Claire Gulliver #06 - Carnage Goes Coastal Read online

  “Scott, I believe you know my husband, David. And this is our very dear friend, Claire Gulliver.”

  Claire nodded her head, but didn’t seem to see the hand Scott started to extend toward her.

  He adroitly pulled it back and said, “I’m very glad to meet you, Ms. Gulliver. MiMi has told me you are very anxious to talk to me and that you will most likely have a major impact on my political career.” His eyes gleamed with excitement. Claire suspected he was already counting the dollars he expected her to pledge to his cause.

  This man standing before Claire was the man who was trying to kill Karen and baby Jack. That thought filled her with rage. She focused on the task at hand, forcing herself to stay in her chair, because suddenly she wanted to fly at him and gouge out his eyes.

  “Yes, MiMi and David were very kind to arrange this meeting,” she managed to get out in a surprisingly calm voice and gestured to the chair next to her. Scott immediately sat down, shining the full wattage of his most sincere smile at her. Somberly Claire reached over and picked up a photo from the papers stacked under her purse. “I wanted to show you this.”

  He looked at the picture with interest. Claire watched as confusion spread over his face. He looked at her. “I don’t understand. Where did you get this picture of me as a child? I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  “You are mistaken, Mr. Ellington. That is a picture of my grandson. I admit he does look like you, but he would, wouldn’t he? His mother, my stepdaughter, is Karen Rallins.”

  Scott leaped out of the chair, the confused look on his face was quickly replaced by one of anger. “What kind of trick is this?” He looked at MiMi, demanding, “What is going on here?”

  David spoke up, his voice calm but stern. “Sit down, Scott, and be very careful what you say to my wife. You might well benefit from listening to what Claire has to say to you.”

  Scott sat down, but on the edge of the chair’s seat, his body taut and waiting. He watched Claire with suspicion. Now he wasn’t bothering to use his boyish charm to score points.

  Claire continued speaking. “Karen has been having some difficulty in raising her son, you see, because people seem to keep trying to murder them both.” She raised her hand cutting off Scott’s immediate attempt to protest.

  “Wait, hear me out, then we will all listen to what you have to say.” She picked up the folded paper she had sitting next to her and straightened it out.

  “Karen ran into you and your wife at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City sometime in April 2003. She said she didn’t speak to you, but you saw her, and you saw she had not aborted the baby she carried, the one which was the result of her affair with you. That was the incident she thinks started the whole mess. It was less than two weeks later when someone pushed her off the platform in front of an incoming subway train. She wouldn’t have lived to report this to me except for a very alert man standing beside her, who reached out and snatched her out of mid air. Back from the brink of death, so to say.”

  She saw Scott was angrily preparing to say something so she shook her head to cut him off. “Naturally, she told herself it was just a coincidence. Perhaps someone tripped and only put out their hands to prevent a fall. At that time she couldn’t really believe you, or anyone else was trying to kill her.

  “So you can imagine how shocked she was when she returned from the following weekend out of town to find her whole apartment building had been destroyed by a fire. The entire third floor where she lived was gone. The newspapers reported six people died, four were hospitalized and four were still missing. We don’t know what the final count of victims was, or if the missing were ever located.”

  Scott couldn’t hide the shock on his face. He swiveled his gaze from Claire to MiMi, then to David, as if seeking confirmation of the truth of this story.

  “Karen may have been a little naive. After all, she fell for your line completely, but she isn’t dumb. She immediately decided to disappear. She called me and we made a plan. Later that same day she flew to Los Angeles from Philadelphia. When she arrived a man bumped into her on the airport concourse and somehow dropped an electronic bug in her pocket. He followed her to a nearby hotel where she was to meet me. She saw him, recognized him from the incident in the airport and became suspicious. We found the bug in her pocket, so I took it and dropped it in the tote bag of a woman leaving in a van full of people. That worked for us. The man looking for her raced out of the hotel and I saw him leave the hotel in a dark SUV following that van carrying the woman with the bug.”

  Claire paused, the pain on her face was visible. She couldn’t quite stop the tremble in her voice as she continued. “We didn’t learn until later the van was sideswiped by a dark SUV causing it to swerve in front of a tanker truck entering the freeway. The resulting crash killed all seven passengers in the van, the truck driver and the driver of a car following the truck onto the freeway. Nine people in total, were killed in that one accident. But not Karen.”

  Scott now was sitting slumped in his chair. He seemed dazed by the numbers of dead people.

  “That’s not all,” Claire said softly. “Later that year after the baby was born, while Karen and the baby were living in my house in Northern California, two men arrived with guns. One of the men was the same one who was following Karen when she landed in Los Angeles. They thought no one was home, so they planted a bomb inside the house and settled in their car to wait until we got home to detonate it. What they didn’t know was we had been warned. We had seen them arrive and we were hiding in the garage. When we saw they weren’t going to leave I tried to distract them before the baby woke up and cried. I planned to get them to follow me. I drove out of the garage hoping to lead them elsewhere so Karen could escape with the baby. They cut me off so I smashed into their car, killing one of the men. The other got out of the car preparing to shoot me, but my next door neighbor stopped him with his shotgun. So, two more were added to the death toll. However, these last were not innocent victims as were the others.

