Iron House

  Now you’re mine forever.

  “No, Momma.”

  Forever and ever and ever …

  “No!”

  “Abigail.”

  “No!”

  “Abigail. It’s okay. You’re okay. Just a dream.” The voice was real, familiar. Abigail opened her eyes, confused. Something warm rested in her hand. She squeezed and felt Jessup’s fingers. Faint blue light shone through a high, small window. It seemed to wink. She sat up, brushed hair from her face.

  “Jessup?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I say anything in my sleep?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Just at the end when you said, ‘no.’”

  Some of the tension bled out. “Where am I? What time is it?”

  “You’re in my room. It’s late. You’re fine.”

  She shuddered from the dream, and he touched her shoulder. “What am I doing here? Oh, God. I blacked out again, didn’t I?”

  “Just for a bit.”

  “Did I do anything … you know.”

  “Nothing bad. No.”

  “I don’t remember anything.”

  “Do you remember the senator in your room?”

  “Vaguely. An argument.”

  Jessup nodded. “I came in in the middle of it. Your husband didn’t like it. We left and came here. You zoned out after that.”

  “God, it feels like they’re getting worse.”

  “It’s nothing to worry about. You got a little fuzzy. I brought you here to sleep it off.”

  “My head hurts.”

  Jessup offered a weak smile. “I think you were drunk.”

  “I suppose I should feel relieved.”

  She started to rise, but Jessup pulled her down. “I want you to listen to me very carefully, Abigail.”

  “What?”

  “It’s important. Something bad did happen, but you had nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh, God.” She tried to rise again, but Jessup stopped her.

  “Listen. You and the senator argued. I came in and the argument stopped. We left and came here. This is very important. We talked about Julian. We talked about what’s been happening the past few days. We talked about what to get your husband for Christmas this year. We thought maybe some art. An oil painting from that gallery he likes in Washington. Do you remember this?” She shook her head, fear spreading. “This is what happened: You and the senator argued. I came in and the argument stopped.”

  She looked at the small window. Blue light thumping.

  “We left and came here,” Jessup continued. “Listen to me. We talked about Julian—”

  “What’s happening, Jessup?”

  “We talked about art for your husband.”

  But she wasn’t listening. She pulled herself free and went to the window. The room was partially underground, so the window was high. She stood on a stool, looked out.

  Cops were in the drive.

  “It’s okay,” Jessup said. “Abigail. Trust me.”

  “Jessup.” The voice was tiny and scared.

  “You did nothing wrong. You and the senator argued—”

  “Jessup?”

  A lot of cops were in the drive.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Michael went to ground at a hotel in Chapel Hill, and it played more or less how he thought it would. A night maid found the dead senator shortly after the cops found the bodies at the farm. The police kept quiet about the farm. It was too explosive, too much to get their heads around in the space of a day. But the murdered senator was a different story. They came respectfully at first; they did their preliminary workup, and then went after Abigail with a vengeance. Randall Vane was a billionaire, and he’d been shot dead in her room. Her alibi was the man who for twenty-five years had been her bodyguard and driver. The cops saw the same tired motives they’d seen a hundred times before, but Jessup circled the lawyers like a seasoned professional. He kept her out of custody for a full day, then the cops came with a warrant. They hit her hard for six hours of custodial interrogation, but Jessup had her prepped by then, and the cops eventually had to let her go. Michael got the call an hour later. The man was distraught.

  “She’s breaking. She thinks she did it.”

  “What do you mean, she thinks she did it. She did it. You told me as much.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Jessup sighed deeply. “It’s complicated.”

  “I can handle complicated.”

  “This is killing her.”

  Michael weighed his options. “I think it’s time we talked.”

  “I can’t leave her right now. Julian is still missing. You’ve seen the news. Even the staff is avoiding her.”

  “Okay, okay. Tomorrow, then. Or the next day.”

  “Michael, listen. Nothing’s happening the way you said. They’re all over her. You understand? They’re eating her alive. Cops. Media. You’ve seen the things they’re saying?”

