It was almost five o’clock when Lydia picked up Mort’s message. She’d had a full day of clients and hadn’t bothered to listen to her voicemails. Mort had asked her to find Allie. Lydia thought his voice betrayed little emotion as she listened again to his brief message, but if he was asking her for a favor, things were heating up. Mort needn’t have worried.
Lydia had already found Allie.
Lydia knew Allie hadn’t played her last card. Mort had told her Allie wanted access to her family, and she had threatened Mort not to stand in the way. While Mort may be viewing the situation through the eyes of a loving father, hopeful that his daughter’s posturing was nothing more than willful bravado, Lydia didn’t suffer from that particular vision problem. Lydia knew Allie. She’d lived with her for weeks as Mort tried to protect her and convince her to work with authorities to bring down the criminal enterprises in which she’d been entangled.
And Allie had played them all. She’d used her father as a safe haven until she could dispose of Patrick Duncan and ally herself with Vadim Tokarev. If, as Mort said Allie had told him, Tokarev was indeed dead, Lydia figured Allie would have had a hand in his demise, also.
Lydia wouldn’t take Allie’s threat lightly. She’d do what she needed to protect Mort and his family. The first step was finding Allie. Then she’d monitor her movements and intervene…before Allie could hurt anyone Mort held dear.
Lydia had gone straight to her communication center after returning from Mort’s houseboat. She did a cursory scan of area hotels, checking their electronic reservation systems for anyone traveling on a passport or using an alias that might indicate a room had been reserved for Mort’s daughter. As she’d expected, she found nothing. Allie lived a life of limitless wealth—wealth earned through the pain and deaths of others. As a result, she’d developed tastes far beyond what any five-star hotel could deliver.
Lydia searched destinations catering to the überrich—the most exclusive resorts and inns available. She was looking for somewhere crowned heads would stay. Allie had shown up at the twins’ school. And she’d demanded more and greater access to them. Mort may fear Allie could be anywhere in the world, but Lydia focused her search in a hundred-mile radius of Seattle. Allie would stay near those girls until she got what she came for.
Lydia felt a sizzle of possibility when she came across a discreet posting for the Larchmont. Its Internet description had only one sentence: A private oasis for those with the most discriminating expectations. Lydia clicked on the Web address provided and learned the Larchmont was a compound composed of five individual residences. Each unit was two thousand square feet of secluded luxury located on a massive seaside bluff outside of Steilacoom, a coastal town about ninety minutes south of Seattle. There was no lobby. No common area. Guests were greeted after a gourmet meal in the private dining room of a restaurant off property and led to what would be their home for as long as they were able to pay the ten-thousand-dollar nightly fee. Each villa sat in the middle of its own landscaped acre. Massive cedar and pine trees formed barriers blocking access to the other villas. Walkways meandered along the ocean-side cliff past groomed lawns and expertly tended flower beds. There were private pools and hot tubs. The interior of each villa had been decorated by award-winning designers. The website promised a three-person staff assigned to each unit. The chef, maid, and concierge operated invisibly, with interaction only upon the guest’s request. Dining options were unlimited. Anything the guest desired need only be typed into a console. The website said the same was true for “entertainment options.”
Lydia didn’t have to tax herself to imagine what type of entertainment might interest a person willing to spend ten thousand dollars to have it privately provided.
She perused photographs of cedar-and-glass interiors; wide, tree-shaded outdoor decks; and rolling lush lawns. There were no testimonials. No star assignments from previous guests. That would break the Larchmont’s dedication to absolute privacy. This was the type of place that would thrive on referral. One one-percenter to another. No need for advertising.
Just the type of place that would appeal to Allison Grant.
The Larchmont’s electronic reservation system would have been firewalled from most computers, but Lydia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars keeping her equipment superior to most governments’. She’d needed it when The Fixer was active and the fees she’d garnered from that work made it an easily affordable business expense. Lydia secured equipment stronger than local police so she could enter the system of whatever jurisdiction had hosted her last fix and learn what the authorities were thinking. Though The Fixer had been dormant for nearly three years now, Lydia never regretted the under-the-table payments she’d made to the brightest freelancing programmers in the Pacific Northwest. It was an investment she made to keep her computing and communication system generations ahead of what was available to even the most sophisticated private user.
