Dying for Mercy with Bonus Material (28 page)

T
he police officer had fielded an onslaught of reporters’ questions for almost an hour. He’d obviously been adequately briefed beforehand and had been able to describe the heightened security measures in the park, Mack McBride’s improved condition, and what was known about the victims.

As the press conference came to a close, Annabelle asked herself why the police chief wasn’t there to face the media himself.

T
he table was covered with sacks of seed, pellets, and powdered nectar and a jumble of plastic toys for the birds. Eliza picked through the collection but saw nothing that might be construed as a clue.

There was a large drawer running the entire width of the table. She opened it and found more toys and some manuals on the care and feeding of birds.

Maybe there’s something behind it.

Eliza tried to tug the table away from the wall, but it hardly budged. She repositioned her grasp and pulled again, harder this time. It moved a bit more at the same time Eliza heard the man’s voice behind her.

“Can I help you with that?”

W
hile the newspeople packed up their gear and filtered away from the press conference, Annabelle ended another frustrating attempt to reach Eliza.

“It’s still going to her voice mail, Beej,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

“All right,” said B.J. as he slid the camera into the backseat of the crew car. “Let’s get back to Pentimento.”

E
liza swung around at the sound of the voice but relaxed when she saw who it was.

“Oh, Russell,” she said, holding a hand to her chest. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“What are you doing home? Don’t you have classes today?”

“Nope. Only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

“Nice schedule,” said Eliza.

“It works for me.” Russell nodded toward the table. “What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for something, a clue to the puzzle that your father left,” said Eliza. “I think it’s somewhere in or around this table.”

“Stand back,” said Russell. “I’ll pull it out from the wall.”

The table made a scraping sound as he moved it. Eliza leaned around to see the rear side of it. With no drawers, it was flat and smooth.

“I don’t understand,” said Eliza. “Something’s got to be here.”

She went around to the front of the table again, got down on her knees, and stretched beneath it. Groping along the underside of the tabletop, her hand felt a protrusion. A small object was affixed to the wood.

“There’s something here, but I can’t get it loose,” said Eliza as she pulled at it.

“Let me try,” said Russell.

They changed positions. With a little effort, he was able to snap the object away from the wood.

“Got it,” he said as he stood upright again.

Eliza looked at what was in his hand. “It’s a pocket video camera!” she said excitedly.

“Yes,” said Russell.

“Well, this is wonderful,” she said. “Hit the ‘play’ button and we can view what’s on it.”

“We don’t need to view it,” said Russell. “I recognize it. It’s my father’s. And I already know exactly what we’ll see.”

T
he guard at the front gate was having none of it. He wouldn’t let Annabelle and B.J. enter the park.

“We were in here just this morning,” said B.J. “We’ve been coming in and out with Eliza Blake for the last few days.”

“Well, Eliza Blake isn’t with you now,” said the guard. “And she didn’t leave your names on the list.”

I
don’t quite understand,” said Eliza, fearing that she did. “What do you mean, you already know what’s on the tape?”

“Because I know that Innis surreptitiously taped a conversation we had in his study,” said Russell as he moved closer. “If I’d known I was being recorded, I never would have admitted to all that I did.”

He reached out and touched her face. “You are very pretty, do you know that?” asked Russell.

Eliza backed away.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Russell as he took hold of her arm. “I won’t hurt you—unless you give me a good reason.”

Eliza broke free of his grasp and started running for the entrance. She could hear the parrot squawking excitedly, and the realization came to her.

The bird isn’t saying “Sun, air, grapes.” It’s saying “Son, heir, rapes!”

A
nnabelle leaned over from the passenger seat to speak with the security guard at the front gate.

“Ms. Blake isn’t answering her phone,” she said. “But we think she’s at Pentimento. Would you mind calling there?”

E
liza’s heart pounded as she ran through the aviary. She could hear Russell’s footfalls on the path behind her, feel that he was gaining on her. She was panic-stricken at the thought that Innis’s parrot had been trained to say that the Wheelock son and heir was a rapist.

She was reaching for the door handle when Russell grabbed her from behind and pushed her to the floor. Looking up at him, Eliza saw that his eyes were wild with rage.

Think. Think. You have to think.

Rape was not about sex. It was about power—and anger.

As he came down on top of her, Eliza pushed back, but Russell was stronger. She felt his hand pulling up her skirt.

“Russell,
please.
Stop. Please
stop,
” she said, her voice breaking. “You’ve got to think what this will mean. Think what this will do to your mother. Your father’s dead. You’re all she has left.”

“I don’t want to think about my mother,” he sneered. “I don’t want to think about either of them. Innis Wheelock wasn’t my father. And Valentina is a slut.”

