Текст книги "The Forgotten"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER

68

“JANE, what the hell are you doing here?”

Griffin Mason stared back at Ryon as she stood on the front stoop of his cottage near Choctawhatchee Bay. He was dressed in a robe and his hair was disheveled.

“Actually, it’s a threesome,” said Puller as he appeared on the right of Ryon while Carson appeared on the left of the woman.

Mason paled as he looked at the pair.

Puller said, “We need to come in and talk.”

He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “This isn’t a good time.”

Before he could look back he was being propelled into the house by a hard shove from Puller. His robe flew open, revealing his naked body.

“I didn’t say it was a request,” said Puller as he stood over Mason, who had ended up on his back on the floor.

“Where are they?” Puller demanded.

“Where is who?” yelled Mason.

Puller grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him to his feet. “The kids,” he barked. “Where are they?”

“What kids?”

“Diego and Mateo.”

Carson glanced sharply at him.

Puller eyed her. “It occurred to me on the way over. This jerk-off can afford a thousand bucks to buy a kid.”

They all heard a noise from the next room. Puller raced to the door and threw it open.

Mason shouted, “Damn it, you can’t go in there.”

“The hell I can’t,” said Puller.

He froze in the doorway as the others joined him.

They all stared into the room.

A bedroom.

Someone was on the bed.

It was not Diego. Or Mateo.

It was Isabel.

And she was naked.

She barely had time to lift the sheet to cover her body.

“Isabel?” said Puller.

She stared back at him, her face a ball of anger. “What the hell is going on, Grif?” she exclaimed, looking over at Mason.

Mason grabbed Puller by the arm and tried to jerk him around, but Puller was so big and strong that Mason merely ended up knocking himself off balance and falling to the floor.

He jumped back up and screamed, “I am going to sue your ass off.”

Puller turned to him. “What is she doing up here?”

“That is none of your damn business,” yelled an apoplectic Mason.

“It is my business,” said Puller. He looked at Isabel. “Are you here voluntarily?”

“Of course I am.”

“Now get your ass out of here,” yelled Mason. “And you better damn well lawyer up. I’m going to own your military pension and every other asset you have, including your aunt’s house.”

“What about the photos of the kids in your wallet?” asked Puller. “The black kid and the Asian?”

“How did you know about them?”

“Who are they?”

“They’re my kids,” exploded Mason.

“What?”

“My ex and I adopted them years ago. They’re both grown now. But I carry their pictures in my wallet from when they were kids. Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

Carson said, “Isabel, how old are you?”

“Sixteen,” she replied automatically.

“Isabel, the truth. It’s something we can find out easily, but it’ll be better coming from you.”

Isabel hesitated and said, “I’m almost sixteen. In a year and a half.”

Puller looked at Mason in disgust. “You’re in bed with a fourteen-year-old?”

“She told me she was sixteen. Check out her rack. She looks eighteen.”

Puller said to Isabel, “How much is he paying you?”

Mason yelled, “I’m not paying her anything. This is not a prostitution thing.”

“Right. She’s just up here screwing an old fat guy because it’s so much cooler than doing the young bucks.”

“He just gives me things,” said Isabel.

“Like what?” asked Carson.

“Don’t say anything, Isabel,” demanded Mason. “They’re just trying to trick you. I’m calling my lawyer.”

“Stat rape is stat rape, Mason,” noted Puller. “Not much of a defense to that.”

Mason took a step back. “Look, we can work this out. It was just a misunderstanding.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re going down either way, stat rape or not.”

“What?” said Mason, looking confused.

“We busted your scam.”

“What scam?”

Puller looked at Ryon and Ryon looked at Mason.

Puller said, “I caught her with the stolen goods. She ratted you out. And now we know how an estates lawyer can afford an Aston Martin. So maybe you better lawyer the hell up.”

Mason stared at Puller for a few seconds and then lunged at Ryon. “You stupid bitch!” His hands were around her neck and he was squeezing with all his strength.

Puller ripped him off her and threw Mason back against the wall.

Ryon slumped to the floor, gasping for breath and looking terrified.

Puller whipped Mason’s hands behind his back and secured them with plasticuffs.

“Okay, we also now have your ass for assault and attempted murder. Thanks for the favor.”

“You dumb bitch!” screamed Mason again at the sobbing Ryon.

Carson said, “Yeah, we got it the first time.”

Puller grabbed Mason by the neck. “And maybe you help your targets into the grave a little faster so you can cash in, Grif?”

