Most Wanted

41

DOLAN REED WAS NO STRANGER TO THE CONCEPT of suicide. He was one of those oversize personalities who couldn’t tolerate defeat. And while his lack of scruples meant he rarely lost in business, in his personal life he hadn’t been so lucky. Rejection sent him spiraling into paroxysms of self-pity, which in turn provoked thoughts of sucking on a tailpipe or rigging up a noose. When life slapped him, rather than accepting the insult, he preferred the thought of telling life itself to fuck off. Especially if he could go out in a way that would hurt the one who spurned him. Hurting Sarah. That was the main thing on his mind right now, as he sat at his desk contemplating death. His and hers.

Sarah deserved to die. There was something wrong with her, some black hole in her heart that shocked the conscience. Even he could see that. What she’d done to him was but one small success in a long and distinguished career of shattering lives. He wasn’t the first, but he could make himself the last. Wouldn’t be difficult to arrange. He had a shotgun in the country that would do the job nicely. If you planned to kill yourself, the logistics of taking someone else with you were tremendously simplified. No need for tiresome details like escape routes and alibis.

So that was the plan. Two loud blasts in the middle of the office in the middle of the afternoon. Lots of ugly publicity. He only wished he had copies of the videos Sarah had made of them. He’d leave them playing silently on a large monitor facing the door, the first thing people would see as they entered. Oh, his wife would love that. Hah, the bitch! She’d be so humiliated in front of her society friends. The tapes would bother her much more than his death. The more he thought about it, the more the videotapes seemed essential to the plan, a sort of fabulous, graphic suicide note. The absence of that one special touch would spoil the whole effect. And not only because of his wife either, but because he wanted Sarah exposed for the two-faced, low-life whore she was.

When he couldn’t think of a way to get his hands on the tapes, though, he considered whether there might not be another path to revenge. He would regret giving up the sensual pleasure of blasting a hole in Sarah’s chest wide enough to rip her heart out through. Yet wasn’t that approach a bit garish, a bit lacking in finesse? Surely he, with his first-rate mind, could come up with something cleverer, more devious. Something designed to make her suffer more exquisitely, and for longer.

Then he remembered. Of course. Yes. How perfect. He chuckled to himself. He had tapes of his own he could use. Sarah wasn’t the only one skilled in the discreet art of electronic surveillance. Dolan’s office was rigged with a recording system Richard Nixon would have envied.

Extracting a small gold key from the pocket of his suit jacket, he knelt in the well under his desk and pulled up a piece of the custom-dyed Stark carpeting, exposing a small trapdoor. He unlocked it and reached his arm in, pulling out a manila envelope, then covered everything back up. A moment later he was seated at his desk, having selected and cued up a particular tape on the elaborate sound system concealed within his credenza.

He had to fast-forward a bit to get to the spot he wanted.

“…never do anything of the sort!” he heard his own voice saying. Why did he always sound so fucking nasal?

His blood pressure shot up at the memory of this argument. God, he’d hated Jed. Hated him, and found his murder gratifying in the extreme. Dolan had been sitting in his big leather chair, just as he was now. Jed sat across from him, smug in a perfectly tailored, five-thousand-dollar Brioni suit. Dolan remembered just itching to take a crowbar and bash Jed’s handsome face to a bloody pulp.

“Unfortunately, Dolan, you’ll find it’s necessary to protect your interests,” Jed’s recorded voice had said.

“Twenty percent for nothing? That’s outrageous. Go fuck yourself! Get out of my office!”

“My silence is not nothing. It’s highly valuable, a bargain at twice the price,” Jed had said smoothly. That phony-baloney baritone of his. So fucking full of himself. “With what I know about the transaction and my contacts in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, you’d be risking a nice long jail term, Dolan.”

“You’re bluffing. I don’t think you have a fucking clue what went on with Securilex.”

“Oh, really? I understand how the stock was manipulated better than you do. Would you like a summary?”

Dolan punched “stop,” his chest heaving with fury. To his chagrin, Jed had proceeded to outline the transaction in minute detail. Looking back, of course, he realized Sarah had double-crossed him, had divulged everything to Jed. At the time he’d been positively flummoxed about that. Had no idea how Jed had found out. Never suspected her for an instant. He had to hand it to her-the girl was a truly gifted double agent. She put Mata Hari to shame. And, if he had anything to say about it, she’d meet the same fate as the famous spy. Death, ultimately, but only after a long and harrowing prison sentence. He’d get her convicted for Jed’s murder. This tape was the means to accomplish that. He fast-forwarded and hit “play.”

“Of course,” Dolan had protested to Jed, “what you’re suggesting puts Sarah van der Vere at terrible risk. You realize that? She’ll be the innocent victim in all this.”

“Hardly innocent. Sarah’s getting caught would be regrettable. She’s a charming young woman. But I always say, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Dolan hadn’t known then that Jed was fucking Sarah. The conversation was all the more remarkable now, in light of that knowledge. Jed hadn’t cared about her in the least. All the damage he’d done, and he never even cared.

“Oh? I guess you don’t practice what you preach, then,” Dolan had said sarcastically.

“What are you talking about? I had no role in Securilex.”

Dolan felt a vein in his temple pulsing as he checked himself from shouting at Jed. Throwing all the dirt he knew about him in his smug fucking face. Because Dolan knew a lot. Jed had been a thorn in his side for long enough that he’d taken steps. Had him followed, investigated. He knew about the money laundering for sure. The rest, he guessed at. But he didn’t say anything just then. Wouldn’t be good poker.

“So you’d let Sarah be ruined? Arrested, even?”

“Cost of doing business,” Jed said with a nonchalant shrug.

“Well,” Dolan said, “I’ll let her know you feel that way.”

He never had, but he could say he did. Yes, it would do nicely. An excerpt of that tape, a few doctored e-mails, and a long, confessional suicide note from him. Presto, Sarah had motive. Jed had threatened to expose her, ruin her career. Sarah had come to Dolan seeking advice. Against his better judgment, he’d helped her arrange the murder. That last part would be more difficult to fake. He knew very little about murder contracts. But he kept a highly proficient private investigator on retainer. The man, to be effective, naturally had underworld contacts. He could surely provide sufficient insight to manage that aspect of it.

Dolan nodded grimly to himself, finally satisfied with the plan. He would spend the day preparing his package for that prosecutor. Put it in the overnight mail. Then drive out to the country later this afternoon and eat his shotgun for dinner. All the while crowing over the thought of Sarah’s getting arrested. His only regret would be not witnessing it himself. But he could imagine the scene vividly enough. After all, he knew what Sarah looked like in handcuffs.