Scarlet Nights (43 page)

It took Mike quite a while to untangle himself from the agents who came to the call he made after they’d heard the shots. Within about four minutes the old farm was flooded with vehicles and men and they all had information to impart.

While they easily found Mitzi, Stefan eluded them. Emergency vehicles, including a helicopter, and many people were everywhere. The hunt for Stefan Vandlo was intense.

But Mike’s only concern was Sara. He’d had to push his way through the crowd to get to Ariel. When she told him she and Sara had come together, he nearly panicked. He’d thought she was safe back at the fair.

Frantic, Mike began running. There was one place on Merlin’s Farm that searchers could walk past and not see.

When Mike finally found Sara, she was at the back of the old summerhouse and Stefan Vandlo’s lifeless body was strung across the doorway. Mr. Lang’s arrows had pierced his body in four places, one of them being his heart.

Mike had no qualms as he pulled out the arrows and dropped the body to the ground. He went to Sara, took her into his arms, and held her tightly. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “You’re safe now.” He held her head on his shoulder so she couldn’t see Stefan’s body as EMTs carried it away. When it was clear, he led her outside, picked her up in his arms, and carried her back to the house. A fire truck and an ambulance were in the drive, a helicopter on the lawn.

Someone draped a blanket over Sara as Mike held her, and she saw Ariel leaning against the back of the fire truck. She had a fireman’s coat over her shoulders, but her long, lean legs were bare, and at least a dozen men surrounded her. She gave a little salute to Sara as Mike carried her away.

He took her into the kitchen of the house and set her on the worn-out Formica countertop. After opening a couple of drawers, he found a stack of clean dish towels and wet one as he began to wipe at Sara’s face. The cloths came away bloody. Greg’s blood.

She touched the bruise by Mike’s right eye, and there was a cut
under the other one. He’d washed away most of the blood on his face, but she still remembered seeing it. Suddenly, she remembered how they got there. “Mitzi! We brought her here in your car but we heard gunshots! I think she—”

Mike kissed her gently. “It’s all right. Mitzi got out, but she tripped on one of Lang’s traps. We found her hanging from a tree in a net.”

“She okay?” asked a voice at the door.

Sara turned to see the man Mike had been fighting with, the one who’d bloodied his face—the man who was working for Greg. “You did this to him,” she half shouted. “I saw you hit him!” Her fists were clenched as though she meant to attack him.

“You’re not her favorite person right now,” Mike said. “Sara, my warrior princess, meet Frank Thiessen. I told you about him, and he’s my oldest friend.”

“Not so old,” Frank said as he stepped toward Sara, his hand out to shake hers.

Sara didn’t take his hand. She wasn’t used to men who hit each other but were best friends.

“If it helps any, Mike’s done worse to me. In fact, a couple of times, he’s nearly killed me. I could show you some scars he’s put on me …” Frank tapered off, as he could tell that Sara wasn’t yet ready to see the humor in his words.

At Mike’s nod, Frank left the kitchen. “Sara, baby, it’s all right. Frank was working on another case when he heard someone mention the name ‘Edilean.’ He asked to be put on the Vandlo investigation because he knew my sister lived here. He went to prison for months so he’d have a good backstory when Stefan Vandlo was thrown in with him. And it was Frank who brought me into it. He worked hard to get info out of Stefan, but he wouldn’t tell him anything. The best Frank could do was to make Stefan believe he needed a bodyguard.”

“Was the other man I saw with Greg an agent too?”

“No,” Mike said. “He was from Mitzi. I think she was fed up with the way her son messed up whatever she tried to do.” Mike smoothed Sara’s hair back. “Frank is the only person I told about Tess and Edilean. When Captain Erickson told me that info was out, I knew it was from Frank, and for a while I didn’t know if I’d been betrayed or he was asking for my help.”

“When I saw you two fighting—”

“We were trying to make everything take as long as possible in the hope that Mitzi would show up and she’d be caught. No one thought that you would be the one to catch her.” He looked at her with such pride that Sara felt herself blushing. “When Frank contacted me at the fair we made a plan to put on a show to distract Vandlo for as long as we could.”

“It wasn’t a ‘show.’ You were really hurt.” When she touched his face, she could see that he was trying not to wince.

