Winner Take All (50 page)

She nodded. Started to take his hand. Retreated. Sighed softly. Then straightened. Being hard and strong for them both. Which was good.

The senator’s chief local aide came scooting around the corner and skidded to a halt at the sight of them. “Ms. Stansted? I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting—”

“Five minutes,” Kirsten said, pushing herself to her feet. “Now.”

Marcus made it down the hall with Kirsten on one side and Wilma on the other. His feet throbbed in harmony to the rest of him. He
wore a band of white for a skullcap, an apostate’s dunnage for all the wrongs of a long and bitter era. He entered the senior aide’s office and let them settle him into a chair, content to have Kirsten think on his behalf. Kirsten’s determined assurance was a balm to his badly scattered brain. He found a strange comfort in the need and remedy both.

Brent Daniels was a chubby bundle of nerves, unable to halt his little dance behind the high-backed executive chair. “I can’t say it was a great move out there, scaring my receptionist with accusations of tie-ins to a murder investigation.”

“I need some answers.”

He tried hard for a smile. “We’re not in the Q&A business here.”

Kirsten waved a careless hand to the chair on Marcus’ other side. “Wilma Blain is the Wilmington DA, up here on the case involving the murder of Erin Brandt. You remember her.”

“So?”

“So we want to know how you learned about the abduction of Celeste Steadman.”

“Easy enough. That was headline news.”

Marcus spoke for the first time. “Dale Steadman’s firing was. The article only gave a single sentence to the abduction and Dale’s recent divorce.”

“We’re paid to give careful attention to the local press. That’s the nature of politics.”

“Then here’s another one,” Kirsten said. “How did you come to know about Erin Brandt being outside Germany? And here’s another. The London embassy staffer said you had called him to report that Erin Brandt was departing London early to return to Düsseldorf. Who was feeding you this information?”

Brent Daniels began beating a nervous drumbeat on the back of his seat. Clearly this was the question he had been dreading. “I’m totally unable to respond.”

“Then I’ll make some points for you. All you have to do is let me know if I’m moving in the right direction.” She hurried along, not granting him a chance to object. “You were contacted by someone from outside the senator’s constituency. A woman by the name of Evelyn Lloyd. She offered to make a huge donation to the senator’s war chest. She had some serious connections with the Washington crowd,
and knew precisely how to channel the funds so they would go directly from her account to yours.”

The hammering of his hands gradually halted along with his breathing. He even stopped blinking. He stood and he stared. On Marcus’ other side, Wilma Blain leaned forward and gave Kirsten a squinty-eyed inspection.

“Evelyn Lloyd told you that she shared your aims. She was deeply concerned over the abduction of American children and their illegal transport to Germany. She wanted to see it stop.” Kirsten gave him a moment to respond. “How am I doing so far?”

The aide said nothing.

“Perhaps you would rather we subpoena the senator and formally request his presence in a court of law.”

The surprise was not merely in the threat, but the fact that it came from Wilma Blain. The aide looked pinned by his own fear to the rear wall of his office. “No.”

“Then answer the lady’s question.”

Kirsten held the DA’s gaze for a long moment, drawing strength from the act.

“I can’t.”

“No problem.” Wilma made as if to rise. “Maybe you better call the senator and let him know we’ll be serving a subpoena on him and you both this very afternoon.”

“Wait, no, that can’t happen.”

“Can and will, sir. Can and will. Unless, of course, you care to respond.”

Brent Daniels pulled out his chair. Lowered himself by the arms. Took the motions in the careful stages of the ailing and defeated. “It wasn’t like Ms. Lloyd was coming to us with something out of left field.”

“You were already involved in the action,” Kirsten offered.

“Absolutely. This was a cause close to the senator’s heart.”

“So she was seen as an ally,” Kirsten continued. “Then she returned with news about what you thought would be the high-profile case you’d been searching after. Something so big it would attract the international press, and maybe even stimulate the German parliament to take action.”

Wilma Blain let out a low chuckle, almost a hum. She leaned back in her chair and gave Kirsten a look of pure approval.

“Only this case blew up in your faces.”

“Did it ever,” the aide muttered.

“You and the senator took great pride in the fact that you had remained in the background, doing little more than making a few calls that could easily be denied.”

Brent Daniels stared at her. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t.” She moved to help Wilma Blain lift Marcus from his seat. “Until now.”

Once they were back in the car, Kirsten said to the DA, “Could you call Judge Sears and ask if we might stop by?”

This time Wilma did not hesitate. When she was done, Kirsten reached across the seatback and asked, “Can I use your phone?”

Kirsten obtained the number from New York directory assistance. The phone was answered on the first ring. “Evelyn Lloyd, please.”

“Whom should I say is calling?”

Kirsten recognized the precisely superior tone. “You know exactly who this is.”

A fragment of hesitation, then, “I beg your pardon?”

“First of all, I want to thank you.”

“What on earth for?”

“Saving our lives. Secondly, I want to check some facts.”

“I am still waiting,” Evelyn Lloyd replied, “to learn whom I am addressing.”

“You knew something was wrong when you learned about Kedrick selling his hotels. He had to have something serious going on for him to want that much money at this point in his life.” When Evelyn did not respond, Kirsten added, “Did you know he’s purchased Dale’s house with the remaining funds?”

