Painless (37 page)

Chapter 83

The voice came from a woman wearing a form-fitting, fluorescent-orange Durazzo’s T-shirt and a short skirt that would’ve made Paris Hilton blush.

“She’s shiny,” Carolyn observed.

The few people in the place turned and looked. Billy couldn’t figure out if they were looking at them because they heard the name of a notorious fugitive, or that people always turn and look at the stunning creature. He assumed the latter.

He almost laughed at how stupid his luck had become. It was like he beat the odds to win the lottery, but later found out it was the lottery of stoning that Shirley Jackson wrote of in her classic short story. They had outrun the authorities, allegedly convinced the FBI they were heading for Canada, and even had outmaneuvered the shadowy Operation Anesthesia for days. But he couldn’t outrun Kaylee Scroggins.

“I’ve seen you on the news, Billy. Not only are you as good looking as George Clooney, but now you’re more famous than him,” she exulted in her typical flirtatious tone, upon arriving at their table. Dana used the power of flirtation for good, but to Kaylee it was a tool to push her self-absorbed agenda.

He begged for quiet with his eyes, but she didn’t seem to grasp the concept. “Did you come to kidnap me, Billy?” she said with a sheepish grin.

“We just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“I didn’t say it like it was a bad thing,” she quipped, and then flashed Dana a competition glare. “And you are?”

“I’m the only woman here wearing clothes,” Dana shot back. “I think the better question is, who are you?”

“I’m the best Billy ever had.”

The two glared at each other, only to be broken up by Carolyn joining the introductions. “I’m Carolyn Whitcomb, but you can call me princess.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Billy mumbled to himself. On another day in another life, Billy’s ego might have taken a bow. But today he was just getting a migraine.

The more Billy thought about it, the more he realized Kaylee’s presence wasn’t just dumb luck. Kaylee attended Duke, and at last check, was quasi-dating Sal Durazzo. It made perfect sense that she was here. What didn’t make sense—and could probably use some explanation—was why were
they
here? Which gave him an idea. He grabbed Kaylee by the arm and huffed, “We gotta talk.”

“I don’t know if talking is our strong point, but I’m game.”

“Alone.”

“Alone is definitely one of our strong points.”

She led him to an empty lounge by the bar. Once alone, her DNA took over, and she turned into the aggressor. She hopped up on the bar, wrapped her tanned legs around him, and pulled him as close as possible with her legs. “So Billy, are you a member of the Chain Gang Club?”

“If the police catch me I will be.”

“Not that chain gang. The Chain Gang Club is like the Mile High Club, but instead of doing it in airplanes, you do it in cheesy chain restaurants.”

“I once made out with my high school girlfriend in a Bennigan’s.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Says who?”

She smiled wickedly. “I’m the club president. I have the final veto power. Now for your initiation.”

He put up a stop sign. “Listen, I’m in a tight spot right now.”

“If you play your cards right, you’ll be in an even tighter spot.”

“The police are after us.”

She actually gleamed. “I know.”

Billy suddenly understood his advantage. He knew women like Kaylee Scroggins. In fact, he married one. She wasn’t truly hot for him. She was hot for the guy who would piss off her father. And in the pantheon of bad boys, Billy Harper—notorious kidnapper on the run—just moved to the top.

His guess was that Kaylee hadn’t thought for two seconds about their tryst, which was probably just a combination of boredom and a few too many drinks for her. But ever since Billy hit the national news for all the wrong reasons, he was suddenly back on her radar. She would eventually dump him to marry a senator, but that was a whole ’nother story for a different day. Today’s story was all about survival, and using
everything
he could to ensure it.

He moved in and kissed her. This time his tongue was the serpent. “I need you to do something for me,” he said firmly, after releasing her lips. Being the aggressor felt very liberating.

“Anything,” she purred with a sultry gleam in her eye.

He kissed her again, long, and then came up for air. “I don’t have time right now, the cops are on my tail.”

He could feel her quiver, turned on by his law-breaking, and probably contemplating some innuendo-filled repartee about her own tail.

“I need your car. And I need you to keep your mouth shut about me coming to see you,” he coldly stated.

Without a second thought, she reached into the pocket of her micro-mini, which somehow could fit a pair of keys. She tossed them to him. “It’s the Mercedes out back. Can’t miss it—the license plate says Kaylee.”

He kissed her again, and then began to walk away without even a thank you.

“Hey Clyde,” she shouted to him, breathlessly.

He turned back to her. “Yeah?”

“Do you need a Bonnie?”

He glanced into the main room of the restaurant where Dana was patiently tying Carolyn’s shoe. He smiled. “No, I got all the Bonnies I can handle right now.”

Chapter 84

Billy returned to the table with keys to Kaylee Scroggins’ Mercedes, receiving a dirty look from Dana. She turned to Carolyn and said, “Do you want to hear a joke?”

Carolyn never met a joke she didn’t like and energetically agreed.

