Snakes & Ladders (48 page)

‘I don’t know yet, one of the villages.’

Felicia looked at him like he was crazy. ‘You know how many people are up there right now, Jacob. The ski season’s on, for God’s sake. There’ll be more than—’

‘I know, Feleesh, I know. But she’s up there. Without a doubt. What if something happens and we’re all the way down here with no way to get to her? I can’t think of any other choice we have at this point.’

‘I can. It’s called the Feds. They have units all over that area.’

Striker cast her a hot stare. ‘Absolutely not. If Larisa thinks we’ve sent another cop after her, it’s all over. I won’t let that happen. We do this one on our own.’

Felicia said nothing for a moment, then shook her head. ‘It’s not our jurisdiction, Jacob. You have to get permission from Car 10.’

‘You know as well as I do what Laroche will say.’

‘We have to tell him, Jacob. He’s the Road Boss.’

Striker felt his knuckles tighten on the wheel. ‘Not this time, Feleesh.’

‘I really think—’

He pulled over to the side of the road and slammed the steering column in Park. When he turned to face her, his adrenalin was starting. ‘I’m not doing anything that’s going to jeopardize my chance of getting Larisa back. You’re right. Calling Car 10 is the protocol, but you know what? I’m not doing it. Because I know what Laroche’s response will be. He’ll get all the different jurisdictions involved, we’ll have another boondoggle like we had at Metrotown, and the next thing you know Larisa will be gone forever. Well, forget that. I
owe
her this. And I’m more than willing to risk my career doing it. You can get out right now and I’ll completely understand. But know this:
I am going
.’

He reached over and opened the door for her.

Felicia just looked back at him with a surprised look in her eyes. Then he saw the anger. For a moment, he thought she might actually leave. But then she grabbed the door and slammed it shut. ‘We’re not going to get there any faster if you leave the car in Park.’

Striker said nothing. He just got the car back on the road and drove down the highway.

Destination: Whistler Blackcomb ski resort.

They were just entering the district of West Vancouver when the conversation about Larisa Logan ended and Felicia finally got down to business with the Gabriel Ostermann file. She grabbed the thin folder and opened it up. Striker glanced over and saw a police report as well as an addendum from the Ministry of Children and Families.

‘The file looks thin,’ he noted.

‘Well, in this case, less is more,’ Felicia said. ‘You ready for this?’

Striker nodded. ‘Go.’

And she read through the report.

‘This all took place ten years ago, just after Lexa and Dr Ostermann got married.’

‘Gabriel must have been only eight years old,’ Striker pointed out.

Felicia nodded. ‘Which is why the Ministry of Children and Families was involved and also why it was privatized.’ She turned through the pages. ‘The file itself was a 911 call that was later changed to a Sudden Death call. As it turns out, the Ostermanns were away on vacation at a place called Lost Lake. Gabriel and his younger brother, William, were out playing in the snow.

‘William?’ Striker asked.

Felicia nodded. ‘Apparently Lexa had
two
children she brought into the marriage – Dalia, and William . . . Anyway, Gabriel threw a Frisbee to his brother and William missed it. The toy went over his head and landed on the lake.’

‘Which was frozen at the time?’

Felicia nodded. ‘Yeah, exactly. So the Frisbee lands on the ice. The kids had been warned by their parents not to go near the lake because winter was ending and the ice was too thin. Well, the kids never listened. Gabriel was the oldest and heaviest, so he stayed ashore. William was the youngest and the lightest, so he went out to get it.’

‘And the ice broke,’ Striker said.

‘Yeah. The kid went right through. Worst thing is there was a chance to save him. Apparently, the boy managed to grab on to the edge of the ice and hang on for quite some time. He kept calling for someone to help him, kept calling out for his brother. But Gabriel just froze.’

‘Wow, completely?’

‘Damn near catatonic,’ she replied. ‘It was apparently all caught on video by one of the neighbour’s surveillance systems. Gabriel couldn’t bear to watch. So he turned away from the boy. Fell down in the snow. Covered up his ears with his hands.’

Striker pictured the moment in his mind. ‘Jesus.’

