Fifth Victim

by Zoe Sharp

  ‘So, what is it with you and Parker Armstrong, huh?’

  I put down my glass of sparkling water very precisely. ‘There’s nothing going on between us, Dina. Parker is strictly my boss.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said, eyes dancing. ‘There’s got to be more to it than that. I saw the way he watches you when you’re not looking.’

  How did I tell her that Parker was probably checking for signs I was cracking up? That he knew, better than anyone, what I’d been through – was still going through, every day – with Sean.

  ‘We’re friends. Good friends. No more than that.’

  She was still smiling in a way that was a sudden irritation, but I knew if I let that show she’d assume she was right. I kept my expression neutral as the waiter deposited my French onion soup and Dina’s green salad in front of us. I’d chosen a table inside rather than on the street, quietly insisting on a corner where I could watch the exits. I’d already recced our escape route, should we need one.

  ‘Is he married? Is that it?’

  Give it a rest!

  I suppressed a sigh. ‘He was. He’s a widower.’

  ‘Oh.’ She digested that for a moment. ‘What was she like, his wife? I mean … what happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, not wanting to admit that until a few months ago I hadn’t known that Parker had ever been married in the first place. A very private man, self-contained. ‘It was before my time.’

  ‘So, what’s stopping you?’ she pressed, not taking the hint. Her tone turned teasing. ‘I mean, he’s kinda good-looking – for an old guy.’

  ‘He’s only just turned forty,’ I said. ‘That hardly puts him in his dotage.’

  ‘And that makes him how much older than you?’

  ‘Twelve years,’ I said. Not much in the great scheme of things. Sean was thirty-four, sitting halfway between us – and not just in age. I picked up my knife and fork. ‘Maybe Parker’s not my type. Or maybe I’m not his.’

  ‘Hey, you’re lovely. And if you’d let me take you in hand for a day, you could be stunning,’ Dina countered with a smile. ‘Don’t sell yourself short!’

  I remembered Landers telling me not to underestimate myself, too, but his assessment was all to do with how much I might scare a potential opponent, rather than lure them. Was it normal, I wondered, to value his opinion more highly?

  ‘I’m not a doll you can dress up, Dina,’ I warned.

  ‘I wouldn’t dare – I have a feeling I’d lose my fingers,’ she said, laughing out loud now, but after a moment she sobered. ‘He’s interested, though, I can tell.’

  I applied myself to my soup bowl, cutting through the cheese crust to the rich liquid and onion beneath, chewing, swallowing. When I glanced up, though, Dina was still watching me, her own cutlery poised. ‘Maybe I’m spoken for.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, letting her hands drop. ‘You have a boyfriend? No way.’

  ‘And there you were only a few moments ago, telling me how pretty I was,’ I said, lightly mocking. ‘I’m wounded.’

  She had the grace to flush. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ She took a breath. ‘What I meant was, it must be some special guy who understands what it is you do, and … lets you do it.’

  I debated briefly on telling Dina that it was Sean who’d recruited me into the business in the first place. That he’d recognised both a need within me and the means to fulfil it. It was only when I put down my soup spoon, very neatly in the centre of my empty bowl, that I answered.

  ‘He understands.’

  She tipped her head on one side, considering. ‘Is he a bodyguard too?’ she asked then, saw from my face the accuracy of that sudden flash of intuition. ‘He is! Oh, how romantic! Travelling all over the world to dangerous and exotic locations together. It’s like something out of a movie.’ Her voice was positively wistful. ‘Tell me, have the two of you ever been in one of those life-or-death situations?’

  I closed my eyes briefly, saw again the snap of Sean’s head, back and right, as the fateful round hit, and felt my throat threaten to close up entirely. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, spill – what’s he like?’ She was leaning forwards in her chair and her sparkling gaze had turned voracious.

  Now there’s a question. Saying nothing would only make her dig harder. Saying anything light-hearted would half kill me. I spread my hands in a helpless shrug and hoped the truth would shock her into silence.

  ‘Sean is … the other half of me.’

  It made her regroup rather than retreat, a temporary respite that lasted until after the waiter had cleared away our plates and brought large tall glasses of iced coffee in place of dessert.

  ‘Don’t you miss him – this Sean? Doesn’t he mind you being away from home all this time?’

  I didn’t point out it had been less than a fortnight. ‘Yes, I do miss him,’ I said honestly. ‘But he’s in no position to argue.’

  ‘I guess not,’ she said slowly, forming her own conclusions. Then her face cleared. ‘Hey, why don’t you and Sean double-date with me and Tor for the charity auction? That would be so cool!’

  ‘Dina—’

  ‘And it will look much less suspicious than you tagging along with us all on your own,’ she pointed out fast. It was an entirely logical suggestion, spoilt only by her eager but slightly self-satisfied expression. ‘What d’you say?’

  I let my breath out hard, as much because I disliked being backed into a corner as because of the insurmountable difficulties.

  ‘He can’t,’ I said, flatly enough to stop any protests she might have been about to make. ‘Even if he could … Well, he just can’t. Don’t push me on this, Dina. It’s not going to happen.’

