A Gambling Man by David Baldacci (ebook audio reader .txt) 📕

“They took him from his jail cell. They knocked out the guys that Willie had set up to guard him.”

“Why? Why take Douglas?”

“With Drake out of the picture, he’s the mayor by default. Sawyer can’t have that.”

“And you really have proof that he’s not my father?”

“We’re trying to get it. And even though you fainted back there, something tells me that you’re not as surprised by that as you should be.”

She wouldn’t look at him but she didn’t have to. The eyes welling with tears and the tremble of her delicate mouth were enough.

“He…he didn’t always act like a father…around me.”

“Yeah, he also found it difficult allowing anyone to grow close to you. Benjamin Smalls, your husband.” Archer paused for a moment and then decided to launch it. “Your mother.”

She didn’t move even the tiniest of her muscles. She just sat there staring at nothing like nothing was the most fascinating thing ever.

“We talked to your husband in jail before he got snatched. He said the idea for the luncheon that day was Sawyer’s. He insisted you be there. So your mother went solo, right into the Pacific. That’s what happened, right, Beth? Douglas said the light went out of your marriage then. He thought you blamed him. But did you?”

She looked up at him with such a sorrowful expression that Archer’s mouth started to tremble.

“I…I questioned my fa—I questioned Sawyer on…what happened to my mother.”

“You questioned him on whether he sabotaged your mother’s plane?”

“It took all the nerve I had. And…and he answered my question with a question. He…” She broke down at this point and seemed to be struggling to keep from collapsing.

Archer just held the woman for a long minute in silence, except for her sobs. When they finally subsided, Archer handed her back the flask and said, “Just finish it, Beth. The whiskey and your story. You can do this.”

She drank the whiskey but held on to the flask, gripping the metal hide like it was her last attachment to life. Her words came in a rush, like they had been bottled up inside of her for two centuries instead of a mere two years. “He said he wondered whether people would think it odd that I didn’t go up with my mother that day. That I should have been with her, but let something as unimportant as a luncheon prevent me from being with her, when she might have most needed me. Because a second pair of hands, even untrained ones, and another mind to troubleshoot the situation might have made all the difference.” She stopped and stifled a sob as she leaned her head against Archer’s chest.

“In other words, he guilted you.”

She glanced up at him. “He did worse than that, Archer. He made me doubt myself.”

“What possible motivation would you have to kill your mother?”

“Oh, he supplied that, too.” She ran her fingers down the flask as though it held all the answers she needed, only in Braille. “He again wondered whether others would think I wanted her out of the way so I could be the reigning queen of the Armstrong family. He even suggested that some might think with Eleanor gone, he was the only one standing in the way of my inheriting a vast fortune. He joked that he would have to watch himself around me.”

“I think you needed to watch yourself around him.”

“So he’s really not my father?”

“No, he’s not.”

They both looked up to see Dash standing in the doorway holding a piece of paper.

“Now we just need to find Armstrong. Because when we find him, we find your husband. Do you know where he might take Douglas if he intended that the man would never come back alive?”

Beth Kemper nodded. “I do, Willie. He would have taken Douglas to the Cliffs, his little retreat high up in the mountains.”

“Can you tell us how to get there?”

“Yes, I can.”

Chapter 68

IT COST ME TWO SAWBUCKS and a promise to the records clerk that I’d provide him with lascivious details about some of my cases,” said Dash.

Dash and Archer were in the Delahaye starting their climb up into the mountains. Daylight had brought increasing clouds, and a huge storm system was coming in off the water like an armada ready to do some serious business. The mists and fogs were already making their ascent treacherous.

They had stopped at the office, where Dash had picked up something that he said would probably be necessary. When Archer saw it, he couldn’t disagree with the man’s logic.

“Why would the clerk want to know those sorts of details?” asked Archer.

“He’s really a Hollywood screenwriter masquerading as a records clerk, at least in his own mind.” Changing gears, Dash said, “So, the Cliffs. Armstrong’s little retreat high up in the mountains. A man might just go up there and have an accident.”

“But if he kills Kemper, surely the jig is up for him.”

“Why? Particularly if the body is never found? Armstrong’s already laid the groundwork for Drake’s campaign being backed by Vegas mobsters. Then Drake offs himself and the mobsters are getting concerned because their guy is out of the race and Kemper is the only game in town for the mayor’s slot. They get to him in jail and ask for his loyalty. He refuses. So what do they do? They take him and kill him, and the mob guys disappear and are never seen again. Where does Armstrong come into the equation in a court of law? He’ll have a dozen alibis that he and his goons were nowhere near the jail because they weren’t. And what evidence do we have that he had Fraser killed except for an affidavit by a lady who’s so scared of Armstrong that if she does come back and testify, she’ll probably claim we killed everybody, instead of Armstrong being behind it?”

“So that’s why we’re heading up to the Cliffs? To rescue Kemper?”

“Yes, but Archer, pull off the road, I don’t want you getting us into an