Tail Spin

ahead.
    “I don’t know,” Savich said.
    An old gray Chrysler pulled onto the road directly in front of the Porsche.

SIXTY-ONE
    Laurel said, “Just a moment, Stef.” She looked down at Rachael. “Tell me why you didn’t make the senator’s grand confession for him last night when you had the perfect chance.”
    Quincy said, “That’s clear enough, Laurel. She finally realized she’d be considered a traitor to her father, and her idea for that damned foundation she wants to run would be trashed.”
    Keep them talking, keep them talking. Rachael saw it in Sherlock’s eyes, and so she said, “No, none of that. Fact is, Aunt Laurel, I decided that only Jimmy could make public a revelation with such far-reaching consequences. His decision, no one else’s.”
    “Are you telling the truth?” Quincy asked her.
    “I’m lying here at your feet. Why would I lie?”
    Suddenly tears appeared in Laurel’s eyes. The prison matron was suddenly remorseful about murdering her brother? Tears? Rachael stared at her. What was going on here?
    Laurel said, “It means I didn’t fail. And do you know, I’d already accepted that I had? I despised you so much, Rachael. Daddy would never have forgiven me if you had spoken out. Never. He believed there was never any excuse for failure.”
    Daddy? Her father? That profane old man who took my father from my mother? But he was dead, months and months dead, dead before they murdered Jimmy. Daddy?
    “That old bastard,” Quincy said. “How did he even find out what Jimmy did? I didn’t have a clue until Jimmy told us.” Quincy banged his fist against his palm.
    “Dammit, he should have told me, too. I was his loyal son. I stayed, didn’t go haring off to the damned Senate. I was the son who did whatever he asked. Damned old bastard.”
    Rachael and Sherlock barely breathed.
    “Calm yourself, Quincy. Daddy never told me how he found out about it,” Laurel said. “I do know he had Jimmy followed now and again, had detectives check on him. He liked to know where all the pieces were on the chessboard—you know that was always his way. Plus, he was very angry that Jimmy ignored all his ideas for new legislation.”
    “Stop your whining, Quincy,” Stefanos said. “It is really unattractive, doesn’t go well at all with your patrician image.”
    “Shut your trap, you suck-up—”
    Stefanos laughed. “Is that envy I hear?”
    Quincy shouted, “Envy of what? That the old man invented your image to suit himself and his own purposes, and you let him?”
    Stefanos said, “I always thought it was one of your father’s better ideas.”
    Sherlock was working the knots at her wrists. Please, let them keep talking, let them thrash it all out, go for each other’s throats, for all I care. Three more minutes, that should do it. She worked until her wrists were raw and she felt the sting and wet of her own blood but it didn’t matter. They’d found her ankle holster and taken her Lady Colt, but they hadn’t searched her inner jacket pocket with its single Kleenex and her Swiss Army knife.
    Quincy said, “Yeah, right, making a fool of Laurel for fifteen years! I never liked it. I knew what people were saying about you behind their hands. But Father used to laugh when he’d hear gossip about your mistresses, about your barhopping, your partying with hookers in this little bungalow, not even five minutes from where you lived with my sister. Did you laugh with him, Laurel?”
    She said, her voice light, “I’ve always loved the theater.”
    Sherlock felt her cell vibrate again. Dillon, it had to be Dillon. He’d come, she knew he’d come.
    Stefanos turned to Rachael, smiled down at her. “You have no idea what he’s talking about, do you?”
    “I only know you’re a philandering jerk.”
    Laurel said, “But that’s only what everyone was supposed to believe. Stefanos’s reputation as a womanizer—that was my father’s idea. He got a real kick out of building that reputation for my dear Stef.”
    Stefanos picked it up. “It worked to our advantage, what with business associates believing I was nothing more than a simple-minded playboy he’d bought for Laurel. I got so many of those old jackasses to invite me to their weekend retreats where they paraded their mistresses about, talked openly about the women they were screwing, about this business expansion or that merger. They couldn’t imagine I was a threat to them. All the booze, the sex, the stupid schemes. I