  “I’ve seen.”

  And he had. They were saying she’d killed him for the money. They showed pictures of her and Jessup, and speculated on the nature of their relationship. It was a perfect story: bodies in the lake and the senator dead, sex and money and hired help. The woman was beautiful, her driver handsome, and they chose the pictures carefully: Abigail with her fine, pale skin and arched brows; Jessup holding her arm; a diamond the size of a quail’s egg on her finger. With a phalanx of lawyers around her, she came off like a black widow, came off guilty.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep her together.”

  “Give it a day,” Michael said.

  “She might not make it that long. She’s undone.”

  “A day,” Michael said.

  * * *

  It took less than that. Someone in the police department leaked the farm, and the story exploded to a whole new level. Organized crime and a crooked politician. Blackmail and torture. Links to the violence in New York. The media went ballistic; lead story in every outlet. When the body bags rolled off the farm, camera crews caught it; they caught the feds, too. There was a small army of them: panel vans and black Suburbans, serious people in dark suits and stenciled Windbreakers. Abigail’s real break, though, came unexpectedly from a quiet, diminutive lawyer that no one had yet thought to question.

  His name was Wendell James Winthrop, an estate attorney who very quietly put the senator’s will into probate. A junior detective took the time to check it out, and discovered that Abigail was not even in it, not for a dollar or a dime. She could spend a year in the house, and then leave with clothing, jewelry and personal effects. Even Julian was excluded. A billion dollars, and they got none of it.

  Yet, it did this wonderful thing.

  When the police learned there was no financial motive for murder, their case against Abigail evaporated. They had combed through the file a hundred times by then, and knew more about the dead senator than they would ever need to know.

  He’d been blackmailed for years; he was dead.

  Most or all of his blackmailers were dead.

  The murder weapon was found with all the dead blackmailers.

  In the highest circles of law enforcement, there was talk of another hitter, a cleaner who came in and took out everybody involved. Some of the organized crime people at the FBI whispered about Otto Kaitlin and the enforcer whose identity he’d worked so hard to keep secret, but even the whispers were quieter than most. No one had ever established the existence of such an enforcer. They had no name, no photographs, no description. To some, he was a myth fabricated by a very clever gangster, a bogeyman to scare grown men. In the end it was decided, very quietly, that the full truth might never come out.

  While this was happening, Michael watched the news in his hotel room. He took long walks in Chapel Hill, ate dinner out and thought constantly of Elena. He wondered where she was, and if she would call or not. He fretted over her injuries, worried about the baby. He waited to hear from Julian, but that didn’t happen, either. Two days after the farm story
broke, Jessup finally called. “She’s sleeping for the first time,” he said.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Like a weight’s been lifted. Like she finally believes she didn’t do it.”

  Michael was silent, then said, “That’s the second time you’ve made a reference like that.”

  “I know. It was intentional.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you explained some things,” Michael said.

  “Perhaps it is.”

  * * *

  They met in Raleigh because it was big and anonymous, and because old habits died hard. Michael watched him roll in and waited a full thirty minutes to make sure he was alone.

  He was.

  The restaurant sold ribs and beer and was empty at three o’clock in the afternoon. They took a table in a small back room; ordered a pitcher of beer and asked to be left alone. When the beer came, Michael poured two glasses and waited for Jessup to meet his eyes. When the wait got long, he decided to start easy. “Any word from Julian?”

  Jessup dipped his head, relieved. “He came home yesterday. The medicine finally leveled him out. He’s thinking straight.” Jessup sipped, got foam on his lip and wiped it off. “Apparently, he’s taken up with Victorine Gautreaux. She was watching after him.”

  “Where?”

  “Holed up in the woods and scared to death.”

  “How is he?”

  “Confused. Fragile. The usual. I’m still not sure he understands exactly what’s happened. He wants to see you, though. He thought maybe he’d dreamed it, seeing you. He’s like a kid with anticipation.”