She was into the Larchmont’s system in less than ten seconds, able to verify all five villas were currently occupied. Lydia glanced down the list of reservations, well aware they’d likely all be aliases. The name assigned to Villa Four leapt out at her.
Edith Roberts. Bingo. Allie had used her mother and brother’s first names to reserve her sanctuary.
Lydia entered into the computer file for “Ms. Roberts” and learned the woman had checked in two days earlier—ample time to get settled before the twins’ soccer game. She’d ordered a king crab omelet for her first breakfast. Two cases of Adelsheim Cabernet had been delivered. She’d called for a masseuse one afternoon and arranged to have a hairstylist arrive at her villa each morning at seven. No one was staying with her, but she’d booked accommodations for her driver at a hotel a half mile away. She’d requested he have full access to her villa twenty-four hours a day. The Larchmont had provided an E-Class Mercedes sedan, Washington license plate LR 7.
Edith Roberts had paid in advance for seven days’ stay.
Allie would be within forty-five minutes of Mort’s granddaughters until next Tuesday. Lydia considered what that might mean to Mort’s family as she clicked through the rest of Allie’s requests. Her search stopped on the screen at the special request Allie had made for her day of departure.
A private jet was to be waiting for her at an airstrip south of Seattle. Edith Robert’s reservation showed the jet needed cabin room for four and have the capability of long-range flight. She’d inform the pilot of their destination two hours prior to takeoff.
Lydia gathered all that information. Now, as she backed her car out of the parking lot of the building housing her private practice, she was thoughtful. How much should she tell Mort? He’d asked her to find his daughter. He knew she could do it. Lydia wouldn’t be able to lie to him about that. But did she want to tell Mort all she knew about Allie’s whereabouts and the terrifying indications of her future plans? Anything Lydia shared with Mort would limit her. He’d want to follow up on his own, in a way that conformed to both the law and Mort’s own code of ethics.
Allie had her own code. She played in her own arena with her own set of rules, and cared nothing about the law. Lydia would need to meet her as an equal in that arena if she was to protect Mort and his family. Fortunately it was a playing field The Fixer knew well.
Lydia wrestled with what to tell Mort as she drove north on Capitol Boulevard toward downtown Olympia and the cutoff that would take her out to Dana Passage and home. Traffic was heavy as she inched her Volvo from one block to the next, stymied by state workers released from dozens of buildings on the capital campus, eager to start their evening. A light rain fell, slowing progress even more. Lydia listened to the syncopated rhythm of the wiper blades and hoped the rain didn’t signal the beginning of a long, wet season. It was still September. She wasn’t ready for the gloom that was sure to come with the advent of fall and winter.
Bane & Friends was a block ahead on her right. She wished traffic would lighten enough to allow her to drive past without lingering long enough to tempt her to look inside the coffee shop with its wide windows fronting Capitol Boulevard. She missed the place. There was a time when the hardwood floors, mismatched furniture, and tin ceiling was a much-enjoyed part of her daily ritual. Her morning latte with honey had been the perfect start to her going-to-work routine.
She didn’t go to Bane & Friends anymore. Not since the shop’s owner, the shaggy-haired, brilliant, wry, former deputy state’s attorney Oliver Bane, had fallen in love with her. She’d cared for him. Oliver had been the first person Lydia had dared to allow to get close. Their time together made her wonder if she could actually be happy someday. But wondering is all it could ever be for someone with her past.
Oliver was a rare breed. A good-to-the-bone, well-educated, upright guy who truly believed he could make a change in the world. When he realized operating within the state’s attorney’s office meant perpetuating the same system that provided one level of justice for the rich and quite another for those unable to pay, he stepped away from a path that would have surely led him to the attorney general’s chair. Oliver never allowed cynicism to rot his gut. He quit his job and bought the coffee shop and promised he’d still be caring for people, just in a more direct and honest way.
“Never underestimate the healing magic of a perfect cup of coffee,” Lydia remembered him saying.
He wanted more from her than she could give. A real relationship. One with a future. She had to end things. After she’d been shot, when Mort knew she was The Fixer and the protective walls she’d built came crashing down, she’d been forced to see herself for who she was. An assassin. A killer. She may have deluded herself into thinking she’d been an agent of justice, but months in rehab recovering from a bullet to her skull brought everything into sharp focus.
