“And now?”
“Now my best guess would be Wallace, but it’s only a guess.”
“It’s an incorrect one. I would vouch for the Keeper with my life.”
Unfortunately, he’s not able to come up with any idea who might have been directing the conspiracy, but promises to give it intense thought and effort. “I just hope I’m not too late,” he says.
“Too late for what? With all the attention that the crash brought to this area and that airfield, that operation has to shut down.”
“You think it’s over?” he asks, clearly doubting that it is.
“I do, only because I don’t see how it can continue.”
“Then you’re not thinking clearly,” he says. I wait for him to continue, and he does. “You believe that the crash was intentional, yet you also believe the crash ruined their chances for continuing their operation. These are smart people; why would they intentionally stop themselves?”
What he is saying is so obviously true that I’m embarrassed it eluded me. “Unless they’re moving on to something else and were ready for this to end,” I say.
He nods. “Exactly.”
• • • • •
I’M ABOUT FIFTEEN minutes out of Center City, and I can’t get the conversation with Drummond out of my mind. Since I arrived in Findlay, I’ve always been a couple of steps behind the people I’m chasing. If anything, that gulf is widening now.
My goal has been to figure out who they are and to stop what they’re doing. I haven’t given the slightest bit of thought to what they’re going to do next, but Drummond is absolutely right. There is no reason to think they would have done anything to stop themselves, yet it seemed as if the plane crash did just that.
I turn toward the passenger seat to make sure that Tara is all right, something I do every few minutes. It causes me to glance at my cell phone in its case, and I see that I’ve received a phone call and have a voice mail message. I didn’t take the phone in with me when I went into Drummond’s house, so the call must have come in then.
I check caller ID and see that the call came from Laurie. I’ve been so focused on Drummond and Center City that I haven’t thought about her at all.
I play back the message, and within moments I hear her voice, which sounds excited. “Andy, I think we got a break. It looks like Wallace has been behind the whole thing. Cliff Parsons has gotten one of Wallace’s servants to turn on him… Cliff says the guy is rock-solid and will testify in court. We’re going to get Wallace in a few minutes and bring him in for questioning. I’ll keep you posted.”
I hear what she’s saying, but a cold chill runs down my spine as I hear even more clearly what she
Wallace is not the leader of any criminal conspiracy: he’s had nothing to do with the murders, and Cliff Parsons has not gotten one of his servants to turn on him.
Because Cliff Parsons has been behind it all.
I pull the car to a screeching halt and execute as fast a U-turn as I can. At the same time, I dial Laurie’s number at the station. No one answers her phone, and the call gets kicked automatically to the sergeant at the front desk.
He says that Laurie is out, so I ask to speak to Parsons, though there is little chance that he is there. When the sergeant says he’s also out, I tell him that he needs to reach Laurie and have her call me. I tell him that it’s again a life-and-death situation, but I don’t tell him that the life on the line is hers.
I call Drummond, only to find that he has not returned to his office. No matter how much I beg, they won’t give me his home number. I plead with them to reach him and have him call me, and though they say they will, I have no confidence in it. They’re not accustomed to doing favors for strangers that involve any kind of invasion of privacy. Especially when the person whose privacy they’d be invading is Stephen Drummond.
The feeling of panic and dread that I have as I speed back toward Center City is overwhelming. The signs that Parsons was behind it were right there in front of me, but I never saw them. Now they are hitting me in waves.
Parsons was kept informed of our stakeouts of the airport, which explains why we were never able to catch them with anything other than a truckload of cheese. The only time he thought the airport was unwatched was when I went out there on an impulse on Christmas Day, and that is why a plane came in that day.
I never knew how the two servants who kidnapped Madeline found out she had spoken to us, but Parsons certainly knew, and directed them to do what they did. He’d been assigned to Center City for a few years and must have found a few of the servants, Alan Drummond included, that he could recruit for his scheme.
I keep turning to stare at the cell phone, as if that might get it to ring, but it refuses, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my fears.
I’d bet my life that it wasn’t cargo that the postman saw fall through the clouds from the plane that day, and it wasn’t a piece of the plane. It was Cliff Parsons, a former Army Airborne Ranger, who parachuted out of the plane after he killed Alan Drummond. He must have been afraid that Drummond was so scared he would talk to us, or perhaps it was time to end the scheme, and he didn’t want Drummond around as a possible future witness.
The next step is all too obvious. Cliff Parsons is going to kill Laurie and make it look as though Wallace did it. Then he’s going to take Laurie’s job, a job he thinks he should have gotten in the first place. He must have all the money he needs; now he will get the position and respect he thinks he deserves.
He’s a piece of shit, and if he does anything to Laurie, I will hunt him down until the day I die.
I make it back to Center City in less than half the time it took me to leave, and I pull the car to a screeching halt right in front of the town hall. There are a number of people in the street, going about their business, and I’m sure they must be staring at me. For the first time, I don’t see any servants in front of the place, providing security.
I leave Tara in the car, but as I run toward the building, I flick the button on my key ring, locking her in. I see a Findlay squad car parked along the side of the building, which increases an anxiety that is already threatening to explode my head.
I run up the steps, realizing as I do that I’ve never been in this building. It’s possible no outsider ever has. But there’s no one to stop me, and no one
The large double doors are closed but unlocked, and I open them and rush in. I think I hear someone behind me in the street yelling, “Hey!” but I don’t know who it is. I leave the doors open in the hope that they’ll follow me in; I can use all the help I can get.
I enter a lobby area, though it’s narrow enough to be classified a hallway. I don’t see anyone, but directly in front of me are large, ornate double doors, probably fifteen feet high. I don’t know where I’m going or what the hell I’m doing, so I stop to see if I can hear anything. All I hear is silence.
I get the idea that I’ll call Laurie’s cell phone and see if I can hear it ring in the building so I can determine her location. It’s a good idea but impractical, since I left my own cell phone in the car.
I can think of two options at this point. I can stand here in the hall like a jerk, or I can rush in through those doors like a jerk. If I let my natural cowardly instincts take over, I’ll stand here. Instead I listen to my head, which tells me I have to go in.
I open the doors and cautiously step inside. The scene is stunning. I’ve entered through the side of what looks like a church, with rows of bench seating under a ceiling at least four stories high. There is a balcony above me which probably contains seating as well, but I can’t see it from this vantage point. A large chair, almost like a throne, is to my left in the front, facing the area where the congregation would be sitting.
But it is what is behind the throne that would take my breath away, had fear not already done so. A wheel, covered with symbols that are unintelligible to me, towers over everything. It has been described to me as a large, carnival-type wheel, and while that’s technically true, it’s a ludicrously inadequate description. It is majestic and stunning and overpowering.
“Well, if it isn’t Sherlock Holmes.” The voice to my left belongs to Parsons, and as I turn, I’m not surprised to see that he is pointing a gun at me. About fifteen feet from him are Laurie, Wallace, and two servants, none of whom seem to be armed. Parsons is in control here.
