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Jennifer's Murderer

Chapter Forty-nine

Despite the lack of any plan to deal with Bartow, they had no choice but to gather in Francis’ suite and allow Evelyn to venture out alone the following evening. There were too many unknown factors to allow for a plan. Either they made a blind grab for Bartow, or they left empty-handed and defenseless.

Craig offered to accompany her, but Evelyn thought the offer amusing. “You’d behave like a pit bull. Bartow would never nibble at the bait if I had you breathing down my neck. You guys hide in the dark and I’ll bring Mr. Bartow home with me, and then you jump out at him and say, ‘boo!’.”

“World class security and you’re going to take him home for the evening.” Craig looked unhappy.

“It’s happened.” Evelyn said it with a shrug. “I’ve had super important people behave in truly stupid ways with me. Want examples?”

“We’ll let the details slide for the sake of my peace of mind.” Craig looked suddenly concerned. “Don’t let Bartow make a glutton of himself.”

“I quite imagine that Jennifer will spoil his appetite when the time comes,” Evelyn assured the man before closing the door behind her.

Craig paced the room. Jennifer joined him in his restless wandering while the others sat about, filing fingernails or watching television oblivious to anything on the screen. John watched stoically from a recliner in the corner of the room.

“She won’t score on the first night,” Craig said hopefully.

“If Bartow talks to her,” Emily said, “he’s a goner. She’s that good.”

“Have you established a relationship with Evelyn?” Francis asked cautiously of the man.

Craig challenged her with a look of resentment that masked doubt over the credibility of that sort of relationship with the woman. “She wants out of the business. She said she’d leave with me when this is over.”

“She feels secure in your presence,” Francis said in support of Craig’s disclosure. “I don’t imagine she’ll stay with us after all she’s been through. She’ll hold herself responsible for too much of it. The past few days isn’t much of a basis for a relationship, but it’s a start.”

Craig gave a curt nod of appreciation.

Francis’ suite consisted of three rooms. They were all scattered about the suite dozing after midnight. Jennifer closed her eyes on the couch and rested. The rattle of the key in the lock brought her awake hours later.

John rose from the shadows like a monster from a horror movie. Color drained from the face of the man pausing just inside the door. He turned to leave. Evelyn grabbed him by the throat with one hand. She put her revolver to his forehead with the other, something of an oversight on the part of Bertrand’s security, and backed him into the room. “Get the door for me, Jennifer,” she said mildly.

Jennifer bounced up with her heart beating furiously and her knees curiously rubbery. She took a quick look up and down the balcony outside and closed the door, locking it behind her. She turned, and then leaned against it for support.

John and Craig looked on without immediate comment. Evelyn had brought along Bertrand Bartow as promised, and Jennifer could see it in his face when he saw her for the first time. He knew in a heartbeat who she was and she, in turn, was looking at the only blood relative she had ever met face to face since childhood. But he was a short man with a stocky physique and she strolled closer and deliberately gazed in disdain upon the man who wanted her dead.

“My God,” he murmured, and even his voice sounded familiar. It was the same timber of voice of a father she had heard in the night as a child. They were both that man's child.

And that’s as far as her interest in the man went. A cold feeling whelmed up from deep within her, numbing everything except overwhelming hatred. “Kill him,” she said to Evelyn. “I don’t want him looking at me.”

Evelyn brought the hammer of her revolver back and put it to the side of Bertrand’s head.

Bertrand fell against a wall to catch his balance, his eyes still on Jennifer. “You’re her,” he said. “You little bitch. You’re her.”

“I’m her,” Jennifer said. “I’m still alive, and you’re dead, you sack of shit.”

“You’ll never get away with it,” Bertrand said, wetting his tongue, stuck with cliques as shock enveloped his mind.

Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “Shoot him,” she said mildly, knowing that she was in shock herself, and less than rational.

“If you want money,” Bertrand said hurriedly, “my lawyers will cut you a deal. Call them. Tell them you’re holding me for ransom. We’ve made arrangements should this ever happen. You can get away Scott free. I promise.”

“We’ll turn you loose unharmed if you can bring my friends back to life,” Jennifer said. She smiled wearily. “Dimitri can stay dead. He’s burning in hell, and we wouldn’t want to disturb him.”

“Disciples of Chaos,” John said from somewhere behind her. “Who are they?”

Bartow blinked. “What? Who are they? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

“The people you hired to kill Jennifer.”

“I didn’t hire anyone! I was keeping track of her in Los Angeles and she disappeared! I told my men to keep an eye out for her and that was all! That was years ago!”

“And what about me?” Evelyn said with a smile. “Rosie put Dimitri up to killing me by way of my father’s people. Who was behind that? It’s all a bit too coincidental, me and Jennifer. And you.”

