“Mr. Russo. I’ve been expecting you.”
Jake looked in his eyes. They were darker than his suit. They both stayed standing.
“Good. I’ve been looking forward to talking to you.”
Rothschild leaned back on the desk, barely raising his feet. Then he laughed.
“Mr. Russo, have you gained weight?”
Jake looked down at his shirt. Today it was blue with a Hawaiian print. Gary liked bright colors.
“I haven’t been able to get to my apartment. I borrowed this shirt from a friend.”
Rothschild nodded and moved on quickly.
“So what are you here to talk about today? My favorite ice cream topping? If it will save you some time, I like vanilla.”
“Mr. Rothschild-”
“Simeon.”
“Mr. Rothschild.” He gritted his teeth. “I’m here to talk about something else. I know you’re behind the Saving Tomorrow Initiative. And I know you ordered Charlotte Ward’s murder.”
Rothschild hardly reacted. His black eyes got wider. Then he snapped his fingers. Slowly, the bookcase behind him opened. A man with long red hair emerged, his teeth bared. Conrad. He wasn’t part of the plan. He waved with a bandaged hand. Rothschild flicked his hand forward toward Jake.
“Conrad, will you secure Mr. Russo? I believe you’ve done this before.”
Jake didn’t bother resisting. Conrad sat him down in a leather chair and then bound his hands with elastic cord. Jake glared at Rothschild.
“Your other henchman used tape.”
Conrad finished binding Jake’s hands and secured his legs to the chair. He took his phone and turned it off. No contact with the outside world now. He didn’t struggle, but the binding was tight enough. He couldn’t have moved if he wanted to. Conrad grabbed Jake’s hands and smashed them on the arm of the chair.
“This is for slamming my hand in your apartment door.”
Jake bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Rothschild stood next to him. He brushed Jake’s shirt and tapped a flower with his finger. Then he punched it.
“I must say, I’m actually a little surprised. Did you think you could just waltz in here and accuse me of murder? Haven’t you concluded by now that I’m a dangerous man?”
He punched again. Not in the shoulder. Jake felt blood trickle from his nose down to his lips. That wasn’t part of the plan.
“I know what you did.”
“Of course you do,” Rothschild said. Conrad went to the back of the room and stood silently. “I know that you’ve been toying with me from the beginning.”
Jake focused on the pain. He didn’t want to disagree.
“Do you think I didn’t notice, Mr. Russo? Do you think I didn’t notice that you were going to my properties twice a week for no reason? There was no conceivable story except for the one that you were working on. The one that you were going to use to take me down.”
Twice a week. Apparently, Rothschild didn’t know that Mel had been his reason for visiting Sunset Cove. Jake let him keep talking.
“And then, Mr. Russo, I put someone in the apartment next door to yours. I admit you’re quite clever. Telling her nothing. Acting like you’re so insecure. It’s the type of cunning I’d expect in, well, myself.”
He stepped forward. He flicked a bruise with his index finger. Then he hit Jake in the stomach. Something cracked. He tried to release himself but couldn’t. Rothschild reached forward and unbuttoned Gary’s Hawaiian shirt. The tape recorder was bound around Jake’s stomach. He ripped it off and handed it to Conrad.
“I thought you only used a notebook.” Rothschild hit him again, before he had time to scream.
“And then I take the time to do an interview with you and you pretend not to know anything. Very cunning of you, Russo. Very cunning. I was impressed. Asking me questions about my favorite colors! You were toying with me. Taunting me. Asking me who I’d marry!”
Jake looked up, his head wobbling.
“I asked you who you’d hook up with. Not who you’d marry.”
Rothschild hit him again and Jake grunted. The man brushed his hand on his suit pant.
“No, I knew all along that you were on to us. But it seems that you thought I’d just give up and let you go. You’re not so lucky. Not today.”
“Wait.” Jake strained to raise his head. “The Initiative. Tell me why you created the group.”
“Oh, I think you know that.”
Rothschild looked at a fingernail and wiped something off. Probably blood. Jake tried to concentrate long enough to talk.
“You did it because you knew you were going to lose on the Development Proposition. You’d never get to develop the wetlands.” He spit on the expensive carpet. “You knew that if you made a group crazier than your opponents, people would turn against them. People would vote your way. The only way to convince them was to trick them into thinking wetlands were for extremists.”
“And it will work,” Rothschild laughed. “I’ve done polls. No one will vote to save them. They believe the wetlands supporters are insane, thanks to my scrappy and well-funded activists in the Saving Tomorrow Initiative.”
“Your company depends on it.”
“No, that’s not true.” His chin seemed to sink a little. He recovered and hit Jake again. Jake felt his teeth shake as he spoke.
“And you thought I’d go along with it. That I’d write your story and hype up your case to the public.” More blood leaked out. “But you didn’t know that I discovered Charlotte was murdered. Then the stakes became too high to let me live. Just like they were with her.”
Rothschild hit him again. This time, Jake didn’t raise his head up as quickly. The man hit hard for someone his age. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Conrad, standing quietly with his arms crossed. Rothschild was doing his job for him. When he stopped punching, he walked to the desk and took a sip from a crystal glass.
“Unfortunately, you’re correct. You do create a problem with my plan, Mr. Russo. I can only have the Saving Tomorrow Initiative take blame for so much. If they’re a radical group, they will only face so much scrutiny. Not many reporters are tenacious, anymore. By the time I have to reveal funding records, everyone will have forgotten about it all.”
“And when you do, they’ll show that the group got charitable donations.”
“Exactly. I didn’t send them a dime. But every community I own kicked a little in. And so did my foundation. On their own accord, of course.”
He grinned widely. Then he suddenly frowned.
“But there’s the unfortunate problem you’ve created. If people begin to think a woman was murdered, things become…difficult. The police will trace the group to me and start to get suspicious. But you’re the only one who thinks that, aren’t you?”
Jake stayed quiet. He couldn’t speak.
“So I have to kill two birds with one stone. Well, actually, I assume Conrad will be killing you in a different way than he killed Charlotte. He’s very creative.”
Jake looked up and opened his eyelids. The red hair looked like fire. He could see Conrad was smiling. He still had the strength to speak. He spit blood out on the carpet. If only Mel showed up now.
“You aren’t going to get away with this. People won’t stand by for what you’re doing.”
“Ah, you’d think that.” He went over to the bar and got out a bottle. “Club soda for the carpet. It’s wonderful for unfortunate stains. Like you.”
He placed the bottle on the desk and leaned back again.
“You see, I’m going to win. I have you here. And I always win. No one cared about an old woman dying on a beach. And no one will care about a third string reporter, sent to Sarasota because he couldn’t cut it in the big city.”
Jake spit again. Rothschild didn’t bother moving.
“Do you know why nobody will care?”
“Why?”
“Because they are used to it. They are used to old people dying. They are used to crazy environmentalists, and they are used to developers getting what they want.”
He laughed a little.
“And most of all, they are used to me winning and you losing.”
He stopped laughing. He straightened the collar of his suit and tightened his tie.
“Conrad, I think we’ve said everything. Tonight, I’d like you to transfer him out of here. For now, make sure he’s pacified.”
Conrad opened the bookcase and carried Jake’s chair in. He felt something shoved inside his mouth and then elastic cords pinched his neck. He started to feel dizzy, and as he began to faint, he only thought one thing.
So much for the plan.