Most Wanted (44 page)

ROMMIE CAME BACK CARRYING THE RED TUBE. He hurried over to Jed’s desk, pried off the lid, and spread the blueprints on the marred surface.

She took a step closer, and he spun around with lightning reflexes, raising his gun.

“Stay away, Melanie. Now that I have these, I’ll blow your fucking brains out if you mess with me!” His eyes were deadly. He wasn’t bluffing. She backed off a step.

“I was just curious about the trap.”

“Yeah, well, curiosity killed the prosecutor,” he said, breathing hard, still sweating profusely. He gestured with the gun to a spot right beside the desk. “Get over here where I can keep an eye on you.”

She moved as commanded, watching him warily.

“This is no game, understand? There’s two hundred kilos of Colombian heroin stashed somewhere in this room. I’m not talking about stepped-on shit either. I’m talking pure. You know what that’s worth? Twenty million wholesale!”

Her eyes went wide. This was even bigger than she thought.

“Yeah, that’s right. Don’t look so surprised. You think I’d risk myself for small-time shit?” She didn’t answer. “Huh, Melanie?”

“No. Of course not.” She needed to calm him down. Drag things out. Keep him talking until help arrived.

“Everything you know, and you hadn’t figured it out?” He eyed her skeptically.

“I knew Jed Benson’s murder had something to do with corruption, with drugs. I figured it was related to Delvis Diaz and the old Flatlands murder case. I knew that much. But that you were involved? No. I never guessed,” she said. Until I learned your fingerprints put you at the scene, you scumbag, she thought.

“Yeah, I was pretty careful, wasn’t I?” A boastful smile crept across his face. This wouldn’t be so hard after all.

“You covered your tracks pretty well, Rommie. How did you manage it?”

“I guess I can afford to tell you now, huh?” he asked, gesturing meaningfully with his gun. “How’s that saying go? ‘If I tell you, I gotta kill you’? So anyway, it was like this: Jed and Slice teamed up years ago. They locked Diaz up for those kids Slice bodied, and then they took over the candy store. Threw me a piece of the action now and then, enough to support me and all my alimony payments in fine style anyway, though not near as much as I deserved. Slice was the front man, Jed laundered the money, and I kept the cops off. Pretty good scam, huh? It woulda kept going, too, but Jed started holding back. There’s a major shipment stashed in this room somewhere he didn’t want to share. He figured Slice wouldn’t find out, but he didn’t count on me. See, Jed took my loyalty for granted. A lot of people did.”

So that was it. All those years, when Rommie was the butt of jokes, he’d had a chip on his shoulder.

“Jed didn’t respect you?” she prompted.

“That’s right. And he found out how wrong he was, the hard way.” He smiled savagely.

“There were four or five guys in the room when the murder went down. I take it you were one of them?”

He shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Don’t go there, Melanie. Don’t be stupid.”

Knock yourself out, you scumbag, she thought. I know you were in on it. I have your prints on the kerosene can. You’re dead in the water. If I get out of this room alive, that is.

“Whatever you say,” she said aloud. “So who did kill Jed, then?”

“Just some mopes from Slice’s crew. Blades.”

“Any insiders? Law enforcement?” she asked.

“You mean like Randall Walker?”

“Randall was involved in Jed’s murder?” she asked. So it was true. But at least he hadn’t mentioned Dan.
Yet
. Had her call for help been in vain?

Rommie chuckled mirthlessly. “In the murder? No way. Guy’s fucking useless. I had to practically hold a gun to his head to get anything out of him.”

“Then why did you bring him up just now?”

“I thought that’s who you meant when you said law enforcement. Randall did only, like, low-level shit for me. Mostly tell me what
you
were up to, so I could keep tabs on the investigation.”

Jesus, who could you trust? People really sucked. She had liked Randall, liked him a lot.

“
Why
? Why would he do that?” she asked.

“He didn’t have much choice. I had something on him—we’re talking ancient history now, but it was major. We were doing an undercover deal, years ago. The buy money disappeared. Twenty large, to be exact, not chickenshit. I pinched it, but Randall didn’t know that. He signed it out from the vault, so his ass was on the line. I convinced him his only option was falsifying the reports. So we both said the perp pulled a gun and stuck us up. Swore out statements and everything. Once Randall lied under oath, I had his pecker in my pocket. Simple as that.”