She was an outlaw. An outcast. A woman with too much blood on her hands to ever lace fingers with a man like Oliver Bane.
He didn’t understand. Lydia couldn’t tell him the truth. Mort was the only one who knew her as she was. The rest of the world saw only whom she wanted them to see. Some saw a talented psychologist. Others saw a civil but distant colleague.
She struggled every day not to show anyone The Fixer side of herself. Not even to anyone who’d used their money, influence, or sheer guile to slip away from what was due them.
In the end she’d needed to be cruel to Oliver. He’d have to hate her. She needed to ensure he would never come near the woman she’d been. The woman who—despite all of Mort’s kind words of promise and hope—she always would be.
Lydia’s car was now a half block from Oliver’s shop. She lied to herself and vowed not to look in. Not to warm her eyes and break her heart by seeing him smile in that comforting way at the next person stepping up to the counter. But like an addict passing a dealer, she knew she’d torture herself with one long glance inside the shop. She shifted her gaze from the rainy, congested road and glanced toward Bane & Friends.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She saw it. There. The second car from the corner. A bronze-colored Mercedes E-Class sedan. Washington license plate LR 7.
Lydia glanced up Capitol Boulevard. Dozens of people walked along the sidewalk, some quickly, holding newspapers or purses over their heads, others with faces hidden beneath umbrellas. She craned her neck to look behind her and saw a similar collection of people hurrying in and out of shops, trying to avoid the rain.
None had the regal bearing of Allie Grant.
She could be anywhere. But in a heartbeat she knew where Allie was. While the stores and restaurants along Olympia’s main thoroughfare were charming, none of them held the merchandise or culinary enticements that would interest a woman like Allie.
Traffic jerked forward and Lydia was alongside the bronze Mercedes. A giant man, broad-shouldered and blond, sat behind the wheel. He was staring straight ahead. Lydia recalled that Allie had arranged for a driver to have full access to her Larchmont villa.
Lydia inched ahead another two car lengths. She was directly in front of Bane & Friends now. The passenger side window of her Volvo was covered with drops. She pressed a button to lower it and peered through the rain.
Allie was inside the coffee shop. Her sandy hair was pulled back into a sophisticated ponytail. She wore a trench coat. She seemed to be reading the tall chalkboards mounted behind the counter, as if trying to decide what type of treat would chase away the dinginess of a rainy afternoon.
Lydia watched as Oliver turned toward Allie. He ran a hand through his unruly hair, a habit Lydia had always found endearing. She saw his lips move. Then she saw him laugh and turn to point toward the chalkboards. Allie stepped closer to him. She extended her hand in greeting. Oliver took it, and smiled. Even from that distance, Lydia could read his lips.
I’m Oliver. Lydia watched him open his arms wide. This is my place.
A surge of heat flooded her. An urge to protect the man she’d hurt so badly. She glanced to her right and left. She was blocked by cars crawling forward. For an absurd moment she considered abandoning her vehicle and running into the coffee shop. She glanced back to the driver in Allie’s Mercedes. He hadn’t moved.
A horn behind her blared.
Lydia had just enough time to glance back before moving forward. Oliver was escorting the smiling Allie to a table near the front of the shop.
Lydia banged her hand against the steering wheel and pulled ahead. She wound her way through traffic, and eleven minutes later turned into her driveway. She turned off her ignition. The engine died, yet Lydia felt no easing in the rumbling inside her. She grabbed her phone and sent Mort a one-line text.
I’m on it.
She’d spoken to Mort. He’d been at Robbie and Claire’s for dinner, trying to calm them after what had happened at the twins’ school that morning. His son and daughter-in-law were trying to find a delicate balance with the girls. They wanted them to appreciate the need to steer clear of Allie, but they didn’t want to inspire any fear or anxiety.
“Hayden seems to get it,” Mort told Lydia. “At least as far as obeying the rules. She still has a lot of questions about why we don’t want them near their aunt. Hadley’s another story, though. She sees Allie as a fairy tale come to life. Eager to get to know her glamorous new family member.”
