Дэвид Балдаччи - Absolute Power

She sat up in bed, pulled the ripped nightgown over her quivering body. Shame rocked her again, momentarily. Of course she was now his personal whore. And his consideration for that was his unspoken promise not to crush her. But was that all? Was that really all?

She huddled the blanket around her and looked into the darkness of the room. She was an accomplice. But she was also something more. She was a witness. Luther Whitney had also been a witness. And now he was dead. And Richmond had calmly ordered the execution of one of his oldest and dearest friends. If he could do that, what was her life worth? The answer to that question was shockingly clear.

She bit into her hand until it hurt. She looked at the doorway through which he had disappeared. Was he in there? in the dark, listening? thinking about what to do with her? A cold shudder of fear grabbed her and did not leave. She was caught. For once in her life she had no options. She wasn’t sure if she would even survive.

Jack dropped the box on the bed, took off his coat, looked out the window of his hotel room and then sat down. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been followed. He had gotten out of the building so fast. He had remembered, at the last minute, to ditch his car. He didn’t really know who was pursuing him, but he assumed they were sophisticated enough to trace his car’s whereabouts.

He checked his watch. The cab had dropped him off at the hotel barely fifteen minutes ago. It was a nondescript place, a hotel where tourists on the cheap would stay and then wander around the city to get their fill of the country’s history before heading back home. It was out of the way but then he wanted out of the way.

Jack looked at the box and then decided he had waited long enough. A few seconds later he had it open and was staring at the object inside the plastic bag.

A knife? He looked at it more closely. No, it was a letter opener, one of the old-fashioned kind. He held the bag by its ends and examined the object minutely. He wasn’t a trained forensic specialist, and thus he didn’t register that the black crustings on the handle and blade were actually very old, dried blood. Nor was he aware of the fingerprints that existed within the leather.

He lay the bag carefully down and leaned back in the chair. This had something to do with the woman’s murder. Of that he was certain. But what? He looked at it again. This was obviously an important piece of physical evidence. It hadn’t been the murder weapon; Christine Sullivan had been shot. But Luther had thought it critically important.

Jack jerked straight up. Because it identified who had killed Christine Sullivan! He grabbed the bag and held it up to the light, his eyes searching every inch of space. Now he could dimly make them out, like a swirl of black threads. Prints. This had the person’s fingerprints on it. Jack looked at the blade closely. Blood. On the handle too. It had to be. What had Frank said? He struggled to recall. Sullivan had possibly stabbed her attacker. In the arm or the leg with a letter opener, the one in the bedroom photo. At least that was one of the detective’s theories he had shared with Jack. What Jack held in his hand seemed to bear that analysis out.

He carefully placed the bag back into the box and slid it under the bed.

He went over to the window and again looked out. The wind had picked up. The cheap window rattled and shook.

If only Luther would have told him, confided in him. But he was scared for Kate. How had they made Luther believe Kate was in danger?

He thought back. Luther had received nothing while in prison, Jack was certain of that. So what then? Had whoever it was just walked up to Luther and told him flat out: talk and your daughter dies? How would they even know he had a daughter? The two hadn’t been in the same room with each other for years.

Jack lay down on the bed, closed his eyes. No, he was wrong about that. There was one time when that would have been possible. The day they had arrested Luther. That would be the only time that father and daughter would have been together. It was possible that, without saying anything, someone could have made it crystal-clear to Luther, with just a look, nothing more. Jack had handled cases that had been dismissed because witnesses were afraid to testify. No one had ever said anything to them. It was solely intimidation by the unspoken word. A silent terror, there was nothing new about that.

So who would’ve been there to do that? To deliver the message that had made Luther shut up like his mouth was stapled closed? But the only people who were there, as far as Jack knew, were the cops. Unless it was the person who had taken a shot at Luther. But why would he hang around? How could that person just waltz into the place, walk up to Luther, make eye contact, without anyone becoming suspicious?

Jack’s eyes shot open.

Unless that person were a cop. His immediate thought hit him hard in the chest.

Seth Frank.

He dismissed it quickly. There was no motive there, not a scintilla of motive. For the life of him he couldn’t imagine the detective and Christine Sullivan in any type of tryst and that’s what this boiled down to, didn’t it? Sullivan’s lover had killed her and Luther had seen the whole thing. It couldn’t be Seth Frank. He hoped to God it wasn’t Seth Frank because he was counting on the man to get him out of this mess. But what if tomorrow morning Jack would be delivering the very thing Frank had been desperately searching for? He could have dropped it, left the room, Luther comes out of his hiding place, picks it up and flees. It was possible. And the place sanitized so clean a pro had to be behind it. A pro. An experienced homicide detective who knew exactly how to cleanse a crime scene.

Jack shook his head. No! Dammit no! He had to believe in something, someone. It had to be something else. Someone else. It had to be. He was just tired. His attempts at deduction were becoming ludicrous. Seth Frank was no murderer.

He closed his eyes again. For now he believed he was safe. A few minutes later he fell into an uneasy sleep.

The morning was refreshingly cold, the close, trapped air expunged by the storm of the night before.

Jack was already up; he had slept in his clothes and they looked it. He washed his face in the small bathroom, smoothed down his hair, cut the light off and went back into the bedroom. He sat on the bed and looked at his watch. Frank would not be in yet, but it wouldn’t be long now. He pulled the box from under the bed, laid it beside him. It felt like a time bomb next to him.

He flicked on the small color TV that sat in the corner of the room. The early-morning local news was on. The perky blonde, no doubt aided by substantial amounts of caffeine as she waited for her break into prime time, was recounting the top stories.

Jack expected to see the litany of various world trouble spots. The Middle East was good for at least a minute each morning. Maybe Southern California had had another quake. The President fighting the Congress.

But there was only one top story this morning. Jack leaned forward as a place he knew very well flashed across the screen.

Patton, Shaw & Lord. The lobby of PS&L. What was the woman saying? People dead? Sandy Lord murdered? Gunned down in his office? Jack leaped across the room and turned up the volume. He watched with increasing astonishment as twin gurneys were wheeled out of the building. A picture of Lord flashed into the upper-right-hand corner of the TV screen. His distinguished career was briefly recounted. But he was dead, unmistakably dead. In his office, someone had shot him.

Jack fell back on the bed. Sandy had been there last night? But who was the other person? The other one under that sheet? He didn’t know. Couldn’t know that. But he believed he knew what had happened. The man after him, the man with the gun. Lord must have run into him, somehow. They were after Jack and Lord had walked right into it.