Mason looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Cookie? Floating in a bathtub. You were there. You told Ryon to get over there and take his most valuable watches. Only way that works is if he’s dead.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Yeah, right. And what about my aunt? You make her do a header into the fountain? Hold her under?”

“I swear to God I didn’t.”

“We know you were at Cookie’s house,” roared Puller.

“Okay, okay, I was there. For a meeting. I found him dead.”

“Bullshit.”

“He was. That’s why I told Jane to get her ass over there. I wanted to get the watches out before anyone came to the house. Do you know how much they’re worth?”

“Save it for your trial.”

Puller looked back at Isabel. “Get dressed. I’m taking you home. By the way, your abuela has been worried sick.”

“I have a life to lead.”

“Where are Diego and Mateo?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you know they were missing?”

She stared at him defiantly and then shrugged. “They’ll probably come back.”

“Get dressed,” he said quietly and shut the door.

As they hauled Mason and Ryon outside, Puller’s phone buzzed. He looked at the text that had just come across. His jaw plunged.

“Son of a bitch.”

“What is it?” asked Carson as they loaded Ryon and Mason into the back of the Tahoe and slammed the doors shut.

Puller stared across at her.

“ME finished the post on Cookie. He wasn’t murdered. He died from a popped aneurysm.”

Carson said, “So Mason’s not a killer?”

“And he’s not a pedophile.”

“He’s just a scum who steals from old people and beds underage girls.”

Puller sighed and leaned on the top of the Tahoe. “So we’re back to square one.”

“With Diego and Mateo too,” added Carson.

“With everything, actually,” said Puller quietly. He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter past one. As he looked at the time something clicked in his brain. It had always been there, he supposed, but until this moment it had not registered.

Carson said, “Puller, what is it?”

Puller didn’t hear her. Part of him couldn’t believe it. Part of him could. But he would have to make sure. He would have to make calls. He would have to dig. He would have to once more become the investigator.

It was about time, he thought. It was about damn time.

CHAPTER

69

MASON AND RYON WERE in custody with the Paradise Police Department. Puller had given a full report to Bullock, who was burning the midnight oil. It had taken hours to fill him in on everything and then hours more to complete the paperwork. Justice, it seemed, was obsessed with paper.

Bullock did not seem pleased to have one more thing added to his plate, but he had his people fill out the necessary reports and ordered Ryon and Mason into holding cells. Mason was screaming about suing the entire city of Paradise, but Ryon had signed a confession and it was confirmed that Isabel was only fourteen, so the stat rape charge seemed solid.

Isabel was released into her grandmother’s care after confirming in writing the account of what had happened.

Puller had also filled out a missing persons report on Diego and Mateo. He had told Bullock about the allegation that a man had paid a thousand dollars for them.

Bullock’s features had turned darker while he listened to this.

Carson, who had been hovering in the background, said, “Do you have a problem with things like this in Paradise?”

Bullock glanced sharply up at her. “What do you mean?”

“With people being bought like that,” said Puller.

Bullock frowned. “Look, we have a large population of undocumented down here, even with the reverse immigration because of the bad economy. If people are here illegally it’s hard to know if anyone’s disappeared. Folks come and go.”

“These are two little kids,” countered Puller. “They lived with their grandmother.”

“I get that, Puller. But I don’t have the manpower to put on every case of folks disappearing. Not even the big-city departments can do that anymore. It’s just the way things are.”

“Then things suck,” Puller said.

“Okay, they suck. What do you want me to do about it?”

“You’re putting a lot of resources on the Lampert case.”

“A bomb exploded there.”

“But no one was hurt.”

“It’s different.”

“It’s only different because he has the biggest estate in Paradise.”

Bullock rifled through some papers and didn’t respond.

“Any leads on the bomber?” asked Carson.

“No,” replied Bullock, still rifling.

“What about Cookie?” asked Puller.

“Not a homicide. You know that. Aneurysm popped. So if you were thinking there was a homicidal lunatic loose on Orion Street and that person killed your aunt too, well, stop thinking it.”

“Just because Cookie’s death was from natural causes doesn’t mean my aunt wasn’t murdered.”

“Puller, I appreciate you bagging Mason and Ryon, I really do. If the case holds against them they’re scum who deserve to go away to prison. But what I will not appreciate is you running around town playing detective.”

“I offered my services before and you told me you might take me up on it.”

“I said might. And I’ve decided not to. You’re not part of this department. You’re in the military. You have no authority here and I have no authority over you. Things would get tricky real fast.”

“Okay, I guess I understand that.”

“Thanks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to process the paperwork on Mason and Ryon.”

