Girl of Rage

The plane came to a stop, lined up with other jets of similar size. Julia immediately unbuckled her seat and stood, walking a few paces behind them. A moment later the co-pilot stepped out of the cockpit. “We’ll have you ready to exit in just a moment, Mr. Wilson.”

  Crank had no idea what the plan was for transportation or luggage. But usually Julia had a car arranged. While she was busy on the phone he asked the copilot, “Um … our luggage? Has our transportation arrived?”

  “Yes, sir, I understand there’s a car here to take you to Arlington. We’ll have your luggage offloaded in just a few minutes.”

  “Thanks,” Crank said. He did know they were planning to check into a hotel in Arlington. Which one, he had no idea—he’d never really paid attention to that kind of detail.

  “No!” Julia said, too loud, into the phone. “Of course everyone will get paid. Just—tell them to take the rest of the week off. Paid, of course. Yes … I know it’s Monday morning. Yes, I know what that will cost. But everybody gets paid. I’m in Washington, DC right now—or I will be in a couple of hours, depending on traffic. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  Everyone will get paid?

  Crank ran those words through his head. What was she talking about? Of course, everyone would get paid.

  Julia hung up and looked at Crank, alarm in her eyes.

  No. Not just alarm. Her eyes were … almost hollow. She was terrified.

  “Jesus, babe, what is it?”

  “The IRS. They served a warrant at the Boston office. Everything’s been seized.”

  “What?” Crank said. “What do you mean, everything?”

  “I mean everything. They took the records, the files, the computers. Mary said they took everything out of the office, told everyone to go home, then hung a sign on the front door saying we were closed for business.”

  As her words slipped into the curse, her tone went higher and higher pitched. “The IRS said we were closed for business, Crank!”

  “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” he said.

  “Doubt it,” Anthony muttered.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Julia asked.

  Anthony rolled his eyes. “A misunderstanding? The same day your house gets blown up and just a few days after your sister gets herself kidnapped? I’m pretty sure you’re a smart lady, Julia. You need to start thinking this stuff through. Because if the IRS is after you, you’ve got real trouble.”

  Her eyes flared, and she said, “Thanks for the news, Anthony. Why are you along for this trip?”

  He smirked. “Seems to me you could do worse right now than have a journalist on your side.”

  She took a breath then closed her eyes. Crank could almost hear her counting. He could imagine the words running through her head. One … two … three … four … fuck it. Julia wasn’t the most patient person on earth. Her eyes snapped open. “My apologies. Let’s get to the car. I’ve got a lot of work to do.” She turned and walked toward the front of the plane.

  Anthony didn’t respond. Julia had the capability to turn on a dime, and Crank had years of experience dealing with her. Anthony Walker was a newcomer.

  Ten minutes later, Julia and Crank were sitting on the sleek leather back seat of a Lincoln Town Car, with Anthony in the front passenger seat. The car pulled out of the airport silently. Crank could feel the tension as Julia dialed again.

  “Marty? It’s Julia Wilson.”

  Crank nodded, slipping his phone out of his pocket. Martin Barrymore was their attorney.

  “We’ve got problems,” Julia said. Then she launched into a narrative about the bombing of her family home, followed by their detention in San Francisco, the questioning by Wolfram Schmidt, that freak from the IRS, and then the news that the IRS had apparently seized their offices in Boston.

  Crank was a musician. He was the lead singer and guitarist for one of the most successful bands in the world. He was, technically, a multimillionaire many times over. But when it came to legal or financial matters, he was out of his depth. Quite intentionally, he’d never really taken any interest in the business outside of supporting Julia’s efforts. He listened. He knew all about the problems they had with the music being pirated, with declining sales revenue, with counterfeit merchandise. But in the end, it was his job to make music, and Julia’s to make money.

  So now, in the middle of a crisis?

  He felt useless. Worse than useless. Because he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d said something to Schmidt that might have gotten them into trouble.

  You signed the tax returns, Schmidt had said. So clearly you’re responsible for them, right? Tell me about those stock sales.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about, Crank had replied. Over and over again.

