“Someone by the name of Alfred Nichols wouldn’t be behind this, would he?” Garrett asked.
The captain smiled. “The spook? I never heard of him.”
59
T
HE COLLAPSE OF LIGHTHOUSE POINT
oil rig was front-page news around the world. Immediately following the storm, the Canadian authorities mobilized a huge effort to look for survivors and to contain any environmental damage. As it turned out, there was very little of the latter, since the rig hadn’t actually been drilling for oil.
After a week, no survivors beyond Garrett and company had been found. One Coast Guard cutter picked up a tangled, deflated mass of open rafts tied together nearly forty miles out to sea. There was no sign of the occupants. A few days later, the bodies of several young girls were found floating far off the coast. Garrett speculated they’d been prisoners on the rig at the time it went down. One final horror in the lives of those poor unfortunates.
The reappearance of Kitty Wells also became front-page news. Her TV station welcomed her back with an extensive interview about her experience. Her tale of kidnapping and sexual slavery on the high seas held a prurient and fascinated Canadian public spellbound for days. True to her profession, Kitty held back nothing about her experience.
The Board of Directors of Global Resources scrambled to get ahead of the metastasizing scandal. They denounced their former CEO and declared they had no idea what had been going on. Public outrage went viral and in less than forty-eight hours, Anthony DeMaio became public enemy number one. Interpol placed his picture in every major newspaper and on every television station in the world.
Of course, no one had any idea where he was.
Garrett was also besieged by the press. Tuttle ordered him to take some time off until the hubbub died down. An RCMP officer who worked mostly out of uniform and undercover wouldn’t be helped by massive public exposure.
So Garrett was sitting on his porch one Sunday morning two weeks after the hurricane, nursing a cup of coffee and watching the whiskey jacks in his front yard, when Lonnie came up the lane. He hadn’t seen much of his cousin since the incident.
Lonnie sat beside him on the little porch and stared at the birds for a couple of minutes without saying anything. He took a chunk of Garrett’s bagel, broke it up, and threw it on the ground. The whiskey jacks ignored the offering.
“I was eating that,” Garrett said testily. “This isn’t the Public Gardens and those aren’t the tame ducks you usually feed.”
Lonnie grunted, then finally met Garrett’s eyes. “Something personal I’ve been wanting to ask your advice about.”
“Sure,” said Garrett, though it was probably the first time his cousin had ever said such a thing. Lonnie wasn’t a touchy-feely sort of guy, even to those who knew his true personality.
Again, the big man said nothing for a while, leaving Garrett wondering what was going on.
Finally he said, “Kitty’s moved in with me.”
Garrett’s face lit up. “Lon! That’s wonderful.” He squeezed his cousin’s huge bicep.
Then Lonnie gave the first sheepish look that Garrett had ever seen from him.
“Can’t quite believe it myself,” he said. “Something happened to her out there, Garrett. She equates me with her personal safety.” He gave a long sideways glance. “Tell you the truth, I’m pretty tired. She’s voracious in bed. Says what we’re doing is so antithetical to what happened between her and DeMaio that she can’t get enough of it.”
“Uh … so your problem would be … what? Sounds like you’re doing just fine on your own.”
“That’s it. I don’t know if I can trust it, Gar. This is something I never thought would happen for me. She wants to get married, as soon as possible.”
Garrett leaped to his feet. “That’s fantastic! Who knows, maybe her being little and you being big, you’ll have perfect-sized children.” His pleasure at Lonnie’s news couldn’t have been more obvious, and his cousin smiled.
“Still,” he said slowly, “Her feelings for me came out of something awful. It’s kind of like that Stockholm syndrome thing, you know, where a hostage begins to identify with his captor. Only in this case, Kitty has glommed onto her savior instead. I just …” He struggled for the right words. “… don’t know if it will last.”
“Hell, it’s a better basis for a marriage than a lot of others I’ve witnessed, Lon. There’s no guarantee in any relationship. No guarantee it will last any longer than it lasts, period. Just enjoy it in the moment.” He shrugged. “That’s my advice.”
Lonnie nodded. Garrett could see there was something else on his mind.
