First Class Killing

There was the slightest pause, which I enjoyed. Angel speechless was a thing to behold. “I see you two have hooked up. Do you like how I did that? Sending her to you so I would know where to find her?”

“Yeah, you’re a real mastermind.”

“I know what’s bothering you deep down, sis. Little brother’s got a few more moves than you knew about. Here you’ve been thinking all along he’s sweet and i

“Jamie is not like you.”

“Oh, my. Listen to you. Still protecting little brother from the big, bad world. That was him in that bed with me, wasn’t it? Between my thighs, pumping away like a house afire. Must be he doesn’t get everything he needs at home, or else why would he be rolling around in the mud with the likes of me?”

“You don’t live in the mud. You live in the sewer, and you can’t get the stink off, no matter what you do. Isn’t that right?”

“Only you can’t protect him from this. You’re the one who caused it to happen to him in the first place.”

“Is that all? Are we done?”

“I’ll give you until midnight to decide. If I don’t hear from you, I will send out copies of our little fun time to Mrs. Jamie and the little Jamiettes, to the partners at the firm, to the friends, the kids’ private schools, and anybody else in his address book who looks interesting. I’ll tell you something else, too, darlin’. I’ll find Monica, anyway.”

I was close to the playground, and it was afternoon, prime time for screaming and squealing tots. It was hard to hear, but there wasn’t much more to talk about, anyway. I knew the game. I knew the stakes. I knew what I had to do. “I’m about to go underground and lose my signal,” I said. “But remember one thing. No matter what you try to do to Jamie, no matter what you do to me, you will always be what you are.”

“What’s that, doll?”

“The girl who fucked the parish priest back in West Texas.”

I snapped the phone shut and found a bench in the Public Garden to sit on. Judging by the disapproving scowl, the white-haired woman walking her Scottish terrier must have heard that last part. I ignored her and smiled at the dog, the less judgmental of the two.

I felt terrible. My whole body was stiff and brittle, and I was still trying to recover from my meeting with Harvey. I wasn’t sure what would cure my ills, short of putting my fist into Angel’s face, but I did have a thought about something that might help.

I flipped open the phone and turbo-dialed Jamie. I didn’t know what I would say, although, when it came down to it, I had only one thing to say. His voice mail picked up.

“Jamie, I’m sorry. I wish I could say these things to you live, but I can’t wait. The things I said…they were terrible. You didn’t deserve it, and I’m so sorry I got you into this situation. I’m trying hard to fix it. That’s all I wanted to say, that I’m sorry and I hope we can talk soon.” I started to punch off, but I’d forgotten the one thing I had called to tell him. “Jamie…I love you.”

I punched off, pulled out Bo’s card, and dialed his number. The way things were going, I would have to program him into speed dial. When he answered, I got straight to the point.

“Will you do me another favor?”

He said he would, and I told him where he could find Tristan and Monica. He didn’t ask a lot of questions, but, given his earlier experience of mistaken identity, he had the same one Tristan had had. How would they recognize each other?

“When you ring the buzzer,” I said, “tell him who you are. Your part of the code isRob. He’ll answer withLowe. Rob Lowe.”

“Okay. Is there anything else you need?”

I looked across the garden at the lush but fragile carpet of leaves that covered the ground. More were falling-spi

“There is one more thing I need.”

Chapter 42

STEWART’S DOOR WAS LOCKED WHENITRIED the knob, but I knew he was in there. I heard his stereo pounding. I thought about crashing through the window but decided to go with a knock. I didn’t need the element of surprise, not with Bo’s Glock in my waistband.

Alarmingly, Stewart wasn’t surprised at all to see me. He stepped aside without comment and let me in, then headed for the back room. “What you want is back here.”

I stood for a moment, trying to decide if the fact that he had expected me was a bad thing. Angel had obviously filled him in. Ultimately, I decided it didn’t matter. I wasn’t leaving.

Back in the bedroom, Stewart was watching Jamie’s video. He’d turned his stereo off, so the sound track was clearly audible. He froze the picture when he saw me, hit a button on his keyboard, and brought up a list of ten or twelve e-mail addresses.

“This is the distribution list Angel gave me for this little art house film.” His voice had a sharp edge of confidence, as if he had total control. It showed in his eyes, too. “Take a look.”

My e-mail address was on the list. So was Gina’s. I saw the address for Jamie’s new company and what looked like Sean’s private school. There was an address for St. Anthony’s Parish and-my stomach turned to stone-my father. I imagined Walter pulling up a copy and feeling vindicated for every nasty thing he’d ever said about Jamie.

“Where did you get these?”

“I hacked into his e-mail account. Watch this.” Stewart used his mouse to move the cursor over the send box…and clicked it. Heclicked it.He sent the messages.

“Did you…what did you do? What did you justdo?”

“Relax. They’re not quite gone yet. They’re locked away in a safe place on the server for now.” Which meant there was nothing I could do from his computer. “I can stop them any time in the next ten minutes. But after that, they’re gone, and nothing can stop them, and no one can get them back. Think of it as a ticking time bomb, and only you can defuse it.”

I felt Bo’s gun against my back. I heard Tristan’s words floating in my head. “Don’t bring a gun unless you intend to use it.” I had to leave it as my last resort.

“What do you want?”

“You still owe me a fuck, you cockteasing bitch.”

I took a step back-recoiled was more like it. “If you were the last asshole on earth, I would not let you lay a finger on me.”

“Is that your final answer?” He reached for the mouse. “I can always send them early.”

“Stop. Wait.”

“The clock is ticking.” He clicked on something else, and the horrid video began again, with all the attendant noise, and I could hear Jamie moaning, and I could hear Angel, gasping and wailing like the porn queen she was.

“Turn that off.” He killed the volume but left the image playing. “I said to turn it off, you…” I couldn’t even think of what to call him. My vocabulary was a little light for this situation. “Child.”

He clicked it off and looked at me. He kept wiping his hands on his pants.

“Ask me for something else,” I said. “Money. I’ll buy it from you.”

“No. All I want is you naked. For an hour.”

“An hour? What would we do for the fifty-eight minutes after you were done?”Ass hole. “I’ll get what I need some other way.”

“You won’t, and besides”-he tapped the monitor-“I thought what you wanted was to stop this mailing. It’s your brother, right? Is that what you said?”

“I didn’t say.”

“She must have told me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s someone you’re trying to protect. That’s what I know.” He reached for his mouse and clicked around the screen quickly. “Have you seen the whole thing? This one is triple-X-rated. Whoo-hoo.”

“I saw it.”

“I know what you saw. I’m the one who clipped it out for her. There’s more. There is so much more. Believe me, the stuff they did, you don’t want this thing getting out. You sure don’t want his wife looking at it.”