Chapter 21

 

The sharp spray of water from the showerhead stung Sarah’s face and scalp. With her eyes closed, she welcomed the warm needles pricking her skin as she tried to sort out the jumble of plans forming in her mind.

It was already Sunday morning, and she had to think of something to wear to the memorial service without being recognized as herself. A tall order.

But more than what she was going to wear and how she could disguise her looks, the information Owen had brought out of his meeting with Jake Gantley yesterday was preying on Sarah’s mind. There had been two people who’d wanted her dead.

One hired killer thought he had succeeded, and the second hit man had proceeded to finish the job according to his client’s directions—if Jake Gantley was to be believed.

The one who’d actually killed Tori had been looking for something that they’d obviously not found. The second killer’s objective had been to set up Judge Arnold. That had been a success.

And if they both found out that she was alive, then the attack on the road on her first night back from Ireland, and then the second attempt in the Van Horn mansion, followed logically.

What it came down to was the same thing. Both people wanted her dead—but for different reasons.

Sarah shivered at the thought of how unimportant her life was to these people. And not just her life. Andrew and Tracy Warner’s. Tori’s. Hal’s. How insignificant life could be.

She took a deep breath, horrified to think that the person who’d contracted Jake was someone that she must know. A friend of the Van Horn family…someone in the immediate circle. She knew all of them, had met them, socialized with them—thought of herself as being accepted by them. What a fool she’d been.

The sound of the shower door opening startled her…and then Owen stepped in. She shivered at the touch of Owen’s hand running down her wet back. She saw him reach around her for the soap and in a moment was lathering her slippery skin. She leaned her forehead against the tiles and felt his body press near.

“I was getting worried that you weren’t going to leave me any hot water.”

She turned in his arms and smiled as her gaze traveled down his wet and naked body. “I think a cold shower is all you need.”

“I’ll show you what I need.”

As they made love in the shower, Sarah basked in the glow of their passion—in Owen’s ability to freeze time and shut out all that was threatening.

