Random Acts Read online

  Synopsis:

  From the author of THE BEST OF ENEMIES, COMMON PASSIONS and GUILT BY SILENCE, a thriller in which a profiler of criminals, herself with a dark and secret past, is working on the case of a predator at large in California, but she in turn is the focus of a news correspondent determined to expose her shocking past.

  RANDOM ACTS

  By

  TAYLOR SMITH

  © M. G. Smith 1998

  ISBN 0 7783 0034 X

  This book is dedicated to:

  Mildred and Jack Smith, to honor their fifty loving years together;

  and to Marilyn and Len— we choose our friends, but fate chooses our relatives. Lucky me, that fate gave me the brother and sister I would have chosen for my best friends.

  Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

  — William Congreve, 1697

  Prologue

  He was bottled terror, ready to blow, and all the more dangerous for not looking the part.

  Hundreds of people passed by him that Friday night in the Southern California mall. One or two even engaged him in casual conversation. But who would connect him to the monster and the panic he'd unleashed?

  He leaned against a pillar, contemplating with disdain the churning human sea before him, a tidal wave of Christmas shoppers intent on long lists and busy schedules — little people leading dull, ordinary lives. Most of them too weary, stressed and preoccupied to take notice of him standing at the edge of the central atrium, sizing things up — selecting a target.

  The teenage girls were another matter. Strolling in insular bunches of two, three and more, they were as intent on seeing and being seen as on spending their meager allowances and baby-sitting earnings. He watched them lure awkward boys with their teasing, tortuous, sidelong looks, a ritual dance, primal as fear and twice as disgusting.

  Suddenly, two girls with mascara-fringed eyes and tight T-shirts emerged from the throng and passed close by him, making shameless direct eye contact — flirting with more danger than they could possibly imagine. His nostrils flared at the scent of cheap cologne that wafted before them like some flowery advance reconnaissance unit. He toyed momentarily with the idea of taking one of them and teaching her a lesson she'd never forget, but wouldn't live long enough to remember. But they weren't what he wanted or needed.

  He stared back until the silly things wilted under his blank, brutal gaze. They averted their eyes, arms crossing reflexively over tiny breasts, and hurried on. He continued to watch until they had disappeared down the mall's west wing. If they turned around or came back to spy on him, he had a problem. Would have to abort the operation.

  No.

  He wouldn't be deterred. Couldn't. He needed to act. To take control. Needed the addictive surge of power in his veins, like a heroin rush.

  This time, it would be even better. The panic would be greater. This time, they'd know what they were dealing with, and that they were helpless to defend against him.

  When the little snoops had disappeared at last, he turned his attention back to the ersatz North Pole erected in the mall's central court, where seasonal workers in green elves' costumes were trying to maintain some semblance of control over the confusion. Dozens of small children milled around, waiting for a chance to sit on Santa's lap and reveal their sweet, secret wishes to him. Eyes bright, smiles wide, they wiggled and chattered, oblivious to everything but sparkling lights and frantically gay music ringing out holiday tunes. He studied their faces, one by one. So enraptured. So innocent.

  Such easy pickings.

  His gaze shifted from the line for Santa to the children riding the reindeer carousel next to his throne. One of them, perhaps. He liked the idea of his victim running a last, doomed race against the inevitable. The garishly painted reindeer seemed to glance sideways as they spun past him, their plaster eyes bulging in frantic, dumb perception of the danger he posed — straining at the bit to get away, only to orbit back once more into the inescapable pull of his will.

  Ride! he thought, smiling to himself. Ride like the wind, for all the good it will do.

  His appraising eyes gravitated to the tiniest of the children bouncing, chattering, giggling as they waited to see Santa. He studied plump hands tugging grown-up sleeves. Scrutinized round, pink mouths from which spilled pure, high-pitched voices. Examined chubby legs scrambling on metal guardrails.

  Which one? he asked himself, mentally pawing them — touching, sniffing, squeezing soft flesh like ripe fruit in a market. Evaluating.