“She’ll never feel truly safe again until DeMaio is caught,” he said. “The idea that that monster is running around out there keeps her on constant edge, looking over her shoulder. She says the man is vindictive and will come after her if he can. You and I both know he’ll probably never come anywhere near Kitty, not if he has an ounce of self-preservation in his body. Hell, he can’t even get into this country any more. But I can’t just leave him out there.”
“Interpol usually gets its man,” Garrett said. “Sooner or later.”
“I’m going for sooner.”
Garrett stared at him. “You’re going after him?”
He nodded. “I won’t get married until this loose end is taken care of. Maybe it’s one way of proving to myself that Kitty really wants me for anything other than protection.”
“All right,” Garrett said slowly, “I guess I can understand that. But if Interpol can’t find him, how do you expect to?”
Lonnie gave him a hard smile. “How many times do I have to tell you Eagle Scout types that you have your limitations? Interpol has as many as the Mounties—maybe more. International boundaries, bureaucratic bullshit, jurisdictional disputes, budgetary considerations. The game I play has fewer rules and most of the ones there are have to do with paying off debts. A lot of people owe me, Gar. I’ll find DeMaio. No question. He’s hiding in my world, now.”
Garrett spread his hands. “How can I help?”
“Most important thing I need is someone to look after Kitty while I’m doing this. She knows about it, is against it. But it’s something I have to do. Kind of like my wedding present to her.”
Sarah came up the lane and stopped when she saw them together on the porch. “My two favorite men in the world,” she said.
She went up on the porch and kissed Lonnie, then gave a longer smooch to Garrett and sat next to them. “I’ve just been talking to Grace.”
“How’s she doing?” Garrett asked. “Leo told me about what happened to her. I was pretty surprised. Last time I spoke to Roland, he told me he’d found Grace doing a drug deal out in the islands. I didn’t believe him.”
Sarah hesitated. “Grace told me something I’m not sure I should tell you, Gar. But she didn’t tell me not to, so …”
Lonnie exchanged looks with Garrett and they both waited.
“Anyway, maybe it’s something you could sort of check out. I believe her but … it’s hard to know about people. Maybe you already know. It’s sort of your area, after all.”
Garrett looked blank. “What on earth are you talking about?”
She took a deep breath. “Grace says that what Roland told you was the truth. Sort of. She says she works undercover for the federal government. She’s been trying to get close to some dealers, get trusted enough to trap them in a major bust.”
Garrett’s eyes went wide. “I don’t believe it.”
She nodded.
“I know nothing at all about it,” Garrett said. “And I’d bet my limited bankroll Tuttle doesn’t either. It’s almost too fantastic. She’s the least likely looking agent I could imagine.”
“Kitty doesn’t look much like a woman who could kill five men and help me escape from an international sex ring either,” Sarah said.
“Pretty good disguises,” said Lonnie, “for both of you. Slime balls in the profession see women like you and Grace and Kitty in two ways only, as potential customers for their drugs or moneymakers as prostitutes. Preferably both at once. They would never expect any trouble from that quarter. They’re so used to women being victims, period. Might make it easier for Grace to get close to them. Her story rings true to me.”
“Something else,” said Sarah. “Grace is grateful to Roland. He saved her life, after all. Evidently the bad guys figured out who she was. They pumped her full of drugs, put her in that kayak, and set her adrift. By the time her body was found, if it ever was, the drugs would be out of her system and the assumption would be that she got caught kayaking in the storm. It was a miracle Roland found her.”
“Please God, don’t tell me she’s decided to marry Roland,” said Garrett. “I can’t take any more shocks this morning.”
“Huh,” said Sarah, her gaze washing over him. “Guess you’re still recovering from the shock I gave you the other night?”
“That was more by the way of a systemic stimulus,” Garrett sniffed. “You completely wasted me, not to put too fine a point on it.”
She nuzzled him, kissed his neck. “Took us so long to get together, made it even better.” She looked shyly at Lonnie, who was grinning ear to ear.
“Anyway,” Sarah went on, “No way is Grace marrying Roland. Trust me. But she feels an obligation to him. And she says she feels sorry for him, since his mother died. He’s all alone in the world, and she’s decided to take him on. Kind of like her personal rehabilitation project. She’s helped him clean and reorganize his house, taken him out to buy new clothes, bought him a membership in a health club so he can get in better shape, even taken him to see a dermatologist about his skin and a dentist to work on his teeth. She also helped him get fitted for shoes that will even out his gait. She says she’s going to find him a wife if it’s the last thing she does. Says there’s someone for everyone in this world. It’s just a matter of finding them.”