  “It turned out these two men worked for a security company located in New York City called Hampton Security. They were apparently sent by the firm’s owner, to eliminate Karen and the baby. Someone hired them to kill Karen. Unfortunately, before the FBI could interview Wade Hampton, the owner of the security company and the man who sent the assassins, he was murdered. His body was found in his Humvee in the parking lot of a diner here, outside Washington D.C.”

  Now Claire’s voice was soft, she sounded exhausted. “Karen now is on the Witness Protection Program. We haven’t seen her or the baby since 2003. We hear from her via email occasionally, and she sometimes sends us pictures of the baby, who is now a little boy as you saw, but we have missed being a part of his life, of seeing him grow up.”

  She sat up, and looked at Scott with anger. “We’re tired of all that. We want them back. We want this to stop!”

  Scott shook his head. “I had no idea. Yes, I wanted Karen to abort the child. She should have never gotten pregnant. I didn’t want the responsibility of a child. I was married. It was only a stupid game I was playing, I admit that. But I am not a killer. I didn’t send someone to kill her.” He looked at each one of them anxiously. “Surely you can’t believe I would do something like that.”

  MiMi, David and Claire all stared at him unblinking.

  He stood up. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t me. I didn’t have anything to do with this. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  Claire shrugged. “Perhaps, but you are the only one to have something to gain if Karen and the baby just disappeared. Your career would collapse around you if this information got out. How would you explain your stand on the ‘Right to Life’ issue if the word got out that you tried to force your mistress to abort her pregnancy?”

  Scott looked at her with horror on his face. “Is that what this is all about? Are you going to the media with this story? They’ll crucify me. They won’t care whether or not I had anything to do with sending the assassins after K
aren. My career will be over.”

  “What this is all about, Scott,” Claire said in a strong voice, “is making sure Karen, and the boy, are safe. And you are obviously the key to accomplishing that goal. So this is how we’re planning to ensure their safety.”

  She had Scott’s complete attention.

  “Karen has assembled a package of all this information I just relayed to you, including DNA samples from her and the boy. She has mailed them to four different people with instructions that on her death, they are to be given to the police and the media.”

  Claire took a big breath before concluding. “You had better pray she doesn’t meet up with a drunken driver on the roads one of these days because if anything happens to Karen, your whole career is going down the tubes.”

  Scott’s face was ashen. His hands were shaking when he took the paper Claire handed him which listed all the incidents Claire had discussed with him. He walked out of the room as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. If he hadn’t been such a cad, Claire might have felt sorry for him.

  CHAPTER 44

  Scott slipped his hand around Phoebe’s arm pulling gently, but insistently, on it. “We’re leaving,” he whispered in her ear as he guided her away from the group of people she was talking to.

  “Scott, where in the world have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I wanted to introduce you to a couple of major contributors I met....”

  Scott didn’t seem to hear her. He was intent on moving through the crowd toward the door. The car was already waiting for them and as soon as they were inside the driver took off.

  “Scott, what’s going on? What’s wrong? Where are we going?” Phoebe’s voice was getting shriller with each question. She was annoyed he had disappeared for so much of the evening and she was getting angrier at his strange behavior.

  “Give it a rest. I’ll explain everything later, Phoebe.” His voice was harsh. He didn’t even try to sound polite. His behavior was so startling Phoebe didn’t say another word although her mind was working very fast as she tried to figure out what could have happened at that party that so upset Scott.

  She was surprised, but relieved, when their car pulled up in front of the townhouse her father had leased to be near them when they moved to Washington D. C. She followed Scott into the house.

  “Is Stanford in?” Scott asked politely. But when the maid attempted to announce them, he waved her off impatiently. “We’ll let him know we’re here, thank you.” He grabbed Phoebe’s arm again and marched her quickly down the hall to the library Stanford used as his office.

  Stanford was surprised by the interruption, but he rose from his seat and came around his desk to welcome them. “Phoebe, Scott, how nice to see you. Come in and sit down. Can I pour you a drink?”

  “No, this isn’t a social visit, Stanford.”

  Scott had dropped his hold on Phoebe’s arm when they entered the library, and marched up to stand only a few inches from Stanford, putting his face uncomfortably close to Stanford’s own. “I’m here to talk about some very disturbing information I got about Karen Rallins, Stanford. Remember her?”

  “No, I can’t say I do.” Stanford drew back and slipped back around his big desk to sit down in his chair again, giving himself a little more space.

  Scott bent over the desk, his arms planted on each side, his head thrust forward aggressively. “Karen Rallins was that woman I had an affair with in New York. The one you told me to get rid of.”

  He could see the recognition in Stanford’s eyes. “Yes, I see you’re starting to remember. She’s the one who ended up pregnant with my child. The woman I told you didn’t have the abortion I instructed her to have. The abortion I had paid for her to have.

  “Remember now, Stanford? And do you remember you told me not to worry about it. You’d make sure she didn’t cause us trouble?”

