A whisper of premonition raised the hair on the nape of Jasper’s neck. “The parking lot was empty when we got here.”
“I know.” She shrugged and punched the call button a few more times. “But the elevator has definitely been locked out.”
Jasper looked at the glowing green exit sign over the stairwell door. “I’ll go downstairs and see what’s going on. Stay here with the files.”
“Okay.”
Jasper pushed the loaded platform truck into a nearby aisle and went to the door beneath the exit sign. For some reason he could not explain but that he did not question, he opened it quite gently.
Footsteps echoed hollowly on the concrete stairwell. Deliberate, steady, footsteps. Making their way up the stairs.
Silas, perhaps, come to tell them that the elevator was out of commission.
Or someone else. Someone who had followed them to Pri-Con Self-Storage this morning.
Jasper closed the door even more carefully than he had opened it. He turned to look at Olivia. She was watching him with a questioning expression
“What’s wrong?” She spoke very softly.
“I’m not sure. Someone’s coming up the stairs.”
“Probably because the elevator isn’t working.”
“Probably.” Jasper made a quick assessment of the terrain. “I could be overreacting here, but it strikes me that to date we have made some dumb moves in this mess. Let’s try doing something smart for a change.”
“Such as?”
He took her arm and steered her swiftly back down the central aisle. “Such as not stand here like a couple of Thanksgiving turkeys just in case it turns out that whoever is coming up those steps is also after Rollie’s files.”
Jasper.”
“Shush. Sound carries in this place.”
She lowered her voice. “Do we have a plan?”
“Of course.” He yanked her down another corridor. “What kind of CEO would I be if I didn’t have a plan?”
“Just thought I’d ask.”
“The way I see it, there are not a lot of options when it comes to hiding in a place like this. We’ve got two.”
“Two?” She looked at him sharply as they turned another corner. “Surely you don’t mean one of the empty lockers?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Silas told us all the lockers on this floor were rented. But we have access to two of them. I’m going to stash you in the one Rollie leased.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to wait this out in Gill’s locker. With any luck, whoever is coming up that staircase won’t have a clue which lockers belonged to Rollie or Gill. With the doors closed and the broken locks hanging in place, our lockers will look just like all the others.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why are you separating us?”
“Common sense. Increases our odds in case I am not being unduly paranoid.”
“Our odds? What are you saying? Jasper, wait, let’s discuss this—”
“No time.” He stopped in front of Rollie’s locker, opened the door, and pushed Olivia inside. He dug the slim flashlight he had brought with him out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Here. Just in case.”
“In case what? Jasper, I don’t like this.”
“If you hear a disturbance, make a break for the stairwell, understand?”
“Jasper.”
“Just do it. I want your word.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He closed the door gently and adjusted the broken padlock so that it looked like all the others. It would take close examination to see that it had been cut.
He prayed that there would be no such examination.
He went quickly back through the complex of intersecting corridors and halted at Melwood Gill’s locker.
He heard the sighing rasp of the stairwell door being opened just as he stepped into the shadowed interior. An instant later the sputtering fluorescents overhead flickered and went out.
Not Silas. The attendant knew that Jasper and Olivia were still on the fourth floor.
Someone else.
Jasper closed the door of the locker with great care. Then he waited for what he knew would happen next.
Footsteps. The rattle of a lock being shaken at the far end of the aisle. More footsteps. A pause and then another padlock clattered briefly.
Whoever had turned out the lights was making his way systematically through the aisles checking each locker door as he went.
Jasper hoped that Olivia would not realize he had lied to her when he told her that the reason he was putting her in a different locker was because it made sense to separate.
The real reason he had stashed her in Rollie’s old locker was because it was in the very last aisle. It was only logical that whoever had followed them would be forced to do exactly what he was doing: Search every aisle and try every locker on the floor to find the one in which his quarry was hiding.
Such a methodical approach meant that whoever was prowling the darkened corridors would find the broken lock on Melwood Gill’s locker long before he or she got anywhere near Olivia’s hiding place.
He or she? There weren’t too many possibilities, Jasper thought. Rollie’s information, whatever it was, pertained to Eleanor Lancaster. The future governor looked like the type who could take care of herself.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Dixon Haggard called as he tried another locker. “I know you’re both here somewhere. Things will be a little different this time. I came prepared, you see. Brought along my gun.”
25
Well, hell, Jasper thought. He’d had a fifty-fifty chance, and he’d guessed wrong. He had been almost positive that it was Eleanor Lancaster who had followed them here today.
Why had he been so certain? he wondered. After all, he’d known that it was a man he’d battled with on the stairs in Gill’s dark house.
“No point hiding up here in hopes that the attendant will come rescue you,” Dixon sang out cheerfully. “He’s having a little nap downstairs under his desk. I locked out the elevator and put a sign on the office door telling everyone that the facility was closed due to an emergency.”
Footsteps. Another padlock clattered.