Lydia had promised she’d do what she could. She told him she was certain Allie was still in the United States, making up a story about checking with Homeland Security and passport tracking. She didn’t tell him she already knew where Allie was staying, how long she’d planned to be there, or that she’d ordered a plane with room to carry four people when she checked out.
And she certainly didn’t mention she had seen her in Oliver Bane’s coffee shop earlier that evening.
By nine thirty Lydia was settled in her living room with a glass of merlot. There was nothing more she could do. No more information to gather. She’d monitor Allie’s movements and plan her actions accordingly.
Then the living room lights dimmed, just for an instant.
To anyone in the room or viewing from outside Lydia’s house, it would have looked like an everyday energy dip. But Lydia had wired her home to be totally self-contained for electric power. Her system ran parallel generators with instant backup. Her computer and communication systems demanded it.
So did her safety.
When she’d worked with the electrical contractors, she’d arranged the subtle dimming of the lights as a signal that someone was approaching down her drive. She’d told the team of electricians she planned to entertain often and wanted a way to know when guests were arriving without disturbing whoever might already be in attendance. They chalked it up, she was certain, to the quirkiness of their client. But as long as she was paying top dollar, they’d indulged her.
They’d never need to know that Lydia would be warned someone was coming. She could have arranged for an alarm to sound, but then whoever was approaching would know she’d been alerted.
Lydia much preferred the element of surprise.
She rose from the sofa, leaving her glass of wine on the coffee table, and walked to the front entry. She stopped at the credenza there and pulled a Beretta from the drawer. Lydia didn’t need to look at the gun. Her weekly checks of all the weapons scattered in hiding places throughout her home assured her the pistol was clean and loaded. She clicked off the safety as she stepped toward her locked front door and peered out of the small side window. The earlier rain had stopped, giving her a clear view.
The bronze Mercedes had stopped in front of her house. The massive size of the driver was evident as the giant man unfolded himself from the front seat, stepped around to open the rear door, then held out his hand to guide a slender woman out of the sedan.
Allie Grant was exquisite. The ponytail Lydia had seen earlier was gone. Instead, Allie’s golden hair, styled in a blunt-cut cascade, fell unbound to just below her shoulders. Her unbuttoned trench coat covered a camel pencil skirt and white silk blouse. Brown leather heels and handbag completed her ensemble. Mort’s daughter had mirrored Grace Kelly’s elegance.
No one would imagine she’d been the lover of two of the most deadly men on the planet.
Lydia reengaged the Beretta’s safety and tucked the gun in the back of her yoga pants. She fluffed her T-shirt to cover any bulge the revolver made and opened the door before Allie had the chance to knock. For a moment, the two women stared at each other. It was Allie who smiled first.
“It’s good to see you, Lydia.” Allie looked to her left and right. “I’m glad you haven’t moved. I’d hate to have been this close to the woman who saved my life and not been able to stop by to offer my gratitude. I apologize for the late hour. I was actually going to stop by earlier, but I got to Olympia during work hours. I figured you’d still be doing whatever it is you do in your therapy office, so I stopped instead for a cup of coffee.” She paused, lowering her eyes. “I met a very nice man and, well, you could just say one thing led to another.” She looked up at Lydia, as though expecting some words of welcome. “May I come in?”
Lydia looked beyond her to the tall, powerful man standing next to Allie’s car. Though the rain had stopped, the damp night air hinted it may resume at any time. “Is your friend coming, too?”
“Staz?” Allie took one step closer to Lydia. “No. He’ll stay out here. I’m sorry for dropping by unannounced. I’ve been in the area a few days and wanted to make certain I saw you.” She leaned forward and looked down Lydia’s entryway. “You’re alone, of course. Like always?”
Lydia didn’t reply. Instead, she stepped aside and let Allie pass. A whispered scent of roses trailed in Allie’s wake. Lydia gave another look toward the man standing motionless beside the Mercedes. Then she closed and locked the door.
Allie looked surprised. “That’s not necessary,” she said.
Lydia walked down her entry hall toward where Allie stood in the living room. “What isn’t?”