  Anthony twisted around in the front seat and said, “So, you just make the music, right?”

  “Yeah,” Crank replied. He felt defensive about it. Should he have taken a more active role? Julia loved the business side of things. She always had. But now he wondered if he should have stayed more involved. More engaged. Was he giving her the support she needed? Had his neglect of the business somehow put them in danger?

  “You mind if I call in to some of my guys at the national desk? Something stinks here.”

  Crank met Anthony’s eyes. Julia had trusted him this far. And it’s not like he had to ask. The guy could go ask whatever questions he wanted.

  “Yeah, knock yourself out. Whatever.” Whatevah. He was tired, and he knew when he was tired his accent was wicked strong. And he didn’t really care what Anthony thought anyway.

  All the same, he listened as Anthony dialed and started talking.

  “Hey, Ron? Anthony Walker. Yeah, listen, got a question for you. I’m sitting in a car right now with Crank and Julia Wilson … yeah, really … anyway, they’ve run into some issues with the IRS and something stinks … what?”

  Crank stiffened. Anthony had jerked in his seat, his back stiffening as he said the word what? What was that about?

  Anthony had taken out his notebook and was scribbling in it as he nodded. “Uh-huh … yeah … okay. Isn’t that pretty quick?”

  The response was loud enough Crank heard it. The guy on the other end of the line said, “Hell, yes.”

  In the meantime, to his left, Julia was speaking into her phone. “Martin, I get they’ve got an investigation going. We’ll deal with that. But there’s due process. They can’t just come in and send my employees home and take everything from the offices.”

  Her face blanched a little at the response. “What?” she said. She waited a second, then said, “All right, so they can. But they shouldn’t. That’s where you come in.”

  She listened, her face looking thoughtful. “Okay … yeah. Yeah. Right. In the meantime, how do I pay my employees? Our payroll is fifty-thousand dollars every two weeks.”

  She frowned. “No. That’s not acceptable. I can’t tell them that.”

  Jesus Christ, Crank thought. None of this made any sense. And seriously? They paid that much every two weeks? He knew they had a large office full of employees in Boston—twenty-five people, actually—but that was still a lot of money. He tried to figure out the math and got lost. Then he got frustrated. Why the hell didn’t he know this stuff?

  He turned back to Anthony, who had disconnected his cell phone.

  “What the hell was all that about?” Crank asked.

  Anthony looked at him, surprise in his eyes, and said: “This is way bigger than I thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Anthony grimaced and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Then he said, “The Attorney General just announced a special prosecutor is being convened to investigate Richard Thompson.”

  “What?” Crank and Julia said simultaneously. She set her phone down at her side, without any ceremony or word to the attorney on the other end of the line.

  “Sorry, Julia. There’s supposed to be a press conference at ten. But y
ou know how it is—someone already leaked the story. Apparently there’s evidence linking your father to major drug money laundering.”

  “Bullshit,” Julia said.

  “Yeah, well, the Attorney General doesn’t think it’s bullshit. Apparently the IRS doesn’t either, because at the press conference they’re going to accuse you of managing the whole operation.”

  Carrie. May 2. 9:35 am.

  “My computer,” Carrie muttered, adding to the list she was compiling on her phone. Her list of things she needed from the condo, if they hadn’t been seized as evidence.

  “My guitar,” Sarah said.

  “Sure,” Carrie replied. She added it to the list then took a sip of her coffee. Sarah sat across from her, reclined in the thickly padded dining chair, her legs stretched across to another chair. The table was thick glass that colored her legs with a pale blue and slightly obscured and blurred the thick, ropy scars on the outside of her left leg.

  Across the economically furnished room from them, Alexandra paced back and forth in front of the sliding glass doors. Every few minutes she checked her phone. A few feet away, Rachel was asleep in the crib someone had managed to procure in the middle of the night.

  All three of them jumped when they heard a knock at the front door. From the kitchen, Ben Crosby, one of their several guards, called out, “I got it.”

