No Second Chance
Page 81He hung up. I turned to Rachel and told her about the gun discovery and the ballistics test. She leaned back and bit down on her lower lip, another familiar habit from our dating days. “So that means,” she said, “that Pavel and the rest of these people are definitely linked to the first attack.”
“You still had doubts?”
“A few hours ago, we thought it was a total hoax, remember? We thought that maybe these guys knew enough to fake like they had Tara, just to con some ransom money out of your father-in-law. But now we know different. These people were there that morning. They were part of the original abduction.”
It made sense, but something about it still felt wrong. “Where do we go from here?” I asked.
“The logical step is to visit this lawyer, Steven Bacard,” Rachel said. “The problem is, we don’t know if he’s the boss or just another employee. For all we know, Denise Vanech is the mastermind and he works for her. Or they both work for a third party. And if we go busting in there, Bacard is just going to clam up. He’s a lawyer. He’s too smart to talk to us.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It might be time to call in the feds. Maybe they can raid his office.”
I shook my head. “That’ll take too long.”
“We might be able to get them to move fast.”
“Assuming they believe us—which is a big assumption—how fast?”
“I don’t know, Marc.”
I didn’t like it. “Suppose Denise Vanech was suspicious back there. Suppose Tatiana gets scared and calls her again. Suppose there is indeed a leak. There are too many variables here, Rachel.”
“A two-prong attack,” I said, the words coming out without much thought. There was a problem. I suddenly had a solution. “You take Denise Vanech. I take Steven Bacard. We coordinate it so that we hit them at the same time.”
“Marc, he’s a lawyer. He’s not going to open up to you.”
I looked at her. She saw it. Verne sat up a little and made a smallwoo-ee noise.
“You’re going to threaten him?” Rachel asked.
“We’re talking about my child’s life.”
“And you’re talking about taking the law into your own hands.” Then she added, “Again.”
“So?”
“You threatened a teenage girl with a gun.”
“I was trying to intimidate, that’s all. I would have never really hurt her.”
“The law—”
“The law hasn’t done squat to help my daughter,” I said, trying not to shout. In the corner of my eye, I saw Verne nodding along with my outrage. “They’re too busy wasting time on you.”
“Lenny told me at the house. They think you did it. Without me. That you were obsessed with having me back or something.”
“What?”
I rose from the table. “Look, I’m going to see this Bacard guy. I don’t plan on hurting anyone, but if he knows something about my daughter, I’m going to find out what it is.”
Verne raised his fist. “Right on.”
I asked Verne if I could keep borrowing the Camaro. He reminded me that he was behind me all the way. I expected Rachel to argue some more. She didn’t. Maybe she knew that I would not change my mind. Maybe she knew I was right. Or maybe—perhaps most likely—she had been stunned to learn that her old colleagues had zeroed in on her as the sole serious suspect.
“I’ll come with you,” Rachel said.
“No.” My voice left no wiggle room. I had no idea what I would do when I got there, but I knew that I was capable of plenty. “What I said before makes sense.” I could hear my familiar surgeon-tone taking over. “I’ll call you when I get to Bacard’s office. We hit him and Denise Vanech at the same time.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I got back in the Camaro and started toward the MetroVista office complex.
Chapter 40
Lydia checked hersurroundings. She was a little more in the open than she liked to be, but that couldn’t be helped. She had on the spiky blond wig—the one not unlike Steven Bacard’s description of Denise Vanech. She knocked on the door of the efficiency.
The curtain next to the door moved. Lydia smiled. “Tatiana?”
She had been warned that Tatiana spoke very little English. Lydia had debated how to play this. Time was critical. Everything and everyone needed to be shut down. When someone who dislikes blood as much as Bacard says that, you immediately understand the ramifications. Lydia and Heshy had split up. She had come down here. They would meet up afterward.
“It’s okay, Tatiana,” she said through the door. “I’m here to help.”
There was no movement.
“I’m a friend of Pavel’s,” she tried. “You know Pavel?”
The curtain moved. A young woman’s face appeared for a brief moment, gaunt and childlike. Lydia nodded at her. The woman still did not open the door. Lydia scanned her surroundings. Nobody looking, but she still felt too exposed. This had to end fast.
“Wait,” Lydia said. Then, looking at the curtain, she reached into her purse. She pulled out a piece of paper and pen. She wrote something down, making sure that if someone was still at the window, they would see exactly what she was doing. She capped the pen and stepped close to the window. Lydia held the piece of paper up to the pane of glass so Tatiana could read it.
It was like drawing a scared cat out from under the sofa. Tatiana moved slowly. She came toward the window. Lydia stayed still, so as not to startle her. Tatiana leaned closer. Here, kitty, kitty. Lydia could see the girl’s face now. She was squinting, trying to see what was on the piece of paper.
When Tatiana came close enough, Lydia pressed the barrel of the gun against the glass and aimed between the young girl’s eyes. At the last second, Tatiana tried to veer away. Too little, too late. The bullet went clean through the glass and into Tatiana’s right eye. Blood appeared. Lydia fired again, automatically tilting the gun downward. It caught the falling Tatiana in the top of the forehead. But the second bullet had been superfluous. The first shot, the one in the eye, had ripped into the brain and killed the young girl instantly.
Lydia hurried away. She risked a glance behind her. No one. When she reached the neighboring mall, she dumped the wig and the white coat. She found her car in a lot another half mile away.