Unbound (Stone Barrington #44)
Stuart Woods
1
TEDDY FAY STARED into the smog-filtered rising sun and set his speed control to seventy-five miles per hour. The road seemed for a moment to rise into the flaming ball, then, as he crested what passed for a hill, it fell back into its proper place. He reached into the center armrest, fumbled for his Ray-Bans and put them on. No need to drill a hole into his corneas.
Teddy, who for some time had been called Billy Barnett, had done all the right things. He had identified his wife’s body in the morgue, though he had winced at her injuries. The instrument of her death had been a huge SUV, driven down Rodeo Drive at an incomprehensible speed by a woman who had, reportedly, just finished a three-cosmo lunch with some friends. His wife’s only participation had been to go shopping and to cross with the light in her favor. She had been the definition of innocence, and her killer had been the definition of murderer. Apparently, as he’d been told by police, the woman was the wife of one of Hollywood’s most famous producers, who specialized in the kind of mayhem inflicted by his spouse on that sunny, sunny L.A. day.
Teddy Fay had done the right thing. He had engaged an undertaker, sat through a well-attended memorial service, and scattered her ashes in the surf at Malibu Beach in front of their house, a place she had loved. He had asked Peter Barrington, for whom he worked, to be relieved of his duties on a film he was scheduled to produce, and had been told to take all the time he needed. She would be missed, he had been told, having been the heart and soul of the business side of the production company and a fixture at Centurion Studios.
Teddy had then packed a couple of bags, tossed them into the rear of his new Porsche Cayenne Turbo, which had, seemingly of its own accord, found its way onto I-40, pointed east, toward Oklahoma City. The car may have known the way, but Teddy had no idea where he was going.
An hour after sunrise, Teddy surprised himself by feeling hungry. He had not eaten for nearly two days. He got off the interstate and found a small-town diner—he didn’t know which town—and ate a big breakfast. He gassed up and got back onto I-40. He passed exits to places with familiar names, but none of them had any life for him.
He spent the night in a motel and continued at dawn the next day. He was in the western outskirts of Albuquerque when he saw a sign for Santa Fe. The name resonated for Teddy; he had visited, even lived there when he had been on the run from most of the law and intelligence services in the United States. He took I-25 north. It might be a nicer place since he had been presidentially pardoned for his many sins—more than the President knew about, but all covered.
He was at five thousand feet of elevation at Albuquerque, the same as Denver, the Mile-High City, and as he drove north the landscape rose before him, until his GPS told him he was nearing seven thousand feet. He knew the name of a hotel there: the Inn of the Anasazi. He had always liked the name, and now he phoned ahead for accommodations. He noted several calls received on his iPhone, but the ringer had been off, and he didn’t feel like returning them.
? ? ?
HE LAY STARING at the beamed ceiling for a long time before he fell asleep.
? ? ?
STONE BARRINGTON WAS at his desk in his home office in New York when Joan, his secretary, buzzed him. “Your son is on line one.”
They normally talked once a week, and it had only been three or four days since their last conversation, so Stone was immediately worried. He picked up the phone. “Peter?”
“Hello, Dad.”
“You sound sad. Is anything wrong?”
“It’s Billy Barnett,” Peter said.
“Is he ill?”
“No, his wife was run down and killed by a drunk driver in Beverly Hills a few days ago, and now he’s missing.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. I liked her. What do you mean, ‘missing’?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound ominous. I just mean that he asked for some time off, and I haven’t been able to reach him since. I went out to his house in Malibu this morning. His car was gone, and the place was locked up.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me,” Stone said. “Billy was a loner before he married, so maybe he just wants to be alone again for a while.”
“But Billy has become more gregarious over the past few years, in his quiet way, of course. I wouldn’t have expected him to just walk away from everyone he knows here.”
“Peter, people don’t always do what you expect them to, even when you think you know them well. Give him a while, then try calling him again, or just send him a text saying that you’re thinking about him and you hope to hear from him soon.”
“You’re right, that’s what I should do.”
“When you hear from him tell him he’s in my thoughts, and if he finds his way to New York he’s welcome at my house.”
“I’ll do that, Dad.” They said goodbye and hung up.
? ? ?
TEDDY AWOKE LATE and had breakfast. As noon approached he thought he’d take a stroll around the Plaza, which was a few steps from the inn. He passed through the large group of Indian craftspeople selling their silver jewelry under the portico of the old Governor’s Mansion and immediately thought of buying something for his wife but brought himself up short. He forced himself to walk on.
He was approaching some sort of commercial building when a familiar figure suddenly appeared a few yards ahead, leaving its front door. The figure was unmistakable, since he was something like six feet, eight inches tall and, further, wore a large Western hat that added another half a foot to his height. Teddy walked a little faster to catch up.
Then he saw a second man, and there was something furtive in his posture and movement. He had fallen into step behind the tall man, and there was something in his right hand, bumping against his leg.
“Ed!” Teddy shouted. Then louder, as he began to run. “Ed Eagle!”
Eagle turned and looked over his left shoulder but didn’t stop, missing sight of the man, who was behind and to his right.
Teddy lunged at the man, striking him in the lower back with his forearm and knocking him to the ground. Teddy was climbing the man’s back, reaching for the wrist of the hand that held the long blade, when Eagle turned around and, seeing what had happened, stomped on the wrist and kicked the knife away.
“Billy?” Eagle said. “Jesus Christ, what’s going on?”
Teddy had the man’s left arm behind his back, his wrist shoved up between his shoulder blades.
“I think you’d better ask this guy,” he said to Eagle, “but maybe you’d better call a cop first.”
2
TEDDY SAT AT the dining table in Ed Eagle’s home, with Ed and his wife, the actress and writer Susannah Wilde, as well. The business on the sidewalk outside Eagle’s offices had been handled with dispatch by the Santa Fe police, and both Ed and Teddy had given statements.
“I’m sorry to hear about your wife’s death,” Eagle said.
“Thank you, Ed,” Teddy replied, “I was sorry to hear about it myself.”
“Of course. What brings you to Santa Fe?”
“Four wheels and a wandering nature,” Teddy replied. “For some reason I suddenly craved the open road.”
“I’m glad it brought you our way,” Ed said. “Otherwise, I might be on a slab down at the morgue.”
“I didn’t get a chance to ask you,” Teddy said, “who was the guy, and what was his beef?”
“His name is Sanchez, and his beef was that I talked his brother into taking a plea bargain of thirty years, instead of what would almost certainly have been the death penalty. Now his brother will be out in fifteen years or so, and the other Mr. Sanchez, the one with the sword, will likely be serving life, since he opposes plea bargains.”