“How do you get Kaylee into bed?”

Carolyn shrugged. “I don’t know, is it her nap time?’

“No, all you have to do is ask her.”

Carolyn laughed dramatically, even though she had no idea what she was laughing at.

“Real appropriate,” Billy chastised.

But he had bigger battles to wage. The good news was that they still hadn’t been connected to Tracey Jarvis and the Jordan murder, but they needed to get out of here before that changed. Which was inevitable once somebody put together that the “kidnapped” Carolyn Whitcomb had been Jordan’s patient. But where would they go?

Billy looked up at the mounted TV like he was searching for a higher power. The news program was showing clips from the morning session of the Senate hearings on the Iran hostage debacle, including some nasty exchanges between Billy’s
good friend
, Senator LaRoche, and Kerry Rutherford, who was in charge of US intelligence. And with that one small glance, he had found his higher power.

And just as importantly, they now had a vehicle to get to this higher power. The bad news was that in their continuing effort to remain low profile, Kaylee’s hot pink Mercedes was anything but. Although Carolyn did seem impressed, “Whoa—that’s a real princess car!”

Billy explained his plan to Dana during their four-hour trip to D.C. Dana was a little chippy following Billy’s brief rendezvous with Kaylee, and grilled him like a district attorney, poking many obvious holes in his plan. Some of it was out of spite, but most of her points were legit. And by the time the regal rotunda of the Capital was staring them in the eye, Dana had a better plan. She instructed him to drive past D.C. and into Maryland, where they landed before a large Victorian home in a swanky looking suburb. It was the home of her old
Washington Post
boyfriend, Sam Spiegel.

Dana got on the phone. “Hey Sam—it’s Dana Boulanger,” she said in her most flirtatious voice. After listening for a moment, she added, “I’m at your house right now. I thought about your offer in New York, and it must be your lucky day because I reconsidered.”

Listening pause.

“Oh please, Sam, the Senate has hearings every time the wind changes direction. This is a last shot opportunity for you.”

Another listening pause.

“Your wife didn’t seem to matter when you were in New York.”

Brief pause.

“Then you better hurry up before she gets back. I promise to be a good girl this time and not break the bed like we did in my apartment that time.”

She not-so-subtly glanced at Billy. He got the message—two can play this game.

She hung up, smiling mischievously. “He’s on his way. He’s covering the Senate hearings, but to be fair, who would you rather spend an afternoon with, me, or some crotchety old senators?”

“You broke a bed?” he couldn’t resist asking.

She smiled at his obvious jealousy.

“Did you get in trouble when you broke your bed?” Carolyn asked.

Dana’s face reddened; they’d forgotten she was there.

“The whole relationship was regrettable, bed and all,” Dana recovered.

“What’s regret-ta-bull?”

“When we wish we didn’t make some of the decisions we made, we call it regret.”

“Like when I did the Dracula joke?”

“Exactly.”

Her face drooped. “I regret having Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis. Because it makes us go to doctors, and leave my room and my mommy and daddy, and drive around in trains and cars all day.”

Dana’s eyes liquefied, filling with concern. “You should never say that. You are a special little girl!”

“And it’s not so bad, you got to ride on a motorcycle and in a pink princess car,” Billy said. He and Dana then continued trading “and got to’s.”

“And got to ride on a choo-choo train.”

“And got to paint your face and go le shopping.”

“And got to go swimming.”

“And how many little girls get to get shot?”

Dana flashed Billy a dirty look for the last comment. “And besides, you can’t regret something you can’t control. We can only regret the decisions we make,” Dana explained with the patience of a kindergarten teacher.

Carolyn soaked in the encouragement. Billy wondered if she’d been holding in a feeling of guilt this whole trip, or maybe it was just the last thing that flew into her mind and would just as quickly evaporate. It was hard to tell with a four-year-old.

A smile emerged from her silence. “Then I guess I haff nothing else I regret.”

An hour later, Sam Spiegel appeared out his Mercedes, colored a more conservative silver. His suit was expensive and his surfer-blond hair flopped as he walked with a swagger that was closer to cocky than confident. When the man and child with Dana came into focus, his face dropped. He was a street-smart reporter and recognized a setup when he saw one.

“Hello, Sam,” Dana said.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded.

“I thought I came over so we could dredge up the past while your wife is away.”

He was livid. “You brought a kidnapper
slash
wife-beater to my house? What are you thinking, Dana? I know you’re about as sharp as a plastic butter knife, but…”

Dana cut him off. “We’re staying the night.”

“Are you crazy? My wife...”

“She won’t have to worry her pretty little socialite head. The kidnapper and I are going to sleep on the couch. If you haven’t figured it out, I’m not really interested in being in your bed.”

“You need to go before I call the police.”

Dana then preyed on his most primal of instincts. Even more powerful than the one that just pulled him away from the Senate hearings.

“I have a feeling, Sam, that you will trade your wife’s anger for the story of a lifetime.”