  He stood back watching as Stanford slowly nodded his head. “I remember,” he said weakly, his eyes shooting past Scott’s shoulder to where Phoebe stood just inside the door.

  “So I didn’t worry about it. We just went ahead with our plan. Things seemed to be working like clockwork. Everything was just peachy.” Scott paused letting his words hang in the air.

  “Not!” Scott thundered.

  Both Stanford and Phoebe jumped at his roar.

  “I did not want, nor did I expect, you to take care of this matter by hiring assassins to kill her. HITMEN! Since when is that an appropriate solution for a problem?

  “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” Scott was yelling now. His face was flushed a dark red. His eyes were bulging with rage.

  He straightened up. He seemed to suddenly realize how out of control he had become. He drew in a deep breath, released it and took another. Then he went to the bar and poured himself a large measure of brandy, which he swallowed in one gulp. He coughed a couple of times as the brandy went down. Then he filled his glass once more and sat down in one of the armchairs facing Stanford.

  “I didn’t realize you cared about this woman,” Stanford said in a tentative voice.

  “I didn’t care about this woman,” Scott retorted in a harsh voice. “She was just a toy, a game to interest me during a dreary period of my work. I still don’t care about her, but that does not mean I wanted her murdered.”

  Scott looked at Stanford. “What’s wrong with you? How could I have not known what an unconscionable monster you are?” Scott shook his head, his eyes still trained on Stanford and he commented wearily, “How did I let myself become connected with you and your bizarre values?”

  Stanford sighed. “It wasn’t me. Listen to me, Scott. I did not have anything to do with any attempts to assassinate this woman.”

  “I don’t believe you! Did you know almost twenty people have already been killed during these failed assassination attempts to kill Karen and the child? And I believed the people who told me about it. They said it could all be traced back to me. Because, I’m the person who would benefit most if she and the child disappeared. I am the key to these murders.

  “BUT I DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEM!” He roared again, his frustration spilling over.

  Stanford’s eyes stared blankly off into the room while he appeared to be thinking.

  “Oh, for heaven sake!” Phoebe walked up to her dad’s desk, her voice dripping with scorn. “You two are the biggest wusses ever. Mom told me I’d have to watch you both every minute. She said she didn’t know if either of you were man enough to do what had to be done to make Scott president. She warned me I would have to keep control. I would have to be the strong one for this plan to succeed.

  “That woman and her child were in our way. They represent an unacceptable risk to our plan’s success. They had to go!

  “I admit it was unfortunate that Wade Hampton and his men did such lousy work. They wreaked carnage and destruction everywhere while they failed time after time to eliminate her. He caused me major problems. Because of his ineptitude the woman went underground. The U.S. Marshals have been hiding her.”

  She paused, seeing the dumbfounded looks on the faces of the two men facing her, as she announced with pride, “But I didn’t let that stop me. If you want to succeed in this world you have to be determined. I found and hired Sal Fizzor, a man who really knows his business. He even seems to have some intelligence. He put a person inside that bookstore in California to look for clues. He hired a hacker to embed a worm in an email he sent following the same path Karen’s family was using to contact her. The hacker was so skilled the email managed to get through the relay at Langley and got forwarded to our girl. Then right on schedule, it activated the worm and sent back the address of where it ended up. Fizzor found her. I’ve already wired the money to his account. I’m certain by now he’s already eliminated her once and for all.

  “I did that! I’m the one who managed it!”

  She glared with contempt at Scott. “And don’t forget you are the one who caused this whole problem. You, who couldn’t remember
your marriage vows. You, who think you are God’s gift to women and somehow believe it’s your duty to spread your seed to as many women as possible. You are ultimately responsible for every one of those deaths. And don’t you forget that!”

  Scott was staring at her face with horror written on his own. When she paused he managed to insert a few words. “I didn’t finish telling you what I learned tonight. I didn’t tell you, for instance, now that Karen and her parents have discovered who I really am, Karen has put together four separate packages including the information about each assassination attempt, the information about the alias I used when I was with her, and DNA samples from her and the boy. She mailed these packages to four separate people with instructions to turn them over to the police and newspapers if she dies of any cause. So, if your Fizzor has been successful, our plan and campaign is already beginning to unravel. I expect the authorities will be here soon. You, Phoebe, may have already sealed our fate. And I, for one, am not taking the rap for what you’ve done.”

  That news seemed to shock even Phoebe. She stood there visibly thinking while Scott continued to glare at her. She stood there, dressed in a stunning gown of soft shimmering silver. It was obviously another of her very expensive designer frocks. The matching sliver sandals, he knew were Jimmy Choo, her shoe designer of choice these days. Her makeup was subtle, but applied with such expertise it made her face glow. Her matching evening bag hung from a strap on her shoulder. She was a very well put together woman and, as he considered her, he realized he no longer saw her as the beauty he had thought she was when they married. No, he considered her face and realized he now found her repugnant. Her face was a picture of evil. He decided right there he needed to be shed of her. Even the presidency was not reward enough to be tied to her for the rest of his life.

  She also appeared to have made up her mind about something. She reached into her small evening bag. His eyes widened with surprise when she pulled out a small gun.