Puller and Carson left and walked out into a new day with the sun already well up into the sky and the heat and humidity feeling like a pitcher of warm beer poured on them.

Carson stretched and worked a kink from her neck. “Well, I’m officially tired.”

“Yeah, not going to bed at night does that to a person.” He looked at his watch. “It’s already ten hundred.”

“We should catch some bunk time, John. Otherwise we’ll be no good for anything.”

Back in his room with Sadie bedded down on a large beach towel in the corner, Puller showered. He toweled off, slipped on a pair of boxers, and toppled backward on his bed. He wanted to go to sleep, but he couldn’t. Not yet. He rose and spent the next two hours burning up cell minutes. He found out a great deal of interesting information. All of it dovetailed nicely with what he had been thinking. And if he hadn’t looked at his watch last night, he never would have thought of it. Sometimes the mind did work in mysterious ways. He had more calls to make and more digging to do, but now he lay back on the bed and fell instantly asleep.

Hours later the knock on his door surprised him. He rose, snagging his M11 out of its holster.

“Yeah,” he said, standing to the left of the door.

“You can stand down. It’s just your friendly neighborhood one-star. You decent?”

Puller opened the door and looked at Carson. She had on a clingy light blue sleeveless dress with a V neckline and two-inch heels.

“What time is it?” asked Puller, who had gone from groggy to alert at the sight of her.

“Seventeen hundred.”

“Damn, I must have really been asleep. It only felt like an hour of sack time.”

“Can I come in?”

He stepped back and let her pass. She smelled of ginger and lilacs. Her skin glowed. Her hair was swept back, highlighted by the sun. The dress stopped about mid-thigh.

She sat on the bed and crossed her long legs as he closed the door.

“I thought we could talk about the case and then think about dinner. Unless you wanted to hook up with Officer Landry.”

She was gazing not at his face, but at a spot lower.

Puller looked down and realized he was still in his boxers.

“You must have a different definition of decent than I do, Puller.”

“I don’t want to hook up with Officer Landry,” he said curtly.

“All I needed to know.”

She rose, stepped out of her heels, undid a clasp at the back of her dress, and it fell to the floor.

She had nothing on underneath.

“This must seem very forward of me.”

“It actually seems just right.”

She rubbed her hand across his cheek. “I’ve learned from the Army that when you want to take a position you just have to go for it. Hesitation is for losers.”

She lay back on the bed and lifted up the covers. “I know you’ve been asleep a long time, but you want to crawl back in here? You won’t be sleeping. That I can guarantee.”

They kissed lightly at first and then deeper, their fingers probing. When they drew apart Carson looked unsteady, vulnerable and breathless, her hair askew, her lips parted. Tough one-star now naked, helpless, and literally in his hands. He traced her lips with his finger.

No words necessary.

He lifted her up, her long legs immediately scissoring around his torso. He laid her back on the bed.

There was a rim of sweat on her back that Puller flicked his hands over as he gripped her tightly. He rose up and settled down firmly on top. His hands slid to her buttocks and squeezed the soft flesh. Her hands kept busy too, slipping to his thighs and directing him to where Puller now needed to go.

A familiar motion took over, growing more and more frenetic as the fire inside each of them reached a point of no return.

Her moans were becoming more rapid. She started to talk. Telling him in his ear precisely what it was she wanted.

A while later Puller gave one last shudder and fell limp over Carson. She was gasping and trying to catch her breath and telling him how pleased she was at his performance. Together they slowly moved down to lie flat on the bed side by side.

“That was truly unbelievable, John,” she murmured in his ear.

It was, thought Puller, and he told her so.

She turned, faced him, and kissed him, first on the cheek, then the lips, sliding her fingers up and down one side of his face.

It had been a while for Puller. He worried whether he could bring the necessary level of passion. Apparently he had. And that made him feel both satisfied and relieved as he lay there next to her. He was still breathing hard, like he’d just completed the Army two-mile in record time.

“I don’t do this sort of thing lightly, just so you know,” she said.

“You don’t seem the type.”

“I’m not,” she said firmly, propping herself up on one elbow and looking at him.

“I’m not either,” he said.

“Trust me, I know.”

“You’ve been checking me out?”

“Your record speaks for itself. Not a lot of room in there for personal time.”

“You either.”

“Simple story, chasing stars.” She rubbed his chest. “So where do we go from here, big fellow?”

Puller jerked up and stared at her.

She laughed. “I’m not looking for an engagement ring and a wedding date, Puller. I’m talking about eating. I’m starved.”

He smiled. “Then how about we go eat?”

She kissed him, ran her fingers along a part of his anatomy that made him shudder.