Chapter 85

Billy hid behind his menu at the Park Promenade restaurant, located in the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capital Hill. He eventually worked up the nerve to take a peek out at his past.

The pretentious-looking woman sat by herself at the far end of the dining area. Her long blonde locks were tied up in a conservative bun. From her sitting position, she appeared to be wearing one of those Hillary-esque pantsuits. She looked, for the most part, as he expected. But he did take some solace in her weight gain.
The mind works in strange ways
, he thought.

Carolyn, dressed like it was Easter Sunday, sans bonnet, stopped slurping on the straw of her empty lemonade and asked, “Who’s that lady you keep staring at?”

He guessed he wasn’t as smooth as he thought. “An old friend.”

“How come you don’t look happy to see an old friend?”

“What?”

“If someone’s your friend, you should haff a happy face when you see them.”

“I don’t?”

“You need to turn your frown upside down.”

“How’s
this
?” he said and made a goofy face.

She giggled, closed her eyes, and then distorted her face. “How’s this?”

“Not as good as
this
,” he said, stretching the corners of his mouth horizontally toward his ears and sticking out his tongue.

Carolyn giggled. “You’re silly!”

A few moments later, another woman entered the busy dining area. She walked directly to the table of the blonde woman in the blue suit. This woman had dark hair and her pink power-suit with skirt bottom had more of a Jackie Kennedy flair to it than the Hillary-conservative. But they both were expensive.

Carolyn pointed. “Hey—why is Aunt Dana sitting with your old friend?”

Billy gave her the shoosh hand. It was a good question, but he didn’t have the time at the moment to explain it to a four-year-old. The simple answer was that thirty seven states have laws that cap campaign contributions. Pennsylvania was not one of them.

After arriving at Sam Spiegel’s house yesterday afternoon, Dana made a call to the offices of Pennsylvania Senator Oliver LaRoche. She told them a story that went something like...

A few years back she was told by her doctors, late in a pregnancy, that her life was in danger. They strongly advised a late-term abortion, which she was eventually talked into. But the night before, God talked to her and told her to keep her baby, even it if meant giving up her own life. She did just that, against doctor’s orders, and thankfully mother and daughter were both now very much alive and thriving.

The story was fiction. But for Senator Oliver LaRoche, a staunch supporter of the pro-life movement, at least until the pro-choice people start paying him more, it was a photo-op he couldn’t refuse. By falsely involving God in the story, they knew they were in direct violation of the Seventh Commandment, but hoped they would be cut some slack since they were trying to save the Healing Angel of Pain.

And if the story didn’t do the trick, Dana offered to pledge $150,000 to his campaign. The only catch was that she must deliver it in person to LaRoche on Tuesday, which was the anniversary of the “symbolic” day that God talked to her. She had already traveled to D.C. on the hope she could meet him.

Billy knew they would do a background check on Dana to make sure she wasn’t a kook, or more importantly, didn’t have the money. What they likely found was that Dana Boulanger was the owner of a small literary agency, and more importantly, a large trust fund. She was the daughter of well known political lawyer Tom Boulanger, and the granddaughter of the very wealthy John Boulanger, who had a history of giving large sums of money to political campaigns of those sympathetic to his personal needs. Dana was a chip off the old-money block.

They called her back an hour later with the news that Senator LaRoche could not leave the Iran hostage hearings he chaired on such short notice. When Dana informed them it was a deal-breaker, they made a counter offer in which the senator’s wife, Kelly Klein-LaRoche, would meet Dana on Tuesday in her husband’s place, at the restaurant of Dana’s choice. Dana agreed. With more time at their disposal, they could have found the connection between Dana and the ex-husband of the senator’s wife—Billy Harper—but Billy bet the six-figure donation would cloud their minds, and he was right.

Billy watched Dana and Kelly chitchat for fifteen minutes or so. He continued to grip the weapon in his hand. It wasn’t a gun—he couldn’t shoot straight anyway. It was an article written by Sam Spiegel for the front page of tomorrow’s
Washington Post
. They pulled an all-nighter to complete it, and Billy was confident it would help get him what he needed. Sam had put together most of it from his research, but he needed a firsthand witness like Billy to tie it all together, filling in all the missing details. The details LaRoche thought were buried forever.

The transfer of the money envelope from Dana to Kelly was the signal. The plan called for Dana to notify Kelly that her husband and their miracle daughter were present, but just too shy to meet Senator LaRoche’s esteemed wife. Kelly would then predictably do her political due diligence and invite them over, so she could shower them with fake smiles and exploit the situation to the fullest. Billy was going to make her work hard for that hundred and fifty grand.

On Dana’s wave, Billy stood and buttoned the jacket of the Armani suit he borrowed from Sam Spiegel, who had a similar size and build. He grabbed Carolyn’s hand and moved toward their table. He held the threatening article in his hand like a gun. This time he was going to pull the trigger.