It was hungry work, dealing with Jimmy Sawyer. Astrid didn’t know if there would be anything to eat at Moore’s place, so she stopped at a burger joint on the way and got takeaway for her and Rosie. She’d eaten half of the fries by the time she pulled up outside the apartment.
She expected zero police presence, and that’s what she found. She strode up and knocked on the door. After a minute with no answer, she tried the handle and found it unlocked. She pushed it open and peered inside.
There was no sign of Rosie.
Astrid went in and a deep sadness swept through her as she closed the door; stepping into a dead man’s life was never a good thing. The apartment looked the same as it had when she’d left not so long ago. The used beer bottles still stood on top of the sink.
‘Rosie, are you here?’
She placed the food on the table and checked the rooms, finding the apartment empty. There was also no sign of the key she’d given Sawyer.
Did Rosie even make it here? Perhaps the police left the door unlocked when they finished.
Astrid slumped into the sofa where she’d slept, and been attacked, not so long ago. She bit into a burger and switched on the TV. She flicked through the channels, looking for news on events at the Campbell house, but finding nothing. Apart from the latest update on the annual eating competition, it was wall-to-wall talking heads about the President visiting their little town, and how privileged they were he was stopping in Bakerstown first on his impromptu trip across America.
She moved past the local news channels and settled on CNN. A handsome man with short grey hair and dark glasses was speaking to his guests about the President’s tour and its relation to his decision to bring American troops home. The experts examined any links to the recent cyber-attacks, but nobody appeared to have any answers apart from blaming the usual suspects. She found it curious all of them assumed the attacks came from outside the country, and nobody considered it might have been internal.
She listened to their conversation as she ate, wondering where Rosie was and how she’d get Eleanor away from Benedict Sawyer.
Why not wait the three days like he warned me to?
The question went in and out of her head like the tide as she finished the burger and stared at the screen. Something the people on the TV kept saying nagged at her, but she couldn’t quite work out what it was because of all the other noises consuming her mind. And then a familiar sound brought her into the present.
She stood and went into the kitchen, a vision of Jim Moore cooking her food still lingering there. Then the noise came again, and she followed it to a drawer near the sink. When she opened it, she got the shock of her life. She pressed on the screen and saw the message from her sister. Relief surged through her when she read it.
It’s all okay. The police are handling everything.
Before she could think about how the phone Caitlin Cruz had stolen from her had ended up in Jim Moore’s kitchen, she heard footsteps behind her.
‘I got pizzas, but it looks like you’ve already eaten.’
Astrid slipped the mobile into her pocket. ‘I thought you’d be here when I arrived, Rosie.’
Rosie dumped the pizza boxes onto the table and threw her arms around Astrid. ‘Thank God you’re okay.’ She removed her grip from Astrid’s hips. ‘What happened to my brother?’
Astrid moved away from her. ‘You don’t need to worry about him.’
If Rosie heard the chill in her voice, it didn’t appear to bother her.
‘I know, but...’
‘But what?’
Rosie ran a finger through a stray hair and pulled on it. ‘I can’t go back home, not after what I’ve done.’ Her gaze cut right through Astrid. ‘So I thought I’d leave town with you.’
Astrid didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So she did neither. She twisted her hip to the side, catching the phone against her leg and understanding how it got from Caitlin Cruz and into Detective Jim Moore’s kitchen drawer. In the other room, she heard the TV talking heads speaking about the presidential tour, and some rusted cogs in her head started moving again.
‘You told me you knew nothing about your father’s businesses, but I don’t believe you, Rosie. I need you to tell me the truth now.’
Sawyer took a step back, and Astrid watched her chest rise and fall.
‘Of course.’
Astrid went to the window to make sure no one had followed Rosie.
‘Your father wants to extend his empire beyond this small town, doesn’t he? He’s planned this for a long time.’
Rosie’s cold expression sent a chill through the room.
‘It’s not just him. There’s a group who’ve been planning something big for ages. Until you came along and worried them.’
Astrid remembered the barman at the back of the Ranch House throwing barrels of beer down the drain and claiming it was out of date.
‘This has nothing to do with poisoned alcohol, does it?’
Rosie’s eyes widened as if she was a child caught being naughty.
‘No.’
‘Was there an accident at the brewery?’
‘Yes, as far as I can tell. It was negligence by the management, so they covered that up.’
‘But that wasn’t why Jimmy killed Caitlin, was it?’
‘No. It’s something to do with the President, but I’m not sure what.’
Astrid stitched together the bits she’d heard on the TV and finding her phone in the kitchen.
‘So Caitlin Cruz discovered this secret, and somehow your father found out what she knew. Then your brother threatened to kill her children if she didn’t do what they said. That’s what he was telling her in the Ranch House the night I was there. She would have agreed at first, what mother wouldn’t, but when she realised the consequences of what they were planning, she refused. Then she bumped into me and whispered in my ear.’