“Frank and I trained together, and we’ve done a lot of cage fighting and—”

“Like you plan to do in the gym you want to open?”

“Exactly. How about if I demonstrate tonight? You and I can wrestle.” Mike was grinning, but Sara wasn’t. Too much bad had happened in the last few hours for her to smile.

Mike changed the subject. “Want to know how I found the hidden room? Lang ran a cord in there so he could have electric lights. When you and I visited him, and while you two were talking about cookies, I was looking around and I saw the cord disappear into the wall. But I didn’t realize what I’d seen until the next day.”

She caressed his cheek and looked at him with love. “You are smart, beautiful, and talented.”

Mike laughed. “Then I must be a mirror image of you.” He put his fingertips under her chin. “Sara, I’m sorry you were left alone to
have to deal with what you did. The FBI kid they left in front of the tapes was told Joce left, so he assumed the fortune-telling tent would be empty. He went to watch Anna and me jump rope. If it makes you feel any better, he’s now sporting two black eyes, one from me and one from Frank. I wanted to break his legs but Frank wouldn’t let me.” Mike shrugged. “Colin still thinks we should—”

He stopped when the door opened. A policewoman brought in Sara’s long fair costume, and as she put it on the kitchen table, she looked at Sara in admiration. “You did a good job,” she said, then left.

Mike smiled at Sara. “I haven’t seen the tapes yet, but I hear you were great with Mitzi. I guess she was used to no one knowing about her, and since she didn’t think you were her target victim, she blabbed to the wrong person. Whatever, the word is that you were magnificent.”

“Not quite,” Sara said, but she was pleased by his praise. “I think Mitzi was so excited about the tarot cards that she couldn’t think straight, and I was scared to death. But I had help.”

“Yeah, they talked to Ariel.”

“What happened with her? That man was chasing her.”

“When we heard the gunshots, Stefan and the other bodyguard ran out. Frank and I knew it was all over with. Mitzi would never show up if someone was shooting. Frank and I both called for help as we went after the others. Frank found the other bodyguard and brought him down.”

“You mean he shot him?”

“Yes, but if Frank had arrived a minute later, I don’t think Ariel would be alive.” He hesitated. “But there was a problem.”

When Mike’s dimple showed, Sara looked at him in question.

“I guess you told Ariel that I swung out on a rope to keep you from running into the trip wire.”

“What did she do?”

“After Frank shot Vandlo’s bodyguard, Ariel tried to get away by swinging out on the rope. It was understandable, since she didn’t know who Frank was, but he had a hard time catching her.” Mike smiled. “But from what he told me, he liked it when he did latch on to her.”

Sara could visualize the ensuing wrestle, with Ariel in her black underwear, fighting with all her might. Yes, she could imagine that Ariel would almost enjoy something like that.

“I do believe they like each other,” Mike said as he leaned his head toward hers. “As for you … I think I’ve aged about ten years today. I was bombarded with Feds trying to talk to me and I wanted to know what had happened. If I’d even thought that you were here, I would have known just where to look.” He touched her hair. “When I was told you were missing from the fairgrounds, I felt real panic. I got Ariel, and when she said you had come together … Sara, you shouldn’t have—”

The look on her face stopped him. “All right, no lectures,” he said. “I hate the danger you were in, but I’m really, really glad you caught Mitzi!” He put his hands on her shoulders. “And now, Sara, my love, as much as I like what you have on, I do
not
want other men seeing you wearing it. Let’s get you dressed so you can go talk to some people, all right?”

When Sara caught his arm, he turned back to her in question.

“You called me your love.”

Mike looked puzzled.

“You’ve not said that before.” When he still didn’t understand, she said, “
Love!
You’ve never said my name and
love
in the same sentence.”

“You think I married you but I wasn’t mad about you?”

“The case needed—”

Standing in front of her, he positioned her legs to either side of his hips. “There are lots of criminals, but I’ve never married anyone just to save her.” He kissed her neck. “I love you.” He kissed her cheek. “I love you more every day.” He kissed her eyelids. “When I saw you standing in the back of that summerhouse behind Vandlo, with blood all over you, for a moment I didn’t know if you were dead or alive, and I thought
I
was going to die.”