Eliza couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“I’ve known since I was seven years old, though neither of them suspected I did. I overheard them talking about it one night when they thought I was in bed asleep. My real father is Marty O’Shaughnessy, a townie my mother was banging on the boat while Innis, the weakling, was busy busting his butt trying to make her governor.”

Keep him talking. Keep him talking.

“It had to be terrible for you,” she said. “Horrible to know all that.”

“That wasn’t the half of it,” Russell said through gritted teeth. “How’d you like to know that your
real
old man wanted to be paid off in cash to keep the whole thing quiet? Or worse—that your own mother killed him?”

“Valentina killed Marty O’Shaughnessy?” asked Eliza incredulously.

“Yeah, she said it was an accident, but who knows whether the whore was telling the truth? But once again Innis took care of everything for her, getting his friends to cover the whole thing up. They sank the blood-drenched boat, got rid of the body at Nine Chimneys, and crashed O’Shaughnessy’s car on West Lake Road so that it would look like an accident and that he’d run away.”

“But the puzzle Innis designed reveals the story of something that happened before you were even born,” said Eliza. “You had nothing to do with that.”

“Right—except for what’s on the videotape,” said Russell. “When Innis found out that I’d been having, shall we say, ‘power struggles’ with certain young women, he decided that he was going to make it impossible for me to have any kind of political future. He tricked me into incriminating myself on the videotape. Nice
father,
huh?”

“Does your mother know about all this?” Eliza asked.

“She knows about the business with the girls. She and Innis would fight over what to do about it. He wanted to face it all head-on; she didn’t. I doubt very much that she knew he made the tape.”

He pulled back and looked into her eyes, his facial expression turning darker as he realized what she’d been doing.

“You’ve been playing me, haven’t you? Trying to buy yourself some time. Well, time’s up, Eliza, and just so you know, I don’t shoot blanks the way Innis did.”

V
alentina and Susannah stopped talking when Bonnie entered the living room.

“Mrs. Wheelock, two colleagues of Ms. Blake’s are at the gate,” said Bonnie. “They want to talk to you about getting into the park so they can come and pick her up.”

“Bonnie, kindly explain to them that I can’t come to the phone just now. But tell them that Eliza has a security guard here with a car to take her where she wants to go.”

Valentina turned to look at Susannah again. “Now, where were we?” she asked.

R
ussell held her arms against the stone floor as Eliza writhed underneath him, trying to kick her way free.

“Stop fighting me, Eliza,” he said angrily. “It’ll be easier for you if you don’t fight.” He pressed down harder. “I’m so much bigger than you are. There’s no way you can beat me.”

She finally forced her body to begin to relax beneath his.

“Thatta girl,” he said. “I knew you were a smart one.”

He let go of one of her arms and reached to unbuckle his belt.

“Don’t you dare try anything,” he threatened. “I swear to God, I’ll kill you if you try anything.”

And he’ll probably end up killing me even if I don’t try anything. He knows I know about the tape. He’s told me too much. He isn’t going to let me live.

Quickly and with as much strength as she could muster, Eliza brought her free arm down and aimed her fingers for Russell’s eyes while bringing her knee into his groin. He uttered a loud, anguished cry, squeezing his eyes shut. He pulled back, his body coiling into a self-protective position.

Eliza tried to wriggle free, but the weight of his lower extremities kept her tethered. Able now to use her other arm, she reached over and dug into Russell’s face with her fingernails. He screamed with pain, even as he regrouped and pinned her down again.

Oh, God, this can’t be happening to me.

She knew she should keep fighting, but he was too big, too heavy, too strong. He was going to force himself on her, and there was nothing else she could do about it. Eliza closed her eyes to wait for the inevitable.

“Get off her, you animal!”

Eliza heard the man’s booming voice.

“Get off her or I’ll kill you.”

Russell looked up at the man standing in the aviary doorway.

“You won’t do that, Clay,” he said.

“Just watch me,” said Chief Vitalli, pulling his gun out of its holster. “I’ve caught you in the act this time. My days of protecting you are over. The years of covering for you and your family are over, too—even if it means I have to pay for what I’ve done. I’ve had enough.”

Russell climbed off Eliza and stood up.

Clay looked down at her. “Are you all right, Ms. Blake?” he asked.

“Yes.” Eliza nodded as she fixed her skirt. “Yes, I’m all right,” she said. “You got here before he could finish what he started.”

As Clay offered his hand to help Eliza get up, Russell sprang for the police chief. With split-second reflexes, Chief Vitalli pulled the gun’s trigger. Russell Wheelock fell to the floor.