Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [113]
Frank had no place to go. He didn’t want to go home, and doubted his mother would welcome him. His dad was living in L.A., and he’d worn out the welcome at his few friends’ houses. He stole money by picking pockets on the K Street Mall to buy back the brooch. Three days later, he went in with the cash, but the brooch was gone. “You said I had thirty days!”
“I didn’t think you’d show up for it. Sue me.”
He didn’t doubt Aunt Rose’s threat to call the police. He snuck onto the property at night and hid out in the apartment above her garage. She didn’t handle stairs very well anymore, so it was fairly safe. When he was certain she was asleep, he’d walk right into the house—she never locked the door—and nibble on her leftovers, or quietly make a sandwich. She was ninety-one—her hearing was going, but not her mind. He made sure he never took the last of anything. That she’d notice.
It was on one of those midnight kitchen runs that he heard two men enter the house.
They didn’t speak. He didn’t know who they were, though he got a good look at one of them. He heard a third man pacing on the front porch. Frank was trapped.
Ten minutes later, the two men came downstairs. One man held a sheet of plastic in his hands. They left.
Frank walked upstairs and saw his aunt in her bed. And knew she was dead.
He left and went back to his apartment. It would be dumb to disappear. The police might think he had something to do with his aunt’s death. He considered calling the police, but he wasn’t supposed to be here. And why would they believe him? Especially since his aunt was leaving her entire property to him. She’d told him that many times before he swiped the brooch. She had a son, but she didn’t like him. “I like you more, Frankie.” She may have changed her will. But he’d only been on the outs with her for a couple weeks.
The police should be able to figure it out, right? Without him saying anything?
Except when her neighbor came by the next day when Aunt Rose missed her bridge game, her doctor said she’d died in her sleep of a heart attack. She had a bad heart and high blood pressure. There wasn’t even an autopsy. Frank still didn’t say anything. After all, he didn’t know who the men were. He wasn’t even sure he could identify them.
But when his aunt’s will was read, Frank got nothing. Her property was sold to Waterstone Development, and the money given to the Delta Conservancy. It made no sense. But Frank didn’t know then what he learned ten years later when he saw Jeffrey Riordan on television running for Congress.
He was the man with the plastic in his aunt’s house.
The only person Frank had told the entire story to was Chase Taverton—not out of the goodness of his heart, but because Frank didn’t want to go to prison—and look where that got the prosecutor. And Frank.
Riordan would kill him in a heartbeat if he knew Frank was alive. Frank didn’t know who Taverton told, who had connections to Riordan so strong that they would kill to keep the secrets.
When Oliver Maddox had called, Frank told him he knew nothing, but the kid came down anyway. Frank denied everything, but Maddox kept pushing. The kid had been scared. Then he whispered, “I know who you are, Frank. You can save a man from dying for a murder he didn’t commit if you just come forward.”
Frank continued to deny everything. He thought Maddox had given up. It wasn’t until two days ago when his body was brought up from the river that Frank realized he may have gotten the kid killed.
He didn’t want anything to happen to Claire O’Brien.
More important, he didn’t want to die.
The bar door opened and Frank turned his head to see what drink he needed to pour, based on who was coming in.
He might as well lace his own soda with hemlock. The Feds were back, and Frank knew damn well they wouldn’t be able to protect him.
THIRTY-ONE