Order of the Black Sun Box Set 8

by Preston William Child

  When they emerged from the shower, Laura asked, “So what…or whom…are you doing tonight?”

  Nina rolled her eyes. “I wish,” she gasped. “No, I thought to have some dinner at Betsy’s and checking into one of her apartments for the night.”

  Laura looked perplexed. “Are you high?”

  “Why?” Nina asked.

  “You live in the most beautiful, spacious and private houses in Oban, you freak,” she told Nina with a sarcastic little shrug. “Why the hell would you pay for accommodation? Unless,” she sang, “you are expecting visitors you don’t like. Hey? Hey?”

  If Dr. Laura only knew how she hit the nail on the head with that one, Nina thought, but she said nothing specific in return. “You are almost right, but no, I just figured that I live in a beautiful tourist town and I have never stayed at one of the local haunts. That is all it is.”

  “Wow, you are bored,” Laura sighed as she tied her shoes and got her brush in front of the mirror. “I thought the Jehova’s Witnesses are headed your way or something.”

  “Ha!” Nina chuckled, but secretly she was thinking how she would not mind their pushy company about now.

  After saying goodbye to Laura, Nina headed for her car. It was too much, the constant jumping at any movement or unexpected sound. She hated it. ‘For fuck’s sake, didn’t I have enough of this over the last years?’ her mind complained. ‘Call Sam. Just let him know about this. In case they find your body. They will know what it was about.’ It was a legitimate plan, but what could he do to avoid her fate from where he was? He was somewhere in Europe on assignment and he was not her babysitter, after all. ‘Leave him alone. He is busy. Why are you so bloody needy?’

  Once she was in the car, she felt considerably better. The more clear-headed side of her reminded Nina that she could be working up her nerves for absolutely no reason. There was no implication that Terry Jones was even on the phone with anyone at all, she realized. It was true. He dialed, he spoke. There was nothing that proved he was not just bluffing to scare her.

  ‘But the gun was pretty real. Just sayin’,’ came the loathsome retort again. As if her thoughts could be dampened, she turned up the radio to drown the voices. Betsy’s soon came into view. With four cars parked in front of the establishment, Nina already felt less alone and isolated for target practice. The night was colder than before when she left her car, but she was soon warm inside the lobby of Betsy’s reception area.

  “Dr. Gould, what a lovely surprise? Are you fumigating?” Betsy Loren asked cheerfully as she booked Nina in for the room.

  “Fumigating?” Nina frowned as she waited for her credit card to read at the counter.

  “Aye, staying out of your house overnight,” Betsy elucidated.

  “Oh!” Nina replied and smiled.

  ‘Good one, fumigation,’ her inner voice said.

  “Aye,” she affirmed, “this time of year I always clean out the bugs.” It was a clumsy, shitty sentence, but she quickly distracted Betsy from her idiocy. “Can I have a corner table, please? Famished. And wine. Lots of wine while I look over the menu.”

  “Of course,” Betsy grinned, her semi-beehive hairdo perking like her pointy B-cups. “Have a seat. I will send a waitress over.”

  “Ta,” Nina said as she sat down. The place was fuller than she had expected. ‘Looks like some locals walked a block or two to come to dinner,’ she guessed as she took a quick head count. Just in case. The cars in the lot made up at least eleven other patrons. Nina felt good now that she was in a safe, public place, just in case. Just in case.

  Betsy’s beautifully laid out mollycoddling nest could still not console Nina to the full extent she had hoped, but the voices of visitors on the other side of the wall was some solace, at least. If anyone was sent to kill her, they would have to think twice. Too many witnesses. Eventually she did fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, not of body, but of soul. She had been doing too much thinking, posting scenarios and ways to escape them every moment of the day, so that finally her brain was too tired to stay awake. Outside her widow the wind howled in typical foreboding fashion

  With a soft moan, she awoke the next day, still alive and unharmed. Betsy’s choice of décor instantly reminded her that she was not home. Relief washed over Nina as she heard the mild laughter of the tourists outside and their babbling set her at ease that she was surrounded by eyes. Still, the thought of having to go home elicited a kind of dread she had long not felt, but she could not cower away from life forever.

