Cormorant gave Reese another one of his squints. “You need to calm down. It’s not helping. We’re moving as fast as we can and there’s lots to check. The circumstances couldn’t be worse.”
The words fuck you ran through Reese’s mind, but he was too savvy to lose it in front of Tillman. Still, this situation had the makings of one of the biggest bombshells to hit Washington in years. A serial killer involved with the Cabinet—or attached to the White House?
“Sir, I’m going to recommend you designate all Secret Service logs from your detail as sensitive compartmented information—until further notice.”
“Sir, any SCI order puts your thumbprint right where you don’t want it,” Cormorant interjected.
“But simultaneously puts that information completely out of reach,” Reese answered back. Tillman had the authority to bypass not just the White House Security Office on this one, but the Freedom of Information Act.
“Okay.” Tillman nodded agreement with the chief of staff. It was done. Then he asked, “What about this detective, Cross? How worried do we need to be about him?”
Cormorant thought for a moment. “It’s hard to know until he turns something up. If he does. I’m keeping my eye on it, and if anything changes at all, I’ll update you—”
“Not me,” Tillman said firmly. “Go through Gabe. Everything goes through Gabe from now on.”
“Of course.”
Reese found he was repeatedly running a hand through his hair without even realizing it. They were just arriving at the Convention Center; the pressure was on to wrap this discussion up somehow.
Quickly he said, “Anything else I should know? Anything else that you’ve been keeping to yourself? Like who the hell Zeus is?”
Cormorant’s face reddened, but all he said was “We’re here, sir.”
Chapter 26
NANA WAS ALIVE. That’s what mattered; it was all I cared about right now. But I did wonder why it was that when you lose someone or are about to lose someone important to you, they become more precious than ever.
It was hell waiting for her to come back from tests at the hospital. I had to sit for hours in a sterile, fluorescent-lit corridor, while my mind ran through every possible worst-case scenario, a bad habit of mine from work. I tried to fill my head with memories of Nana, going all the way back to when I was ten and she had replaced my parents in my life.
When they finally wheeled her out, it was a gift just to look into her eyes. She’d been unconscious when we arrived, and there had been no guarantee I would ever see her alive again.
But here she was, and she was talking.
“Gave you a little scare there, did I?” Her voice was weak and wheezy, and she looked even tinier than usual sitting up on the gurney, but she was alert.
“More than a little scare,” I said. It was all I could do to keep from squeezing the life right back out of her. I settled for a lingering kiss on the cheek.
“Welcome back, old woman,” I whispered in her ear— just to make her smile, which it did.
“Good to be back. Now, let’s get out of here!”
Chapter 27
ONCE WE GOT Nana settled—in a hospital bed—the cardiologist on call came in to meet with us. Her name was Dr. Englefield, and she looked about fifty, with a compassionate face but also the kind of professional detachment I’ve seen with a lot of specialists.
She worked off Nana’s chart while she spoke.
“Mrs. Cross, your general diagnosis is congestive heart failure. Specifically, your heart isn’t pumping enough blood into your system. That means you’re not getting enough oxygen or nutrients, and that’s most likely why you collapsed this morning.”
Nana nodded, not showing any emotion. The first thing she asked was “How soon can I leave the hospital?”
“The average stay for something like this is four or five days. I’d like to adjust your blood pressure medication and see where we are in a few days.”
“Oh, I’ll be at home, Doctor. Where will you be?”
Englefield laughed politely, as if she thought Nana was joking. As soon as she was gone, though, Nana turned to me.
“You need to speak with someone else, Alex. I’m ready to go home.”
“Is that so?” I asked, trying to keep it light.
“Yes, that’s so.” She wagged her hand, trying to shoo me out of the room. “Go on. Make it happen.”
This was starting to get uncomfortable for me. I’d never called any shots for Nana before, and now, suddenly, I had to do just that.
“I think we should go with the doctor on this one,” I said. “If a few nights in the hospital means we don’t have to repeat this morning, then I’m all for it.”
“You’re not listening to me, Alex.” Her voice had changed in a beat, and she grabbed my wrist. “I am not going to spend another day in a hospital bed, do you hear me? I refuse. It’s my right to do so.”
“Nana—”
“No!” She let go and pointed at me with a shaking finger. “I will not have that tone, either. Now, are you going to respect my wishes or not? I’ll get right up and do it myself if I have to. You know I will, Alex.”
It was an awful feeling, standing there on the other end of that finger of hers. Nana was insisting, but she was also pleading with me to listen to her wishes.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned in so that my head was right next to hers. When I spoke, it was with my eyes closed.
“Nana, I need for you to get serious about this recovery. Slow down a few miles an hour here and let this happen. You must. So be smart.” The latter was something that Nana had been saying to me since I was ten years old. Be smart.
It was totally quiet in the room except for the sound of her leaning back against the pillow. When I opened my eyes, there were tears on her cheeks. “That’s it, then? This is where I die?”
I pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. Later, I’d sleep in that same chair. “Nobody’s dying in here tonight,” I said.
