Watch Me (35 page)

‘Don’t pay.’

Jasper just stared at me. ‘Why the hell not? If anything happens to Clayton, then how am I going to live with myself? Of course I’m going to pay. It would be crazy not to.’

He stopped short of saying it was only money. It wasn’t. Twenty million was a significant amount of cash to lose. Even for a billionaire.

‘No, what would be crazy is making that payment. If you do that, what’s to stop the blackmailer coming back for more? Because that’s the way blackmailers operate. The first payment is the hardest one. That’s the hook. Once you’ve paid the first time it gets easier. Before you know it, you’re dangling from that hook and the blackmailer just keeps coming back for more. Also, nobody’s going to kill Clayton.’

‘You can’t know that for sure.’

‘He knows about Sam Galloway, right?’

Jasper nodded. ‘I told him everything.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday afternoon.’

‘And you’re certain that he didn’t know anything before that?’

‘I’m certain.’

The words projected confidence, but his tone betrayed the tiniest amount of uncertainty. Doubt was sneaky and cancerous. Given the opportunity, it could eat into even the strongest of beliefs.

‘And how did he take the news that he had a brother?’

‘He was angry that I hadn’t told him sooner, but he accepts my decision not to say anything.’

‘From what I’ve heard, Clayton has spent years accepting your decisions. Ever since he was born you’ve told him what to do and what to think. It might say CEO on his door but everyone around here knows who really calls the shots. Deal with that crap day in, day out for long enough and you’re going to end up really pissed.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that I want to talk to Clayton, and I want to talk to him now.’

64

Jasper left the room to go find his son, and I got up and walked over to the window. Even right up close, the illusion that you could lean forward and tumble into the lake still held. The glass was hot under my hand, the sun blazing down. The water was a bright Mediterranean blue around the edges, dark and forbidding in the middle where it was deepest.

Hannah was on the sofa, reflected in the glass. She had her cellphone pressed against her ear and, judging by the lack of facial expression, there was no news on Taylor. No relief, no grief. No emotion at all. Head down, she stared stony-faced at the pale grey rug.

I didn’t care what she said. Right now, no news was good news. The longer this went on, the longer Hannah would remain tethered to her old life. Once the call came through to tell her Taylor was dead, she’d be the one who was cut adrift with no way home. Sometimes the final cut came via the telephone, or that midnight knock on the door, and sometimes the FBI came swooping in and you discovered that someone you thought you’d known your entire life was a complete stranger.

I took out my cell and called Shepherd. He answered almost immediately.

‘I’ve found your unsub.’

‘Who?’

‘Clayton Morgan.’

There was a momentary hesitation while he processed this. A sharp intake of breath. ‘Is this some sort of joke, Winter?’

‘No joke. Clayton’s your guy. How long will it take you to get to Jasper Morgan’s place?’

‘I can be there in ten minutes.’

‘If you’ve got someone close by send them up here to block off the driveway. You’re also going to need to get someone out to the airfield. The Morgans own a helicopter and a Gulfstream. I don’t think Clayton’s a flight risk but let’s not give him the opportunity.’

‘No problem.’ There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. ‘Clayton Morgan. You’re certain about this?’

‘No doubt whatsoever.’

‘Jasper Morgan’s not going to be happy.’

‘Not my problem. My job is to catch them. Once that’s done, I’m out of here, and you guys get to clean up the mess.’

‘Ten minutes.’ Shepherd hung up.

Hannah had come up alongside me while I was talking. She was staring out the window, lost in the landscape.

‘How’s Taylor?’ I asked.

‘Still in surgery. He’s had his spleen removed.’ Her voice was as dead as her eyes.

‘If he’s in surgery, he’s still alive, Hannah.’

‘And if this is leading up to a glass-is-half-full lecture, save your breath.’

If Taylor didn’t pull through, there was a good chance that she wasn’t going to make it either. She wasn’t like Barbara Galloway. She didn’t possess her hardness, or her ruthlessness. Hannah projected strength, but a lot of that strength came from Taylor. He was her talisman. He was the magic feather that made it possible for her to fly.

Hannah stared through the glass. No doubt she was wishing that today had never dawned, praying that this was all a nightmare and she was going to wake up at any second.