  Again, she considered calling Sam.

  ‘No, he is busy and if you call while he is stalking someone you will cause trouble,’ her other side contested. It was true. She had no idea where Sam could be hiding on the trail of that serial killer he told her about when he took her to brunch. ‘What about Purdue?’ came another thought. She paged through a mental diary to recall what Purdue was supposed to be busy with of late, and decided that he was not busy. “Alright!” she exclaimed. “Purdue it is!”

  Feeling better already, Nina rang Purdue on his cell phone, but the call was redirected to Jane.

  “Dr. Gould, how are you?” Jane asked cordially.

  “Actually, Jane, not too well, which is why I am trying to find Purdue,” Nina explained, still reluctant to leave her room before checkout time.

  “Why? What is the matter? Are you ill?” Janes inquired, genuinely concerned.

  “No, nothing like that, thank God,” Nina replied, “but I am in a spot of trouble of other sorts, I think. Just wanted to hear a friendly voice. Will he be available soon?”

  “He is busy finalizing all the guest list gift packets for the Round Table fund raising to-do,” Jane sighed. “I offered to do it, since, you know, I am the assistant, but you know what he is like.”

  “Oh, aye,” Nina chuckled.

  “I shall ask him to call you back as soon as he is free, then,” Jane promised. “I hope you feel better, Dr. Gould. Let me know if I can do anything for you at all, okay?”

  “Thanks Jane,” Nina said. “I might take you up on that sooner than you know. Have a good day, love.”

  Jane was the wonderfully professional, yet personal, type. Nina adored the thirty-year-old with her impeccable sense of fashion and prime grooming abilities. Her hair was always perfectly tied and her clothes matched from blazer to pumps, even after Purdue had assured her that she would only need to dress like that when accompanying him to meetings. No, Jane was caring and civil, but she knew her place, and she was a corporate clerk by the side of a filthy rich boss. Speaking to her always cheered Nina ever so much, giving her a sense of support from Purdue and his staff that she direly needed sometimes.

  “Suck it up, for fuck’s sake,” she told herself. “He is bluffing and you know it.”

  Grumbling on aloud in phrases that personified defiance and solace, Nina packed her overnight bag, gathered her car keys and put on her coat before thanking Betsy for the lovely free dinner she had the night before.

  “Always happy to treat an old friend,” Betsy smiled. Her eyes pulled into narrow slits as her laugh lines sank deeper. “Have a good day now, love!”

  “Ta!” Nina cried as she exited the establishment into a heavy rain shower she did not prepare for. As Nina jogged to her car, she lamented not having packed a brolly, but she was Scottish and rain was as natural as air. The drive home with the radio blaring was not as apprehensive as she expected, which was a good sign. Nina made sure that she would arrive home in the middle of morning commuting and bustle of cars, just in case. Just in case.

  When she pulled up in her drive, she realized for the first tie just how intimidating the shadows of the trees were. Over the roof of her slow moving car, the branches leaned like curious old hags, inspecting the new arrival. Had she not done most of the garden herself, she would have chalked it up to be a deliberate trap for anyone venturing inside. It was rather isolated from the road, from sight.

  “Do not start,” she reprimanded herself. “Just relax
.”

  Her eyes combed the corners and concealed corridors between the thick trees, there where she knew better than anyone an enemy could hide. Just before she brought the car to a halt, she quickly scanned all the windows for cracks or breakage, any signs of tampering, but she found nothing. Not that she could see outright, that is.

  Again, she had to sprint from the car to her porch to avoid getting utterly soaked, cursing all the way she went. Within seconds, she was safely under her porch roof upon which she enjoyed the clatter of the downpour. Soup. Soup was the second thing on her agenda, after a fresh change of dry clothes, she decided. Nina did not notice the dark figure crouching in the corner of the far post, where the daylight did not quite reach.