Jasper eased to the rear of the locker. He crouched at the end of one of the freestanding metal shelves. With luck, the boxes left on the shelves would block Haggard’s view for a few crucial seconds.
“An emergency in a self-storage facility. Pretty funny, isn’t it? But this situation definitely qualifies, I’d say.”
Dixon’s voice was loud enough to carry across the fourth floor. He sounded keyed-up, edgy, excited. He also sounded sure of himself. It was the voice of a man who is certain he has the upper hand.
“Gill wasn’t too bright, was he? I set a trap for him when I left the first blackmail payment. Saw him pick up the cash. Followed him back to his house. He never had a clue.”
Jasper wrapped his hands around the metal uprights of the shelving. He would only get one chance.
“Getting rid of Gill was no problem. You owe me for that hit-and-run, by the way. I did us all a favor when I offed the little bastard.”
Another padlock clattered.
“But I made a real unfortunate assumption,” Dixon continued. “I figured that since he wasn’t a very clever blackmailer, he would have been dumb enough to stash his files somewhere in his house. To tell you the truth, I had a bad moment or two when I realized they weren’t there.”
A padlock clanged. Much closer this time.
“But when I ran into you two there, I realized that the sonofabitch had been blackmailing other people, as well. Imagine my surprise when I recognized Olivia that night. I knew it was you with her, Sloan. Had to be.”
A lock rattled. Jasper estimated that Dixon was no more than half a dozen doors away.
“I figured right off that you two would have a much better chance of finding Gill’s files than I would. After all, you were his employers. You had
access to all kinds of information about him that I couldn’t get.”
The leading edge of a flashlight beam flickered under the locker door.
“So I decided to sit back and wait for you folks to do the legwork. I knew when you came here today that there had to be a good reason.”
Jasper tightened his grip on the uprights. With the overhead lights out, Dixon had only his flashlight for illumination. He would have to move at least a couple of feet into the locker to make certain that his quarry was not hiding inside behind the ranks of boxes.
“Got to admit, I was pretty amazed when the first blackmail note arrived.” Dixon chuckled. “Who the hell would have thought that some dipshit little accountant could have dug up that old information? I was so damn careful.”
Another padlock rattled in the darkness.
“Even the police bought the story six years ago. They conducted a very thorough investigation. Concluded that poor Richard Lancaster had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Walked in on a burglary in progress and got himself shot to death. Hey, shit happens, y’know?”
That answered one of those nagging questions of history, Jasper thought. It was Dixon who had murdered Eleanor Lancaster’s husband.
He listened as Haggard tried the lock on the locker next door.
“Had to get rid of good old Richard, you see. He was standing in her way. He didn’t approve of her going into politics. And he was rich. Eleanor needed the money to run her first campaign. As her campaign manager, it was my job to make sure she got what she needed.”
The flashlight gleamed beneath the edge of the door. It jerked sharply.
“Hey, hey, hey. What have we here? A broken padlock?” Dixon’s laughter held a razor-sharp edge of tension and anticipation.
Jasper waited, motionless. Timing was everything.
“I think we’ve played hide-and-seek long enough,” Dixon said. “I’m sorry about what has to happen here. But I know you’ll understand when I tell you that the future of the country depends on getting Eleanor elected. And that might not happen if the media finds out that her campaign manager killed her husband. Public’s kinda fickle.”
Jasper heard him yank the broken lock off the door. It clattered onto the concrete floor.
The door slammed open. The flashlight beam roared into the darkness like the light of an oncoming train.
Jasper kept his eyes fixed steadily on the side wall of the locker. He could not afford to be blinded by Dixon’s flashlight.
“Sloan, you bastard, I know you and Olivia are in there. You might as well come out and get it over with. I’ll make it quick and clean.”
The flashlight flickered wildly as Dixon played it over the boxes.
“Goddamn it, come out. This has to end. It’s my job to end it. I’ve got to protect Eleanor’s future. This country needs her, you see.”
Jasper used his peripheral vision to track the dark figure behind the flashlight. Dixon took one cautious step into the locker.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Jasper knew that it had just occurred to Dixon that he might have opened the wrong locker.
Dixon took another step into the darkness. And then another. The light flared as it arced across the shelving. It danced across the toe of Jasper’s shoe.
“I knew you were in here.” Dixon’s voice rose in ghastly triumph. “I knew—”
Jasper yanked hard and fast on the steel uprights. There was a high squeak of metal. And then the entire structure toppled suddenly, abruptly, as though an earthquake had struck.
The boxes that remained on the shelves rained down on Dixon. The flashlight was knocked from his hand. It rolled on the concrete floor. The beam ricocheted wildly and finally came to rest aiming uselessly at the wall.
The top of the steel shelves fell against the opposite wall and lodged there. Several heavy boxes slid to the floor, striking Dixon.
He screamed in rage and pain.
Jasper switched on his own flashlight and aimed the beam straight into Dixon’s eyes.
Dixon was on his knees, trapped in a cage formed by the metal shelves and uprights. Tumbled boxes hemmed him in on all sides. Papers and file folders littered the floor.
