Cold Around the Heart

by Michael Prescott

  Alan nodded. “It’s what she was saying all along. She argued with me about it after you left. She said Pascal wouldn’t stop until he had her. She had to give herself up. Sacrifice herself for us. Because she was the one he really wanted.” He looked at her. “You saw the note. How she signed it.”

  “Yes.” She had seen the graceful looping signature at the bottom of the page: Mariana.

  “She never did like the name Cynthia.” Alan managed a sad little laugh.

  Bonnie remembered her first impressions of Cynthia Kirby. Fashionably thin—only it wasn’t fashion; it was the ravages of cancer. Blonde hair—a dye job, she’d thought, and it was, but not for cosmetic purposes. For disguise. Her clipped style of speech—because she was educated abroad. Her stubborn refusal to take orders—because she was accustomed to fending for herself in dangerous places. Places like the farmlands of Colombia, and the women’s prison in Bogotá.

  “So the rescue mission was a success,” she said, easing him away from the sleeping child.

  “A partial success. They got her out. But Hector Bezos and two of his men were captured during the raid. The others got Mariana to safety. Most of what I told you was true,” he added almost apologetically.

  “Most doesn’t cut it, buddy boy. Pascal was after her all along. Not you.”

  “I don’t know if I was a target or not. He did kill Herb and Amy, after all.”

  “But only because he was tracking Mariana. He went to Maine first in the hope that she was hiding out there. When that didn’t pan out, he interrogated Amy and used the emails to trace Mariana’s location. By then he would have known she was with you.”

  “Herb told him, I’m sure. Or Amy did. They didn’t know what names we were using now, but they knew we were together.”

  She led him out of the bedroom, down the hall to the living room. “What about Caroline? A.J.’s mom?”

  “She died before all this happened. Before I ever heard of Mariana. Died of cancer.”

  He said it simply, but there were volumes of meaning tucked into the words. He had buried his wife, then learned of another woman with cancer, a woman he’d never met, a woman wasting away in a prison cell. He hadn’t saved Caroline, but he could save this other woman, if he pulled out all the stops.

  And sometime during the events that followed, he’d fallen in love with Mariana Ortiz. Fallen in love from afar, romanticizing her, idealizing her. She was the symbolic substitute for the wife he’d lost, and when she arrived in the US, he made his feelings known, and won her.

  “And now I’ve lost her,” he whispered, as if reading her thoughts.

  “Not yet.”

  “What the hell does that mean? Are you crazy? He has her. Fuck, he’s probably killed her already!”

  In the guest room, A.J., startled awake, began to cry. “Mommy …”

  It occurred to Bonnie that when he called for his mother, it was Caroline Walker he really wanted, not the dye-job stand-in.

  She rested her hands on Alan’s shoulders. “Keep your voice down. Get a grip, okay?”

  He stared dumbly at her.

  “Look, Alan—or Jeffrey, whatever—you’ve gotta focus. This son of a bitch has your lady, but if he wanted to kill her, he would have done it right there on the street. He took her alive for a reason. She’s worth more to him that way.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I do. In your house he had a clear shot at me, but hesitated. Now I know why. He saw a woman at the top of the stairs, but he couldn’t be sure which woman it was. I’d changed my clothes. I wasn’t wearing a hat. For a second he thought it might be Mariana in his sights. And he held his fire.”

  “Okay, but … why would he want her alive? Why …?” Alan shut his eyes, answering his own question. “Oh, Christ. You think he’s taking her back. Back to the Colombians. To prison and torture—”

  “He’ll have to get her out of the country first. He can’t have left yet. He’s on his way to Millstone Airport right now.”

  Des spoke up, surprising her. He had rolled in so quietly she’d been unaware of his presence. “That airfield’s been closed for years.”

  “Which makes it perfect for a clandestine takeoff. I’m not guessing about this. I heard him make the arrangements. I just didn’t know he was planning to bring a guest.”

