Hindsight, p.27
Hindsight, page 27
“But Elaine Wessler wasn’t killed on that cliff path.”
“No, she wasn’t. Why not? Was it because she always took Harley with her when she walked that path? The trainer told Olivia that the bogus call he took from the vet tech was an inquiry about Harley’s K-9 abilities. Were they thinking about the possibility of killing the dog to discourage Elaine from taking him up there? What if Elaine ran into Dietrich and Hayes on that path and Harley was aggressive?”
“All possible,” Lynch said. “But then you have to ask yourself why they even chose to be strolling up there at the same time as Elaine Wessler. Did they realize she had seen them? Or had they just seen her and were taking preventive measures?”
She wearily shook her head. “I don’t know. And surely Elaine would have reported trespassers if she’d actually run across them on the path. All the teachers are super careful of the students. That’s why Elaine asked Mr. Kim to check out a possible intrusion on the private beach.” She shook her head. “But Metcalf said after the murders that there was no sign of a disturbance down there, no footprints, nothing. Whatever they were doing, they cleaned it up as if it had never happened.”
“Oh, you mean like Hayes’s room at that hotel?” Lynch asked sardonically.
“Perhaps.” She shook her head. “What else did you find out from the CIA about Cardona?”
“What we suspected. Cardona was an international player who dealt principally with the cartels in Mexico, but a few years ago he and Dietrich had a profitable arrangement smuggling drugs out of North Africa to Rome.”
“Drugs,” Kendra said slowly.
“It seems to be the tie that binds Cardona and Dietrich together,” Lynch said. “Though Dietrich prefers to operate out of Europe and Russia. He even recently bought a home north of Moscow. But maybe Cardona made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. San Diego is right across the border from Mexico where Cardona did most of his business. They could have had a joint deal with one of the major cartels and then had a falling-out.”
“Here on our doorstep at Oceanside?” She felt sick at the idea. “I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” he said quietly. “Cardona is a big player. What would be a safer place for them to hide a multimillion-dollar stash of drugs than a wonderful, humanitarian school for special kids? No one would suspect it.”
“Because the idea is hideous.” But it was possible and she had to accept it. “And you think Mr. Kim and Elaine might have stumbled across them and were killed because of it?”
“I’m not that far along yet,” Lynch said. “I don’t know what to think. I’m just saying that it could be one explanation.” He grimaced. “But Laurent isn’t telling me everything about Dietrich. I told you before he’s being very cagey. I have an idea Dietrich is on some kind of watch list or Laurent wouldn’t have had the information about him so readily available.”
“Can’t you find out?”
“It’s not that easy. I’ll go back to Laurent if I can’t do it any other way. But we might know more later after I hear from Metcalf.”
“Metcalf?” She straightened upright on the couch. “Why are you expecting to hear from him?”
“After he told me about your get-together with Dietrich on the cliff, I asked him to go back there with a more specific search in mind. Such as places where a cache of drugs or cash could be hidden up on that cliff. Previously, he’d only been searching for Dietrich himself or proof that he was even up there. But now we have a drug connection between Dietrich and Cardona.” He made a face. “He wasn’t pleased at the prospect of going back. He’d just gotten home and was nursing a cold beer. But he said he’d do it. He didn’t even ask if he could wait until morning. He came right here, which is when I knew he was really upset about you.”
“And started yelling at me,” she said. “He was right to not want to go. What do you think he’ll be able to find blundering around in the dark?”
“I didn’t yell. I merely expressed my displeasure. And he might find Dietrich up there trying to remove something valuable or incriminating after all the agents have left. Or he might find nothing at all, but then we’d know to look somewhere else.”
She frowned. “Metcalf was sure Dietrich wasn’t up there any longer. But if you think there’s a chance of finding something, we should go back there, too.”
“No, you’ve had enough for today. Did you eat dinner?”
“I wasn’t hungry. Olivia made me a sandwich.”
“Good.” He took her glass from her and put it on the coffee table. “Then lie back down on the couch and try to take a nap. I know you won’t go to bed until you hear from Metcalf, but it won’t hurt you to rest.” He was scooting her to a more comfortable position and putting one of the couch pillows beneath her head. “I’d massage your back but you’d probably object. I can tell you’re edgy and brimming with independence at the moment.”
He was wrong. She did feel driven, but she was also uncertain and disappointed and didn’t want to be alone right now. “I wouldn’t object.” She rolled over on her stomach. “That would be stupid. The sooner I get over this pinched nerve, the better. Since she tried to kill you, Madam Nadia was obviously a terrible person, but she taught you well and I might as well reap the benefits.”
“Always practical.” He chuckled. “That’s a philosophy I can understand.” He fell to his knees on the floor beside her. He pushed up her shirt and unfastened her bra. “Close your eyes and relax your muscles. It’s only a little different from the neck massage. It will hurt a little at the beginning but then it will all come together.”
She flinched. “Ouch.” Then she did as he’d told her and relaxed her muscles.
His fingers were rubbing, smoothing, deep circular movements that were like nothing she’d ever felt before.
She was light-headed.
As if she were being whirled down and around…
Every muscle relaxed.