“Did he set up my witnesses? Did he give you Rosario Sangrador? Or Amanda Benson? Is that how you got to them?” She felt sick to her stomach at the very thought.

“No, he wasn’t in that deep, and I didn’t need him for that anyway. I had an in over at your office, remember? With your boss? Show up a few minutes early for a date. Wander around. Take a peek. No telling what you could learn. I had the run of the place.”

“
You
killed them?”

“You think I’m stupid enough to get my hands dirty like that? No way. I gave Slice the locations and took care of the doors. Like, I sent Randall Walker off on an errand. But Slice did the rest. That’s why I’m gonna get away clean.”

Rommie giving up those innocents to be slaughtered by an animal like Slice. Who ever knew a cop could be so twisted?

“But it
was
you who stole the bank records and fingerprint reports from my desk,” she said.

“Can you blame me? I asked nicely first, but you wouldn’t share.”

“And down in the file room the other night, when the tape was stolen from my bag? That was you, too, wasn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Bernadette didn’t know anything, did she?” Melanie asked.

“Nah. Nothing. She never would’ve gone along with it.”

“So you used her.”

Rommie shrugged. “You could put it that way. She’s all right, your boss. But not really my type, if you know what I mean.”

And Bernadette was so far gone on this guy!
¡Hombres desgraciados
! Men were such dogs! Speaking of, it was time to ask the question she’d been dreading. Even if the answer wasn’t the one she was hoping for, she had to hear the truth, if only to better estimate her own chances for survival.

“What about Dan O’Reilly?” she whispered. She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

Rommie stared back at her in surprise. “O’Reilly? You’re fucking kidding me! He’s a goddamn choirboy.”

The relief she felt at that answer was greater than when she’d opened her eyes to find herself still alive and Slice dead on the ground. Dan was clean! And that made her happy for a lot of reasons.

But her exultation was short-lived. A cloud passed across Rommie’s face. She’d come to the end of his patience.

“You got me fucking wasting time here!” he shouted suddenly, his face reddening. “Just stand there and shut up, or I’m gonna decide I don’t need a hostage, if you see what I mean, Melanie.”

He looked down at the blueprints. After a few minutes, he walked over, nearly tripping on Sophie’s legs, and pressed a small switch set into the wooden bookshelves behind Jed Benson’s desk. With a fluid glide that spoke of Sophie’s talent, a section of the shelves slid inward, opening a narrow doorway to the hidden room beyond.

“Shangri-fucking-la! And so easy! Only that moron Slice coulda missed it the first time. I’m going in, but don’t you move, you hear me?” Rommie waved his gun at her, then disappeared into the opening.

After only a few seconds, he stumbled back through the opening to the trap, looking almost drunk.

“The drugs!” he shouted, coming over to her, searching her face desperately. “The drugs are fucking gone! First the money in the bank account, now the drugs!”

He pulled out a cell phone and dialed frantically, his hands, covered with now-drying blood, shaking violently.

“Disconnected!” he shouted, pitching the phone across the room with all his strength. “Fucking bitch disconnected her phone! She took the drugs, the money, everything! She double-crossed me!”

“Who, Bernadette?” Melanie asked, confused. Hadn’t he said Bernadette knew nothing about this?

“No! No! Nell!” He slumped against the desk, burying his face in his hands, pulling at his hair. “Fucking bitch! I did all this for her! The way Jed treated her. A fine woman like that, and he’s doing every stripper in town. She said she loved me, wanted him dead so we could be together. Just pinch one shipment, she said, and we’d be set for life, get a big villa in the Caymans right on the beach. All I needed to do was bring Slice down on Jed. All this for her, and she stabs me in the back!”

“So you lied before when you said Jed held out on Slice. You were covering for Nell. Jed never held out. You set him up.”

“He deserved it, the bastard. Treating me like a fucking lackey. Jesus, I can’t believe it. Nell, that double-crossing bitch!” He kicked the desk furiously, several times in rapid succession.

