Lust, Money & Murder (2 page)

“Casino chips, please,” she told the male clerk, emptying the bag on the counter.

She was disappointed with his reaction—he only looked bored. “Passport?” he said.

Maria handed it over.

He studied the document, then took a few of the bills and studied them, rubbing them between practiced fingers.

Maria was suddenly terrified. What if this money
was
fake? She didn’t know the man who had brought her here! He could be a criminal!

With a sinking feeling, she wondered if she was being used to change counterfeit currency.

The clerk began feeding stacks of the notes into a big, complicated-looking machine. It had a red digital display that showed the total amount, the numbers escalating as the bills were swallowed up.

If any of the money was fake, it was too late now. She would be arrested on the spot, just like the sign said. And the man who had supposedly given it to her? Conveniently disappeared.

“Here you are,
signora
,” the clerk finally said. He handed her a handsome, leather-crafted carrier that was loaded with casino chips.

Thank God,
she thought, greatly relieved. She let out a little laugh as she carried the chips into the casino. It was silly of her to think badly of the man she had just spent the last three days in bed with—he was a nice person, she had known it from the start.

She began playing roulette, betting only €50 at a time.

A few minutes later, her friend showed up.

“Ah, there you are!” he said, rushing over to her. He took the chips and placed a drink in her hand and gave her a warm smile. “Come,
cara
—I will teach you how to play baccarat.”

* * *

He gambled recklessly that night, delighted with the results of the experiment. Within several hours, he had lost
€
15,000 worth of chips, but he didn’t care. It was a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money he would make in the coming months. He gave Maria €10,000 in chips to gamble with and sat back and watched her lose it.

By 3 am, she was tipsy, and he was getting tired.

“Let’s go back to Vernazza,” he said, stopping her before she placed another bet.

“Vernazza?” she said. She looked disappointed. “I thought we would stay here...”

“It’s silly to waste money on a hotel room here when I own a beautiful villa so close by.”

A guilty look flickered across her face. “I’m sorry I lost all that money...”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “It was thrilling, wasn’t it?”

* * *

By the time they were back at the villa, he found his second wind. He drove his lean, hard body into the young girl, bringing her to a series of toe-curling orgasms.

They lay there for a few minutes, and then he suddenly rose from the bed and started putting on his pants. “I’m buzzing with energy—I can’t sleep. Let’s go for a walk.”

“A walk? Now?”

“Come,” he said, pulling on her hand. “The fresh air will make you feel better.”

“But it’s so late...”

He ignored her protests and helped her get dressed, making sure she wore only her own clothes and not anything that he’d bought for her. When she reached for her wristwatch, he grabbed her hand and impatiently said, “For God’s sake,
cara
, you’re not going to a fashion show!”

It was windy outside, the sky just hinting at the coming dawn. They walked up the hill, along the cliffs.

Vernazza is part of a cluster of five villages known as the
Cinque Terre.
They veered off in the direction of Corniglia, the next closest village, which was only 3 km to the south. The path soon became so narrow that they had to walk single file.

“Be careful,
cara
,” he said, letting her move ahead of him. “It’s slippery in places.”

The sea along this particular stretch of coastline was always rough, the waves breaking over clusters of jagged rocks that were covered with razor-sharp coral. It was not uncommon for hikers to slip and fall down the sheer 200-foot cliff face. Within minutes, their bodies were pulverized into bloody slabs of unidentifiable gristle and bone.

“Isn’t the view incredible?” he said, stopping her after the path widened again.

“Yes,” Maria said, snuggling her back up against his warm chest. Far below, the waves were exploding over the rocks, the spray filling the air with brine.

He kissed the top of her head, hugging her tightly. It was a shame. She was a beautiful girl—he was already developing a paternal, protective feeling for her.

Even though the fake $100 bills had passed through the casino’s verifying machine, they would eventually be detected. She had shown her face on video. Her passport had been in the camera’s field of view as well.

He gently turned her around and kissed her again, aggressively, shoving his tongue deeply into her mouth.

When he drew away, her eyes widened—all at once, somehow, she understood everything.

He shoved her into the abyss.

* * *

A few minutes later, he placed a call to a number at a sprawling dacha on the outskirts of Moscow.

A deep voice answered on the other end. “
Da
?”

“I have good news, my friend. Our experiment was a smashing success.”

CHAPTER 1.1

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – 1985

The day Elaine Brogan was born, Patrick Brogan’s life underwent a dramatic change. Patrick Brogan was a construction worker, and his existence consisted of a never-ending blur of brick-hauling and muddy work boots and dented hard hats and drunken bar brawls. He hadn’t given much thought to the baby that had been coming for the past nine months.

When he gazed down at the spastic little creature he cradled in his arms, his life suddenly took on meaning.

* * *

By the time Elaine was four years old, Patrick would carry her up to the tiny wooden deck he had added onto the attic of their run-down Garfield house, holding her in his arms.

“Your great-great-great-great grandmother was an Irish Princess,” he whispered, his beard tangled in her blonde hair. “She lived in a beautiful, ancient castle. It had a moat, and a—”

“What’s a moap, Daddy?”

“A
moat
. It’s a pond that goes all the way around the castle and protects it from attack.” He paused. “Princess Alana’s daddy, the king, would hold great feasts and celebrations at Brogan Castle. Afterwards, Alana would come out on the balcony, like this one, and all the people would cheer her. ‘All hail to the Princess! All hail to the Princess!” Patrick pointed out into the tiny backyard. “Can you hear them cheering?”