“Locking the door.” Allie slipped out of her trench coat and draped it over the arm of the sofa. “No one’s here to harm you. But if I wanted Staz to come inside, surely you know no lock would stop him.” She pointed to the wineglass on the table. “Do you have a glass for me? Merlot is your drink, if I recall. Never the highest quality, but always a very good label. Am I right?”
“Why are you here, Allie?”
Allie ignored her question. Instead, she took her time surveying the room. “Your home is as lovely as ever. You have excellent taste.” She nodded toward the large bank of windows. “Sadly, the sun has left us. I’ve been all around the world and I have to say, your view here rivals the best I’ve experienced. I would love to have seen it again.”
“The last time you were here you had a helicopter’s view.” Lydia resumed her spot on the sofa and pointed an invitation to the chair next to it.
“That was a dark night, too.” Allie sat and crossed her long legs at the knee. “But let’s not dwell on the past. You were kind to me, Lydia. When Daddy brought me here, you didn’t need to take me in, but you did. I’ll always be grateful for that. It was a very difficult period in my life.”
Lydia was impressed with how lightly Allie characterized that time. Her manipulation of Lydia could have resulted in both their deaths. And her betrayal of her lover, her father, her brother, and several federal and international law enforcement agencies was near biblical in scope.
“What do you want, Allie?” Lydia asked again. “Why are you here?”
Allie tilted her head, her blue eyes wide and soft. She spoke in the timid voice of a vulnerable child. “Do you have so many friends that you can be cold to the person who only wants to thank you for your generosity?” She glanced down at her hands. “I know I don’t. I was hoping we could talk. If only for a short while. I’d love to hear stories of Mort Grant and that houseboat of his. Has he taken up fishing?”
Lydia felt like she was back in her office, evaluating a patient who had so lost touch with reality she was living in a world of her own design. A world in which she could make small talk with a woman she’d arranged to have assaulted about a man she’d tried her best to destroy.
“Really, Allie? You’ve come all this way to have a chat with me?”
Allie met Lydia’s incredulous stare with warm, pleading eyes. “Would that be so difficult to believe? A pleasant conversation about simple matters sounds very appealing to me. My work takes me to so many places. It doesn’t allow much time for friendships.”
“I can imagine. International crime doesn’t allow you to stay in one place very long, does it?” Lydia almost regretted the cruelty in her tone.
Allie rested one hand over the other, staring down at them for several moments. When she lifted her eyes back toward Lydia, her voice was quiet but direct. “You seem to have found a way.”
Lydia’s breath quickened at the reference to her life as The Fixer. Allie had made the connection during her time living under Lydia’s protection. It hadn’t taken long for Allie to come to the realization that Lydia, her father’s mysterious new friend, was indeed The Fixer her father had been hunting the year before.
“Why are you here, Allie?” Lydia forced herself to remain calm.
Allie heaved a heavy sigh. “Once again, I need your help.”
Lydia was again struck with Allie’s ability to overlook her previous abuse of everyone who had tried so hard to protect her. She pushed away the instinct to consider various diagnoses that might explain her obvious expectation that despite all the chaos she’d rained down on everyone who loved her, Lydia would stand ready to help her again.
“What is it you want?”
Allie sighed softly, as though steeling herself to make the request. “I’m asking for your support as I try to reestablish a relationship with my family. I pose no threat to anyone. I need you to let my father know that.”
Lydia studied her and contemplated the epic audacity of the woman seated several feet from her. “How in the world do you expect me to do that?”
Allie’s smile was hopeful. “You’re the only one who can. I haven’t been the daughter of Mort Grant’s dreams. How’s that for an understatement? The last time we visited, I used him. I’ll admit that. I told him many lies, and those lies led him to lose face with his colleagues. As such, it’s highly unlikely my father would believe me when I tell him the truth. And the truth is that I miss my family. I want us to be close again. But he would believe you. In many ways, you’re the daughter he deserves.” She paused. “He loves you.”
Lydia balked at her description of Mort’s feelings for her. “He’s seen the video, Allie. The video of that little girl’s death. The death you ordered.”
Allie was silent for several moments. Lydia waited to see if she’d offer a denial or feign ignorance of the crime all together. But what Allie finally said stunned her.
“That girl was Chris Novak’s daughter.” Allie’s voice was as calm as if she was describing the weather she’d encountered on her drive to Lydia’s home. “Chris was the local manager of an operation under my control.”