Part Two
FIRE WITH FIRE
Chapter 28
TONY NICHOLSON WAS already anxious enough, crazed actually, and now he was running late, thanks to an overturned tractor-trailer on the way out of the city. By the time he reached Blacksmith Farms, it was just after 9:30 and his important guests were due in less than half an hour. Including a very special guest.
He stayed in his car and buzzed.
“Yes?” a woman’s voice answered. Cultured. British. His assistant, Mary Claire.
“It’s me, M.C.”
“Good evening, Mr. Nicholson. You’re a bit late.” No shit, Sherlock, Nicholson thought but didn’t say out loud.
The gate swung open and closed again behind his Cayman S as he pulled in.
The long driveway cut across nearly a mile of open field, then through a swath of forest, mostly hickory and oak, before coming out in view of the main house. Nicholson parked his Cayman in the old carriage barn and came in through the patio French doors.
“I’m here, I’m here. Sorry.”
His hostess for the evening, a Trinidadian beauty by the name of Esther, was arranging leather guest folios on a Chippendale table in the foyer.
“Any issues for me?” he asked. “Any unanticipated problems for tonight?”
“None, Mr. Nicholson. Everything is perfect.” Esther had a wonderfully serene manner that Nicholson loved. It slowed him down right away. “The Bollinger is iced, we have the Flor de Farach coronas in the humidors, the girls are all beautiful and properly briefed, and you have”—she pulled a watch out of her pocket; there were no clocks in the house—“at least twenty minutes before our first guests are scheduled to arrive. They called ahead. They are right on time. They sound very… enthusiastic.”
“Right, then. Excellent job. You know where to find me if you need me.”
Nicholson made a quick pass through the first floor before heading upstairs. The foyer and lounges on this level evoked an English gentlem
en’s club more than anything, with their mahogany paneling, brass fixtures on the bars, and lots of ridiculously expensive antiques. It looked like the kind of place his father could have only dreamed of joining, given England’s obscene class system. Nicholson was a working-class Brighton boy by birth, but he’d left all of that dreary shit behind long ago. Here, he was king. Or at least a crown prince.
He took the main stairs up to the second floor, where several of the girls were already dressed and waiting for the first rush of guests, the “early buggers.”
Stunningly beautiful girls, elegant and sexy, they sat chatting on the low sofas in the mezzanine, which also had comfortable floor cushions all around and layers of soft drapes that could be pulled for more or less privacy, depending on the desires of the party.
“Evening, ladies,” he said, looking them over with an expert eye. “Yes, yes, very nice. You’re gorgeous. Perfect, all of you, in every way.”
“Thank you, Tony,” one of them said a little louder than the rest. This was Katherine, of course, whose gray-blue eyes always lingered over his Nordic features a little longer than the others’. She would have loved to have a go at the boss, and for all the wrong reasons, he understood. Like replacing his wife in his life.
Nicholson leaned down to whisper in her ear, fingering the hem of her white lace mini as he did. “A different dress, though, I think, Kat. Can’t have the whores looking like whores, now, can we?”
He watched the beautiful girl struggle to keep the brilliant smile on her face—as if he’d just said something charming and sweet. Without another word, she got up and left the room. “I have to use the little girls’ room,” she whispered.
Once he’d been satisfied that everything else was in superb working order, Nicholson continued up to his locked office on the third floor. This was the one area of the house he kept off limits to both the guests and the help.
Inside, he poured a glass of seven-hundred-dollar-a-bottle Bollinger—a gift to himself from the client’s stock— and sat down. It had been a hectic day; now he could finally relax.
Well, not really relax, but at least there was the Bollinger.
Two large flat-screen monitors dominated the desk in front of him. He powered up the system and typed in a long password.
Rows of thumbnail images tiled open like dominoes across one of the two screens.
At first glance, they looked like miniature still lifes, each one from a different area of the house—foyer, mezzanine, guest suites, massage rooms, dungeon, screening rooms. There were thirty-six in all.
Nicholson stopped for just a moment to watch the duplicitous Katherine in one of the changing rooms, wearing just a thong, breasts heaving, fussing at her runny eye makeup in the mirror. Beautiful though she might be, Katherine was a mistake—too ambitious, too cunning—but she was not his real priority right now.
He clicked on an image of the driveway in front of the house and dragged it so that it jumped screens to open full-size on the other monitor. A time signature began to count out at the bottom.
He clicked once more, on a red triangular button in the border, for “record.”
The first cars were just pulling in. The party was about to start.
“Let the fucking begin—mind and otherwise. Whatever their little hard-ons desire.”
Chapter 29
BY ELEVEN THIRTY, the very expensive and exclusive Blacksmith Farms was in full swing. Each of the guest suites was occupied, the massage rooms, the dungeon, even the mezzanine was hopping with hot sex and related shenanigans—girl-boy, girl-girl, boy-boy, girl-boy-girl, whatever the customer wished.
The entire house had been booked for a bachelor party that evening: five pretty-boy escorts, thirty-four girls, twenty-one very horny guests, a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar fee, already transferred into the club’s numbered account.
The host—and best man—was well known to Nicholson: he was Temple Suiter, a partner with one of DC’s most prestigious and well-connected law firms, with clients including the Family Research Council and the royal family of Saudi Arabia, as well as members of the former White House administration.