  Michael spun the glass, watching Jessup. The man was clearly afraid of the conversation that was coming, and Michael had theories on that. Julian, he decided, might be a soft approach to the place they needed to go. “He saw Abigail kill Ronnie Saints, didn’t he?”

  Jessup drained his beer, poured another. “Oh, man…”

  “In the boathouse. That’s why he broke down,” Michael said. “That’s why he ran away. He saw her kill Ronnie Saints and couldn’t process it.”

  “She had the best intentions.” Jessup’s head moved, eyes on the cold glass. “She just wanted them to apologize to Julian. She tracked them down, paid them—”

  “And then killed them.”

  His eyes snapped up, then. “It wasn’t like that. Abigail doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She’s tough and honest and fair, but she’s sweet as the day is long. She would never hurt anybody. Even the thought that she might hurt somebody—”

  “It’s just that she’s schizophrenic.”

  Jessup licked his lips, eyes nailed to the table.

  Michael leaned in on his elbows. “She told me how it works, you see. On our drive to the mountains, she told me how it runs in families.”

  “This is a mistake. I shouldn’t be here.”

  But he didn’t move, and Michael knew why. Secrets are hard; they weigh a man down. “See, Andrew Flint said something interesting when I was at Iron House. He was quite taken with Abigail on the day she came to adopt us. She was beautiful, rich. But that’s not what stuck with him. She told him a story about why she cared about us, about Julian and me. She told Mr. Flint that she’d grown up in an orphanage herself, that she’d had a sister, that she had certain sympathies for older siblings left to linger in a place like Iron House. She told it with some conviction, apparently. That’s what Flint said. She told it with feeling. Did you know she told him that?”

  “I knew.”

  “And yet I met her mother in a dump house at the base of Slaughter Mountain. Arabella Jax. A charming lady. You met her, too.”

  “Oh, man.”

  He shook his head; Michael ignored his worry and sudden distress. “She says Abigail ran away from home when she was fourteen years old, which leaves me with the question, why did she lie to Andrew Flint? Most importantly, why did she care about us at all?”

  Jessup leaned back in his chair. Pushed the glass away. “Why don’t you tell me, smart guy?”

  Michael swallowed in a throat that was suddenly dry. He thought of the love Abigail so clearly felt for Julian, and how she’d been willing to go to the farm and face down Jimmy on the chance of saving Michael’s life. Ten million dollars. Thirty. She didn’t care about the money or her own safety. And yet she’d been so very afraid. Then things went south in the barn, and her fear vanished. He saw the way she’d come off the floor to take Jimmy’s hand at the wrist. She’d been a different woman, then, cold and smooth and violent. Michael had rarely seen such perfect timing and physical control; but she didn’t even remember this thing she’d done.

  Schizophrenia runs in families, she’d said.

  Siblings.

  Parents.

  Michael’s fingers felt uncertain on the glass, but he made his face a stone. “Is Abigail my mother?”

  “You ask because she and Julian share the same affliction?”

  “Because she cares more than she should. Because she had no reason to come for us in the first place.”

  Jessup poured another beer, and took his time doing it. He drank deeply, looked up and left, as if for God to give him a sign. “You asked once about Salina Slaughter.” His eyes came back, red and heavy. “Let me tell you first about Arabella Jax. You saw the way she is?”

  “I did.”

  “She was worse when Abigail was young, vile and selfish and rotten to the core. I swear…” Emotion rose in his eyes. “I’ve never worked so hard to keep from killing a woman.”

  “You went there to ask about Salina Slaughter?”

  “Years ago. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not about Abigail. Not about Salina.” He nodded, lips tight. “We got there in the end.”

  “You hurt her.”

  “I’m not proud of it.”

  “She’s still scared of you. She tried to blow my head off the second I mentioned Salina Slaughter. She thought you’d sent me.”

  “She’s a ferocious bitch of a liar. I did what I did to get the truth.”