Bertrand stared up at her in horror, clearly clueless to the facts she had presented as an accusation. Jennifer could see innocence in his eyes, and it gave her a cold chill. If Bertrand was guiltless, as had been Senator Hacks, they had achieved nothing, and she, as far as anyone knew, was still condemned to die.

“You're talking to Evelyn Haxx, daughter of Senator Caliph Hacks,” Craig said helpfully.

“But she was a liability! How could I be expected to back a Senator with a prostitute for a daughter! I wanted her found! I wanted her...”

“Killed,” John said.

Bertrand swallowed hard.

“And Jennifer. You wanted her dead as well.”

“It never came to that,” Bertrand said. “I swear. I don’t know how you made the connection. We destroyed everything, wiped out her entire past history.”

Jennifer and John eyed one another in confusion. Francis was shaking her head in confusion.

“Please, I don’t understand what’s happening,” Bertrand said, his voice harsh with stress and reduced to a whisper. “Speak with my lawyers. They’ll give you anything you want.”

Silence gathered. “We’re goldfish in a piranha pool,” Craig reminded them all. “We need a way out of this”

“There’s no way out until we know who’s behind it all,” was John’s counter-reminder. “Someone’s yanking our strings. If Bertrand here is one of us, as clueless as Cathy, Dimitri and the Senator, we’re still in the dark, still lined up in someone’s cross-hairs.”

“We’ll talk to his lawyers,” Jennifer said. “They’ll know who I am.”

“You’re nobody,” Bertrand said with surprising vehemence. “You’re a mistake that should have been aborted when you were born.”

“An indiscretion?” John coaxed. “Heir to your father’s money?”

Bartow clenched his fist and forced himself to silence.

Jennifer eyed John in despair.

“I know, kid. Things are moving fast, but it’s not hopeless just yet, just a bit confusing.”

John turned back to Bertrand. “Got a phone on you?”

Bertrand gave a nervous nod.

“You’ll stay here with our friends. Have your friends take me and Jennifer to someone who can work out a compromise. We’ll work it on the honor system and trust one another implicitly, because at this stage of the game, we’re all a gnat’s ass away from a bullet in the head.”

Bertrand snatched his phone from a breast pocket and gestured wildly while arguing with his security, men who had been left behind in the streets below. Once an accord had been reached, he spoke without looking at his hosts. “One of my men will take you. They won’t try anything. Just go talk to my fucking attorneys and get something figured out so that I can get the fuck away from you fucking people.”

The entire group moved in unison toward the door. “Just me and Jennifer,” John said, but grinning for the first time in sympathy for their morass of confusion. “If we don’t make it back, shoot the bastard in the feet.”

“What?” Emily blurted in confusion.

“Work your way up, feet, knees, testicles. Pace yourself. You've got enough bullets. Last shot goes between the eyes.”

Jennifer had no clean clothes to change into. John looked vicious, unshaven and his narrow eyes bloodshot, which in Jennifer’s opinion worked in their favor. They left together hand in hand without being accosted, down the hall to the elevators, and from the ground floor elevator to the streets outside where a dark limousine awaited them, and men wearing shoulder holsters.

The ride to a chrome and glass citadel took ten minutes. Another and much faster elevator that made John groan took them to the top floor and an office with a white rug and black enameled furniture. An immaculately dressed man escorted them to an office, closing the door behind them, and gesturing to seats before the desk.

“I’m James Glasgow.” Glasgow sat behind his enormous desk and looked nervous. “I hear you’re Jennifer Wessner.”

“Was my father Basil Bartow?”

“Basil confirmed your heritage when you were born. He confided in me. He didn’t quite know what to do with you at the time. Yes, Basil Bertrand was your father.”

“Why is Bertrand trying to kill me?”

Glasgow shrugged. “He hasn’t been actively trying to kill you as far as I know. Locate you, perhaps, but he feared your death would lead to discovery of your identity. Your autonomy was safer.”

“Why did my father allow this all to happen to begin with? Someone told me my mother died of cancer.”

“She had cancer. She would have died. Yes, that did happen when you were quite young. At the time, you, your mother, Bertrand and Basil were something of a family, albeit an odd one. The agencies into custody you fell knew nothing of your father and your father never knew what happened to you and your mother. You both vanished from the face of the Earth many years ago.”

Jennifer stared at the man without expression, patiently waiting for a more detailed explanation.

“Basil Bartow sent for you and your mother. You were about ready for school, your mother was scheduled for chemotherapy, and Los Angeles was to have been your home. You were about four at the time. You and your mother left Dubuque, Iowa, by car. Her choice. She wanted to see the scenery. You and your mother never arrived. We have reason to believe your mother died in a car accident. You were apparently rescued, but without identification. Basil turned every state between Iowa and California upside down looking for you. Basil died of a heart attack a short time later. Bertrand destroyed your birth records. He continued his search, but only to destroy early photographs of you in the company of your mother and father. He wanted everything he inherited for himself.”

