After scanning the field of headstones for the gazillionth time, I picked up the card Ned had sent with the flowers. There was no need to read it again; I had it down cold. In fact, I’d known the entire poem by heart since Mrs. Lindstrom’s eleventh-grade English class back at Keith Academy.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
Ned, of course, didn’t sign the card. He didn’t have to. He expected us to know the flowers were from him.
But why the poem? And of all poems, why Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”?
What promises do you have to keep, Ned?
That answer, I was convinced, was in my other hand.
It was the letter I’d found stashed behind Nora’s photograph, in the frame buried at the bottom of the toy chest under Ned’s bed. I still didn’t know why he had all those DeLorean cars. But I knew why he kept the letter. It was from Nora.
My darling brother, it began.
The tone was big-sister and loving, the entire first page dedicated to questions about Ned’s work and life in California. There was little doubt that she truly cared for him. I’m so proud of you, she wrote many times over.
Then came page 2.
The focus shifted to her life, the tone immediately dire. You’re the only one I can tell this to, Ned.
She’d fallen in love with “the wrong man,” someone who wasn’t what he claimed to be. Everything was a lie. His job, his intentions, even his name.
I’m in danger; I can feel it. Agent John O’Hara is going to be the death of me, Ned.
She didn’t elaborate; there were no further details. Only a request in the event her premonition would prove to be true.
Promise that you’ll come visit me. And when you do, bring me yellow lilies, like you did after that horrible night when we were children, when we were just little kids. Just kids.
That request was the reason I was still sitting in the car in the pouring rain. I was waiting and waiting for Ned to finally show his face. To keep that promise to Nora.
Chapter 116
THERE WAS A splash of yellow in the distance, moving slowly through the downpour. I leaned forward, my eyelashes practically scraping against the windshield as I blinked and squinted to see who was there. It could be anyone—but it wasn’t just anyone.
Ned’s head was down, his face obscured by the brim of a Mets baseball cap. Still, there was no mistaking where he and those yellow lilies were heading. Straight to his sister’s grave.
I gripped the door handle, giving it a soft and silent pull. It was time to get wet.
Be quick, O’Hara. And stay low. Don’t get yourself killed tonight.
The path from the car to the first headstone was a straight dash. Then I zigzagged my way forward, the route having already been plotted and practiced. The rain was my ally now, the sound masking my footsteps. Better still, it was keeping Ned looking down, his head hunched beneath his shoulders.
With one more zag after a zig, I was crouched behind a headstone, my back pressed so hard against the granite I could feel the quartz pieces through my soaked shirt.
Nora’s grave was about twenty feet away. Strangely, I could see her face now. I remembered so much about her. About the two of us. With a quick peek I saw Ned and the lilies maybe another thirty feet beyond it. Out came my gun. A count to five or so and he’d be in my range. I counted, then—
“Freeze!” I yelled, springing up.
The lilies slipped through his hands as he looked up at me from under his cap. His eyes were wide with surprise and then even wider with fear. He had no idea what was happening.
And shit! I had no idea who he was.
“Put your hands up!” I barked, edging closer to the man, whoever he was.
You can tell whether a person is a true threat by how he responds to someone else holding a gun. If he’s looking at the gun, he’s not a threat.
This guy was no threat to me.
“Who are you?” I asked. He was so busy staring at my gun that I had to ask him twice.
“I work here,” he said finally.
I looked him over. Sure enough, he was wearing Timberland boots and a jumpsuit, complete with KENSICO spelled out above his heart. A grave digger, probably.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Ken. I’m just Ken.”
“Who are the flowers for?”
“Someone named Nora Sinclair. Her headstone’s right there,” he said, pointing. “Who are you?”
I lowered my gun, walked over to the guy, and showed him my badge.
“Oh,” he said, making the connection. “You’re the one in the car, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m the one in the car.”
“My boss told me I wasn’t allowed to ask who you were,” he said. “Figures.”
His knees no longer shaking, Ken bent down to pick up the lilies. Meanwhile, my mind was already plotting how I’d draw a bead on Ned again through the florist he used to order the flowers. Where did he call from? Did he use a stolen credit card? Would he use it again?
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked.
Ken had said something but I hadn’t heard him. He was scooping up the last lily.
“The guy told me he got really emotional standing next to the grave,” he said.
“Wait; what?” What guy?
“He just handed me fifty bucks to deliver these,” he said, standing up. “Easiest money I ever—”
“Get down!” I yelled.
Chapter 117
AT THE SOUND of the shot, Ken’s cap went flying. Then he got the message and went down on the ground. Then he was crawling away, then running.
As I dove behind the nearest headstone, I felt a hot sting through my calf. Ned had no intention of missing me twice.
“Drop it!” I suddenly heard.
I’d barely scrambled to my knees, ready for a good old-fashioned standoff, when I turned to see Ned and his Browning Hi-Power Mark III pistol. He must have sprinted from his hiding place in order to reach me so fast.