‘When help finally came, it was too late. William was dead. Sunk somewhere beneath the ice. And Gabriel was damn near catatonic.’ She leafed through the pages of the report, shaking her head with sadness. ‘The ministry was involved quite a bit after that. They’ve made many notes about Erich Ostermann’s detached fathering skills and even more about Lexa’s treatment of the boy. How she blamed him for William’s death.’

Striker thought about this and nodded. ‘Lexa was pregnant in Brussels,’ he said. ‘Maybe William was her only biological son. And Dalia was born from her marriage to Gerald Jarvis. Before she married Erich Ostermann.’

‘What’s your point?’ Felicia asked.

‘That they’re a blended family.’

‘They’re a freak show is what they are,’ Felicia said.

Striker nodded. ‘With Lexa as a mother, how could they be anything but?’ He thought of what it must have been like to be an eight-year-old child growing up under her evil care – an eight-year-old that she blamed for her only son’s death. What life must have been like for Gabriel Ostermann was unthinkable. ‘It makes me think that Gabriel is less mentally ill with any known psychological diagnosis and more . . . programmed into what he has become.’

‘Lexa made him,’ Felicia said. ‘There’s no doubt. The one question is, did his father know?’

‘Dr Ostermann?’ Striker scowled. ‘How could he not? You saw how he treated the boy – like a subject, not a son. The man was wilfully blind to it all. Had to be with all of them living there. Pride and power, just like with Lexa – till he got caught.’

Striker looked down at the file. He saw no attached envelopes.

‘Where is the video?’ he asked.

‘That’s the strange thing,’ Felicia said. ‘The neighbour swore they had one, but when the police went to collect it, the tape was gone. It just vanished, and was never found again.’

Striker frowned at that.

‘Nothing vanishes,’ he said.

The tape was still out there somewhere.

An hour later, Striker looked in his rear-view mirror and saw Brandywine Falls behind them. The waterfall was hard to see in the five o’clock dimness. The entire canyon around them was a charcoal-grey colour, so deep it was all he could do to make out the treeline.

‘We’re getting close,’ he said.

Felicia just nodded. ‘And then what? We wait around for another call that might not even come? Or another email message she won’t respond to?’

That irritated Striker. ‘
No
, we start hitting the pavement. You know, good old-fashioned, hard-nosed police work. We’ll start with Whistler and make our way into Blackcomb. Show her picture around. See what we get.’

Felicia remained unconvinced. ‘We don’t know if she’s even in one of the villages any more. She could be in one of the smaller towns around the perimeter. Or even headed back to Vancouver.’

‘She’s
here
,’ Striker said. ‘And if you can come up with a better way of locating her, then let me know. I’m all ears.’

They drove on through the swerving bends and rising hills in silence, Striker thinking of what lay ahead and any possible routes their investigation could take, and Felicia going over the computer files for the millionth time. When the traffic thickened and Striker saw a sign that signalled Whistler Golf and Country Club ahead, he spoke.

‘We’re almost there.’

Felicia looked up from the computer screen. ‘My eyes are going buggy from the screen and I feel carsick from all this reading. I need a coffee before we start. And some food. We haven’t eaten a thing since this morning; aren’t you hungry?’

Before Striker could respond, his cell went off. He snatched it up, looked at the screen and saw a number he didn’t recognize. He pulled over to the side of the road, into one of the runaway lanes, and answered.

‘Detective Striker.’

‘Shipwreck,’ came the reply, the voice deep and gruff. It took Striker but a second to recognize it as his old friend Tom Collins, previously from Financial Crime.

‘Hey, Tommy, what’s up?’

‘Those names you gave me to run through our insurance databases,’ he said. ‘You jerking my chain here, or what?’

Striker thought of the list he’d given Collins. Every name and date of birth had been one of the people listed in Lexa Ostermann’s folders.

‘I don’t follow,’ he said.

Collins explained: ‘I thought these were all supposed to be victims of identity theft.’

‘They are. Why? What’s the problem?’

‘The problem is they’re all
dead
. Every single one of them.’

Striker said nothing for a moment. ‘There were over fifty people on that list. How many of them did you—’

‘Every single one of them.’

‘Jesus.’ Striker gave Felicia a glance and saw the curiosity in her eyes. He ignored it for the moment and asked Tom, ‘How? What was the manner of death?’