  “Because you love Abigail.”

  “Because I needed to know. Because I had to understand…” He rubbed both hands across his face. “Ah, shit.”

  “Just tell me.”

  It took a minute, then he said, “Arabella Jax had looks, once. I saw old photos in her house. She had looks and she had men. She worked for Serena Slaughter up on the mountain.”

  “I saw the ruins.”

  “A mansion,” Jessup said. “Huge wealth, big parties, some that lasted days. People would come in from out of state. Politicians. Celebrities. Rich folks in limousines. Arabella Jax washed dishes, did laundry, cleaned up. It was not much of a life. She had no money, hated her boss but had nowhere else to go. When she was young, she had affairs with guests of the Slaughters. Nasty, fancy men with pretty words and shiny watches. That’s how she described it to me. There were a number of them, apparently, wealthy men who liked to bang the help.” Jessup met Michael’s gaze, shrugged. “It fell off as she aged and her looks went. She wasn’t sleeping with the pretty-boys anymore, but with gardeners and the stable hands and the local drunks. The only thing unusual about the story is the sheer magnitude of that woman’s anger. Far as I can tell, resentment just ate her alive, and Abigail was there to see it happen. She’d go to the house some, too; play while her mother polished and scrubbed and whored around. Can you imagine how it must have been for Abigail at that tender age? Living as she did, and then seeing that mansion up close, the crystal and silver, servants and fancy parties. Watching envy break her mother down, then going home to all the dirt and nothing in that cracker-box house.”

  “She would pretend to be a girl named Salina Slaughter.”

  Jessup shook his head, voice cracking. “It wasn’t pretend.”

  “She really was Serena’s daughter?”

  “No, that’s not it. She had…” Jessup wiped at his eyes, then suddenly stood. “Give me a second.” He moved to the window, turned his back and dipped his head. Michael looked
away because it was hard to watch a grown man cry.

  Jessup looked uncomfortable when he finally sat. “I’m sorry.” He sniffed, wiped his nose on a napkin. “It’s hard to love a wounded soul.”

  “Take your time,” Michael said, and meant it. In spite of his violent nature, he had a deep respect for powerful emotions.

  “Abigail had a brother,” Jessup finally said. “A baby boy just a few months old. She was only ten, but she loved him like he was her own. She fed him, took care of him. Arabella Jax didn’t much care for boys. She thought boys would grow up and run off like all men do; they would treat her badly, use her up. But daughters, she believed, would stay home. They would stay home and keep her as she got old.”

  “She wanted her own servants.”

  “Servants. Slaves. Somebody to hurt.” Jessup drank beer and his hands shook.

  “She had a brother,” Michael prompted.

  “The brother. Ah, God.” Jessup scrubbed large, worn hands across his face, pulled the skin tight, then let the hands drop. “She made Abigail drown him in the creek.” Michael rocked back; Jessup nodded bleakly. “She beat Abigail half to death, and then made her kill the one thing she loved. I think that’s when her mind broke.”

  “And Salina Slaughter was born.”

  “She has no idea, Michael. Don’t you see? Abigail…” He choked up. “That sweet, perfect soul. She doesn’t even know Salina exists. She has blackouts, memory losses.”

  “But she suspects.”

  “She fears some version of the truth, yes. She invited George Nichols and Ronnie Saints here; then they turned up dead after she blacked out. Chase Johnson, too.”

  “That’s the third body in the lake?”

  Jessup nodded. “Then the senator was killed. Abigail’s been terrified that she might have had something to do with it. But you fixed all that. The police think gangsters killed the senator; they think the boys from Iron House were somehow wrapped up in that. Maybe they were dropped in the lake to pressure the senator. Or maybe they were wrapped up with Stevan Kaitlin in some other way. The cops believe it’s all connected, and Abigail is trying to do the same. She’s like a new person.”

  “And yet you haven’t answered my question.”

  Jessup sighed, unhappy. “Truth can be a tricky business.”