After a while, he fastened her bra and pulled down her shirt. “Okay?” he whispered. “Relaxed? No more aches?”
“If I was any more relaxed, I’d be unconscious.” Her voice sounded slurred, even to herself. “But I have to stay awake until I talk to Metcalf when he finishes at the cliff…”
“I thought that would be the next objection.” He brought her phone to her and set it on the coffee table beside her. “Metcalf will call me first and then I’ll call you.” He turned off the overhead lights. “I promise I’ll keep ringing until you answer.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I think it’s best. I can take only so much of Madam Nadia’s hands-on therapy when it’s you who’s the subject. You’ve been very trusting today and I don’t want to blow it.”
“You wouldn’t. You compartmentalize beautifully.” She yawned. “I’ve always thought that about you.”
“Have you?” He bent down and kissed her forehead before he asked softly, “And how do you think I do walking on hot coals?”
“What?”
He laughed. “Never mind. Just a thought.” He headed toward the front door. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear from Metcalf.”
The next moment the door was closing behind him.
She lay there in the darkness, thinking. She hadn’t meant to be a tease, but she probably has been. She had just been tired and upset, and she was accustomed to Lynch’s iron control and the way he brushed off everything but what he wished to accept. She had needed not only that magic touch but the comfort of having him here, and she had taken it. That didn’t excuse her, and she should be more careful. She couldn’t tell Lynch one thing and then ask for another. It wasn’t fair.
Stop thinking about it. There were a lot of unfair things in this world. It wasn’t fair for good people to have to die. It wasn’t fair that there were killers like Dietrich. All she could do was try to be as good and honest as she could be.
And watch out for moments of weakness like the one that had occurred tonight…
* * *
Her phone was ringing…
Kendra could see the light blinking on the phone on the coffee table.
Lynch, she thought drowsily as she reached out for it. Lynch had promised to call her after Metcalf—”
“What did he say, Lynch?” she asked as she pressed the ACCESS button. “Did he tell—”
“Hello, Dr. Michaels. Or may I call you Kendra? I feel so close to you that I believe a certain intimacy is called for in our relationship.”
She inhaled sharply. Not Lynch. She knew that voice even though she had only heard it one time, on the roof of the shipyard building. “Dietrich,” she whispered.
“You see, you feel the intimacy, too, if you recognize my voice so easily. But you don’t sound pleased that I’m calling you. I thought you looked so eager when you were running through those trees today.” He added mockingly, “Oh, that’s right, you were running away from me, weren’t you? And it wasn’t eagerness, it was terror. What would your friends at the FBI have thought if they’d seen you? You have such a fine reputation and it would have been ruined.”
“They would have thought I was smart.” Her hand was shaking as she pressed the RECORD button. “Because I was avoiding an ambush. You did have a gun pointed at me, didn’t you?”
“Only toward the end. Though I had every intention of shooting you once I saw you heading for the cliff path. It would have been a shame to lose the opportunity.”
“Why? Do you regard me as that much of a threat?”
“More of a nuisance than a threat. I never expected you to be this annoying when I started out. You were going to be just a minor challenge, the icing on the cake. I should have known you’d be tougher than that. You’ve been getting in my way and it’s time I put an end to it.”
“With a bullet in my brain as you did with Hayes and Cardona? Isn’t that the way you usually handle nuisances?”
“Why not? Everyone needs a signature, and mine is so dramatic and unique. And neither Hayes nor Cardona expected it. They’d served their initial purposes very well, Hayes by obediently following my orders and Cardona with his contacts south of the border. But it was time for them to serve one last purpose for me. That was to remove the threat that they might be too talkative. Actually, you should be glad that my method of removal is usually very quick.” He paused. “Your friend Ronald Kim didn’t suffer long at all. Not at the end. Elaine Wessler was different. She decided she had to be brave and surprised me and I had to use the knife. Before the end she was shaking and crying and begging me not to do it.”
“Shut up!”
“Does it bother you? Good. Then I’ll tell you how she got down on her knees and pleaded with me. The slut said she’d do anything I wanted her to do if I just wouldn’t kill her.”
He was trying to hurt her, frighten her, she realized. And he was succeeding. But why was he doing it? There had to be a reason. “I don’t believe any of this. Why did you call me? Were you angry because I got away from you today?”
“You didn’t get away from me,” he said quickly. “I don’t make mistakes like that. I’m an expert. Everyone knows when I take on a job, I get it done. I could have killed you anytime I wanted if I hadn’t wanted to toy with you later. I let you go on purpose.”
He was lying, Kendra thought. The phrasing, the sudden harshness, the arrogance, were sure signs. “We both know that’s not true. You were clumsy and I picked up on it and I got away from you. Why don’t you admit it?”
“Because it’s not true, bitch,” he said harshly. “I just called to tell you that your time’s run out and you should get ready to die. Keep looking over your shoulder because I’m going to be there. I decided that you’re not worth me wasting my time making you cringe and cry like Elaine Wessler. I’ll just blow your head off.”
He cut the connection.
Kendra’s hand was shaking as she punched in Lynch’s number.
