A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(97)

“She’s not a businessperson, Danny. You don’t want her running it.”

“Who the hell is this Angela Milton?”

“Milton is her husband’s last name. Her maiden name was Torturro. She’s one of Mr. Malconi’s brother’s grandchildren.”

“Jesus.”

“Mr. Malconi is protecting all of us from the possibility that you have to spend some time in jail. You could get sued in a civil suit for doing harm to Miss Chelsea, and lose. This way, your business will not be taken away from you in a forced foreclosure.”

“That’s a very remote possibility.”

“Mr. Malconi has lived to be old by protecting himself and his people from possibilities other people thought were remote.”

Crane felt acid rise from his stomach to his esophagus, but he fought it back down. He knew that if he signed the contract his business would be theirs. He would have to work for the rest of his life to pay himself for the false sale. And because he could only pay himself a hundred thousand a year from the company, he would have to keep running the burglary crew to bring Salamone a supply of stolen jewelry and furnishings. “This is unfair,” he muttered. “He’s just taking it.”

Salamone reached out and patted him on the shoulder, and then touched him on the side of his face. It was a strange gesture, almost the way a parent caressed a child’s cheek. “Be glad,” he said. “You could have been found hanging in one of your storage bays. He would never do that in a business he owns.”





24



Jane transferred the photographs to the temporary account she’d been given at the business center in her hotel, and sent them to the e-mail address she’d found on Sergeant Isaac Lloyd’s business card. Then she checked out of the hotel.

She drove to a big chain drugstore on Niagara Falls Boulevard and bought three more prepaid cell phones, loaded them with calling minutes, and put two in her backpack and one in her pocket. She dismantled the cell phone she had been using and threw the parts into two different dumpsters and a storm sewer. She knew the photographs she had sent Isaac Lloyd couldn’t be used in a court, but she was showing the police where to look, so they could find the same evidence themselves.

She used a new phone to call Jimmy Sanders in Hanover, New Hampshire.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Me again. Did you have any trouble meeting her at the airport?”

“No,” said Jimmy. “We found a picture of her online from a couple of years ago. She was the twenty-fifth runner-up for some beauty contest. Ow! Okay, she won. Want to talk to the ex–beauty queen?”

“Yes.”

A second later Chelsea Schnell’s voice came on. “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Jane. “I had to leave the airport in a hurry, so I didn’t actually see you off. I just wanted to be sure you got there without being followed.”

“Yes. I had no trouble at all. There was nobody in the Albany airport that I’d ever seen before, and I was on a plane in forty-five minutes.”

“And have you managed to talk to your mother?”

“Yes. I called her in Denver as soon as we got here. Thank you for asking. She knows I’m safe and I’m not going to be in touch again for a long time. I said I needed to be away, and that there’s a man who won’t stop trying to stalk me. I said I wanted time to get my head straight from all the things that had happened. I didn’t tell her about the hospital and the rest, because that would just make her feel worse.”

“That’s probably wise,” Jane said. “And I take it you’re getting along with everybody there.”

“Mattie’s been great. And the town is pretty, and relaxed, and nice.”

“And Jimmy?”

“Uh-huh. Same.”

“He’s still right there listening?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you about him another time. I changed phones again. After we hang up, check the memory on that phone and get my new number.”

“Okay.” She paused. “And Jane?”

“What?”

“Thank you so much for saving my life.”

“Right. Got to go.” She thought about what she had just learned. Chelsea and Jimmy were, at the very least, flirting. People were a strange species. They could be drugged, battered, starved, everything but murdered, but something inside them was always striving to live, to struggle out of darkness toward light. They were utterly incorrigible.

THE POLICE TEAM HAD MOVED the motor home in Slawicky’s yard back twenty-five feet to uncover the bare patch that Ike Lloyd had seen the night he’d been shot. Two Caledonia police officers were doing the digging, while Technical Sergeant Arthur Reid of the New York State police stood by. He made sure to stand straight, and didn’t sit down or betray a lack of attention to the work so they wouldn’t think he was lounging around while they labored.

What he was really thinking was that he fervently hoped Ike Lloyd hadn’t taken a bullet for nothing. Ike had been a close friend of Reid’s for about fifteen of his seventeen years with the state police. Ike was going to have a split decision on this case at best. He had gotten shot because once again he had a theory that he’d gone out to test alone without following the proper procedures. But he had been shot in the line of duty, so he would get another public citation for bravery, and another private reprimand for the screw-up. If the search team found something here, then maybe this wouldn’t be his final reprimand.