“Young lady, I thoroughly detest this insinuating tone of yours.”

“My guess is you’ve tracked his every step,” Kirsten continued. “The only problem was, it simply isn’t done in your circle.”

“What isn’t?”

“Going after your own husband.”

The woman on the other end was silent so long Kirsten feared she had hung up. Then Evelyn said, “Obviously you are addressing the wrong person. But whoever it is that has acted in such a manner, I
would say they had an uncommon appreciation of the cold sweet taste of careful revenge.”

“I’m not looking to blame anyone,” Kirsten said. “I just want to find the child.”

This time the pause was even longer. “Not here.”

Then the phone went dead.

E
VELYN
L
LOYD TOOK GREAT CARE
with her dress and makeup. Everything she selected bore the invisible stains of memories made bitter by lies and deception. The gown was a Dior one-off, designed for the first reception they had given after completing the renovations of Kedrick’s family castle in Wiltshire. The work had taken three years and almost four million of her dollars. They had brought in woodworkers from the Garonne region of central France, the only place they could find people still skilled in the Jacobean style of paneling. The step-in fireplace was carved from massive blocks of white Grecian marble, sculpted as close to the original sketches as they could manage in this day and age.

Her diamond-and-emerald necklace had also been a gift from Kedrick—acquired with her funds, of course. They had celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary with a weekend getaway to Paris. They had taken a suite at the Ritz and walked across the Place Vendôme to the same jewelers who had served Kedrick’s great-great-grandfather, back in the family’s heyday. That same weekend had been Kedrick’s first occasion to hear Erin Brandt sing. The young diva had lit up the Paris Opera House with a brilliance that had outshone even these fabulous gems. Evelyn fastened the necklace into place, grimacing at the bitter irony of such tainted and poisoned joy.

She gave her makeup a careful check, then crossed the foyer to Kedrick’s office. The servants all had been given the afternoon off. The apartment was uncommonly still. The only sound came from Kedrick’s
sound system. She recognized the muted strains of Tchaikovsky’s tragic opera
Eugene Onegin
. Even here was a note of fatal correctness.

Evelyn pushed open the doors and entered the stage.

Her husband was seated behind his massive stinkwood desk. His cell phone lay open and waiting upon the leather blotter. His hair was a scattered sheath of winter wheat. His face looked ravaged with strain. He cast her a glance, then started to look away. Then it gradually registered. She stood with regal dignity, both hands holding the handles to the double doors. “Yes?”

“I came to inform you,” she said, “that this particular script will not play out as you intended.”

He sought to gather himself, but failed. “I beg your pardon?”

She started to walk over and turn off the music, but decided it suited the occasion more than silence. The final act was building now. Onegin was about to confront the utter depravity of his misdeeds. “Let me guess. You and your minions can’t locate the child.”

Awareness dawned within that burning gaze. “What are you saying?”

“You couldn’t possibly think that I would let you get away with all this. My only regret is that I did not think you capable of murder. But then, I have always sought to believe the best in you. Even when you have constantly sought to prove me wrong.”

“My dear, you are not making—”

“The authorities are seeking your Mr. Jones and that strange little German fellow as we speak.” She rose up to her full height, wishing there was some sense of satisfaction to be found in this moment. Some vindication. “And both Marcus Glenwood and Kirsten Stansted are alive.”

He took the news as he would a blow to the heart. “What?”

“I failed to protect Ms. Brandt, though heaven knows she deserved her fate as much as anyone. But as for these two, my guess is they are now sharing their suspicions with the proper authorities.”

The rage she had always known was there gradually fueled the ravaged features. “Then there is nothing to keep me from exacting my final revenge upon you.”

“Revenge for what, Kedrick? Remaining blind to your deceit for far too long?” Evelyn stepped back enough to call into the foyer, “Come here, please.”

The muscled young detective stepped in alongside her. Evelyn watched her husband descend into the dust of defeat. She then pointed to the sound system. In this production Onegin confessed to his life of misdeeds, then shot himself in the temple. “Perhaps you should consider the wisdom of your one and only love.”

J
UDGE
R
ACHEL
S
EARS
pointed Kirsten into the seat directly in front of her desk. They were in Sears’ private office on the district courthouse’s ninth floor. Photographs of her husband and child were situated on her desk and the two window ledges. The sofa upon which Marcus sat was beige leather. The feminine tone was matched by the three chairs and the Indian carpet and the desert scenes on her walls. Kirsten tried to keep from paying Marcus any attention, but it was hard. He looked increasingly pale, as though his strength continued to seep from some undetected wound. She wanted him back in bed, resting and comfortable. She wanted the same for herself. But not yet.

Judge Sears had the gaze of too many hard days compressed into too little time. She did not shout. She did not need to. Her presence was commanding, even here in her personal space with the judge’s robes hung on the back of her door. “You want to tell me what has happened here?”

“I don’t know,” Kirsten replied. “But I can guess.”

Wilma Blain was seated beside the court stenographer over by the window. Kirsten was alone in her front-and-center position, taking the full brunt of Sears’ gaze. “Erin Brandt and Kedrick Lloyd had a long-term affair. Kedrick was spellbound by her. Erin was Erin.”