only been informed of the land situation all along, but he believed Klein himself had put Styer in play to make it happen.
Klein would have to call Styer off the family and go through with the purchase, but Winter figured that would have little, if any, effect on Paulus Styer’s intention to kill him.
Winter approached the roadblock at Leigh’s driveway, slowed and rolled down the window so the deputy could see him.
“How’s it going?” Roy Bishop said, slinging the AR-15 onto his wide shoulder.
“Never better,” Winter said. “Any traffic?”
“Nope. Cold and quiet. Had a Memphis TV crew come up, asking to see Ms. Gardner, but I shooed them off. The sheriff is expecting you.” Winter rolled the window back up and drove toward the house.
91
When Alexa woke up, she was groggy and lying in an extremely large bathtub, enclosed by marble on three sides. The frosted glass sliding doors were closed. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her. She was wearing only her bra and panties, her suit and blouse on hangers suspended from one of six showerheads above her. Her ankles were joined with cable ties, and a strip of duct tape covered her mouth.
Classical music played from hidden speakers. Her head ached, and she remembered the stream of chloroform hitting her face.
Had Styer partnered with Jason Parr, who had masqueraded as a pig farmer? They could have seen her get out of Brad’s truck. If Parr hadn’t won, and put the money in her jacket, she never would have come back. Winter had told her that nothing was beyond Styer’s diabolical planning ability. She cursed her naivete, squirming against the cold marble.
She managed to scoot forward, lie on her back, and open the doors using the bottoms of her feet. The heavy doors slid aside effortlessly and Alexa maneuvered into a sitting position. She yelped involuntarily at what she saw. Wearing a tightly stretched T-shirt, starched jeans, and cowboy boots, Jason Parr sat on the floor in a corner of the bathroom, staring out through wide-open but dry and frosted eyes. In death, he looked subtly different than she remembered. His mouth was open and his swollen blackened tongue protruded from his lips like a half-inflated balloon. Around his neck was the red silk tie that had been used to throttle him. The tie looked like the same one that the bellboys, clerks, dealers, and probably room service personnel at the casino wore as part of their uniform. The real Jason Parr looked as though he had been dead for a couple of days, which meant that the man she had gambled with was Paulus Styer.
She saw shadows under the door, and watched as the gold-plated lever dropped from the nine to the six o’clock position and was cracked open. There was a gentle rapping followed by a voice she knew but couldn’t quite place. “Ms. Keen. Are you in there?”
She felt momentary relief at hearing the familiar voice. That was replaced by horror as the man entered the room, and looked down at the corpse in the corner. “Oh, damn, you’re in quite a predicament,” he said in a honey- smooth Southern-edged accent.
When the man turned his gaze on her and smiled, she realized it was Styer in another nearly perfect disguise. Although the similarities to the man Styer was impersonating were more than superficial, his smile was an insincere imitation of the original owner’s.
“I see you’ve found me,” he said, switching to Jason Parr’s voice, indicating the body. “You’re an honest gal, but not a very careful one.”
Alexa glared at her abductor as she realized what he could do with his current disguise. Paulus Styer had found the perfect Trojan horse.
92
Brad met Winter in the Gardners’ foyer, and after following him to the master bedroom where a still-dressed Leigh was stretched out on the bed, he filled them in on his meeting with Klein. He didn’t tell them he suspected that Klein had been behind the plan to kill the Gardners, as the injustice would gnaw at them. The important thing was that the Gardners were no longer in danger and Cyn would soon be safe at home.
“He’s paying five million, in cash? Just like that?” Brad asked.
Winter nodded. “I think he would have probably paid more, Leigh. But it’s what you thought was fair and it is an amount he can live with.”
“What about Mulvane?” Brad said. “Does he know what he’s done?”
“He seemed convinced,” Winter said. “Hard to tell with a man like Klein. He gave me the impression that he has suspected some subterfuge on Mulvane’s part all along. After the deal is done, we’ll take the bonds, put them in Brad’s evidence safe, and you can move them to your bank when it opens.”
“I don’t care about the bonds,” Leigh said.
Winter asked, “Where’s Alexa? I want to tell her.”
“You didn’t see her? She took off to watch your back when I told her you went to the Roundtable.”
“No,” Winter said.
He opened his cell phone and dialed Alexa, his fingers trembling involuntarily. After three rings she answered.
“Yes?” she said.
“Lex!?”
“What’s up?”
“Where are you? Brad told me you followed me.”
“I saw you leaving the casino and as I was getting ready to follow you, I got a call from Deputy Director Hatcher. He insisted that I meet with some field agents from the Memphis office. No biggie. I’m driving to the FO now.”
“Okay. We’re doing the deal tonight at nine.”
“So you don’t need me right now?”
“No. I guess not. You scared the hell out of me is all. I was about to call in the cavalry.”
“I’ll be back from Memphis as soon as I can get away,” she said. “I want to be there when Cyn calls or shows up. You stay sharp, you hear?”
“There’s no danger. Klein will make sure Mulvane doesn’t pull anything.” Winter closed the phone and slipped it into his pocket.
“Can you imagine Mulvane’s face if a dozen armed deputies had thundered into the casino hollering out Alexa’s name?” Brad said.
“The only thing I know is that nothing is going to happen to Alexa on my watch. Anybody does anything to her, and it’s scorched earth time.”
93
Styer took the phone from Alexa’s ear, closed it, and removed the earpiece he’d used to listen in on her call. She was in an armchair, where Styer had placed her after carrying her from the bathtub, still bound. Paulus put the second phone into his pocket where she could see it. She had cooperated because Styer told her he had planted a bomb containing three kilos of Semtex in the Gardner house. The detonator was rigged to his cell phone. All he needed to do, if she tried anything rash, was to hit the SEND key. She had taken his word, seeing in her mind the faces of everyone inside the house. She knew he would not hesitate to kill them.
“So Cynthia’s alive?” she asked.