  “You heard him? He said Millstone Airport?” Alan’s eyes were wild. “We have to go there.”

  “Nuh-uh, chum. We aren’t going anywhere. This is a solo mission.”

  “She’s my wife—”

  “Yeah, and that’s your kid crying in there. You go play daddy. I’ll deal with Pascal.”

  “But—”

  She pressed a finger to his lips. “No backtalk. This has been kind of a bumpy night, and I’m in no mood.”

  His shoulders slumped. “All right. Just get her back. Please.”

  “Will do. Now go comfort the little shaver. That goddamn bawling is getting on my nerves.”

  He retreated down the hall. She and Des watched him go.

  “Parker,” Des said, “you sure you can handle this?”

  “Not really. But it looks like I’m committed.”

  She moved past him to the front door. His voice stopped her. “Did you see it?”

  She looked back. “Yeah, Des. I saw it.”

  He wheeled up to her. “And you’re still going?”

  “You bet I’m going.” Impulsively she stooped and kissed his cheek. “Leave a light on. This won’t take long.”

  She left the house and plunged back into the storm.

  CHAPTER 36

  Pascal was happy. Altogether and unabashedly happy, perhaps for the first time in his life.

  He had completed his quest. He had found his holy grail.

  “I never thought you would come for me,” Mariana said as he guided the Lexus down the highway. “I thought you’d forgotten me long ago.”

  “I never forgot.”

  “Even after I ran out on you like that? It was … so cruel of me.”

  “I never blamed you. I understood.”

  “Did you? How could you understand?”

  Pascal had given the question much thought and had arrived at clear conclusions. He did not look at her as he spoke. He directed his gaze at the rainswept highway, alert for the airfield somewhere ahead.

  “You were afraid,” he said. “It was one thing to enjoy the things we did together, when it was only your pain and my skill. But I made the mistake of letting you watch me with Diaz. That was what frightened you, was it not?”

  “Yes …”

  “To see it done to an unwilling victim—it is a different matter from one’s own voluntary participation. I should have realized that. I should have anticipated …”

  “It was my weakness. You have no need to apologize. Anyway, I was wrong.”

  “You need not say so.”

  “But it’s true. I learned that much in prison. They tortured me—and others. I heard them. Sometimes all day long, or all night—the screams.”

  She was quiet for a moment, perhaps hearing those screams again. He let the silence linger.

  “But there was nothing unusual about the men who did it. They were just ordinary men doing a job.” Her voice was low and thoughtful. “It’s human nature, isn’t it? I flinched from it, but only because I lacked the strength to acknowledge the plain truth.”

  “What truth?” Pascal asked gently.

  “We are all torturers and killers at heart. We repress our deepest instincts, and suffer for it. Only those who face up to their true nature can finally be free.”

  The words were better than any he could have hoped to hear from her. Better than the words he had heard her say in his many imagined versions of this conversation.

  His heart was full to overflowing. He knew a great and all-enwrapping peace.

  “I have missed you greatly, Guinevere,” he whispered.

  “We should never have parted.”

  “That
is behind us now.” He slipped a gloved hand around her wrist. “We shall never be apart again.”

  ***

  Bonnie hit the highway at seventy miles an hour, distantly concerned about the risk of hydroplaning on the wet road, but not really giving a damn. Her friend Pascal had a plane to catch, and she intended to make sure he missed his flight.

  She would disrupt his travel plans, all right. And she would bring Mariana Ortiz back to her husband so they could be together for whatever amount of time she had left.

  Alan had lost enough already. He’d lost his first wife, his career, even his name. She was damned if she would let him lose Mariana too.

  And as for Pascal ...

  “Should’ve aced me when you had the chance, you son of a bitch,” she said through gritted teeth. “Because it’s my turn now.”

  ***

  Pascal walked with the pilot in the pelting rain, the two of them lugging his bags from the parked Lexus to the plane. The pilot was a thirtyish American with a ponytail and an earring, features that did not inspire confidence. It seemed likely he had tattoos also. Well, this would be Pascal’s last contact with the degenerate culture of the North American continent. He supposed it was appropriate that the last American he would see on United States soil was so perfectly suited to his role.