  Ben was in his mid-twenties, muscular, short-haired, and bore several weapons. A former soldier, he was jocular, with a ready smile and blue eyes that flashed intelligence and occasional danger. In some ways he reminded her of Ray. Optimistic. Honorable. Probably doomed. Her husband, her poor, demented husband … he’d walked into that trial ready to do battle, optimistic, somehow believing all the way through that doing the right thing would save him. He never expected someone to play outside the rules. He never expected a killer to try to save himself by committing murder.

  He never even knew she was having a baby.

  She dismissed Ben Crosby from her mind. Bitterness about Ray sometimes filled her thoughts, clouding her mouth with dust. But still, a lot had changed in nine months. Sometimes she went an entire day without falling apart, without her mind turning over again and again what had happened.

  But she knew she would never be completely free of it. Free of the grief that continued to overwhelm her if she wasn’t careful.

  A moment later Crosby returned. Accompanying him was Bear Wyden.

  Alexandra froze mid-pace, turning to face Bear, and Sarah looked up from the table, sudden interest in her eyes.

  “Anything?” Alexandra asked.

  No one had to ask her what she meant. Bear sighed and said, “No sign of Dylan. But we found his cell phone.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “Young couple from Gaithersburg—they were in Bethesda for drinks last night and left the top down on their convertible. Apparently Dylan threw his phone in the back seat of the convertible. We tracked it by GPS to their home.”

  Alexandra’s face twitched. “No sign of him there? You searched their place?”

  “Mrs. Paris—”

  “I just want to know if you searched their place? What is the problem—?”

  “Stop,” Bear said. His tone was firm. “We’re doing our best to find him, but this isn’t helping.”

  She shook her head. “Just like you did to protect us, right?”

  Carrie interceded, “Alexandra, this isn’t helping.”

  “You stop. Just because you lost Ray doesn’t mean I’m going to let the same thing happen to me!”

  Carrie winced and stood up without thinking. She took a breath, ready to respond to Alexandra’s verbal slap with a cutting response, but stopped herself. She took a deep breath and reminded herself how horrible those hours had been after the accident. Ray injured. In surgery. Dying.

  She remembered the words he’d said to her over and over again, during their worst times. His words that had calmed, promised, and failed in the end, through no fault of his own. She walked around the table, toward her sister, even as Alexandra’s eyes brimmed with tears and she said, “Carrie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it—”

  “It’s okay,” Carrie whispered, lying. Sometimes you had to lie to serve a greater truth. She put her arms around her sister and said the words Ray had once said to her. “We’ll get through this together. I promise.”

  At that, Alexandra’s slight tears broke down into sobs. “Oh, shit, Carrie, I’m sorry!”

  Carrie heard Sarah, behind her, talking to Bear. “Give her a second. She’s been a mess all morning. In a few minutes she’ll get it together.”

  Alexandra sniffed and started to try to pull herself together. Carrie took her hand, and said, “Come sit.”

  Alexandra followed, and Carrie said to Bear, “Can I get you anything? Coffee?”

  Bear shook his head violently. “I had a million cups of coffee overnight. Last thing I need right now.”

  Sarah said, “You haven’t slept?”

  He gave her a dismissive glance then said, “I came out to brief you ladies on what we know so far, and to ask you a few more questions. Then I’m getting a couple hours of sleep.”

  “Wait,” Carrie said. “I need to apologize for this morning, I was kind of a bitch.”

  He held up a hand, as if to forestall the apology, and as if she’d been waiting for the queue, Rachel made a tiny coughing sound then began to cry.

  Carrie started to stir, but Sarah jumped to her feet. “I’ve got her, Carrie.”

  “Just bring her to me,” Carrie whispered.

  Sarah lifted the baby and gently carried her to her older sister. “I hope the sight of a woman’s breasts don’t offend you, Mr. Wyden.”

  He coughed, suddenly uneasy, and said, “Do what you gotta do.” All the same, he looked away as Carrie rearranged herself. Awkwardly, his eyes fixed on a spot somewhere far to her left, he said, “No need to apologize. We’re all under a lot of stress.”