  Choose carefully, he told himself. The target had to be perfect for his purposes. As young as possible. Beautiful, but pliant. A baby girl, this time, he thought, though a boy would have done just as well. He wasn't particular. All that mattered was that the sacrifice be worthy of his cause.

  Today, he liked the idea of bows and curls. Large, dewy eyes. Pink, unblemished skin. Every daddy's little dream girl.

  Suddenly, his gaze connected with the wide, blue eyes of a toddler — barely one, he estimated. She was in her mother's arms, curly blond head resting on the woman's shoulder, staring sleepily at him while her small, moist mouth worked at a tiny, pink thumb. He smiled back at her, entranced. Grateful.

  She was the one. She was offering herself to him. She understood.

  Part I

  Bicoastal Blues

  1

  Claire Gillespie could sleep through shrieking sirens, cats in heat, domestic donnybrooks, the unearthly 3:00 a.m. clangor of garbage trucks, and the occasional eruption of gunfire in back alleys near her New York apartment. After half a decade of chasing stories cross-country for the weekly newsmagazine that issued her paycheck, napping when and where she could — cavernous airports, packed red-eye flights, nondescript hotel rooms — her Kansas-bred sleep patterns were pretty much invulnerable to assault. With one exception. A ringing telephone was Kryptonite to her superhuman powers of repose. A knife through the heart of blessed oblivion.

  So, inevitably, the phone's first ring woke her that Saturday morning — more or less. At the second, she flung her right arm out from under the covers and fumbled blindly toward the side table, knocking over the water tumbler she'd apparently been sober enough to remember to fill last night, though not quite sober enough to remember to drink — too inexperienced at it to have gotten the drunkard's tricks down pat. Through dense mental fog, she sensed a titanic hangover bearing down on her at top speed.

  "Damn!" she muttered as her hand found the portable phone and its On button, then dragged it back under the blankets to her ear. Now she remembered why drinking to forget was such a poor idea. She'd deal with the spilled water later — if she survived.

  "What?"

  "Well, a cheery good morning to you, too!"

  Claire replied with a two-step grunt. "Oh — Serge." Sergio Scolari, national editor for Newsworld. "What time is it?" Her voice rasped like gargled gravel, and her tongue felt as if it had licked an ashtray. "Did you foist one of your smelly cigars off on me last night?''

  "It's nine-thirty, and they're not smelly, they're Davidoff. What's more, you swiped, I did not foist. Not at ten-fifty a pop."

  Claire heard the sulk in his tone. Typical. Flamboyant, independently wealthy, but cheap in ways that always surprised her, Scolari begrudged every wasted penny, his or the magazine's � a miserliness that probably endeared him to the publisher even more than his instinct for newsstand-dominating cover stories. Scolari wore bespoke Armani. He traveled first-class. Yet on those rare occasions when he treated his hopelessly middle-class colleague to dinner at one of his chichi haunts, Claire noticed that he never failed to carry off his leftovers — wrapped by kitchen staff in some arty sculptural concoction of tinfoil, maybe, but a doggie bag just the same. Like he d
idn't know where his next meal was coming from. Go figure.

  Scolari would never have parted willingly with a Davidoff, but pride required that she plead not guilty. "Baloney. I don't smoke. I quit."

  "Tell it to the silk blouse you burned a hole in."

  Claire forced open one gritty eye and raised her aching head an inch or two above the pillow, only to experience a moment of panic.

  I'm blind!

  Then, logic kicked in, and her free hand dragged the sheet off her head. She cast a bleary glance around. Various items of clothing marked a wayward trail across the dusty hardwood floor — gloves, coat, scarf, heels, black skirt, hose — all abandoned en route from the front door to the sofa bed she vaguely recalled wrestling open last night.

  She peered nervously at the door, but all four locks and bolts were securely fastened. She breathed a sigh of relief. Despite her less-than-optimal state last night, her instincts had obviously remained on full alert against the ominous presence she'd felt dogging her footsteps for weeks.

