CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – BECKETT
I drove to work. I had left Estella in nominal charge of the house phone, just in case Hayley happened to contact me on that. Mrs. Delange was in charge of Mr. Hudson’s report backs. Now, aside from setting that up at home, my support network, there was nothing more I could do.
Work passed slowly—too slowly, by my thinking. It dragged on and it all felt oddly meaningless. I recalled this feeling from the trouble with Lacey, which gave me hope that, eventually, all horrible things pass.
I just wish she’d get in touch.
I had brought my phone in my pocket, which was unusual for me. My usual practice was to leave it in my office until I went to lunch, then, when I came back, put it in my desk-drawer again until work ended. It was too much of a distraction to have it always on hand. But for the moment, I had to keep it close by. What if Hayley called me?
With the weight of the phone pressing against my thigh, drawing my attention like a magnet draws iron, I sat through an endless meeting with my board-members. Finally, we all went to lunch together. I spent the time half-absent, fretting, thinking of Hayley, feeling utterly wretched.
At the end of lunch, I was sitting, my fork absently turning lettuce on my place while I listened to Oscar Hugh, my chief investor, talk endlessly about the Far East. My phone made a message tone. Heart thudding, I took it to the window. Read the message.
My blood went cold as I read on.
Cover blown. That didn’t last long. Do better, or we’ll do better too. Count on it.
I sighed. It was them. They were back. When I got back to my office, still shaky and nauseous, I found out why. Accidentally, I clicked on the browser-window that was open on the Chronicle’s front page. I read aloud one of the headings, my heart beating faster.
“Where is Ms. Sand?”
Desperately, I checked the headlines of the five most important local papers. They all carried a similar story somewhere on a prominent page. Mrs. Sand, the wife of the famous multimillionaire Beckett Sand, had run away. After three days.
I sighed. This was terrible. It was awful. At least my investors had all been tactful enough to ignore it. They had probably been impressed by my stoicism—maybe scared by it, even. I would have been. I was.
It wasn’t the scandal of it or the loss of my respectable stability, though those affected me. It was the fact that, yes, my cover was well and officially blown.
We will do better: trust us.
The thrust of the message cut into me like a knife. They meant that if I didn’t rectify the situation, re-establish the cover we had patched together over my payment deal, they would strike out at what I loved. And that meant Estella. Or, now, their new target. Hayley herself.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to rage. I wanted to find whoever was doing this to me and finish them off, quickly and irrevocably. But none of those reactions were accessible. I was in my office and no one—not even Mr. Hudson, who managed my security issues—could be relied on to find the gang.
That was not just because they would have had trouble finding them. Hell, even I could have found them, since I knew more or less exactly where to look. It was because I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
One whisper from one of Hudson’s men about the assignment they had been set, one leak to the press, and I was as good as ruined anyway. No, I realized. I had to do this alone. This was me against them. It had to be.
I pressed the intercom to the office of my secretary.
“Mrs. Douglas?”
“Yes?” she called.
“What’s my diary looking like this afternoon?”
“Well,” she paused, reading off a sheet of paper in her hand, “you have a Skype conference with the Colorado lot, and then you have a welcome dinner at six-thirty…and I do want to send those reports off, if you’ve finished with them yet?” she said with a wistful sound to the statement.
I sighed. “Yes,” I said truthfully. “I can send them to you today. Now, in fact. But listen: could you Skype with Len and tell him we’re going to have to reschedule? And make my excuses at the dinner this evening? Something’s come up.”
“Yes, Mr. Sand,” she said firmly. I sighed with relief. She was absolutely precious, my secretary. No matter what she was facing, she was always calm, always easygoing. She didn’t ask why I couldn’t be there or try to guilt me into going to the dinner, which would probably have helped my relations with overseas investors. She just easily smoothed things over for me.
“Thanks, Mrs. Douglas,” I said gratefully, and, switching off intercom, turned to my PC.
I sent her the reports and my comments on them, then looked at the ceiling, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. I had now just granted myself a free afternoon. Which was good, because I had a massive problem to remedy. But I didn’t know how I should even start.
I knew where to find the gang. At the docks they had a small office where the gang boss worked, ostensibly as a bulk cloth merchant, but really a front for the drug-dealing trade he did. I would head down there now and settle this with him.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that probably wouldn’t help. Even if I could pay them up front some ridiculously large sum of money, there was no guarantee they would keep their word. They would probably still come back, even if not at once, and start demanding more. The more I gave them, the more they would know how much it meant to me to buy their silence.
I need to finish them off.
I was walking around my office as I considered my options; packing my suitcase, getting ready to leave. But where would I go?
How do you go about finishing off a drug cartel? If I had nothing to do with them, it would have been a simple matter of calling the police, tipping them off. But I did have something to do with them, or I would never have known where they were. I couldn’t risk them selling me to the police, which they would do as a matter of course for a commuted sentence.
I would have done the same, if it was me, I knew.
No, it was me or them. I just had to think of something.
I picked up my bag and hurried from the office, heading to the ground floor where my car was parked.
“Afternoon, Mr. Sand,” Mrs. Douglas called to me. She looked vaguely concerned as I bustled past her desk, and I realized my worry must be written on my face.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Douglas,” I called over my shoulder with what I hoped was a lighthearted manner. I saw a reflection of myself in the mirror in the elevator on the way downstairs, and realized it was probably more of a grimace than a smile I gave her.
I was so worried. My heart thudded and my hand shook as I slid the key into the ignition, turning it hastily. The engine purred to life and I headed back out of the parking, toward the gate.
“This could ruin everything,” I said to myself in the rear-view mirror as I adjusted it and put my foot on the gas, heading for home. It wasn’t that, though. It was the danger the gang presented to my daughter and to Hayley.
We found footprints at the perimeter. Mr. Hudson’s voice spoke in my mind, clear and hard. Whoever it was who threatened my life, they had been checking the security at my home. They probably knew my daughter was there.
I felt the blood drain from my face. It wasn’t exactly like Estella was behind closed doors: she jogged in the park every day, heading out into the streets of Pasadena like any other person in town. Anyone who knew who she was—and that was anyone who read magazines or followed the tabloids—could abduct her from there.
“Estella,” I said aloud as I broke the speed limit on the road back to Pasadena from my workplace, “please, please stay inside. Don’t take risks today. Please.”
I decided to text her. Hands shivering with nerves, I pulled my phone from my side-pocket and sent her a text.
Please play it safe, sweetie. Stay inside until I get home. On my way—be there in twenty minutes. Dad.
I put my foot on the gas and raced back into the traffic, heading frantically home.
As I drew into leafy Pasadena, I heard my phone make a message tone. Two tones. I sighed. I waited until I was outside the house before I took it from my pocket and checked the messages. The first one was from Estella.
Okay, Dad—see you.
I smiled. I opened the second one. I dropped the phone in my lap and cried out.
It was from Mrs. Delange.
Heard from Hudson. Mrs. Sand gone. Please call.
“No!” I cried. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
But all the denial in the world would not erase that. Praying I was dreaming, wishing I would wake and knowing it was impossible, I ran through the door and into the house.