  13

  Unwelcome Callers

  Her key slipped into the lock and clacked over the din of the rain. With a sigh of relief, she opened the door, but stayed outside until she had surveyed the immediate vicinity. The figure stirred in the corner, and this time Nina saw it. She jumped back with a yelp, dropping all that was carrying, as the man came towards her.

  ‘Run back to the car!’ she thought. ‘No! He will get in your house and wait for you to come back!’ the counter logic came to her. She recovered her stance and decided the only outcome she usually opted for. ‘Fuck it. Fight him!’

  “Nina! Nina, relax! It is me!” he implored suddenly. The unusual request came from a familiar voice, forcing Nina to abandon her defenses long enough to look twice.

  “Norm?” she scowled, trying to process the information. “Is that you?”

  “It is me. I slept on your porch. Please, please, can we just go inside?” he begged.

  “You look like shit,” she gasped at the state of him. And he did. His hands were filthy, dangling from the cuffs of an oversized coat. “Is that b-blood?”

  He nodded, quickly hiding his stained hands in his pockets. Norman Kingsley was not so pretty anymore. Apart from the damaged right eye, he bore some new features that would leave a scar or two. Torn clothing sagged under his coat, which was drenched from the night on the porch, caught by the diagonal spray driven by the wind’s angle.

  “Good God, Norm, come inside! You will catch your death!” she gasped as she ushered her stepbrother into the house.

  “Lock the door behind you,” he wheezed, holding his chest.

  “Um, aye, I was not going to take any chances anyway,” she told him. “Listen, get out of those clothes and take a hot shower.

  “Do you have any men’s clothes here?” he asked.

  “I will look for some of Sam’s stuff in the laundry. When he passes through, he seems to think that my doing his laundry somehow serves as a bonding method or something,” she explained.

  “Where in God’s name have you been?” he complained as the clothes came off with every stride.

  “Hiding,” she yelled from the kitchen’s small laundry room, before she made her way upstairs to throw her bags on her bed.

  “From?” he asked from a distance that sounded like another county.

  Nina sighed laboriously at his inquisition. “From you, actually!” she hollered. “You and your cockney pal.”

  Kingsley did not hear the last bit, as he had just opened the shower faucets, but it sure revived some puzzlement in Nina. At once, she remembered that her stepbrother was alone. Where was Terry Jones? The very idea that the big crook could not be accounted for, only reinforced her worries of the past day. Just then, a knock at the door thundered.

  “Oh Jesus, no,” she gulped hard. “No, not now!”

  As quietly as she could, Nina scurried to the shower with a shirt and a pair of Sam’s trousers. “Norm,” she whispered loudly. She crept up to the shower and knocked on the glass, frightening Kingsley out of his wits.

  “Christ, Nina! I am naked here! You cannot just come in here an…,” he started ranting, but when he saw his stepsister’s face distorted in panic, his words stopped abruptly.

  “There is someone hammering on the door, Norm,” she reported, mostly mouthing the words slowly to him. Nina gestured for him to leave the taps running. He grabbed the towel to the left and wrapped it around him. They sank to their haunches to discuss the predicament.

  “Tell me, dead honestly, now,” she grunted. “Did you escape from Terry and now he is coming for you? Is that why you look like this?”

  “It is a long and complicated story,” he replied.

  Nina grabbed her stepbrother behind both ears and jerked him closer to her face. “Listen, dipshit, you had better tell me quickly what the fuck is going on or I am opening that door and throwing your miserable ass out of this house! Are we clear?” she hissed as the caller banged on the front doors for a second time. “Do you hear that? That is trouble knocking at my door that you brought here!”

  “Listen, Nina, Terry dropped me at home after we came here. He said nothing, swear to God!” he rambled in a mad whisper. “Last night when I got out of the toilet, the fucking police were at my door!”

  “How is that a bad thing?” she asked, already deducing the matter.

  “They said they were there to arrest me for murder, Nina! Fucking murder! I did not kill anyone! That is what the phone call was about. It had to be! They killed someone and fucking framed me for it to persuade you to change your mind!” Kingsley babbled at the speed of light, it seemed. Nina had a hard time hearing everything he suddenly spewed out, let alone trying to formulate a verdict.