‘All sorts, really. Accidents. Unexplained natural causes. A lot of suicides.’

Striker thought this over. ‘And what kind of policies did they have?’

‘That’s where it gets interesting. They had good life insurance policies.
All
of them. Over half of the claims have already been paid out. I’ve done the math here. Accumulatively, we’re talking twentyfour million dollars from fourteen different insurance providers. And like I said, nearly half the claims haven’t been finalized.’

Striker let this information sink in. Twenty-four million. The number was staggering.

‘I thought life insurance didn’t cover suicide?’ he said.

‘That’s a common misconception,’ Collins replied. ‘Life insurance doesn’t cover suicide in the first two years, the reason being that most people who are truly suicidal aren’t in a mindset to wait two years before doing themselves in. But if someone already had a policy, and two years later they killed themselves, yeah, it’s usually completely covered.’

Striker sat there with the phone stuck to his ear and watched the tail lights of the cars passing by them along the highway. Little rectangles of red slowly disappearing into the night. As he watched them, he thought everything over.

Stolen identities. All the name-change forms. And twentyfour million dollars in life insurance money.

‘You still there?’ Collins asked.

‘Can you give me the policy numbers and the names of the insurance companies?’ Striker asked.

‘No problem.’ Collins began reading them out.

Striker wrote them down in his notebook, one by one. When they reached the fourteenth name, he stopped writing and looked up. Something occurred to him. He told Collins to hold on for a second, then turned to Felicia.

‘Where’s the folder we got from Mapleview?’

‘Which folder?’

‘The one from Lexa’s office. With the medical billing codes.’

Felicia reached into the back seat and grabbed the red folder. When she opened it up, Striker saw the first page – the one with the long codes – and he made the connection.

He pointed to one of the lines.

10–14141ML–MG900412.

‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘The first seven digits match Mandy Gill’s life insurance policy number.’

Felicia looked at this and nodded. ‘You’re right. And the rest?’

Striker looked at the next two letters. ‘ML – Manual Life, the insurance provider.’

‘Shit, you’re right,’ she said. ‘And look at the second half of the code – MG900412. MG . . . that would be Mandilla Gill. Followed by her date of birth. April twelfth, 1990.’ She looked down the page. ‘Jesus, she has them all listed right here. It’s
ten
pages long.’

Striker nodded. He got back on the phone and told Collins he would have to get back to him. When he turned to face Felicia, he saw that she was sitting there with a troubled look on her face.

‘What?’ he asked.

She spoke, almost hesitantly. ‘It looks like Lexa and Dalia and Gabriel have been stealing people’s identities, taking out life insurance policies, and then, after systematically bankrupting the victims, murdering them for the insurance claims, but making it look like accidents and tragedies and suicides.’

Striker nodded. ‘Complicated and devious, but yes.’

‘I have a problem with that. With the theory . . . it doesn’t make sense.’

‘In what way?’

‘
Why?
Why would they do this? By marriage, Lexa is part owner of the EvenHealth programme. It has to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. And she gets a percentage on every SILC class any other clinic runs. They have a Beamer and a Land Rover. A mansion in Point Grey.’

‘And your point is?’

‘She doesn’t have to do this. She doesn’t need the money. She’s
loaded
.’

Striker looked back at her and shook his had. ‘You’re missing the point. It’s not about money, Feleesh. It never was.’

‘Then what
is
it about?’

‘Domination, manipulation, control. Lexa is the one running this thing, and she has been for years. She
owned
Ostermann. And she’s the reason why the kids are as screwed up as they are. She doesn’t do this for the money. Or for security. Or for anything materialistic. She does it for the thrill of the hunt. She does it because she’s a psychopath. A serial killer. And she lives for one thing and one thing only – the
game
.’

The Adder sat in the darkness of the closet with the laptop in his lap. Disc 1 ended, and he was filled with the heavenly bliss, that
peace
he felt every time he watched the video.

Disc 1.

William’s Beautiful Escape.

Two hours ago, out by the lake, he had thought it was his turn for the Beautiful Escape. When the Doctor had injected him and he’d felt his body melt into the ice below, the darkness had been warm and overpowering. Heavy magnetic waves had pulled him towards places unknown.