She whispered in his ear, “Is that an order, soldier?”

“With all due respect, ma’am, yes, it is.”

CHAPTER

70

THEIR BELLIES FULL, Puller and Carson sat back from their empty plates and studied each other.

“You’re looking at me as though our relationship has changed somehow,” she said.

He cocked his head, studied her even more intently. “Hasn’t it?”

They were occupying the back corner of a restaurant. The hour was still early enough that the large dinner crowds had not come in yet. They had the place mostly to themselves.

“Why? Because we’ve slept together?”

“I can’t think of any other reason.”

“Was it that important for you?”

“I guess it wasn’t for you.”

“Don’t be offended, John, but it is the twenty-first century. Like guys have for most all of history, girls just sometimes want it for no other reason than they want it.”

“Okay,” he said slowly.

She suddenly smiled. “Feeling used?”

He looked at her, grinned back. “Turning the tables on the male psyche?”

“About time, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m a poor representative of the typical male.”

“That’s what I like about you. Take Landry, for instance.”

“What about her?”

“She’s young and hot. She wants you in the sack, no leap of deduction there. But she’s no doubt been hit on by every cop in the department.”

“Probably has.”

“And you think the DoD is any different?”

“Come again?”

“I’ve had my ass pinched by my share of one-through four-stars. At West Point it was the same. Instructors and boneheaded plebes. Then out in the field with leafs and clusters thinking it was okay what they said and did to a woman in the ranks. Hell, during my tours of combat in the Middle East sometimes it seemed I was fighting a war on both flanks.”

She picked up her iced tea and glanced at him. “Surprise you?”

“The Army answer would be yes, it would surprise me.”

“And your answer?”

“You know my answer. It’s not the same as the Army’s.”

“Propositioned, harassed, threatened, even assaulted. Welcome to this ‘man’s’ army, right?”

He sat forward, his hands making fists on top of the table. “There are procedures for that shit, Julie. You don’t have to take it. Like you said, it’s the twenty-first century.”

“Right. And part of this century looks just like all the others. Men are still men, however much more enlightened they may be, or constrained by the threat of lawsuits, courts-martial, wrecked careers, and pissed-off wives. But they still pull that crap because they think they can get away with it. They always think that.”

“And so you just took it?”

“I didn’t say that.” She held up her fist. “Sometimes it was this. Sometimes it was a knee to the nuts. Sometimes it was just a stare. And, yeah, sometimes it was paperwork filed and careers torpedoed. But sometimes I didn’t do or say anything. Sometimes I just walked away.”

He stared at her. “You don’t seem the type to just walk away.”

“I had long-term plans, Puller. The Army wasn’t just a lark for me. I wanted big things. I wanted to do big things. I wanted the star path. I have one. I want at least two more.”

“So go along to get along? Not my idea of leadership.”

“Leadership is a funny thing. The parameters keep changing. But one thing you can’t compromise on is can you look at yourself in the mirror the next day? I always could. No matter what happened. It wasn’t my problem. It was theirs. They shouldn’t be able to look in the mirror. They’re the ones who couldn’t control their dicks.”

“So where does that leave us?” Puller asked.

“I didn’t come down here to get you into bed. Well, maybe a part of me did. Now that we’ve done that I can focus on what I really came down here for.”

“R and R?”

“To help you solve a case. What do we do next?”

“I’m not used to generals asking me for direction.”

“The best leaders let their people do what they do best. You’re CID. I don’t have a clue about investigating criminal acts. So, again, what do we do next?”

“The Storrows.”

“The Storrows?”

“The couple murdered on the beach. They knew my aunt.”

“You think that’s why they were killed?”

“I’m thinking that the Storrows were out a lot. Sometimes walking, maybe sometimes driving.”

“Driving, like five miles out and five back?”

“Maybe so.”

“And they told your aunt what they saw?”

“Or thought they saw. Or suspected. She wrote the letter to my old man. But she really wanted me to come down and look into things. She would have been able to tell me more, but she never got the chance.”

Puller slipped the letter from his pocket and passed it over to Carson. She ran her gaze down it.

“Mysterious happenings in the night. People not what they seem. Something just not being right. Pretty cryptic stuff.”

“My aunt was not given to overstating things. For her those words might as well be screaming murder.”

“Well, if you’re right about her death, she was entirely justified in thinking so. But if the Storrows are dead, how do we proceed?”

“Son and daughter-in-law. They reported them missing. I’m hoping they can fill in some gaps.” He rose. “You ready?”

She smiled up at him and almost purred. “After the sack time? I’m damn well ready for pretty much anything.”