“Any woman who would condone the killing of her own daughter…”

“Of course she didn’t condone killing Amanda. She didn’t know. I even tried to avoid it because I knew it would upset Nell.” He drew a sharp breath. “Oh, my God, that’s it, that’s it! That’s got to be it. She must’ve heard about Amanda. She’s upset with me. That’s why she ran. I have to find her.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Melanie said.

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody could locate Nell to break the news of Amanda’s death. So when I was driving back to town before, I called her hotel. They told me she’d checked out. The concierge had booked her a ticket to Switzerland. He booked it
yesterday
. Before Amanda was killed.”

Rommie’s face crumpled.

“Switzerland. Beyond the reach of any extradition treaty,” Melanie said.

Rommie shook his head in disbelief, looking to Melanie as if she could explain this terrible betrayal. He had a wild glint in his eyes that made her think she’d better get out of the room fast. She started to move toward the door.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he yelled, raising his gun once again.

THE NEXT MOMENT DAN AND THREE OTHER AGENTS burst into the room, weapons drawn. Dan body-slammed Rommie, who crashed to the floor, a flash of light and a deafening report issuing from the barrel of his gun. Seconds later chunks of plaster rained down from the ceiling.

Dan landed on him and managed to yank the gun from Rommie’s injured hand, throwing it clear. They somersaulted over Slice’s corpse, punching at each other furiously, until Dan ended up on top and smashed Rommie hard with the butt of his own gun. Rommie reeled back, stunned. Dan grabbed Rommie’s arms, wrenching them savagely, flipping him over, and handcuffing him. Rommie exhaled in defeat, his entire body deflating, seeming smaller, as if his very flesh understood it was all over. Two of the agents pulled him to his feet. He staggered between them, his eyes hollow with shock, as they dragged him toward the door. Melanie almost felt sorry for him. The third agent, gun still drawn, went to examine the contents of the secret room.

Dan knelt and checked Slice’s pulse, then stood up and looked at Melanie. Her face and dress were spattered with blood.

“I shot Slice,” she confessed, and started to shake again from head to toe.

“
You
killed him?” He looked at her with a mix of concern and admiration.

“Yes.” Tears welled and brimmed over, rolling down her cheeks. Dan came over and wiped them away with his fingers.

“First off,” he said, turning over her hands to inspect the duct tape, “you need to understand you did the world a huge favor. That little prick was a stone-cold killer. He wasn’t ever gonna stop. You gotta look at it like what you did saved lives.”

“Okay,” she said, still shaking violently.

“I mean, think about how many murders he had left in him. And if you hadn’ta stopped him tonight, the next one would’ve been
you
. Hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

He picked at the tape with his fingernail, then tugged. It made a loud ripping sound as he unwound it from her wrists. She shook her hands out, feeling the warm blood rush back into her tingling fingers.

“That brings me to my second point,” Dan said. “You oughta be proud as shit you made it through this alive. I know
I’m
proud of you. Between this piece of garbage on the floor and that psycho Ramirez, most of the cops and agents I know would’ve folded. But not you. You beat ’em. You know what that makes you?”

“What?” she asked, voice tremulous, looking up at him with huge eyes.

He brushed her hair back off her face. “You’re a survivor. You’re a fucking survivor. That’s what you should carry around with you for the rest of your life. If you ever find yourself in a tight spot again, you think back on today and you say, ‘I took out Slice. A killer with fucking twenty bodies on him, and I took him out. I’m a survivor.’ That’s what you say, you hear me?”

“Yes. I know you’re right, but—”

“No buts. I understand you didn’t sign up for gunplay. That’s supposed to be my end of the operation. But it was life or death in there. You had no choice. Do you hear me?” He grasped her chin, looking intently into her eyes.

“Yes. Thank you. That helps,” she said, taking a deep breath.

He let her go and walked over to where Sophie lay, behind the desk, still unconscious.

“Is she okay?” Melanie asked, rushing to kneel beside him. “She’s my friend. The architect I told you about.”

“Out cold, but her pulse is strong. What happened to her?”

“Apparently they drugged her to get her over here. I don’t know what they gave her, but I’m concerned about an overdose.”

“Don’t worry. When people OD, it happens right away. They foam at the mouth and stop breathing. She’s fine, she’s just knocked out. She’ll wake up with a headache, that’s all.”

The other agent emerged from inside the secret room. “Empty,” he said, “but that’s some fucking trap.”