  “Getting pretty late,” the pilot was saying. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t show.”

  “There were complications. One complication in particular cost me a considerable delay.”

  The pilot nodded toward the Beechcraft turboprop on the runway. “You sure the woman’s okay in there by herself? She won’t run off?”

  “Never.” Pascal smiled. “Or at least—never again.”

  As they reached the baggage bay at the rear of the plane, he looked back, his gaze sweeping the row of hangers behind him. There was a chance Parker had overheard his phone conversation in the motel. He doubted she could get here in time to stop him.

  But he had underestimated her before.

  ***

  The gate to the airfield should have been padlocked, but as she approached it, Bonnie could see that it was standing open, leaning crookedly, blasted nearly off its hinges by the impact of a speeding vehicle. She doused her headlights and breezed through, the Jeep’s tires spraying up fans of puddled rainwater.

  Beyond the gate, a long winding driveway sloped gently downhill, leading away from the highway. She killed the engine and coasted down, hoping she wouldn’t lose traction on the wet macadam.

  Millstone Airport had been closed years ago, the ramshackle buildings abandoned to field mice and millipedes. No lights burned in the buildings or on the field. She pulled into a parking lot ringed with the dark, squat shapes of hangars and eased the Jeep to a stop.

  She slipped out, shutting the door softly. The carbine was still riding on her shoulder, the Glock tucked in her fanny pack. She had just one magazine for the carbine—twenty-five rounds, no more—but that ought to be plenty if she conserved ammo. She had a feeling this wasn’t going to last long, one way or the other.

  The runway was just past the nearest hangar. She crept along the side wall and looked out on a rain-puddled spread of cracked tarmac tufted with brushy weeds.

  The black SUV was slant-parked thirty feet away. Beyond it was a small plane, a six-seater. The doors to the cabin and the aft baggage bay stood open. A man who was probably the pilot was shoving Pascal’s duffel into the bay while Pascal stood at his side. Mariana Ortiz was not in sight. She had to be inside the plane.

  Neither of them was looking in this direction. The SUV offered the only cover on the blank stretch of runway. She bent low and sprinted for it.

  Crossing the tarmac, she was utterly exposed. If the pilot or Pascal turned, she was going to be caught in a firefight without cover or concealment.

  Nobody turned. She reached the vehicle and crouched behind it.

  She was pretty sure she could nail one of the two men at this distance. But probably not both, at least not before the survivor had time to return fire.

  And it had to be both, because the pilot was carrying. A sidearm jutted out of the holster on his hip.

  There wasn’t much time for her to make her move. Hunkered down behind the SUV, she tried to figure out her best play.

  ***

  The pilot caught Pascal scanning the darkness again. “Expecting trouble?” he asked.

  “I always expect trouble. How soon may we take off?”

  “Just got to finish loading this stuff, and we’re airborne.”

  Pascal took a last look around, then ascended the airstair and stepped through the cabin doorway.

  ***

  This was her chance. With Pascal aboard the plane, the odds had improved considerably.

  She still didn’t want to shoot from a distance. She could get the pilot with the carbine for sure, but the noise would alert Pascal and start a gun battle. If she used the Glock with the Osprey silencer, she could do the job quietly, but she wasn’t willing to bet she could bring down the man with a pistol shot in the rain.

  So what was the alternative? She could maybe figure some way to sneak onto the plane. If she hid among the baggage while the pilot was doing a last perimeter check, then waited till he took off and was occupied at the controls …

  Yeah, right. Then she could shoot him and Pascal, and while the plane went into a nose dive, she would parachute to earth with Mariana in her arms.

  Fuck that. What the hell did she think this was, Charlie’s Angels?

  It was possible to overthink a situation. Sometimes you just had to go on instinct. And her instinct was telling her to get up close and personal with this asshole, and do it now.

