Remember When (In Death #17.5)(23)

He killed his first man at twenty-two, and though it had been unplanned-bad clams had sent the mark home early from the ballet-he had no aversion to stealing a life. Particularly if there was a good profit in it.

He was forty-eight years old, had a taste for French wine and Italian suits. He had a home in Westchester from which his wife had fled-taking his young son-just prior to their divorce. He also kept a luxurious apartment off Central Park where he entertained lavishly when the mood struck, a weekend home in the Hamptons and a seaside home on Grand Cayman. All of the deeds were in different names.

He'd done very well for himself by taking what belonged to others and, if he said so himself, had become a kind of connoisseur. He was selective in what he stole now, and had been for more than a decade. Art and gems were his specialties, with an occasional foray into rare stamps.

He'd had a few arrests along the way, but only one conviction-a smudge he blamed entirely on his incompetent and overpriced lawyer.

The man had paid for it, as Crew had beaten him to bloody death with a lead pipe three months after his release. But to Crew's mind those scales were hardly balanced. He'd spent twenty-six months inside, deprived of his freedom, debased and humiliated.

The idiot lawyer's death was hardly compensation.

But that had been more than twenty years ago. Though he'd been picked up for questioning a time or two since, there'd been no other arrests. The single benefit of those months in prison had been the endless time to think, to evaluate, to consider.

It wasn't enough to steal. It was essential to steal well, and to live well. So he'd studied, developed his brain and his personas. To steal successfully from the rich, it was best to become one of them. To acquire knowledge and taste, unlike the dregs who rotted behind bars.

To gain entree into society, to perhaps take a well-heeled wife at some point. Success, to his mind, wasn't climbing in second-story windows, but in directing others to do so. Others who could be manipulated, then disposed of as necessary. Because, whatever they took, at his direction, by all rights belonged exclusively to him.

He was smart, he was patient, and he was ruthless.

If he'd made a mistake along the way, it was nothing that couldn't and wouldn't be rectified. He always rectified his mistakes. The idiot lawyer, the foolish woman who'd objected to his bilking her of a few hundred thousand dollars, any number of slow-minded underlings he'd employed or associated with in the course of his career.

Big Jack O'Hara and his ridiculous sidekick Willy had been mistakes.

A misjudgment, Crew corrected as he turned the corner and started back to the hotel. They hadn't been quite as stupid as he'd assumed when he'd used them to plan out and execute the job of his lifetime. His grail, his quest. His.

How they had slipped through the trap he'd laid and gotten away with their cut before it sprang was a puzzle to him. For more than a month they'd managed to elude him. And neither had attempted to turn the take into cash-that was another surprise.

But he'd kept his nose to the ground and eventually picked up O'Hara's scent. Yet it hadn't been Jack he'd managed to track from New York to the Maryland mountains, but the foolish weasel Willy.

He shouldn't have let the little bastard see him, Crew thought now. But goddamn small towns. He hadn't expected to all but run into the man on the street. Any more than he'd expected Willy to bolt and run, a scared rabbit hopping right out and under the wheels of an oncoming car.

He'd been tempted to march through the rain, up to the bleeding mess and kick it. Millions of dollars at stake, and the idiot doesn't remember to look both ways before rushing into the street.

Then she'd come running out of that store. The pretty redhead with the shocked face. He'd seen that face before. Oh, he'd never met her, but he'd seen that face. Big Jack had photographs, and he'd loved to take them out and show them off once he had a couple of beers under his belt.

My daughter. Isn't she a beauty? Smart as a whip, too. College-educated, my Lainie.

Smart enough, Crew thought, to tuck herself into the straight life in a small town so she could fence goods, transport them, turn them over. It was a damn good con.

If Jack thought he could pass what belonged to Alex Crew to his daughter, and retire rich to Rio as he often liked to talk of doing, he was going to be surprised.

He was going to get back what belonged to him. Everything that belonged to him. And father and daughter were going to pay a heavy price.

He stepped into the lobby of the Wayfarer and had to force himself to suppress a shudder. He considered the accommodations barely tolerable. He took the stairs to his suite, put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign as he wanted to sit in the quiet while he planned his next move.

He needed to make contact with Laine Tavish, and should probably do so as Miles Alexander, estate jewelry broker. He studied himself in the mirror and nodded. Alexander was a fresh alias, as was the silver hair and mustache. O'Hara knew him as Martin Lyle or Gerald Benson, and would have described him as clean-shaven, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair.

A flirtation might be an entree, and he did enjoy female companionship. The mutual interest in estate jewelry had been a good touch. Better to take a few days, get a feel for her before he made another move.

She hadn't hidden the cache at her house, nor had there been any safe-deposit or locker key to be found. Otherwise he and the two thugs he'd hired for the job would have found them.