 

~~~~

 

“Tomorrow could be the big day,” Owen said later pensively. “Scott Rosen will be returning those files to the office, and you’ll find whatever it is that’s at the bottom of all this.”

“And by tomorrow, I might finally get hold of Frankie O’Neal. Then we can get Jake to give us a name.”

He’d refused to tell her how much money Jake wanted for the information. He would only tell her that it was a bargain. Sarah was indebted in more ways than she could ever repay for all that Owen was doing. If she survived this ordeal, she would see that the payback was extensive.

“It’s pretty clear that the motivation for each attack was different. The name that our friend Jake gives us will only lead to the one who wanted to frame the judge. The other—”

“No matter what, we’ll have something significant to take with us to the authorities,” he said. “I’ve already talked to my lawyer in New York about it. He’ll arrange for the right people to meet us at the right time.”

Sarah looked at him for a moment and then nodded. She’d seen him make a number of phone calls over the past few days. Some of the more recent calls had gone out to the hospital, checking on Tracy’s condition. Others, she’d assumed were business-related, and she hadn’t paid close attention. She was not unhappy to know that someone besides the two of them knew what was going on. After all, she and Owen could be murdered at any moment.

Sarah decided on a black, short-sleeved dress that she’d purchased in Dublin for her father’s funeral. She dried her hair in a new style of bangs on her forehead and put on the large sunglasses. She couldn’t tell much difference herself, but Owen assured her that so long as she remained in the background and held a handkerchief to her face to hide her ‘grief,’ she would probably go undiscovered. No one was expecting her there.

They weren’t planning to attend the entire service, anyway. Sarah’s only goal was to poke her head in long enough to get a peek at the people in the front rows and see anything that might jog her memory.

Owen insisted that they might be able to accomplish the same thing from the safety of the street, simply watching the people go in.

She was more willing to take a risk.

He wanted to play it safe and wait for Jake to reveal a name to them.

She had to go for herself and, in a way, for Hal. Despite the differences they might have had, there had been good days between them, too. There had been friendship—understanding of late—even sacrifice. Looking into the mirror, Sarah felt the familiar old guilt stabbing her in the heart. Hal had physically stepped into the path of that knife for her.

“I still think it’s a mistake to go.”

Owen’s arm around her shoulders brought Sarah back to the present. She turned in his arm and took comfort in his embrace. The moments of happiness she was sharing with Owen were so undeserved.

“I have to…”

She pulled back and wiped at the tears that she didn’t even know had escaped. She didn’t want to grieve for Hal in front of him. Owen had put up with enough of her emotional displays. She looked up and down at the dark gray suit, white shirt and the conservative tie.

“This won’t do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t be hanging around you out there…not when you’re looking so dashing.”

“Keep talking like that, honey, and we’re not going anywhere.”

She laughed as his arms wrapped around her. “For all the gossip I’ve read about you over the years, nothing ever mentioned what a flirt you are.”

“That’s because I am not a flirt. Besides, this is not flirting. This is honest, straight-from-the-loins lust.”

They both laughed and then held each other for a long moment.

“None of this seems real.” Sarah said. “You…and me. You wouldn’t believe what a crush I had on you when I was younger.”

“Does this mean you—”

The sound of the phone interrupted his question, and Owen went to answer it. She knew right away that Captain Archer was on the other end.

Sarah listened to the conversation with increasing nervousness.

“Yes….Frankie O’Neal?”

She sat down on the edge of a chair, and Owen looked at her.

“Found dead when?”

Owen ran a hand over his face as if trying to wake himself up. Sarah was too numb even to try to identify how she felt.

“Yes, Captain. That’s right. I did leave him a message. No, wait! I left him two messages, one last night and one this morning.”

Sarah stared at Owen as he began pacing back and forth in the room. She had heard him leaving the vague messages herself. Now the man was dead, and Owen’s voice was the one on his answering machine.

“No, I really don’t know the man, but I visited his cousin, an inmate named Jake Gantley, yesterday at the ACI. Of course…call the Warden directly. Right. It was Gantley’s recommendation that I call Mr. O’Neal.”

While Owen listened to whatever it was that Archer was asking or saying, Sarah wondered if this was it. Well, if Owen decided that enough was enough and revealed everything to Archer, she wouldn’t blame him at all. In fact, she was almost resigned to it.

“Jake Gantley has been communicating with our production company for a while. He has been trying to sell us some stories. Yes, that was why I went to see him. We might be interested in developing some of his work for one of the upcoming seasons.” Owen glanced at Sarah across the room and then walked over and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Gantley instructed me that all the negotiations regarding the writing should be done through his cousin Frankie O’Neal. Right. That’s why I called him.”

Owen paused again for something else that was being said.

“Really…that’s too bad. So he must have been dead before I even talked to his cousin.”

Sarah pressed his hand against her shoulder.

“The letters? Of course…I’ll call my production company on Monday and have them forward them to you immediately.”

There was another pause. “Yes, I’ll be in town for a while. Of course. Call me if you think of anything else.”

Sarah felt Owen’s grip tighten.

“Yes, I heard about the tragedy from Dr. Doyle. Yeah, the dean at Rosecliff. She called me. Yes, I’ve been to the hospital a couple of times already. This morning when I called, everything was still the same. Thank you, Captain….Yes, Andrew was a good friend.”

When Owen finally hung up, Sarah continued to hold on to his hand.

“We need help.” she whispered. “I’ll call Evan Steele. He is a jack-of-all-trades. Security expert. Background checks. Investigations. He’s got to be helping Scott with the judge’s defense. He’ll be able to get me in and out of our offices.”

“He’ll turn you right in.”

She shook her head. “Not if I tell him that I’m turning myself in tomorrow. I’ll explain things to him. I’ve known him, and he’s worked for me and for the judge, for as long as I’ve been in Newport. We worked well together in the past. I know he trusts me.”

“And what would that accomplish,” Owen asked. “Talking to Steele?”

“I’ll get him to let me into the office tomorrow morning. With no clock ticking, I can check through the office thoroughly. Hopefully, Rosen will have returned the files by then. I can go through Linda’s files. I didn’t think of it before, but what if she hadn’t filed everything away, yet.” She felt a knot rise into her throat. “We can’t let someone else die, Owen.”

“This death could be totally unrelated.” Owen pulled Sarah to her feet. “And it sounds like the cops have a history with this guy. In fact, I wouldn’t say that Archer made this sound like a high-priority investigation. Of course, he’s got a pretty full plate these days.”

Sarah shook her head. “I can’t risk it anymore. Please, Owen, let’s not fight over this. I want this thing over and done with. And other than what Jake Gantley knows, whatever I might have displaced from those safe-deposit boxes is my only clue. I’ve got to spend some time in that office.”

She could see in his face the battle that was being fought inside his head. Finally, he nodded.

“Okay. Then do you still want to go to that memorial service?”

“Absolutely. Steele is probably there, anyway.”

“Call him afterwards, Sarah. You can’t make any assumptions what his reaction will be when he sees you alive.”

She agreed. The next twenty-four hours were all that she was giving herself to solve these killings.

Playing it smart, more so than playing it safe, was the name of the game now.

 