  She left the cover of the SUV and ran at the pilot while he crammed the satchel into place. He heard footsteps and started to turn and she clocked him on the side of the head with the carbine’s buttstock, and he went down in the groaning heap.

  Nice. Nothing like cold-cocking a guy to get his attention.

  Question was, had she gotten Pascal’s attention too? If so, she could expect to receive fire as soon as she climbed aboard.

  Had to risk it. She was pissed off and out of options.

  The luggage bay was divided from the cabin by a particleboard partition. Pascal’s suitcase, satchel, and duffel bag were arranged inside. The duffel was the only item big enough to provide her with cover.

  She hoisted herself into the bay, trying to strike a balance between stealth and speed, hoping any noise she made would be mistaken for the pilot manhandling the baggage.

  One way or the other, it would all be over in the next few seconds.

  ***

  Pascal felt the faint rocking of the plane as if a heavy bag had been thrown into the bay. This was odd, because the duffel was the heaviest bag he had, and he had seen the pilot stow it earlier.

  He looked out the window. The pilot was not there.

  ***

  Bonnie slid behind the duffel, hugging the floor, and waited for Pascal to fire.

  No shots came. It looked like he hadn’t heard her KO the pilot or sneak aboard.

  Okay, so much for skulking around. The next part was all about sudden violence and the element of surprise.

  She took a few quick shallow breaths like a diver preparing to submerge. Ready?

  Ready.

  ***

  Pressing his face to the glass, peering past a smear of raindrops, Pascal saw the pilot—or his legs, at least. Motionless, spread-eagled on the asphalt.

  He had been knocked unconscious or killed.

  The girl was here.

  ***

  Bonnie kicked at the partition, knocking it free of the wall, and jumped over the luggage into the cabin. The carbine led her, the long barrel gleaming, wet with rain.

  She kept her finger lightly on the trigger, ready to squeeze and release, not wanting to fire off a long burst because the risk of killing Mariana was too high.

  ***

  Pascal h
eard the noise behind him and rose from his seat in one liquid motion.

  He was glad she had come. He had not wanted to leave things unresolved between them. And though she had earned the right to live, he would be happy to grant her a hero’s death.

  ***

  Dim lighting in the cabin, a narrow aisle with gray carpet and twin lines of running lights. Mariana on one side, Pascal on the other, both facing forward.

  He moved faster than she expected. He was out of his seat before she cleared the luggage, and he was pivoting to face her as he drew the silenced Beretta from his shoulder harness.

  The gun came up, clutched in a black leather fist.

  She fired first.

  Two shots, the shortest burst she could manage. Two .22 rounds that arrowed down the aisle and slugged into Pascal’s chest, on the left side, below the heart.

  Black blood suffused his shirt like a spreading ink stain. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out, only a froth of blood bearding his chin.

  The Beretta tilted in his grasp and dropped. It hit the floor a half second before he did. His knees unlocked, and he crumpled against his seat, slumping sideways.

  Mariana screamed. “Pascal!”

  Bonnie closed the distance with him and snatched up the Beretta, jamming it into her waistband. She took a step closer, the carbine raised in case Pascal tried making some sort of move, but one look at his face told her that he was all out of moves, now and forever.

  Mariana whirled on her, rage and grief skewing her features. “You goddamned fool. He was no threat to me. He loves me!”

  Bonnie met her eyes. “I know.”

  ***

  Pascal was dying. He felt no fear, no anger. There was only a certain regret. He would have savored these next months, had he been permitted to have them. But it was all right. One performance had ended; another would begin. There were other lives to come. Better lives, perhaps. He could hope so.

  He did not hate Bonnie Parker. He had been given more than enough opportunities against her. But she was good. And he was getting old. Ten years ago, or even five, he would have beaten her. But this was a young man’s game, and he was a young man no longer.

  In a haze of light, Mariana knelt by him. Tears stood in her eyes, making them suddenly too big for her face, a doll’s eyes. She reached for his hand.