Slowly, I dropped my Glock to the ground. After he gave it a swift kick across the wet grass, Ned turned and smiled.
“Well, if it isn’t John O’Hara,” he said.
I faked a smile in response, spreading my palms. “The one and only.”
That made him chuckle. “Good one,” he said. “Clever.”
“Unfortunately, not as clever as you.”
“Very true,” he said. “Although I give you credit for getting this far.”
The odd thing was, he actually seemed sincere about that. As motivated as he was by revenge, it was as if he still wanted a fair fight. Hence his clues; the way he’d been almost testing Sarah and me.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” I asked.
“I’d be lying if I said I knew for sure. But I guess I knew the same way you did. Math.”
I didn’t follow.
“It’s called a Fibonacci sequence,” he continued. “When the next number in a series is always the sum of the two numbers that precede it. Five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four. In a way, it’s the premise for all deductive reasoning.”
I stared up at Ned, listening to his every word. Take away the gun aimed at my chest and he could’ve been giving a lecture back at UCLA. Where was the anger? The hatred of me? He was calm. Too calm. I couldn’t find an opening.
“It’s really a shame,” I said, shaking my head. “You know, what might have been.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “What do you mean?”
“I know what happened when you and Nora were children, the whole terrible story. Even how your mother took the blame for you.”
“So?” he asked. It was his first twitch. His quick blink that told me time didn’t heal all wounds.
“So imagine what might have been had your father not been a monster,” I said. “How different your and Nora’s life would’ve been.”
“Don’t forget about your l
ife, too,” he said. “Or what remains of it.” He motioned to the bloody grass beneath my knee. “How’s your leg doing?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll live,” I answered.
He chuckled again. “Another good one,” he said. “I bet you made my sister laugh, too. Before you killed her.”
Chapter 118
NED STARED DOWN at me. His jaw drew tight, and his arm stiffened behind his gun.
“I didn’t kill her,” I said. “No matter what you think, it wasn’t me.”
“You’re lying!” he fired back. “No matter who it was, you’re the one responsible. If it wasn’t for you, she’d still be alive.”
Maybe he was right about that.
I glanced at his Browning pistol, the rain beading against its black epoxy finish. “So how come you haven’t shot me?” I asked. “Since I deserve it so much.”
“You deserve this, too!” Ned wound up his right leg, his instep landing across my ribs. As I toppled from my knees, rolling on the ground in pain, all I could think was one thing.
So far so good. Better to be kicked than shot dead.
“Gee, I’m sorry,” said Ned sarcastically. “Did that hurt?”
I pushed up on my hands so I could look him in the eyes. And then I forced a smile. “Is that all you’ve got?”
I was pretty sure I heard a rib crack as Ned knocked me again with all he had, which was plenty. He was stronger than he looked. And angrier.
But I was begging for more. “C’mon, mama’s boy, show me what you can really do! Nora seduced you, didn’t she? She did the same thing to me.”
Ned aimed higher this time, his foot coming across my face. Whack! Thump! I was back on the ground again, curled in a fetal position. My hands were inches from my ankles.
I could feel the swelling around my left eye, the lid collapsing shut.
Through my right eye I watched as Ned backed up for a running start. It was as if we were playing a game of kickball and I was the ball. His entire focus was on delivering more pain.
That’s it, Ned, let it all go. The anger, the hatred…
Your hands.
They’d fallen to his side, his pistol by his waist, pointing down instead of at me. Finally, and for only a split second, the game had changed.
Now I was the one a step ahead, with a math equation of my own.
Two minus one still leaves one.
As fast as I’d ever moved, I reached for my spare—the 9mm Beretta tucked into my shin holster. I grabbed it and fired without really aiming.
The shot hit Ned near his shoulder, in a spot similar to the one where he had hit Sarah. He stumbled back, feet wobbly, reality sinking in. He tried to lift his arm to fire, but I was ready for him. And guess what? I was even angrier than he was.
BLAM!
This shot was truer, ripping through his chest, the force nearly cutting the legs out from under him. But he wouldn’t go down.
He was stumbling back, the blood spilling down his body, changing colors in the rain. Deep red, light red, almost pink.
As he raised his pistol again, he opened his mouth to say something. But he’d already done enough talking as far as I was concerned. He’d talked way too much, the sick murdering bastard.
BLAM!
The shot echoed around the surrounding oak trees as I fell onto my back. Then I was staring up at the swirling clouds. I was trying to catch my breath.
Slowly, I made my way over to where he’d fallen. My last bullet had caught him in the heart.
Ned Sinclair was dead.
Not six feet from his sister Nora’s grave. And you know what? They deserved each other.
Chapter 119
IN THE AFTERMATH, so to speak, of Ned Sinclair’s death, one of my immediate problems solved itself. Squandering the kudos I’d received in the wake of the identification of the Honeymoon Murderer, I’d broken half the rules in the FBI handbook and angered more than a few superiors, not the least of whom was Dan Driesen. But in doing so I’d also shut down a killer who had scared every guy named John O’Hara in the country, including one who just happened to be the president’s brother-in-law.