That missing memory had returned to her when she was watching the TV just before she found her phone and Rosie arrived.
‘What did she say to you?’ Sawyer asked.
The sight and sound of that night were vivid in her head, as if she was back there again before all the mayhem started and the bodies began piling up.
‘“I won’t be the Oswald,” that’s what she said. I couldn’t remember those last words because they didn’t make any sense to my brain.’
Confusion gripped Rosie’s face. ‘They make little sense to me, either. What’s an Oswald?’
Astrid’s hunger returned in a rush. She moved to the table, opened a pizza box, and found chunks of pineapple all over the top. She grimaced, pushed it to the side and hoped for better on the next one. The smell of barbecue chicken made her smile as she warmed her fingers on a slice. Bits of it clung to her lips as she took a bite and answered Rosie’s question.
‘Your father and his cronies are going to kill the President.’
‘Fuck!’ Rosie grabbed at her throat, and for a second, Astrid thought she’d throw up. ‘Is there any booze here?’
Astrid nodded towards the living room. ‘Jim had a bunch of bottles in there. Find what you like and pour me a large bourbon, and I’ll bring the pizzas through.’
They were gathering around the coffee table to eat and drink when Rosie asked another question.
‘Why would my father and some fundamentalist right-wingers want to get rid of a conservative President, especially when he’s about to pull US troops from the Middle East?’
The bourbon warmed Astrid’s throat. ‘I was trained in the Agency to analyse situations like this, but none of it makes sense. How and why would your father assassinate the President?’
Rosie wiped pineapple from her chin. ‘My father is a law unto himself. I only learn about his secrets if I’m lucky enough to overhear him on the phone. He hates computers and doesn’t use the internet or email. The only thing I know is he always plans his projects three or four steps ahead.’
‘Like ensuring Robbie Campbell was in the Secret Service and knew the exact itinerary for the presidential tour a year in advance.’
‘But how did he know he’d come here first?’
‘I’m sure if we checked through your father’s financial affairs, we’d find a substantial contribution to that first presidential campaign. This is just the Commander-in-Chief paying off his debt.’
Rosie glanced over the dead man’s things. ‘What about Detective Moore? What part did he play in this?’
Astrid sighed, remembering the kindness he’d shown her in this room. And then she felt the phone sticking into her hip; at least he’d charged it for her.
‘Moore played the most important part of anyone. When your father had Caitlin murdered, he needed a false trail to throw the honest law enforcement off. So Detective Moore put those numbers in her and the kid’s mouths. The human trafficking website is genuine and is probably run by one of your father’s competitors. So they got two birds with one stone: a competitor shut down, plus the police and the FBI with their hands full for months, even years to come. Me being there was just an unhappy accident.’ Electric pain stabbed at her gut as she remembered Jimmy Sawyer bragging about how he’d killed Caitlin’s children because he’d heard her talking in the kitchen about Courtney and Olivia. ‘But they didn’t count on one thing.’
‘Which was what?’
Astrid reached across and picked up the photo of Jim and his wife.
‘He tried to tell me the night I was here, but my brain was still mush. I guess he believed he couldn’t take any chances. The Police Chief had to be in on it, or it wouldn’t have worked putting the squeeze on Moore. And the best way to squeeze someone is to apply pressure on the people they love the most.’
‘I thought he was divorced?’
‘Not divorced, separated, but he still loved her, and they had a daughter. I’d bet good money on your father having threatened them, and making sure Moore was aware of it.’ Just like he did with Olivia and me. ‘Moore tried to tell me that night. He kept going on about sacrificing everything you have for those you love, about doing anything to protect them and keep them safe. He said people would give up all their ethics and principles to defend who they loved the most, would even sacrifice the many to save them.’
She put the photo back and felt like smacking her head against the wall.
How could I have been so blind and deaf?
‘I understand why my father needed to control him and the rest of the police, but not why you say he’s so important.’
‘Because if it weren’t for Jim, I wouldn’t be here now. He framed me for those murders; he placed my passport at the crime scene. It was Moore who pitted me against your father.’
And she’d only realised it when she found what was inside his kitchen drawer.
‘What?’ Rosie looked confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘The closer they got to the end of this plan, the more the decent people resisted. Not only was Caitlin killed when she changed her mind, but her kids were, too. Moore wanted out as well. He wasn’t afraid for his own life, just for his wife and daughter. And then I stumbled into town and got drunk.’
‘What do you mean about Caitlin changing her mind?’
Astrid finished her bourbon. ‘I was too ready to believe the fiction of her being an investigative journalist, my brain too mixed up to remember what she said to me until now. But she would only perceive herself as Lee Harvey Oswald if she was to kill the President.’
‘When he arrives at my father’s mansion?’