  “Why would they go to such lengths to get my help, Norman?” she spat. “What is so fucking important?”

  “I don’t know!” he moaned. “All just because I made up some shit about belonging to a Masonic order of actors or some shit. I cannot even remember exactly what I said. They kidnapped me to find out where they can find this…this fucking Holy Grail.”

  “The Holy Grail?” she frowned.

  He threw his hands up in the air. “I do not know, Nina!” he whispered. “I suppose they believe that, because they think I can get you to locate someone from the…uh…” He could not recall the name on the photograph Mr. Keating had shown him. The bashing on the door, especially, marred his memory under the stress of the moment. He did not know if it was the police or Terry Jones knocking, but either way, he was screwed.

  “Think, goddamit! Think!” she urged fiercely.

  “Uh, something like one of the knights of King Arthur. One of the knights, his name, but I cannot remember right now!” Kingsley wailed in panic. In truth, it hurt him more that Nina was furious at him, that he had caused this in her life, than the fear of what was outside her door right now.

  “Police! Open the door! This is your final warning!” they heard from outside the bathroom window. “We have the residence surrounded.”

  “Shit,” Nina said, shaking her head to get her bearings, but she could not think of any way out. “I cannae hide you, not even in the basement. They will find you. That place is secured. No way out of there.”

  The commotion outside Nina’s house grew worse, with more squad cars arriving in her yard. She swung around and sneered at her stepbrother. “Listen to me,” she huffed, placing her hands on his shoulders. “If they bust in here they have the right to shoot you like a sick stray, do you understand me?” He nodded profusely, looking terrified. He sniffed, “I did not kill anybody. I swear!”

  “I know. I know. Now listen,” she said, trying to do the sensible thing. “I am going to let them in. Allow them to arrest you,”

  Are you fucking daft?” he shrieked.

  “Do you want to survive this?” she screamed at him. “You are going to let them take you, but you refuse to speak to them before you have a lawyer, understand? I will get you a lawyer that could get the devil back into heaven, but you have to trust me. If you run now, Norman, you are a dead man.”

  She left him to think, although she had made his choice for him. Norman Kingsley was vain. He did not want to lose his good looks at the agency of bullet rain, so he elected to take his stepsister’s advice
and wait. To avoid surprising officers, he closed the lid of the toilet with shaking hands and sat down on it, waiting. Down the corridor, he could hear Nina frantically negotiating with the commanding officer, beseeching them not to open fire.

  “Where is he, Dr. Gould?” the sergeant asked. He was a local, and knew the famous historian by name and association.

  “In the bathroom. Please, do not hurt him,” she implored.

  “He ran from us last night too, Dr. Gould. Resisting arrest does give us some permission to disregard his welfare, especially a bloody child killer!” the sergeant barked as he and his men charged deeper into the house.

  Nina froze in her tracks, her face warped in disgust. “Excuse me? What did you say? A child killer?”

  “That is right, madam. Your friend here is wanted for the brutal murder of a seven-year-old boy in London two nights back,” the officer told Nina, but she was not going to stand for that.

  “Sergeant, my friend was right here in my house two nights ago! There is no way he could kill someone in London and jet back over here within the same night, not on his budget,” she ranted sarcastically. The man turned to her for a moment, while she could hear the others subdue Kingsley in the bathroom. His face was dead serious, sweating and coarse, his breath in her face. “I do not appreciate your tone, Dr. Gould, but that aside, tell me how his fingerprints and driver’s license were found in the boy’s room?

  Nina was dumbstruck. Her heart was racing while her mind was equally frenzied in trying to find reason, but she had to concede that she could think of no defense for that kind of evidence. While she stood static with her eyes wild and wide, he turned on his heel and continued to the bathroom just as Kingsley came out in the custody of the other officers. The sergeant started to recite his rights to him.

  “I did not kill anyone,” he muttered in shock. “I swear to God I did not kill anyone!”

  “Shut your mouth, Norman. Do not say another goddamn word!” Nina said to him in passing.