“I haven’t heard from Metcalf yet, Kendra,” Lynch said when he picked up. “I promised you I’d call when I did. The good thing is that he must be doing a really thorough job of searching that area if he—”
“I want you to come back here,” she said unevenly. “Right now. Will you do that?”
Silence. “What’s wrong?”
“Dietrich called me.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He arrived in seventeen minutes and she’d had time to make coffee and pull herself together before he walked in the door.
She pointed to her phone on the coffee table. “I didn’t record the first part of the call, I was too shocked. But I got the rest.” She was pouring coffee into two cups. “Listen to it. It’s self-explanatory. Mostly intimidation and threats. I evidently pushed a button when I hurt his pride as an expert killing machine.”
He was already listening to the call and Kendra tried to block out the sound of Dietrich’s words and the viciousness of his tone. Once was more than enough. Every word, every inference, was engraved on her mind.
Lynch turned off the recording and walked toward her across the room. “Nasty,” he said quietly. “Are you all right?”
“No. But I will be when we put that asshole away.” She sat down at the table and picked up her coffee cup. “I was stunned that he called me, because I couldn’t understand why. But then I realized he was furious and only wanted to hurt me. He has such a tremendous ego, he couldn’t accept that I’d managed to escape him. He was angry that he wasn’t able to kill me so he thought he’d strike at me in a different way. He kept talking about Elaine and what he’d done to her…”
“I caught that,” Lynch said. He sat down opposite her. “And the fact that you were also taunting him.”
“I couldn’t let him think that he could hurt me.” She lifted her cup to her lips. “And I thought if I kept him talking I might find out something I could use later.”
“And did you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll have to sort it all out.” She frowned. “But I did find out that he knew a lot about Elaine and how I felt about her. He knew talking about her like that would hurt me. How did he know that?”
“I told you that Dietrich carefully researched all of his jobs. He was meticulous about every single aspect. Maybe when he realized she might be a problem, he began researching Elaine and found out she was your teacher.”
“Maybe.” She thought of something else. “You said Laurent with the CIA told you how clever Dietrich is and so careful that no one could pin anything on him. But this phone call wasn’t clever. He wasn’t watching what he said or considering he might be recorded. Several things he said could have incriminated him. He didn’t care, Lynch.”
“I noticed that,” Lynch said. “Which means he felt protected because he has a safety net. Or that he wanted you to believe he was stupid enough to be vulnerable if you chose to lose your temper and go after him. He was clearly attempting to frighten or anger you enough to go that route.” He took a swallow of his coffee. “Or both. Anyway he’s bold as hell and not afraid. You agree?”
“How could I help but agree? He targeted me.” She looked down into her coffee. “I hated it. There were moments when he was talking to me that I actually felt helpless. I’m not going to let him make me feel like that again.” Her eyes lifted to meet his own and she said fiercely, “And I don’t want to hear you tell me how you’ll take care of me and everything will be all right. That would make me feel even more useless.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” A faint smile indented his lips. “That would bring mega-destruction on my own head. I was only going to offer my services to locate the bastard so that you could perform whatever torture or dismemberment you deem necessary. Will you accept that?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “I might.”
“Then we’d better get started trying to find him. Not that we weren’t before. But I’m definitely feeling an added sense of urgency after the bastard had the balls to actually call you.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “And I’m not waiting any longer for Metcalf’s call. He’s way overdue.”
She tensed. “You think something happened to him?”
“Not with an entire forensics crew up there with him on that cliff. And Dietrich was too busy harassing you tonight to bother about a humble FBI agent.” He was punching in the number. “I’m just curious and I’m looking for somewhere to start.”
Metcalf’s tone was sour when he picked up the call. “Don’t bother me, Lynch. I’m filthy, tired, and very bad-tempered. I won’t put up with your crap.”
“I’m not giving you any. Kendra is just a bit depressed and would like to know if there’s any progress?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. I thought it was going to be a complete bust at first and I was planning your immediate demise. But then the high-beam lights picked up a mark on the northern slope down by the shore.”
“A ‘mark’?”
“That’s as close as I can come to describing it. It looks like a large, heavy object was dragged on the slope down by the shore. We haven’t been able to determine whether it was up or down or even the exact shape. I sent a photographer to climb the thirty feet down there but he came up with zilch.”
“Large, heavy object,” Kendra repeated thoughtfully. “A safe…?”
“No way I can tell. I’ll let you know if I do. But don’t get your hopes up.” He paused. “Depressed? Hey, we’re doing all we can. I’m even going to bring dogs up here tomorrow to see if they can find any drug stash.”
“Lynch exaggerates. Since I’m not dragging a safe up a cliff in the middle of the night, I guess I’m not doing too bad.”
“And I might not be, either. Just tell Lynch after I get that photographer back on firm ground I’m going home to bed and he’s not to call me.” He hung up.
“You heard him,” Kendra said to Lynch. “Let the man go home to sleep.”
“I didn’t even mention Dietrich’s call,” he said virtuously. “I’ll leave a message on his voicemail tomorrow.” He shrugged. “But why should he sleep when I don’t think you will. I can see the wheels turning in your head.”