  The red silk blouse she'd worn to the Christmas party at Scolari's East Central Park penthouse had been tossed at about the halfway point between front door and sofa bed, landing on her desk. Even from her skewed perspective, Claire could see the stippled brown edges of a dime-size burn hole in one sleeve. The blouse was draped across her open laptop computer like some funereal banner on a tombstone. Fitting, she thought, since the notes on her hard drive were the only memorial she could give Michael Kazarian — a maddeningly incomplete testament to a slain hero whose image haunted her, day and night. At the thought of him, Claire felt the ache return with a vengeance — a dull, hollow throb deep inside her that alcohol briefly numbed, but obviously couldn't cure.

  She dropped her head back to the pillow. "So waking me at this ungodly hour is payback for swiping one of your cruddy cigars, Serge? You think a ruined eighty-dollar blouse and fertilizer breath aren't punishment enough?"

  "You tell me. You're the one inflicting this punishment on yourself."

  "Give me a break. I was feeling festive. It's the holiday season. First time I've smoked in months," she lied.

  "I'm not talking about smoking, and you didn't look festive, you looked lousy."

  "Thanks a lot. See if I squeeze into heels and panty hose for you again, buster."

  Claire rolled over and stumbled out of bed, holding on to the phone as she shuffled in her underwear toward the bathroom, floor grit sticking to her bare feet. How long was it since she'd swept? She had no idea.

  "I wanted to make sure you got in okay last night," Scolari said.

  "No problem — but I don't believe for a minute that's why you called."

  In the bathroom, against her better judgment, Claire risked a look in the mirror. Bad move.

  Holy mother of God, Gillespie, what a mess!

  Her eyes — Prussian blue, Michael had called them, whatever that meant — were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles. Her skin was drawn and pale as milk, her unruly black curls sticking out at all angles, weeks overdue for a trim. She looked like a hungover Celtic Medusa.

  Scolari assumed an aggrieved tone. "You doubt my sincerity?"

  Claire sighed. "Putting you on speakerphone here, Serge." She punched a button on the base of the phone, set it on the windowsill and pulled a scrunchie from a basket to tie back her tangled mane. The sky beyond the window was gunmetal gray, sleety rain tattooing a rhythm on the pane. "I know how your mind works," she said. "You think you're going to catch me at a weak moment, convince me to reconsider and go out to L.A. to cover that baby-snatcher story."

  Over the past few weeks, three Southern California babies had vanished, boldly kidnapped in broad daylight from crowded public places, the most recent abduction having occurred just last night. In the absence of ransom notes or bodies, police and FBI officials suspected an underground adoption ring. The entire state was seized by panic.

  "That's partly why I called. I really was concerned, though."

  "Yeah, right." Claire squeezed a line of toothpaste onto her toothbrush.

  "I booked a flight for you," he added helpfully. "Delta 176 out of La Guardia. Departs at noon, but the weather's lousy, so you'll have to hustle."

  "I told you last night, Serge, I'm up to my eyeballs on the Kazarian project. I've got an interview set up for later today with Ivankov that it took me weeks to wangle. By the way, if I should happen to disappear, could you make sure the authorities trawl for my poor, battered body off Brighton Beach?"

  "That's not funny, Claire. Look what happened to Kazarian."

  "I know, but I'm not getting anywhere talking to the cops or the FBI. I want to see what Ivankov has to say for himself. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

  "I'd rather you were in L.A."

  "I can't do anything out there the locals can't." Claire leaned over the sink, engaging her toothbrush in a savage effort to undo the damage wrought by the allegedly pilfered cigar.

  "They've run into a brick wall. The FBI's moved in and put a lid on statements to the press."

  "See?" she mumbled, frothing at the mouth like some mad dog begging to be put down. "So what's the point of me—"

  "This just came over the wire — they found a baby's body last night in an aqueduct east of L.A."

  Her head snapped up. "One of the missing kids? Aw, damn!" Toothpaste spattered the mirror.

  ''They think it's the second one who was taken, the Morales baby. Ten months old."

  "Drowned?"