~~~~

 

For nearly an hour, Jake Gantley sat without moving on the top bunk. His legs hung over the edge. His back was ramrod straight. Eyes, intense and unblinking, burned the paint off the concrete wall four and a half feet away. Every muscle in his body appeared to be fixed in stone. His hands were fisted in his lap.

His cell mate, Amir, leaned against the stainless steel sink, never looking directly at Jake, but keeping him in his peripheral vision. He’d heard in the yard about Frankie’s adios a good half hour before the warden had called Jake in to break the news. Word traveled fast inside the house, and Amir was feeling very lucky he’d heard before Jake did. There was no telling what a guy as dangerous as his cell mate might do. Now he could keep an eye on him.

There were a lot of people on the inside who’d had dealings with Frankie for one thing or another. He was a decent bookie, fairly honest with money. Frankie even had enough connections that you could generally count on a job or two through him when you needed it. The fat boy had paid his dues with the family in Providence, too—before things started falling apart up there—so the current management now let him operate pretty much free of charge.

And no one fucked with him for one reason…Jake Gantley.

Now, killing Frankie made no sense. The word in the yard was that he was shot in his bed. One cat said he heard it was a family hit out of Providence. Another who was connected there said it must have been the Westies from New York. That made more sense—Amir had heard there was a job that went bad last year, and Frankie’d been fingered to take the blame.

Well, whoever did it, they might as well just kiss their asses goodbye. Amir could see that much in Jake’s face.

Amir ran a hand over his shaved head. He’d been ready for his cell mate to freak out when he got back from talking to the warden. He hazarded a quick look at Jake. Still deadly quiet. There was killing in the eyes. Amir didn’t care to be anywhere near the man, though there wasn’t much to be done about it. It wasn’t that he was scared. It was just that he knew when Jake finally exploded, it’d be blood he was after. And he’d come to like Jake’s wise-ass, mouthy attitude too much. He sure as hell didn’t want to kill him.

One of the guards came by the barred door, and Amir watched as Jake jumped down from the bunk to go and talk to him. He knew the man and Jake were running a deal.

Strange, Amir thought, that Jake did nothing to hide what he was telling the guard. No whispering. No nothing. Not cool. He looked past them. He could see the two brothers directly across watching. Definitely, not cool.

“Call this number for me. Tell the guy who answers to come and see me this afternoon. Tell him I’ll have his scoop for him. Tell him, never mind the favor I asked for yesterday. Tell him, it has to be this afternoon. Get it?”

“How about if nobody answers?”

“Leave a message. Call back again if you have to. Don’t you know how to act like a fucking secretary?”

“Hey, easy does it, Jake. What’s his name?”

“Owen Dean,” Jake answered.

Amir could see how impressed the guard looked. “You know him?”

“Jump on this, and I’ll get him to autograph a picture for your wife. Now get moving, I need to get this show on the road.”