Nicholson had done his homework, as always.
Benjamin Painter, the bachelor of honor, was about to marry into one of Washington’s dynasty families. Next week, he’d be calling the senior senator from Virginia “Dad,” and one of DC’s most beloved plastic-surgery victims “Mom.” He was also widely believed to be gearing up for a Senate run of his own, all of which made Mr. Painter quite valuable—in Nicholson’s way of viewing the world, anyway.
Right now, the future groom and senator was sprawled on a club chair in suite A. Two of the youngest, prettiest, and least threatening girls, Sasha and Liz, were slowly undressing each other on the bed while a new one, Ana, worked him over through the cotton of his yuppie boxers. The threesome looked to be in their midteens, but all were of legal age. Nineteen, to be exact. Barely legal.
Nicholson ran a finger across his touchpad to adjust the image. The cameras were wireless, pan-tilt-zoom units the size of pencil erasers. This particular one was embedded in the room’s smoke detector.
A microphone, no bigger than a match head, was hardwired through the ceiling and into the chandelier directly over the king-size bed, where Sasha was just sitting up, smiling blithely, cooing.
She straddled Liz, both of them naked now except for expensive-looking costume jewelry, their slinky black cocktail dresses in tiny heaps on the floor.
Sasha reached across to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out a thick flesh-colored phallus. She held it up and waggled it for Benjamin Painter to see. His eyes widened appropriately.
“Would you like me to do Liz?” she asked, smiling demurely. “I’d like to do Liz. I’d really like to do Liz.”
“That’s great,” Ben said, as if praising a useful underling at his father’s firm. “Get her ready for me, Sasha. And you—” He put his hand on the top of Ana’s head as she knelt in front of him. “You just take your time, Ana. Slow and steady wins the race, am I right?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have it any other way, Benjamin. I’m enjoying this too.”
If Mr. Painter was busy giving Nicholson excellent video material to work with, his good friend from their days together at NYU Law, Mr. Suiter, was all but writing a blank check.
Suiter had two of the prettiest Asian girls, Maya and Justine, in the spa. Maya was lying across the tiled soaking-tub platform, on her back, with her small, shapely legs wiggling in the air—while Suiter drilled her furiously. She seemed to be enjoying it, which was doubtful, since Maya and Justine lived together and were a couple—recently married in their home state of Massachusetts.
Justine, in fact, was just now providing “the money shot.” She stood over Suiter, knees slightly bent, gripping a hold bar on the ceiling and letting nature take its course down the client’s shoulders and back.
Suiter panted out in time with his own thrusts, his voice rising toward climax. “That’s right…. That’s right…. That’sa girl, that’sa fucking girl.”
Nicholson rolled his eyes in disgust and muted the mating sounds. He didn’t need to hear this idiot’s twaddle right now. Later in the week, he’d pick out a nice thirty-second clip to send to Mr. Suiter at his home office. Something with full frontal and choice words always seemed to do the job best.
Because as much as these men were willing to pay for getting spanked on a Saturday night, or even just to fuck a woman who wouldn’t ask what they were thinking about afterward, Tony Nicholson knew that they were always— always—willing to pay even more for the privilege of keeping those dirty little secrets to themselves.
All of them—except Zeus.
Chapter 30
“WHAT HAVE YOU got?”
“License DLY 224, a dark blue Mercedes McLaren. Leased to a Temple Suiter.”
“The lawyer?”
“Presumably. Who else would it be? Guy’s got more money than God.”
&nb
sp; Carl Villanovich put the camera down and rubbed his eyes vigorously. It had been three straight nights of surveillance in the woods of Blacksmith Farms, and he was stone-cold sick of the duty.
He unfolded a tripod from his pack and mounted the camera to give himself a break. The image played on a laptop next to him as he zoomed out for a long shot of the house exterior.
The place was huge, limestone from the look of it, with three-story columns in front. It had probably been a plantation house at one point. There was a converted barn in the back and several other outbuildings, all of them dark tonight.
“Here comes another one.”
His partner, Tommy Skuba, fired off several shots with a high-speed digital SLR as a wine red Jaguar coupe came rushing out of the woods. Villanovich went in tight on the Jag’s license number when it swung around the oval loop in front of the house.
“Got that?” he asked.
“Got it,” came the voice on his headset. Command Center was seventy-five miles away in Washington, watching everything in real time.
There was no valet out front. The new arrival parked himself and rang the bell. Almost instantly, a tall, gorgeous black woman in a shimmery dress answered the door, smiling, and let him right in.
“Skuba, stay on the windows.”
“I know, I know. Doin’ my best to make Steven Spielberg proud. Jaguar must be a regular.”
Villanovich rubbed both hands up and down his face, trying to stay sharp. “Any chance of calling this early tonight? We’ve already got more than we need here, don’t we?”
“Negative,” Command came back right away. “We want you there for departures.”
Another round of shots from Skuba’s camera pulled Villanovich’s attention back to the house. The Jag’s driver had just passed a window on the stairs, walking with a girl on his arm. Tall and black, but not the woman from the front door.