Brian Freeman - Stripped

“You had a choice. Me or him. But that was never a choice, was it? It’s always been him. Everything you’ve ever done, it’s been to protect him.”

Who? Serena wanted to shout.

“We talked about this,” Boni said. “You told me you understood.”

“Of course I understood. I was asking you to expose a lifetime of lies. You would have lost everything. Gone to prison. So I was the good girl, and I shut up. I shut up, even though I had nightmares for years. I shut up, even though I was sick and scared every time I saw his face. I shut up, and I saved you.”

“It was more than ten years ago, Claire,” Boni said. “What can I do? How can I finally make this right?”

“You can never make it right. But just once in your life, you can tell the truth. You can face up to something you’ve done. What happened to Amira?”

Boni looked stricken. “I can’t talk about that.”

“Why not? You say you don’t owe Blake, but you sure as hell owe me.”

“I know I do, but you can’t ask me that, Claire. You can’t.”

Claire looked as if she would explode in frustration. If the gun were still in her hand, Serena thought, she would have killed Boni. Or herself. Or both. She turned away, and her shoulders wrenched as she sobbed.

Boni closed his eyes. His daughter’s pain seemed to stab him and open up old wounds. “It was him, Claire,” he said quietly. “Back then. With Amira.”

Claire swung back in disbelief. “No.”

Boni nodded. “That was when it started between him and me. I made him. Like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster.”

“Mickey killed Amira?”

Boni’s face contorted as if Claire had thrown open Pandora’s box and all the demons had flown out and scattered. As if, by saying the name, she had taken the gun and shot him.

Serena’s mind raced, and she mouthed the word at Stride. Mickey?

Claire stepped forward and slapped him across the face, so hard that the old man lost his balance. “You knew what kind of monster he was. How could you let him near me? How could you ask me to go out with him?”

“So much time had passed, Claire. I thought he was different. I thought I could trust him.”

“He’s still more important to you than I am, isn’t he? After all these years. Of course he is. This is still about the empire. The Orient. The capstone to your life, and every brick of it built on suffering and violence and death.”

“Stop it, Claire.”

Claire shouted in his face, her lip curling in contempt. “Mickey! That’s our big secret, Daddy. He’s been hung around your neck-and mine-for forty years.”

Boni shook his head. “He’s still there, Claire. This doesn’t change a thing. You know that.”

“Yes, it does. It’s over. There’s going to be a trial. Blake’s trial. It’s all going to come out. Amira. Mickey. You. Everything.”

“I can’t let that happen.”

“It’s out of your control now.”

Boni’s voice was weary. “Nothing is out of my control, Claire.”

He reached into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out a pack of European cigarettes. He slid one into his hand and then hunted in another pocket and emerged with an oldfashioned Zippo lighter.

“Nothing,” he said.

He flicked the lighter, and even in the wind, it threw up a tiny flame.

A second later, on the ledge, Blake jerked up like a toy dancer jolted with electricity, his eyes growing wide. Serena saw him stagger in confusion. A stain of red opened up on his shirt, dripping in trails down his chest. Another instant later, the sound wave of a distant crack rolled across the terrace. Blake seemed to fold in on himself. He sagged, his face went pale, and he vanished backward on the long fall that led to the parking lot below.

Stride knew they had problems when no one took their statements on the roof.

It was a crime scene. Shots had been fired. A man, however evil, however many others he had killed, lay dead on the ground far below them. Deliberately murdered. They should be spilling their guts now, explaining what happened and how it happened for the inevitable investigation and trial to follow.

It didn’t work out that way.

Sawhill arrived and took charge of the crime scene personally, which meant, for the most part, keeping people out. He spent the first twenty minutes talking to Boni Fisso, not his own détectives. The two men hugged like old friends. That was the first bad sign. Then Sawhill asked a uniformed officer to take Claire home to her apartment. Not Serena. Not Stride. Claire looked longingly back at the two of them but allowed herself to be led away.

“You two,” Sawhill finally said. “Why don’t you go get some sleep?”

The next bad sign.

“You need our statements,” Stride protested blandly.

“It can wait until tomorrow. You’ve both had a hell of a night. Job well done. You got a mass murderer off the street. Now get out of here, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

Sawhill smiled at them, trying to act like the proud parent, but Stride knew it was a politician’s smile. He was in damage control mode. The whitewash was coming down, painting over the sins, preparing to detonate them once and for all next week along with the Sheherezade. Stride was too tired to complain. The bandaged flesh wound on his calf was throbbing. He hurt all over. He was happy to leave.

He and Serena went home. They didn’t have the energy to talk. They fell into bed and were soon unconscious, and the only sensation that managed to penetrate Stride’s brain was that the tangled sheets smelled like Claire’s perfume. He drifted away and had erotic dreams that were interrupted by violence, by people falling, by screams of rape.

They slept for ten hours.

It was early afternoon when they made it into the station. There was a buzz of exhilaration inside the building. Case solved. Cops came up to clap them on the back and congratulate them. High fives all around. Blake took a dive. Way to go. Sawhill was there, too, still smiling as he ushered them into his office. It was the same politician’s smile he had worn last night, and Stride knew they were about to be rolled.

As he closed the door, Sawhill said the unthinkable to his assistant. “Hold my calls.”

Stride and Serena settled into the chairs in front of Sawhill’s desk. The lieutenant didn’t pick up his stress ball; he seemed to be stress-free today. “Congratulations, both of you,” he told them. “Governor Durand asked me to extend his personal thanks.”

They didn’t reply.

“I don’t need to tell you how sorry I am about Amanda,” Sawhill continued. “But you got the guy. Good for you. And the taxpayers don’t have to pay his room and board for the next forty years. Even better.”

“Who’s running the investigation now?” Stride asked.

“What investigation?”

“Into Blake’s death.”

“Oh, we wrapped that up last night,” Sawhill replied. His smile grew wider, as if it were his nose growing longer.

“Wrapped it up?” Stride asked. “Who killed him?”

“The head of Boni’s security agency. David Kamen. He’s a sharpshooter, as you’ll recall. Fortunately, Boni thought to take precautions when Blake called him, and he had Kamen take position in the Charlcombe Towers opposite the Sheherezade.”

Stride nodded. He had figured that. “Is Boni under arrest?”

Sawhill looked shocked. “Whatever for?”

“He had Blake killed. This was an assassination. Blake was secure , sir. Boni gave a green flag for Kamen to kill him, because he didn’t want dirt coming out at Blake’s trial about Amira’s death.”