He started with a used car lot and then expanded to own seven lots spread across the Chicago area. Within 18 months, she was standing next to her husband, cutting the ribbon to open the first O’Connell Jeep Chrysler Dodge dealership. Within two years, there were two more ribbon-cutting ceremonies, a move out of an apartment that had grown too middle class and into a palatial home and the decision to start a family.

“I’m not interested in a big family,” her husband told her. “One son should be enough. If you produce a daughter first, we keep going but, no matter what, we stop at three kids.”

She agreed once she realized that having four or five kids like she had wished for didn’t make sense.

“A family of five or more creates problems,” Ken insisted. “We stop at no more than three kids, two if I get my son.”

Ken always had solid reasons behind his ideas. She learned to trust him, and after their third year of marriage, her belly expanded with twins, she decided that questioning his directions served no purpose. Her mother did the same in her marriage, and things worked out well for her. She began to understand that her decision to marry Ken assumed a willing acceptance of the role she needed to play.

Over the 26 years of their marriage, Janet learned to keep her ideas to herself. While there were times when she questioned her husband’s decisions, she knew that he was much smarter than she was and had an ability to make things work out for the best. An ability she didn’t see in herself.

She certainly didn’t like many things about her relationship. The nights her husband wouldn’t come home and offered no excuse as to why. The private conversations he would have with business associates, lawyers, accountants and people that Janet felt a particular unease about having in her home. She hated when he told her to “mind her business and mind her place” when she began to offer a suggestion.
 

In the back of her mind, she knew he was unfaithful and was leading a life very distant from the life she and he were living. Distant and different. But saying anything would risk so much. And who was she to tell him, a man who had given her so much, that she didn’t like how she was being treated? She had a beautiful home, wanted for nothing, and had an enviable position in her community of friends and acquaintances.
 

But the uneasy stirring in her soul never became silent. At night, as she slept alone, she forced herself to ignore her feelings and to push down her anger. Despite her efforts, the feelings returned each morning and stayed with her through each of her days. She expected that one day, some day, Ken would go too far and then, only then would she make her voice heard.

But was this the day to make herself heard? Ken and Thomas were nowhere to be found. He had told her the day he dropped her off at the airport in Chicago that he’d probably be difficult to get a hold of and that Thomas would out of cell range most of the time. The fact that Derek Cole, a complete stranger, suggested that her husband may be involved in something criminal didn’t surprise her. She couldn’t accept, however, that her son, Thomas, would have involved himself in any of his father’s activities.

She sat down on the edge of her bed in the resort, looking out over the resort’s grounds. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the racing and conflicting thoughts.