Dixon was trying to raise his right arm. The light caught a glint of metal. He still had his gun.
Jasper threw the flashlight straight into his face. Dixon dodged reflexively, but his movements were limited by the shelving and the boxes.
Jasper leaped onto the steel skeleton of the shelving. It groaned beneath his weight, but it did not give way. He balanced on an angled upright and kicked Dixon’s right shoulder.
Dixon yelled again. The gun clattered onto the concrete. There was enough light bouncing off the locker walls for Jasper to see that the weapon had slid out of Haggard’s reach.
“Jasper.”
A flashlight beam flared in the aisle outside the locker. He put up his hand to shield his eyes.
“It’s okay.” He bounded from one steel section to the next and jumped down on the far side near the open door. He scooped up the gun. “It’s okay.”
Olivia appeared in the doorway. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” He looked at her. “I told you to make a run for it when you heard a disturbance.”
“My God. This was your big plan, wasn’t it?” Outrage rose in her voice. “Jasper, you could have been killed.”
There was no point yelling at her. She was not in a mood to listen. He gently pried the flashlight from her hand and used it to survey the toppled shelving and the array of fallen boxes that imprisoned Dixon.
“Like I always say, there is no substitute for a good filing system.”
“This is no time for dumb jokes,” she said tightly.
“No,” Jasper agreed. “It’s not. We’ve got some work to do.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded. “We’ve got to call the police.”
“We’re going to make certain that the files in Gill’s hot box are all safely out of the way before we call the cops.” He paused. “Except, of course, for the Lancaster file.”
“The hot box is on the platform truck.”
An odd, rasping sound caught Jasper’s attention. He aimed the flashlight at Dixon.
Haggard was still on his knees. His face was wet with tears.
“I did it all for her,” Dixon whispered. “I did it for Eleanor. The country needs her.”
26
That night they burned the contents of Melwood Gill’s hot box in Jasper’s big river-stone fireplace. The flames devoured decades of facts and rumors and grainy photographs shot through long camera lenses. They consumed yellowed, hand-typed pages from a private investigation agency that had gone out of business twenty years earlier. They ate new reports produced by the computer printers of a modern, more sophisticated agency.
The police had taken the Lancaster file into evidence, but not before Jasper and Olivia had scanned the contents.
Rollie’s private investigator had tracked down an unnamed retired police detective who had been involved with the Richard Lancaster murder investigation.
The former detective had retired to a beachfront house in Mexico. He had confided to the investigator that he had been convinced from the beginning that Richard Lancaster was not the victim of an unknown burglar who was never caught.
Lancaster had known his killer, the retired detective claimed. He also said that he would have bet his pension that the murderer was Dixon Haggard. But there had never been any proof to take to a prosecutor. The case had gone into a cold file.
Dixon took full responsibility for the murder. He was apparently proud of the fact that he had acted alone. Eleanor Lancaster had no inkling of the truth.
“I talked to Todd this afternoon.” Olivia fed another sheet to the flames. “He said he feels an obligation to stay on with the Lancaster campaign for a while. He’s going to do whatever he can in the way of damage control. But he told me privately that he’s not su
re that Eleanor’s candidacy can survive the scandal.”
“No big surprise there.” Jasper picked up his glass of scotch. “The police said that Haggard confessed to the crime. He also made it clear that he acted on his own initiative. He’s obsessed with Eleanor Lancaster.”
“She’s innocent, but she’ll be tainted no matter how much spin control her people do. It’s going to be hard to explain why she inadvertently hired a campaign manager who committed murder to help her launch her political career. Doesn’t exactly demonstrate astute judgment.”
Jasper’s mouth curved faintly as he tossed another sheet into the fire. “The public doesn’t expect a lot of sound judgment from politicians, but it may feel that Lancaster pushed the envelope of stupidity in this instance.”
“You’re sure Dixon won’t tell the police that some of the files were removed?” she asked again.
“He didn’t see us take the one box downstairs to the car. Besides, all he could think about was that he had screwed up. He was oblivious to what was going on around him.”
Olivia knew that Dixon Haggard had slipped into a world of his own, one in which he was Eleanor Lancaster’s failed knight in shining armor. He was still weeping when the police took him into custody.
Silas had recovered consciousness shortly after Olivia and Jasper had arrived downstairs, but he had remained stretched out on the floor of his office, dazed, until the aid car got there.
Olivia raised her brows. “I trust you really have learned your lesson from all of this. An obsession with filing is not a healthy thing.”
Jasper grinned briefly. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist rubbing it in. Don’t worry. Like I said, I’ve already made plans to clean out some of my old records.”
“I should hope so.” She contemplated the flames. “I suppose we’ll never know for certain how Melwood Gill discovered Uncle Rollie’s secret files.”
“The information about the storage locker at Pri-Con Self-Storage was probably in Rollie’s home office files. You would have come across it when you cleaned them out, if Gill hadn’t gotten there first and set the fire to cover his tracks.”