Fifth Victim

She continued to regard me for a moment, her body swaying to the pulse of alcohol or music, I wasn’t sure which. Then she smiled.

‘That’s what I always liked about you. You were so damned unimpressed by this kind of thing,’ she said, nodding towards the magnificent yacht laid out behind us. ‘I may have despised my father and the sycophants with which he surrounded himself, but at least you were never in awe of him.’ She laughed. ‘You once told me, if I hated him so much, to stop taking his money and go make my own way, do my own thing.’

Her own thing, I recalled grimly in the face of this charm offensive, had included seducing a gullible boyfriend into an attempted hit on the old man. It hadn’t worked, and the Dempseys’ flat refusal to do anything constructive about their only child had been one of the reasons I’d asked to be taken off the job. A decision I’d never regretted.

‘Nice to see you took my advice to heart,’ I said dryly. ‘Trust fund, didn’t you say?’

She smiled again. ‘From my grandparents. So, technically, I did listen to you.’ She took another sip of her drink. ‘I wanted to let you know that you were a big influence, though I guess it didn’t seem like it at the time.’

I waited for the flash of guile, but saw enough apparent sincerity to deliver a cautious, ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she responded. A girl with looks that were striking rather than pretty, with dark hair which – now she’d discarded the hat – I could see she’d had cut sleek and stylish, feathered in around her neck. The dress probably cost more than my entire annual clothing budget, and she wore it with the careless elegance of someone entirely used to such expense. ‘I’ve done some growing up over the last couple of years,’ she said, almost rueful. ‘About time, huh?’

‘You were kidnapped,’ I said, recalling the fortress-like parental estate, made even more secure by the installation of the electronic surveillance equipment and sensors that I myself had overseen. They should not have been able to get within a mile of her.

I cursed the sketchy reports, the lack of official investigation, and asked, ‘How did they get to you?’

Manda’s lips twisted. ‘Too easily,’ she said. Her eyes flicked across to me. ‘I was almost home. It was late, dark, and there was something in the road. I thought maybe someone had hit a dog, so I stopped and – just like you always told us not to – I got out of the car.’ She shrugged, her smile turning wan. ‘I don’t remember much after that. Apparently they had me for four days. I kinda lost track of time.’

She moved alongside me and rested her forearms on the polished mahogany capping rail. She leant out over it slightly, staring down into the artificial blue glow beneath the hull. ‘My father once told me I’d had everything I could ever wish for,’ she said quietly.

‘I remember.’ At the time, she’d flung back a furious denial. Told him that, on the contrary, she’d had everything money could buy and if he didn’t understand the difference, there was no point in her trying to explain. There had been more swearing and raised voices to it, but that was the gist.

She straightened, turned so her back was to the rail and gazed at the ongoing party with a cynical eye.

‘I guess you don’t appreciate what you have, until there’s the chance of losing it all,’ she said then. ‘Not just your lifestyle, but your life.’

‘They threatened to kill you?’ I said, keeping my voice absolutely level.

‘Oh yes,’ she said with a bitter smile. ‘They told me in great detail what was going to happen to me if the ransom wasn’t paid. And if my family went to the police, involved the authorities in any way, I’d suffer because of it.’

I thought back to the rebellious teenager I’d once known. ‘I can’t imagine you took that lying down, Manda.’

‘Oh, I tried to fight back, and after they beat me, they sent photographs of the bruises to my family,’ she said. Her voice was devoid of emotion, as though retelling a mildly interesting story of things that had happened to someone else. I’d used it myself as a natural defence mechanism. ‘For every delay, they said, they would … mark me. Somewhere permanent. Somewhere it would show.’

‘And did they?’

She gave a shrug. ‘I was lucky,’ she said. ‘My family paid.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

With very little prompting, Manda told me the story of her captivity and release. It didn’t take long. She had seen or heard nothing that would help to identify her kidnappers. She thought there were three or possibly four of them. They had been of similar size and weight, had spoken with no discernible accent, never used names, and had worn shiny chain store sports clothing and gloves and masks at all times.

In other words, they were professionals.

She recounted the tale with a dry wit, and a lack of self-pity or exaggeration that I found intriguing.

‘How much did they demand for your return?’

‘One million.’ She said it casually, as though it was too small a sum to be worth mentioning. ‘Wired direct to an account in the Caymans.’ She shrugged again. ‘My father had been dead six months by then. The trustees eventually agreed to pay half.’

Half a million dollars. Cheap, by heiress standards. Not much to split between three or four perpetrators, for four days of high tension and no doubt months of planning leading up to that. Perhaps that explained why they’d found another victim comparatively quickly.

‘Benedict was taken not long after me,’ Manda said, matter-of-fact. She had her hands wrapped around her bare arms, gently rubbing her own skin as if for comfort as much as warmth, but the night had begun to turn chilly so I couldn’t read too much into it. ‘I didn’t know him then. We didn’t get together until afterward.’ She smiled. ‘Not many people understand what you went through, unless they’ve been there.’

‘Was he taken by the same means?’

Manda shook her head. ‘Not really – car trouble. He’d gotten a flat and called OnStar assistance, and he was waiting for them to arrive when they grabbed him.’

‘He’d called out help to change a wheel?’ I queried, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice entirely, but Manda just gave me a wry glance where the old Amanda would have sulked.

‘His folks gave him a tricked-out Cadillac Escalade on these huge chromed wheels,’ she explained. ‘He said it was a two-man job, taking them on and off. And it was kinda dark, and raining.’

Another roadside ambush. I made a mental note to be particularly vigilant when Dina and I were out in the car. I’d arrived at the Willners’ place on my motorbike, a Buell Firebolt, and I’d been using whatever was in their garage since, like Dina’s Merc. Maybe I’d call Parker in the morning about using one of the company SUVs, which had a certain amount of non-standard reinforcement in the bodywork and chassis, and run-flat tyres.

‘Did his kidnap follow the same pattern as yours?’ I asked now.

‘If you mean did they threaten to kill him – slowly and painfully – if the police were called in?’ she demanded. ‘Then, yes, it did.’

‘And the amount they wanted was the same?’

Another head shake, harder this time. ‘This time, they wanted two million.’ She saw my reaction and added with a surprisingly resentful edge, ‘That amount is loose change to the Benelli family.’

‘And how much did they get?’

She gave me a cool straight stare. ‘Two million.’

‘They paid up the whole amount, just like that?’ This time I didn’t bother to hide my disbelief. Such a move was not only practically unheard of, it was also unwise and possibly downright bloody dangerous.

Unless …

Manda was watching my face. She levered upright abruptly and began to turn away. ‘No. It wasn’t just like that at all.’

I heard something quiet and brittle in her voice, took a step after her. ‘Manda, what—’

‘Hey, Manda, what’s the matter – you don’t love me anymore?’

A figure had appeared from one of the brightly lit doorways and was standing silhouetted against the light, with a glass of champagne in one hand and the other still stuffed into his pocket. Benedict’s usual studied pose.

‘Of course I do, honey,’ she called, almost bringing off a relaxed drawl while at the same time shooting me a