  "They won't know till the autopsy."

  Claire shook her head, then rinsed her mouth and splashed cold water on her face. "That's horrible, but it's still no reason for me to go off half— "

  "That's your buddy running the FBI investigation out there."

  Claire sighed. This is what came of trying to impress the brass with your sources. "Not my buddy, my dad's. And Sprague may have opened a few Bureau doors for me in the past, but he's not going to cut me any slack on an active case. This is a strictly by-the-book G-man, Serge. Even his own stiff-necked underlings call him Button-Down Dan."

  "You have a better shot than anyone else I've got."

  She ran a towel across her face, then tossed it into an overflowing laundry hamper. "Serge, you promised me some downtime to work on the Kazarian project."

  "Doesn't sound like there's a story there any time soon, though. And you really do look like hell, Claire. What's with you? I've never seen you like this — tense, avoiding people—"

  "I came last night, didn't I?"

  "You were here in body, but the spirit never did put in an appearance. Don't try to kid a kidder, bub. I spent too much of my life living a lie not to recognize the symptoms in someone else."

  Claire arched one eyebrow, only to discover even that was painful. How could eyebrows hurt? "You think I've got my sexual identity in a closet here?"

  "That's not what I mean. You've lost weight, got tension lines in your face—"

  "Oh, well, lines. That's just middle age creeping up. Happens to the best of us. After thirty-five, it's all downhill — isn't that what you told me on my last birthday?"

  Claire reached for her bathrobe, but froze at the sight of the pale face, ravaged eyes and quivering body in the full-length mirror on the door. She turned to face the image head-on — a tiny, trembling Gibson girl, born too late to be fashionable in an age of heroin chic. Tending to round if she wasn't careful. Not at the moment, though. Scolari was right; she could see her ribs. Claire grimaced. Those hips were still there, however, perched atop legs that barely lifted her over the five-foot mark. Threatening to balloon like her mother's, though held in check for the time being. Becoming a nervous wreck had its upside.

  "Have you heard from the schmuck?" Scolari ventured.

  His loyalty brought a smile to Claire's lips. "Not since I signed the divorce papers. Anyway, it's old news."

  She meant it. Alan had lost interest in their marriage long before the final split that past spring. The only surprise was that
it was her sister he'd left her for — but that, Claire thought, said as much about Nicky as it did about Alan. Not her favorite people, but she had no intention of brooding over them.

  "Is this about Kazarian, then?"

  She was slipping into her bathrobe, but her hands paused on the belt. "What do you mean?"

  Scolari hesitated, as if torn between discretion and curiosity, but curiosity finally won out. "Were you involved with him, Claire?"

  She closed her eyes, feeling sick.

  Fight it!

  "He was a source. A terrific source, Serge, but that's it. Besides which, he was married."

  Not that he told me. I had to find out at his funeral. Dammit, Michael!

  "You haven't been right since he was murdered."

  Claire yanked the belt tight and passed the back of her hand across her eyes, brushing away tears that had no business being there, cursing Scolari's nosy probing. She didn't need him in her private affairs, digging at raw wounds. But he was a friend, she reminded herself, trying to help. "It hit me, I guess."

  But why so hard? Because Michael came to trust me, against his every instinct? Because he lived on the edge, and died alone? Because I violated my own rules by getting involved with him? Or because I was the cause of his death?

  "It's the loose ends that are driving me nuts. Some scumbag shot this incredible guy—" She'd said too much, Claire realized, but she stumbled on, oblivious to the catch in her throat that had nothing to do with cigars. "Then stuffed him, bleeding, into his own car, blew it up and watched him die."

  "No word on the investigation?"

  "What investigation? Does this make any sense to you? An undercover federal agent is violently murdered, and here we are, three months later, and nothing?" Claire shook her head disgustedly. "The Bureau should have been all over the mob Kazarian infiltrated, but after an initial flurry, the investigation's fizzled out, far as I can tell. No indictments, no arrests. Why not? Did somebody get paid off? And while we're at it, why was he murdered in the first place?"