“Your father told me about the prostitution ring you ran. He knows everything.”
Lydia wasn’t sure if the flash she glimpsed in Allie’s eyes was shame or rage. It disappeared too swiftly for further assessment. “Then he knows Chris was using the women in my employ as sacrifices in snuff films. It was an enterprise I did not, nor would ever, condone. Young women died as a result of Chris’s behavior. I demanded he stop on more than one occasion. Each time he ignored me. I couldn’t allow innocent women to continue to be killed. I had to do something to stop it.” She gave Lydia a firm, unwavering stare. “You would have done the same.”
Lydia steeled herself again at Allie’s reference to The Fixer’s activities. She was right. Lydia would have done something to stop those snuff films from continuing. But she never would have harmed an innocent in order to stop the guilty. Allie didn’t know that Delbe Jensen, the last of Allie’s “employees” killed, had been a patient of Lydia’s. And no one knew she had done something to ensure the man behind the snuff films would never make another.
“You know it’s the truth, Lydia.” Allie’s blue eyes softened again. “I miss my family. My work finds me in a position of what some would call power. I…” She paused as though thinking of the right word. “I supervise a great number of people and manage a significant financial enterprise. As you can imagine, people treat me in whatever way they need to to stay on my good side. But that’s not real love.” She looked away for a moment. “I haven’t felt that since Patrick, actually.”
And look how well that turned out for him, Lydia thought. Dead at the hands of a murderer you sent. A murderer you then took as a lover.
“I have a lot to offer my family,” said Allie, justifying her outrageous request. “Financial security. Travel. Access to a world they’d never be able to experience without me standing next to them.”
For an instant, Lydia felt sympathy for Allie. They were alike in some ways. Both lived in a dangerous and lonely world. Both had constructed that world based on their own decisions and behaviors.
But I’m not like you, Allie. I don’t hurt for personal gain. I don’t hurt for sport. Lydia looked around her exquisite home, then shook her head at her own hypocrisy.
“I can’t do it, Allie.” Lydia kept her voice level. She understood she was in no position to judge. “What’s going on between you and your father has to remain between the two of you. Talk to Mort. Tell him your plans. Tell him what you need and listen, really listen, to what he needs from you. He loves you, Allie. Despite everything, I know he does.”
“You’re saying no, then.” Allie stood and took her trench coat from the sofa’s arm.
Lydia stood, too. She nodded. “I’m saying I can’t…run interference for you.”
Allie held Lydia’s gaze. She reached into the pocket of her trench coat, pulled out a small square box, and handed it to Lydia. Lydia opened it and bit her bottom lip to keep from reaching behind her back for the Beretta. She’d seen the medal nestled in the box before.
It belonged to Oliver Bane.
Lydia felt the memories rush over her. She’d seen the medal in Oliver’s house. He’d been awarded it years earlier by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs for his work in successfully prosecuting a statewide cartel of meth producers. It was a prized possession of his—a reminder that sometimes, just maybe, the good guys could win.
“This is from that fellow I met,” Allie told her. “He owns a coffee shop I stopped in this afternoon. He is such a dear. And so eager to tell this newcomer to his city all the spots I needed to visit.” Her smile lingered. “It didn’t take much to convince him the first spot this lonely visitor needed to see was his home. And, like I said, one thing led to another. His lovemaking left something to be desired by way of technique, but still…he seemed so genuine and was sweet afterward. Promised to buy breakfast if I stayed the night. But, of course, I needed to come see you. So I tucked him in, kissed that adorable mop of hair, and left him to dream of me. I don’t know what possessed me to pick this up on my way out. Maybe you could find a way to get it back to him?”
Allie walked toward the front door, then turned.
“Please reconsider, Lydia. A word of support from you would go a long way toward helping me heal my relationship with my family.” Allie tilted her beautiful head and smiled. Her tone was playful as she made one last attempt to charm. “You know me: I always find a way to get what I want. You might as well just give in now.”
Lydia watched from her doorway as the luxury sedan carried its elegant passenger back down the long driveway. When she saw the rear lights turn right on Island View Drive, she closed and locked the door.
Then she threw Oliver’s medal against the far wall.