‘It has to be. He has a reputation as a womaniser, someone who wouldn’t turn down a night with a woman when he’s away from the public eye. That woman was to be Caitlin Cruz.’
‘Why would she do something so terrible?’
‘Benedict threatened her kids, and what mother wouldn’t do anything to protect her children? Even murder a President.’
‘But she changed her mind.’
‘She knew too much, so she had to die, and your father tasked your brother to do it.’
And he got me involved in this, him and Detective Moore.
‘How do you know Moore was part of this?’
Astrid reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
‘I always wondered what happened to this. Why wasn’t this planted near Caitlin’s body and my passport? It would have been more evidence against me. When Jim questioned me in the cell, I gave him the number of my boss at the Agency, but he kept making excuses about not getting through. I ignored it at the time because I didn’t want the Agency’s help. I only realise now he must have gone through the phone when I was arrested and unconscious in jail. There are only two numbers on there: my sister’s and my former boss’s. Moore must have spoken to him, and my former boss explained who I was and told him I worked for British Intelligence. Then it went boom in his head, and all the gears fell into place.’
The penny dropped for Rosie Sawyer. ‘You were his way out?’
‘Exactly. A way out from under your father’s thumb, a way to save the President and a way to protect his wife and child. What he didn’t expect was Chief Colt’s determination to prove me guilty.’ She stared at the photo of Moore and his wife. ‘His desperation left him putting all his trust in me.’
‘He assumed you’d want to find who framed you.’
‘He must have done, assuming any normal person would need to clear their name, never mind someone he probably thought was a female James Bond.’
Rosie laughed. ‘And he was right.’
Astrid shook her head. ‘But he wasn’t. I didn’t care. I was out of jail and just wanted to get out of town. People have framed me for murder before; this was nothing new to me. If your father had left things alone, I would’ve departed days ago.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rosie sounded disappointed by the thought of it.
‘I was going to leave here when the police discovered the bodies at the cabin. I believe your father was trying to confuse the issue, getting the authorities looking in different directions. He had those two people murdered to make it look like the work of the Cruz family’s killer; it was all part of his distraction, one which would lead to that trafficking website. And your brother killed the guy who set that up and tried to frame me for it. He didn’t need to do that because I would’ve left soon enough. Even the cyber-attacks helped him. Then he sped up things with the home invasion here and at Campbell’s house.’
‘When he tried to kill you twice?’
Astrid smiled at her. ‘That’s what I thought, but they weren’t attempts on my life; he was getting rid of loose ends.’
Sawyer narrowed her eyes in apparent confusion. Astrid glanced around the room and remembered the time she’d spent talking to Jim; how he’d cooked for them, and they’d spoken about music.
‘Jim told me everyone at the station knew he’d been sleeping on the sofa for weeks. I’m guessing your father owns all the apartments on this block and doubtless has spare keys for each of them. He sent someone to strangle Moore that night. Unfortunately for them and your old man, they found me on the couch.’
‘What about the attack on the Campbell place?’
‘They weren’t after me, probably didn’t even know I was there. It was Robbie Campbell they wanted out of the way, and you don’t send one bloke and some wire to murder a trained Secret Service Agent. But he’d gone back to Washington early, and I was twiddling my fingers on the computer in that house.’
‘No wonder you were pissed.’
‘I was more confused than annoyed. If the FBI had tracked down the people behind the website, I would’ve been more than happy to have left. By the time I discovered the dead hacker, I was royally pissed off, and your brother made it worse.’ He’d paid for his mistakes, and Benedict Sawyer would as well. ‘Your father only has himself to blame for what’s about to come.’
‘How so?’
‘Because if he hadn’t sent you to force me out of the car to the little rendezvous in his vape factory, I still would’ve left town sooner rather than later. Once he threatened my niece, there was no going back.’ She flexed her sore hand as she regained full strength in it. ‘Your father might think he’s a master strategist, but he never planned for me, and I’m the one who will bring his house of cards crashing down around him.’
Rosie took Astrid’s scarred fingers and placed them to her lips. She kissed the entire length of them before reaching up to her face and crushing Astrid’s mouth against her own. They hung like that for an eternity. Rosie was gasping for breath when they parted.
‘There are still a few things I’m unsure about. Who is the new patsy if they assassinate the President, and how does the brief vacuum in political power help my father and his friends? Are they plotting a coup?’
‘I assume your father set the coup in motion a long time ago. You said it yourself, Rosie: he likes to plan way in advance, and in this case, it must have been years in the making.’
She imagined a younger version of Benedict Sawyer sitting around the table with a bunch of similar-minded people, all staring at the pawn they were waiting to play.
As Astrid bit through another slice of pizza, Rosie appeared to understand what her father had planned.
‘You mean…?’
‘It’s the Vice President. He’ll be their puppet.’