"Can you find out where he lives, what he looks like?"
"No can do." The second man shook his head. "I don't have the contacts, and even if I did, a request like that would have me dead within an hour. I'm telling you, let it drop here. Don't do anything that will draw attention to us."
"What if you made a mistake, missed a fingerprint or something?"
"I didn't. We wore gloves, got rid of the guns, burned our clothes. There's nothing to tie anyone to Medina. If you're that nervous about it, you should have used someone else to make the hit on Whitlaw."
"No one else was even getting close to him. He was too good. I needed someone just as good." That someone had been Rick Medina. Pity. An unencumbered piece of muscle would have been much simpler—no family who cared much; no cops who cared. Medina came with complications, but that couldn't be helped, especially now. At least he had gotten the job done, something all those other clowns hadn't managed to do. He had concocted a good story to put Medina on the hunt, but once the kill was made, Medina had had to be removed, because if he ever found out he had been used—well, it would have been nasty.
The first man sighed, getting up to pace slowly over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the carefully manicured lawn. There was nothing in this visit to excite interest, because he normally had a constant stream of visitors, people coming and going, asking favors, performing duties. Still, this whole business made him uneasy. He had thought it was finished years ago. He had learned a lesson, though: tie up all the loose ends. Medina had been a loose end; he regretted the necessity but didn't back down from it.
"What about the men you used?" he asked, wondering if they were more loose ends.
"I can vouch for them. None of them even knew a name; they were just doing a job. I've kept everything quiet."
"Good. What about the book?"
"No sign of it."
"Damn." The word was softly breathed. As long as that book was unaccounted for, he couldn't feel safe. What sort of madness had prompted Dexter Whitlaw to record the hit, anyway? It was evidence against
himself, and it wasn't as if he could include it in his body count. But Whitlaw had evidently decided he had less to lose than someone else if the truth came out, and that the someone else would pay any amount to get that book. He had almost been right. When one had other options, one wasn't bound by the rules. "Where could he have put it?"
"I doubt he would have used a safe deposit box," the second man said, thinking. His name was Hayes. He was big, stocky, unremarkable in looks, just one more slightly overweight, slightly unkempt man who hadn't kept in shape. His gaze was remote and intelligent. "He moved around too much, and he would have wanted it where he could get to it fairly easily, plus you have to pay for the boxes every year. Same thing with lockers in bus stations. Most likely, he left it with someone he trusted, maybe a friend but probably someone in his family."
"Whitlaw was estranged from his family." This was said with distinct disapproval. "He walked out on his wife and daughter twenty years ago."
"What was their last known address?" Hayes asked promptly.
"Someplace in West Virginia, but they're no longer there. I learned they moved to Ohio years ago, but I haven't located them yet."
"Whitlaw might have known where they live. He could have sent the book to them before he started trying to blackmail you. Set everything up in advance."
"That's true, that's true." Clearly disturbed by that possibility, the first man turned back from the windows.
"Have you traced their social security numbers, checked for tax records?"
"That would leave tracks—"
Hayes sighed. Yes, it would—if done officially, through the proper channels, which was the stupid way to do anything. "Give me their names and birthdays. I'll get the information—and I won't leave tracks."
"If you're certain—"
"I'm certain."
"Don't take any action without talking to me first. I don't want two women to be needlessly killed." After Hayes had left, Senator Stephen Lake left his office and climbed the wide, curving staircase that swept in a graceful arch up to the second floor. The luxurious thickness of the carpeting silenced his steps; the polished ebony banister gleamed like jet in the summer sunlight. The air was sweet with fresh flowers cut from his own lovingly tended gardens—lovingly tended by the gardener, that is—and he paused a moment to inhale the wonderful, indefinable essence of gracious living. He loved this house, had from the moment he was old enough to appreciate the beauty of it and everything it represented. He remembered, as a child, watching his father stoop and trail his fingers across the glossy, newly inlaid marble in the foyer, relishing the stone for both its own beauty and its testimony to his wealth and, more subtly, his power. Stephen's chest had felt full and tight with emotion as he'd absorbed his father's emotions and known he felt exactly the same way. He still did. He appreciated the lead crystal chandeliers, the exquisite furniture handmade by Europe's finest, the exotic woods from
Africa and South America, the paintings in their gold-leaf frames, the ankle-thick carpeting that kept the chill of the Minnesota winters from his feet.
He had grown up playing on the beautifully manicured lawn, he and his older brother, William, taking turns being cowboys and Indians, pretending long sticks were rifles, and yelling "Bang bang!" at each other until they were hoarse. Those had been great days. The cook had always had fresh, cold lemonade to refresh them after a day of hard play in the hot summer, or hot chocolate to warm them after romping in the snow. Inside, there had been the rich smell of their father's cigars, a smell the senator still associated with power; the sweet fragrance of his mother's perfume as she hugged him and William and kissed their cheeks, and he had wriggled with delight. "My little princes," she had called them. Their mother had loved them unconditionally. Their father had been more stern, harder to please. A frown from him could ruin the boys' day. William had found it easier to please their father than Stephen had. William was older, of course, but he was naturally more careful, more responsible. Stephen had been a little shy, more intelligent than his confident brother but less able to show that intelligence. William had often stepped between Stephen and punishment, deflecting the scoldings and loss of privileges that would have come his brother's way, because their father had often been impatient with Stephen's shyness.