“Me too,” she said as she kissed him. “When I realized that old woman was Mitzi, I knew you were in danger and—”

“Shhhh,” he said as he held her against him. “It’s over now, and I have to go back to Fort Lauderdale on Monday. Think you can get packed by then? Except I don’t know what I’ll be driving.”

“Your car …?”

“Shot full of holes. What in the world possessed you to put Mitzi Vandlo in a car full of weapons? Couldn’t you have stolen another vehicle?”

“Don’t get mad at
me
. Ariel did it. Your beloved Ariel, who you go out on dates with even though you’re a married man.”

“I went out with her
before
I married you. And she—”

“I hate to break this up,” Frank said from the doorway, “but everyone wants to see the woman who brought Mitzi down.”

“I’ll be there as soon as Sara gets dressed.”

“Don’t bother on our part,” Frank said, then laughed at Mike’s glare as he went outside.

“I take it the paintings hidden in Mr. Lang’s secret room are signed by CAY.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Charles Albert Yates. Yesterday Luke and I hauled out a lot from that room.” He lifted Sara off the counter. “There are about a hundred paintings, but there’s much more. Everything in that room is old, and I have no idea what it is. There are wooden boxes full of letters and old diaries and clothes. The kilt and
shirt Lang wore on that night in 1941, the ones I heard about for most of my childhood, were in there.” Mike took a breath. “I don’t understand why no one’s found the room before now.”

“Mr. Lang nailed the door shut,” Sara said as Mike helped her into the long dress.

“So only
he
could see the contents. That makes sense.”

“How did Mitzi find out about the paintings? And are they valuable?”

He was silent.

“Mike? What’s wrong?”

“I sent photos of a couple of the paintings to the Feds in D.C. Sara, dear, you’re a millionaire. Multi.”

Her only thought was that now they could afford to renovate Merlin’s Farm. And there’d be no worry about educating their children. And Mike could open the best gym there was. Smiling, she looked at him but saw that he was serious. “You’re the only person on earth who could be unhappy about getting a lot of money.”

“It’s not my money. It’s yours, and you could do a lot with it.”

Sara had to work not to groan. Mike was letting her know that if she wanted to be released from her new marriage vows he’d let her go. “Think Tess can manage millions for
us
?”

“Sure,” he said, and his dimple appeared.

She slipped her arm through his. “My mother has a list of people who want to join your gym.”

“The question is whether or not we can get
you
out of bed to go.”

“I—” she began but stopped when they stepped outside.

Besides the fire truck, ambulance, and the squad cars, it seemed that half of Edilean was there. And when they saw Sara, they began to applaud. She was sure that most of them had no idea what she’d done, but they’d been told enough that the town was proud of her.

She looked back at Mike.

“Go on,” he said. “It’s your moment. You’re the hero.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “No one will ever again feel sorry for Sara Shaw.”

If she’d doubted her love for him, it would have dissolved in that moment. It was his work that had solved the case, but he was willing to step aside to give her the glory. “Newland,” she said. “The name of the man I love.”

Mike grinned. “Yeah, Mrs. Newland. My wife.”

Turning, Sara went toward the people who were waiting to congratulate her—but she didn’t let go of Mike’s hand.

Acknowledgment

I’
D LIKE TO
thank the person who made this book possible, my consultant, and most of all, my friend, Detective Charles J. Stack of the Economic Crimes Unit of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

Charlie, a former national champion of kickboxing and karate, and I work out together. In between pushing me to lift ever-heavier weights and hit that big bag with the gloves, he answered all my questions. Charlie instantly replied to all my many text messages, no matter where he was, in a courtroom or a meeting with the attorney general. He explained everything from FLPD retirement plans to the latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling to what the heck Muay Thai was.

He told me truly fascinating stories about his very dangerous undercover work. (AMC wants to do a documentary about one of them!) He read the scenes I’d written of the fights and about the real Mitzi’s work, and did a great job of editing them.

His insights into how the minds of criminals such as the real “Vandlo” family work was brilliant—and spellbinding to hear. The magnitude of the crimes he works on and the absence of any public knowledge of these criminals horrified me.