‘You said he was a cop.’ Hannah was speaking to her reflection.

‘I was ninety-nine per cent certain he was a cop.’

‘Is that your way of saying you’re wrong?’

‘No, it’s my way of saying that it’s time to make things right again.’

‘If Clayton Morgan was here all morning, how was he able to attack Taylor?’

‘Jasper
said
he was here. That’s not the same thing. People lie all the time. Would, Jasper would lie to protect his son. Of course, he would.’

‘But what if he’s telling the truth? What if Clayton was here?’

‘Then he paid someone else to do it. Throw enough money at a problem and you’re eventually going to find a solution. Clayton’s the CEO of a billion-dollar corporation, he’s got access to more than enough cash to find a solution to that particular problem.’

Hannah turned to face me. ‘Okay, but if Clayton’s got all that money, why blackmail his father?’

‘I’d rather not get into all that now since I’m going to have to go through it all again when Jasper and Clayton get here.’

Hannah’s eyes were blazing, like the lights had suddenly come back on. Her anger was righteous and justified, and a vast improvement on self-pity.

‘You’d “rather not get into it”? Jesus, Winter. This isn’t some game, you know.’

‘But that’s exactly what it is. A game. The unsub makes a move, we make a countermove, and at the end of it all someone wins and someone loses.’

‘But people get hurt. People die.’

‘Do you think the bad guys worry about any of that?’ I shook my head. ‘Of course they don’t. And if I’m going to catch them, I can’t either. There’s a time for emotion, and that time is after they’ve been brought down.’

Hannah sighed and turned away. She stared at her reflection for a moment, stared at the view, then turned back to me.

‘What if you’re wrong about this one, too? What if Clayton’s innocent? What then?’

‘You need to have a little more faith, Hannah. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.’

Hannah snorted and shook her head in a way that made it obvious she wasn’t a believer. I looked out at the view, losing myself for a moment in the vastness of the landscape. The water, the sky, the trees. There was something grounding about having all that nature so close.

I adjusted my vision so I was staring at my reflection. Faint traces of Taylor’s blood still remained on my face. Dressed in dirty jeans and old work boots and that cheap blue medical top, I looked a mess. This outfit was as far removed from the uniform I’d worn when I was with the FBI as it was possible to get. The dark G-men suits, the shiny black shoes, the impenetrable sunglasses. The only thing I’d kept from those days were the shades. I shut my eyes and felt Taylor’s chest compressing under my hands, felt the faint rhythm of his pulse in my fingertips.

‘You’d better know what you’re doing,’ Hannah muttered behind me.

‘Watch and learn,’ I whispered to her reflection. ‘Watch and learn.’

65

I was standing with my back to the room, using the window as a mirror, when Jasper arrived with Clayton. I didn’t turn around, didn’t say a word, just watched them file into the lake room through the wide double doors. Hannah was beside me again, looking out over the lake.

The two men chose to stand, which was an obvious and understandable power play. I was standing, therefore they needed to stand as well. Sitting would have put them at a distinct psychological disadvantage.

I hadn’t paid much attention to Clayton last night. Despite his job title he’d seemed so insignificant next to his father, a lost little boy rather than a CEO. The shadow cast by his father was large and looming, and had completely eclipsed him.

The idea that Clayton was Jasper’s puppet was easy to buy into. It was hard to imagine Clayton ever having an original thought. Jasper would have done his best to squash that out of him years ago. And the sad thing was that Jasper probably thought he was doing him a favour. Spare the rod, spoil the child. What a crock.

I was paying plenty of attention to Clayton now. He looked nervous, and he looked more lost than ever. He looked like he’d just been given a good scolding by his father. His head was down and he was glaring at the rug. His face was bleached white and he didn’t know what to do with his hands. There was plenty of repressed rage there, and he didn’t know what to do with that, either. He was in his early forties, but the stress of the situation made him appear much older.

All that was missing were the cops. According to my watch it had been nine and a half minutes since I’d spoken to Shepherd. Their cars would have been picked up by the cameras when they turned into the driveway. The fact that Jasper and Clayton had chosen to turn up now meant they must almost be here.