“What does that all mean for me now?” Jennifer said.

“It means the Bartow estate rightfully belongs to you. Your father stipulated as much in his will. Without knowing your fate for certain, he never fully accepted the inevitability of your death.”

“How much money is it?”

“Stocks and holdings worth four billion, give or take a few hundred million.”

Jennifer closed her eyes for a time.

“What’s changed?” John said.

Glasgow smiled a cold and unfriendly smile. “Bertrand cut his own throat. We all knew it years ago. If Jennifer ever showed up, Bertrand could do little to defend himself. He fraudulently holds his company position. We allowed it because he has been an effective business leader. Regardless, he could easily be prosecuted and sent to jail for what he has done.”

“What if I don’t want that to happen?” Jennifer said.

James Glasgow frowned. He cleared his throat. He and John exchanged puzzled looks.

“I don’t want it,” Jennifer said. She turned to John. “I want things to stay the way they are. I want to make Bertrand’s life a living hell knowing I’m out there and that I can take it all away from him if I want, but all that money will ruin everything for us.”

“After everything that’s happened,” John said, “you just want to let it go?”

“Of course. It isn’t over yet, is it? I’m still poisoned, aren’t I? Someone still wants Evelyn dead.”

John grew agitated, fully aware of the direction her thought processes were taking.

“But you won’t let anything bad happen to me,” Jennifer said. “Not if you can help it. You’ll stay with me for as long as it takes, just to make sure.”

“Not if I can help it,” John said, clenching his fists in near panic. “How do you expect me to help you?”

She smiled. “One thing leads to another. You made it all happen. Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem. Bertrand never wanted me dead. Nobody’s going to want to kill Evelyn now, not if she’s going to make headlines as the dead whore daughter of a senator. Make that call. Tell them Evelyn is still alive and that she’ll stay that way, regardless of what happens to me, because I said so.”

“Jennifer…”

“Would you kill her for me?”

John blanched. He dared not answer the question.

“You would, but you know it would ruin everything between us, so you won't. You'd let me die first knowing that's the way it has to be from my perspective.”

“The Disciples of Chaos,” John said to James Glasgow. “Do you know of them?”

“Never heard of them. How are they involved in this?”

“Don’t know. Time to find out.”

Jennifer reached for John’s hand.

“Phone Bertrand,” John said to Glasgow on the way out. “We’ve got ourselves a stalemate. Everybody gets turned loose. Nobody gets hurt. Make sure he understands what’s at stake in no uncertain terms.”

“Consider it done. And, Miss?”

Jennifer managed a polite smile for the man.

“If you ever change your mind, consider me an ally. My interests are with the company, and your father’s wishes.”

“I will, thank you.”

On the street below, John stopped in a pool of bright sunlight. He punched out numbers on his cell phone. It rang continuously.

A man wearing a dark suit and sun glasses separated himself from a crowd nearby and approached, stopping just close enough for his voice to carry in the early morning traffic. “That won’t be necessary. We can conclude our business face to face, here and now.”

Jennifer gawked. John experienced an unfamiliar intensity of panic, but he put his arm about the girl’s shoulders and contained it. “Evelyn Haxx is still alive,” he said.

“We know.”

“We won’t kill her.”

“No need. Jennifer’s life is in no danger. The poison was a lie.”

John all but stumbled so suddenly did the burden of the past few days vanish from his shoulders.

“Why?” Jennifer said, voicing the only question left to be answered. “Why did they all have to die?”

The stranger’s gaze remained on John. “No one had to die. Consider the parties involved.”

“The Carvellies,” John said. “Caliph Haxx. Bertrand Bartow.”

“Francis Peugeot and her girls,” the man said. “Yourself. And one other.”

“Rosie,” John said. “The Disciples of Chaos.”

“A truly volatile mix. We have no control over the behavior of the individual.”

“Who are you?”

The man shrugged. “Forces that be.”

He started to turn away.

“One question,” John called out. “Please.”

“I will answer your one question.”

“Like Jennifer asked to begin with. Why?”

“A helping hand,” the man said. “Think about it carefully. A nudge here and there in the right direction until the world can stand upon its own two feet and manage its own affairs. Left to its own resources, the road would be so much more difficult, or perhaps impossible.”

The man turned away again and all too quickly vanishing back into the crowd.

Jennifer opened her mouth to protest. Tears flooded her eyes.

“We’ll talk about it later,” John said. “I need time to think.”

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