I wasn’t fired. I wasn’t even put back on suspension. Frank Walsh still wanted me to see Dr. Adam Kline, but after the good doctor heard of the little field trip I made after mending for a few days back home in Riverside, he decided his work with me was done.
“That showed real courage,” he told me in what would be my last visit to his office. “You did the right thing. You’re good by me.”
I wasn’t sure about the courage part, but even before I rang the doorbell at Stephen McMillan’s house, I was pretty sure about it being the right thing to do.
This was one problem of mine that wouldn’t take care of itself.
I sat in McMillan’s living room, listening as he delivered his heartfelt apology for causing Susan’s death. I had little doubt that every word was as true and real as the tears streaming down his cheeks.
“I know it’s no consolation, but I haven’t had a sip of alcohol since the accident,” he told me.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s no consolation to me or my kids. But I’m sure it means a lot to your family.”
McMillan glanced at a photograph of his teenage son and daughter that was sitting on a small table next to his armchair. He nodded.
The two of us talked for only a minute longer, during which he was either too smart or too scared to ask for my forgiveness. That was something he’d simply never get.
But what I could and did offer him was this: acceptance of what had happened.
I told him I could accept the fact that he fully understood what a mistake he’d made and what a terrible loss it was for my boys and me. He’d made that abundantly clear, and I believed him.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
Then, after we both stood up, I did something I never imagined I’d ever do. Not in a million years. Or even longer.
I shook his hand.
“What changed your mind?” asked Harold Cornish once we left the house. As our go-between, McMillan’s attorney had been waiting for me in the foyer. “Why did you finally agree to meet with my client?”
I could’ve told Cornish a very long story about what I’d been through since I’d last seen him on his little visit to my back patio. Martha Cole. Ned Sinclair. And the one thing the three of us had in common, a singular desire.
Instead, I simply summed it all up for him. “Nothing good ever comes from revenge,” I said.
EPILOGUE
Chapter 120
“OKAY, FOR THE last time,” said Sarah, smiling at me from the bow. “How is it that we’re on this boat?”
“It’s like I told you. I met a guy on a Jet Ski down here and he owed me a favor.”
Sarah folded her arms, waiting me out. It didn’t take long. You can only be coy with a pretty girl in a black bikini for so long.
I told Sarah about my first trip to Turks and Caicos, when this whole crazy ride began. And in the case of the Speedo-wearing con man, Pierre Simone, I meant “crazy ride” literally.
With perhaps a little encouragement from police commissioner Joseph Eldridge, however, Pierre managed to provide a humdinger of a make-good. “I won it in a poker game,” he told me on the phone in his French accent, his exact whereabouts undisclosed. “Zee guy had a flush, and I had zee full boat.”
I didn’t know if Pierre was simply making a joke. I didn’t care. For one glorious week, I had a forty-foot-long tall-rig Catalina and the chance to dust off my skippering skills, which I learned as a teenager during three summers at my local YMCA sailing camp.
I also had one hell of a first mate joining me for the ride. Even the scars from her bullet wounds were damn sexy, at least to me.
“I’m grabbing a beer,” said Sarah, heading down to the galley. “You want one?”
“Absolutely,” I said from the helm.
Back in Riverside, everyone had been home for a couple of weeks. Max and John
Jr. raved about their time at Camp Wilderlocke, and Judy and Marshall raved about their Mediterranean cruise. Still, with all their great stories to tell, it was my story of bringing down two serial killers that they couldn’t get enough of.
“A doubleheader!” Max called it from underneath his Yankees cap. As for my being Ned Sinclair’s ultimate target, he proceeded to offer up the ultimate solution. “You should’ve just changed your name, Dad!”
That gave everyone around the dinner table that night a good laugh. It also gave me further proof that if family is the true currency of happiness, I was a very wealthy man.
Of course, having Warner Breslow’s check in my bank account wasn’t too shabby, either. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for services rendered.
And in my safe at home was the signed agreement for my bonus.
Breslow had asked me if Max and John Jr. were good students. “Do they do their homework?” he inquired. They had always gotten good grades, but now they had even more incentive to study. Breslow would be paying for both their college educations.
“Ethan and Abigail loved kids,” he told me. “For as long as I live, I’ll be reminded of that when I think of your two boys.”
The tabloids would still write nasty things about Warner Breslow, and some of it might even be true. But I’d like to think I caught a glimpse of the man few other people had ever seen. What I saw was just a father who loved his son deeply.
“Here you go,” said Sarah, back on deck.
She handed me an ice-cold Turk’s Head beer and we clicked cans, toasting our beautiful sunny afternoon in paradise.
Neither of us owned a crystal ball, and there were still things to learn about each other in the weeks, months, and, I hoped, years that lay ahead. But this much I knew for sure: there was no one else I’d rather be with on that boat. And I had a pretty good notion that Sarah felt the same way.