“Unbelievable!” Garrett exclaimed. “I never thought there could possibly be any woman for Roland. I’d say Grace has taken on quite a challenge. But it’s a good thing. You tell her next time you see her that I’ll help in any way I can.”
“Tell her yourself,” Sarah said. “You’re both invited to dinner tomorrow night at Grace’s house. Roland will be there too.”
Garrett’s eyes widened. “That’s a gathering I never would have believed.”
“I have to admit, I’m still trying to absorb it myself,” said Sarah. “Leo, and especially Ingrid, I think, are having a hard time with the new order. But they’re committed to Grace and are grateful that Roland saved her. Anyway, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have the law, so to speak, attend the dinner, just in case there are any lingering areas of dispute.”
“It’s all good to hear,” said Lonnie. “But I’m going to be tied up.”
“Look,” said Garrett, “before you plan anything, I think we should visit Alfred Nichols. See what he says. Maybe the intels can at least point you in the right direction.”
The big man snorted. “That would be a first.” But he shrugged acceptance. He’d take any help he could get if it meant putting Kitty’s mind at ease.
60
A
LFRED NICHOLS’S OFFICE WAS IN
a towering high rise and offered spectacular views of the Halifax and Dartmouth waterfronts. Puffy white clouds scudded across the sky, and far in the distance the North Atlantic was pockmarked with whitecaps. Weather reports suggested still another hurricane might make landfall.
Lonnie stared out at the incredible vista. “Always wondered where my tax dollars went,” he said.
Garrett didn’t want to discuss his cousin’s non-payment of taxes in this forum. Nichols sat behind an enormous mahogany desk that was completely empty, a sign of either bureaucratic efficiency or intel paranoia that he wanted no potential information inadvertently exposed to visitors. He wore a pearl gray vested suit that hugged a tight frame. The most incongruous aspect of his appearance, given his profession, was a ten-inch ponytail that began just above his neck. It was, in fact, the only hair on his head.
“Your meeting,” he said. “Your agenda.”
“We want to know what you know about Anthony DeMaio,” said Garrett.
“Sorry, that’s privileged information.”
Garrett stared at him. “Don’t fuck around with me, Nichols. We’ve had just about enough of Anthony DeMaio. We want to know everything there is to know about him.”
Nichols stood up. “If that’s what this meeting is about, I think we’re done.”
Garrett didn’t move. “Okay, here’s the thing,” he said. “If you’re not willing to help, I’m going to be interviewed on TV tonight. Miss Kitty Wells’s show. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Audience share is right through the roof since she came back. You should see her mail. Tens of thousands of letters from sympathetic women all across Canada. She’s going to ask me if we have any leads in looking for Mr. DeMaio and I’m going to tell her that the feds, and you in particular, have refused to cooperate in the investigation. That we’re beginning to suspect you may have some link to Global Resources yourself.”
Nichols blinked and looked from Garrett to Lonnie, who had a half smile on his face. “You can’t do that.”
“Eight o’clock tonight, you’re going to be the most despised man in Canada,” said Garrett. “I suspect your own wife won’t be speaking to you.”
After a moment, Nichols sat back down.
“All right. What do you want to know?”
Lonnie’s smile blossomed. “The power of the press,” he said.
“For starters, I want to know about Grace Finney. Does she work for you?”
Nichols looked out his window, though he didn’t seem to register the spectacular view. “Yes,” he said.
“How long?”
“She’s part of a special task force set up over a year ago to investigate drug smuggling along the Eastern shore. We’d had rumors that someone in the RCMP might be involved, and she was also looking into that. One reason I hesitated to give you any information is because, frankly, it could have been you.”
“She find out anything?”
He shook his head. “Some leads, but nothing I’d want to put out there. Even a rumor could destroy a Mountie’s career.”
“You manage to tie DeMaio into this?”
“To the drugs? No. Looks like he was strictly into the sex trafficking thing. Guess it was good for his business.”