Лиза Гарднер - Never Tell - A Novel (A D.D. Warren and Flora Dane Novel)

My mother simply stares at me. “I don’t know what happened,” she states. “I didn’t know then. I don’t know now.”

“Who was your friend? How did you get the contact information for a hired killer?” Except in the next moment, I don’t need her to answer. I know. I’ve always known. He told me so himself. A man with a violent past. Who then went on to represent most of the major criminals in Boston. Oh, the names he would have in his Rolodex. “Mr. Delaney,” I whisper.

My mom acknowledges the name with small nod.

“Dick had assured me everything was handled. He’d called the person directly, agreed on a payoff to go away. Of course he lectured me on being so stupid. But in the end, nothing happened, all was made right. So that day … Walking through the door …” My mother’s voice trails off. She’s no longer looking at me, but I know what she’s seeing. My father’s body, splayed against the fridge. Such a great man, brought so low. And the blood, so much blood. When she speaks again, her voice is so soft I can barely hear her. “Walking into the house … I honestly thought your father had had one of his bad days. We’d been fighting, obviously. Maybe it had become too much for him and, well, he did what geniuses often do. I’d worried about him in the past. Done my best to keep his world right. It’s not easy, though, being brilliant. Nor being married to one.”

I don’t believe her for a moment. Her words are too glib. Too casual. And her hand, still wrapped around the stem of the martini glass, is shaking.

“Did you ask Mr. Delaney about it? Had he really reached your hired gun? Made the payoff? Maybe your hired killer really was unhappy about you terminating his services. I mean, seriously, a hired gun? Who believes they can truly negotiate with someone like that?”

My mother thins her lips. She appears less tragic, more mutinous. “For your information, I did talk to Dick about what happened. And he assured me everything had been taken care of. Besides, I hired the person to harm that witch, not my husband!”

“Did you pay the ‘kill fee’?” I use the term ironically.

“No. Dick handled it.”

“In other words, you don’t know what happened next.”

“I know my husband was alive! I know my husband said he loved me. I know everything was good again. And then … it wasn’t.”

I shake my head. I still can’t believe my mother’s naïveté, or that she’d be so foolish as to contact some professional killer to handle her marital problems. Then believe a second call would make it all go away. But I’m also confused about Mr. Delaney. What he’d done, or maybe, not done, sixteen years ago. Except he was my father’s best friend. His first instinct should’ve been to help my father. Right?

I cough, feeling a tickle in the back of my throat. I try to turn all the pieces of the puzzle around in my head. Cough again.

Then, for the first time, it comes to me. What I should’ve realized before, but I’d been too intent on my mother and her ridiculous story.

“Mom,” I say, as my eyes begin to water. “Do you smell smoke?”

Chapter 38 D.D.

“THAT WAS FLORA,” D.D. SAID to Phil, hanging up her phone. “She spotted Rocket running across the Harvard campus with a bag full of Molotov cocktails and gave chase. She lost him.”

“So this is definitely his handiwork.” Phil regarded the firefighters marching through the snowy grounds, hitting first this trash can, then that trash can. In the chaos of students stampeding across the grounds, a few bins had toppled. Fortunately, the wintry conditions made short work of any errant flames. “Is it just me, or does this seem haphazard?” Phil continued now. “I mean, for a kid known for taking down entire buildings with gasoline-soaked structural fires, this seems more … child’s play?”

D.D. nodded. She was struggling with the same thought. This hardly seemed up to Rocket’s established standards.

Phil’s phone rang. D.D. let him answer the call while she stared at the various plumes of smoke wafting across campus. To give Rocket credit, he’d covered a lot of ground. Seemed like everywhere she looked there was some sort of small fire. Add to that building evacuations, panicking pedestrians, and sorting out this scene would take the fire department the rest of the day.

“That was Neil and Carol,” Phil reported in. “They just found Jules LaPage’s ex-wife. Or rather, she found them.”

D.D. waited expectantly.

“Carol reached out to Bill Conner’s retired partner, Dan Cain. As Detective Ange had theorized, Conrad went underground almost immediately after his parents’ death, keeping in contact with Cain while he worked his father’s old cases.”

“Batman,” D.D. muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Of the leads Conrad was pursuing, he felt it was most likely that Jules LaPage had engineered his parents’ MVA. Not that LaPage had personally done it. But using his considerable financial resources had hired it out. It was one of the reasons Conrad became fascinated by the dark web. He felt whatever happened to his parents, finding the actual driver would never be enough—the person would just be one more cog in the wheel. Whereas Conrad wanted to understand the entire system, so he could use it to trace all activities to LaPage, whom Conrad continued to believe was operating a criminal empire while behind bars.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“As we suspected, Conrad was helping out LaPage’s ex, Monica. Sending her money. He and Cain both must have a way to contact her, because after Cain got off the phone with Carol, he dialed Monica direct, and she called Carol in minutes. Conrad had reached her about a week, maybe ten days ago. He believed LaPage had not only discovered her new identity, but had taken out a hit. She’s been on the run ever since, living with a burner phone, waiting to hear more from Conrad.”

“Except he never called her back.” D.D. sighed heavily. “Okay. Let’s take it from the top. Conrad has a whole second life on the internet, where he has spent more than a decade establishing himself as some shadowy figure. He spends his time working his way through the dark web, learning a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Comes across a Jacob Ness or two. Maybe has been getting to know various guns for hire, because those would be the kinds of contacts LaPage would tap from prison. Till one day Conrad learns what he’s been waiting to hear: A contract has been taken out on poor terrified Monica. LaPage is once again in motion, his ex-wife in his sight.”

“He calls Monica directly, warns her.” Phil picked up the story.

“Then sits around at home?” D.D. frowned.

“Maybe he was working contacts of his own. Is knowing there’s been a transaction the same as knowing who’s going to carry out the hit?”

“He needed more information,” D.D. agreed.

“Except the hired gun must’ve found him first.”

“And what? Walked into Conrad’s own home and shot him three times with his own gun? That doesn’t sound like any professional hit I’ve ever heard of. Hang on. Conrad isn’t the only one who needed more information. We do, too.”

D.D. pulled back out her phone, dialed SSA Kimberly Quincy. She walked down the block, away from the noisy din of the firefighters. Phil followed in her wake. The air smelled acrid. Later, she figured, she’d blow soot straight out of her noise. So many fires in a single afternoon. And somehow, she had the unsettling feeling they weren’t done yet.

“Quincy,” Kimberly answered her cell.

“D.D. here. Have a question for you and Keith. Okay, you’re Conrad Carter. You’re investigating an evil son of a bitch, Jules LaPage, who’s currently locked behind bars, but you’re pretty sure engineered the death of your parents, and given the first opportunity will strike again to take out his ex-wife. So you set yourself up on the dark net, you learn the lay of the land.”