  “How is Leah?” she asked. The baby was latched on now. She draped the baby blanket around Rachel and looked in her eyes. They were pale blue, searching, serious. Carrie rarely felt happy or at peace these days. But when she fed her daughter, for the first time in her life she felt the presence of God in the bond between her and that tiny, defenseless baby. Sometimes she looked into Rachel’s eyes, and she could feel Ray’s arms wrapped around her from behind. His legs clasping her thighs, his eyes as he looked over her shoulder into the eyes of their daughter.

  Ray Sherman wasn’t alive anymore, but when Carrie gave herself to her baby daughter, she could still feel his breath in her soul. She knew that no matter what happened, she would always feel it.

  Now that Carrie had more or less covered herself, Bear looked back toward her and answered the question. His face was surprisingly emotional. “Leah’s going to pull through. She took two bullets, and it was touch and go all night. But she’s stabilized. Gary—he’s her new husband—is staying at the hospital, and I’m going to spend the morning with the kids and hopefully get a couple hours of sleep in.”

  What? None of that made sense. Unless—wait… “Leah isn’t…”

  “My ex-wife? Yeah, she is.”

  “I had no idea,” Carrie said, her voice low. She studied him. He was exhausted, his eyes red rimmed, dark bags permanently formed under them. But she could imagine the turmoil he was going through. Leah and Bear might be divorced, but he would have to be inhuman to not be turned upside down by this. “I’m doubly sorry for this morning. I was a raging bitch.”

  He waved a hand to dismiss it. “All right. So first things first, I want to go over a couple of things with you, and ask you some questions. First—any clue where Dylan and Andrea might be other than the text he sent? Any friends in town? Hideouts? Acquaintances?”

  Alexandra shook her head. “I don’t think Dylan knows anyone around here.”

  “No old Army buddies?”

  Alexandra shook her head. “None that I know of. Most of…” Alex’s voi
ce trailed off.

  Carrie leaned forward and spoke in a bitter tone. “Most of Dylan’s Army buddies are dead, and the ones who aren’t are in prison.”

  Bear grimaced. “Right. The shooting in Iraq.”

  “Afghanistan,” Carrie corrected.

  He nodded. “I’m gonna ask you a straight question here. Carrie, it’s your condo. Any idea how the drugs or cash got in there?”

  Carrie twisted her mouth a little, and Rachel stirred, grabbing at her with a tightly wound fist. “Someone planted it there. I guarantee you Andrea’s not mixed up in drugs.”

  “What about Dylan? I understand they had him on some pretty powerful painkillers after his injury.”

  Alexandra said, “Dylan doesn’t even drink. Much less do drugs.” For a quarter second longer than they should have, Carrie’s eyes locked on Sarah’s. Then she looked away.

  Alexandra was fooling herself if she didn’t know Dylan was drinking again. Carrie had seen it in the furtive movements of his eyes, in the tension in his body when he was near Alexandra, in the slight shake of his hand. From Sarah’s expression, she knew it too. All the same, while Dylan may be drinking again, he certainly wasn’t dealing massive quantities of drugs. She didn’t know where the drugs in the condo had come from, but it wasn’t Dylan Paris.

  “All right,” Bear said. “So they didn’t come from Dylan, and Andrea had literally just arrived in the country. And we know she had nothing, because she was kidnapped off the plane and her things were examined and catalogued before they were returned to her. Had anyone else been in and out of the condo?”

  Carrie shrugged. “Not in the last week. Family. My father. The nanny. And a bunch of people from Diplomatic Security.”

  “Does the name Ralph Myers mean anything to you?”

  It wasn’t familiar, and Sarah also shook her head no. But Alexandra spoke up. “Isn’t he one of the guys on your team? He asked me some questions about Columbia. Yesterday? I think so. It’s all jumbled together.”

  “Where was he? Where were you?”

  Alexandra closed her eyes and thought. “Carrie was out, gone to see Dad. Andrea and Sarah were at the doctor. Must have been yesterday.”