The silence that filled the room was stretched to breaking point. Every now and again there would be a slight disruption. A movement, a clearing of the throat, the scratch of a shirtsleeve against skin when someone checked their watch. It’s impossible for four people to stay completely silent, particularly when they’re trying to stay quiet.

John Cage understood that. 4'33" was his most controversial composition, and his most misunderstood. People assume it’s four minutes of silence. It’s not. The noise created by the audience is the music. It’s a genius concept. Minimalism taken to its ultimate conclusion.

The cops arrived a couple of minutes later, long enough for almost half of Cage’s masterwork to be performed. They came into the room in single file. Sheriff Fortier was first, then Shepherd, Barker and, finally, Romero.

Fortier marched straight up to Jasper. There was a good half a foot difference in their heights. The sheriff’s eyeline was level with Jasper’s mouth. ‘I’m sorry about all this, really and truly. We’ll be out of here as soon as possible and you folks can get on with the rest of your day.’

‘Wait a minute.’ I turned from the window. ‘We’ve got ourselves a viable suspect here. We’ve got motive, opportunity and means. What you’re going to do is escort Clayton back to the station house so we can question him.’

Fortier marched up to me. His face was red, his blood pressure through the roof. We were standing toe-to-toe, and he had to angle his head up to meet my eye. I looked a mess, but his uniform was as immaculate as ever, creases in all the right places, shoes shining and not a single hair out of place.

‘Let me tell you exactly what’s going to happen here. We’re going to leave these good folks in peace, and then I’m going to personally drive you over to Shreveport and make sure you get on the first flight out of here.’ He turned to Jasper. ‘Once again, I can’t apologise enough for this misunderstanding.’

Jasper waved the apology away like it was something inconsequential, like this sort of thing happened all the time. Like it was no big deal that his son had been accused of murder.

‘Big mistake,’ I said, and Fortier glared at me. ‘You were brought up in Eagle Creek, right?’

Fortier nodded. ‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

‘So you’ve known Clayton since he was a boy. And Jasper’s known you since you were a boy. That’s the way things work around here, right? Everybody knows everyone else’s business. The Clayton you know couldn’t be involved in something like this. No way. Now, the problem with that line of thinking is that it’s based on the idea that we can truly know another human being. We can’t. Most of us don’t even know what’s going on in our own hearts and heads, never mind what’s going on in someone else’s.’

‘Clayton Morgan had nothing to do with Sam Galloway’s murder. I’d stake my life on it.’

I let my gaze drift around the room, studying each face in turn. Taking it all in. Jasper and Sheriff Fortier looked ready to blow. Shepherd looked like a man who knew he had the law on his side. Barker and Romero looked like they were waiting to be told what to do. And Hannah looked destroyed. The room was big, but there were still too many mixed emotions competing for space.

‘Is nobody interested in what I’ve got to say?’ I asked. ‘No one?’

‘I am,’ said Hannah, earning a glare from Sheriff Fortier.

I looked at Jasper. He called the shots around these parts.

‘So what do you say, Jasper? If you’re so sure your son’s innocent, what have you got to lose? I say my piece and it turns out I’m wrong, then you guys end up vindicated and I end up looking like a fool.’ I smiled. ‘But what if I’m right? What then? How’s that going to reflect on you? I’ll tell you exactly how that one’s going to look. It’s going to look like you were covering up for your son, and that’s bad for business. Whatever you choose to do, Clayton will need to be investigated. One way or another, the truth will come out.’

Jasper sighed and shook his head. For now, he was keeping a lid on his temper, but it was a real effort. His fists were clenched tight, the whites of his knuckles contrasting against his sun-blasted skin.

‘You’re wrong. There’s no way my boy’s involved in this. But, what the hell. Knock yourself out. Say what you’ve got to say, and then I want you the hell out of my house.’

‘Okay, let’s talk motive. We’ve got a blackmail demand for twenty million dollars, so this must be about money, right?’ I shook my head. ‘Wrong. This one’s all about revenge. It’s beautiful really. What’s the one thing that means the most to you, Jasper? And I’ll give you a clue. It’s not your family, and it’s not Eagle Creek.’