Elaine listened. She
could
hear them! Except they were crying, “All hail Princess Elaine! All hail Princess Elaine!”

“Was Princess Alana very rich, Daddy?”

“
Very
rich, sweetheart. Just like you’re going to be one d—”

“Why do you fill her head with that nonsense?”

Kathy Brogan was standing in the doorway, smoking a cigarette, her face haggard from working a 12-hour shift at the supermarket. “You’re going to make her think she’s better than everybody else,” she said.

Patrick looked genuinely surprised. “But she is better than everybody else.”

* * *

Elaine was six years old when she realized her father was little more than a beer-guzzling manual laborer with an overactive imagination, and that Garfield, where they lived, was one of the worst areas of Pittsburgh. She would never be rich and there had never been any Princess Alana or a Brogan Castle. But she adored her father all the same.

Elaine loved to nuzzle her face into his broad chest when he came in the door from work. He smelled of sawdust and bricks and the outdoors.

She knew he would always be there to protect her.

* * *

As a little girl, Elaine felt a special affinity for working the visual puzzles in newspapers and magazines. The ones with two pictures side by side that appeared identical at first glance, with a caption that said:
There are ten differences between the girls in these two photographs. Can you find them?

Patrick marveled at the speed with which his little tow-haired prodigy could work these puzzles. “The girl on the right doesn’t have a bracelet, and there are two straps on her sandal...see how easy it is, Daddy?”

“No,” he chuckled. “I don’t see how easy it is. How the heck do you do that?” To his wife, he said, “She has an incredible eye for detail. Someday she might become a great artist.”

“Uh-huh,” Kathy said.

* * *

Patrick was forever concerned about his daughter’s safety. When she started school, he drove her in his truck each and every morning, and picked her up and took her home each and every afternoon. At the construction sites, no matter how busy he was, he would drop whatever he was doing and say, “I have to go pick up my daughter.” These words were always uttered with a great sense of pride.

His bosses put up with him because he was such a diligent worker, and they could not help but admire his fatherly dedication. Patrick was always the first one to arrive on site, and the last one to leave. During the day he worked faster and harder than anyone else.

His employers had no idea that he was the one responsible for the pilfering and theft that plagued the sites for years.

* * *

When Elaine was seven, Patrick caught her and the girl next door smoking cigarettes in the back yard.

That night, Patrick said to his wife, “I’m sending Elaine to a private school. I want her out of this shitty neighborhood.”

“And how do plan to pay for it?”

Patrick took a sip of beer, gazing at the TV. “Don’t ask.”

* * *

The Bromley Academy for Girls was housed in a cluster of brick colonial-style buildings nestled on 40 tree-filled acres of land, a half hour drive from Garfield. It was quiet and peaceful there, with plenty of fresh air, a gazebo, a stable, and the ruins of a little country church, complete with a graveyard.

The day of Elaine’s interview, Patrick was a nervous wreck. His hair was slicked back, his beard neatly trimmed, and he wore a five-year-old ill-fitting suit he had bought for his mother’s funeral. He was afraid that Ms. Prentice, the director of the school, would be an arrogant snob. To his surprise, she turned out to be a pleasant, unassuming little woman with a pug nose and a gentle smile.

“Your daughter is adorable,” Ms. Prentice said, perusing Elaine’s file, “and her grades and tests scores are outstanding. We would be thrilled to have her here at Bromley.”

Patrick breathed a great sigh of relief. He picked up a heavy satchel and began stacking piles of rubber-band bound bills on her desk. “I hope you don’t mind if I pay cash.”

“I’m sorry, but we only accept checks.”

“That’s not convenient for me. See, I run a cash business.” Patrick Brogan was a big man, with rough-looking hands. He had listed his occupation on the application as “construction site foreman.”

“And what kind of business is that?” Ms. Prentice said uneasily.

“Me and my friends have some investments in different things. Video arcade for kids, stuff like that, you know. Cash businesses.”

“I see. Still, I’m afraid we can’t accept ca—”

“I was noticing that the paint’s beginning to peel out there on your gazebo, and some of the pillars are rotten out front.” He paused. “Appearance is important, don’t you think?”

“Well I—”

“I’d be happy to fix things up around here on Saturdays.” Patrick smiled easily. “I’m good at that sort of thing.”

* * *

The first day at Bromley was a nightmare for Elaine. She made the mistake of telling the girls where she lived. There was a great deal of snobbery. She instantly became “the girl from Garfield” with the construction-worker father. His pickup truck was visible somewhere on the campus practically every Saturday, Patrick in his jeans and T-shirt, somewhere nearby painting or sawing or standing on a ladder and repairing a gutter.

Patrick went out of his way to be friendly and helpful to all the students, knowing how important this was for Elaine. He could speak in a passable Irish brogue, and he would say, “Top a de marnin’ to ya, gershas!” or “I saw a leprechaun hidin’ in de gerden!” They would all giggle.

Eventually they accepted him, and they accepted Elaine.

* * *

As Elaine grew up, Patrick lost all interest in his wife. To Kathy Brogan, it seemed that her only purpose in life had been to bring her husband’s beloved “Lainie” into this world.

Kathy found herself more and more jealous of the constant attention he gave their daughter. Kathy was from Beaumont, Texas, and the high point of her life had been when she had been named prom queen at her high school. Her natural blonde hair and model-like figure had always made her the center of attention when men were around.