  Dina took in my set face and was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Then she said carefully, ‘OK, but … can I meet him?’

  The denial was on my lips. I expected it. If Dina’s disappointed air was anything to go by, she expected it, too.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. You asked for this. ‘Why not?’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When we reached his hospital room, Sean was lying on his back with his head tilted towards the door as if awaiting our arrival.

  We paused in the doorway. Dina because this was the last thing she had expected, and I was mean enough – or pissed off enough – not to have warned her what to expect. And me because I had a sudden recall of Parker’s report on Sean’s last CT scan.

  ‘… his physical therapist has been growing kinda concerned about some of his responses … His brain activity … they think it may be slowing down …’

  Dina had asked plenty of questions on the ride over, but I’d been non-committal, thoroughly regretting the impulse which had made me suggest this meeting in the first place. After all, what the hell did I hope to achieve? My stubborn silence had only served to intrigue her further.

  Now, I took a breath and stepped into the room. ‘Sean, Dina. Dina – this is Sean,’ I said over my shoulder. We’d stopped briefly to pick up coffee on the way in and now I flipped off the lid and put the cup down on the cabinet near to his head. There was no reaction.

  When I turned back I found Dina had remained frozen, startled, in the open doorway.

  ‘Maybe – if he’s sleeping – we, um, shouldn’t disturb him?’ she whispered, too awkward to know where to put her hands.

  ‘If you can do anything to wake him, Dina, be my guest,’ I said. I smoothed back the hair from his face, exposing the livid scar, and knew she still hadn’t moved. ‘It’s not contagious,’ I added roughly, aware I was being cruel to the girl and unable to stop myself. ‘He’s been in a coma for three months.’

  She advanced a few steps, eyes huge and everywhere at once, and asked in a small voice, ‘What happened?’

  I could have dressed it up for her, but I didn’t. ‘He was shot in the head.’

  She flinched. ‘Did he … was it, um, while he was protecting someone?’

  I nodded.

  She swall
owed. ‘And were they OK?’ She saw my face, went scarlet and then pale in waves. ‘I mean, did he succeed? Or was it …?’ She stumbled to a halt, but I could finish that one for her.

  Was it all for nothing?

  ‘Yes, Sean succeeded.’

  She flicked me a quick nervous glance from under her lashes. ‘You sound like you resent that.’

  ‘No,’ I said, giving it thought before I answered. ‘It was part of the job. Sean was unlucky, that’s all. You can’t be a soldier and ignore the part luck plays. Half an inch one way and the bullet would have killed him stone dead. Half an inch the other and it would have missed him altogether.’ I shrugged. ‘Luck of the draw.’

  Something trembled around the corner of her mouth. ‘You still sound like you resent it.’

  ‘I resent the circumstances that led up to it,’ I admitted, my eyes on Sean’s face. ‘They call us bullet catchers, but that is close protection in its crudest form. You get to the stage of having to put your own body between a principal and a bullet, it’s a last-ditch, desperate effort.’ I skimmed over her whitened features. ‘We spend our lives avoiding that moment.’

  ‘But you’re prepared to do it anyway,’ she said. ‘For a stranger. For someone you’ve only known a few hours, or a few days. Even though you’ve seen what might happen.’

  I heard the strain splitting the edges of her voice. ‘Yes.’

  She shook her head, bit her lower lip as if to keep from crying. ‘Why?’

  It was a good question. I’d asked myself the same thing and never come up with an answer that didn’t sound trite. I glanced at Sean again. He hadn’t moved a muscle since we’d walked in, our voices rolling over him without eliciting any of the involuntary responses I’d come to hope for.

  Would he rather have burnt hot and bright and fierce, and been snuffed out quick like a wet flame? Would he consider it good luck or bad, I wondered, the half an inch of life that he’d been left with? Survival was a long way from living.

  I turned away, leaving the coffee on the bedside cabinet, putting up gentle sensory smoke signals into that sterile room. As I drew level with Dina she still hadn’t taken her eyes off Sean, hadn’t moved any closer.

  ‘Why don’t you want go to Europe to stay with your father?’ I asked in return. ‘Why be so stubborn? Why increase the risk?’

  For both of us …

  ‘Because …’ she began, and her voice trailed away. She swallowed. ‘Because Mother wants me to go and hide until all this trouble is over, but how long will that take? Why should I put my life on hold and give up riding my horses every day, for something that might never happen?’

  There was bravado in her words, but I caught the flare of fear in her voice, her face. Whatever she might say or do to prove otherwise, Dina was scared. She must have guessed that I’d seen it, because her chin lifted, defiant. ‘I guess running away just feels like cowardice.’

  I nodded. ‘Then you understand how I feel.’

  It wasn’t much of an answer, but I reckoned I’d bared my soul enough for one day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The charity auction, I soon discovered, was one of the highlights of the Long Island social calendar, and was being held at a sumptuous country club on the North Shore. There were so many VIP guests attending that the club had assigned a frighteningly efficient elderly woman called Harling, whose sole job was to liaise with the numerous close-protection personnel. Or, as she saw it, to stop us gorillas from tripping over our own bootlaces and stealing the silver.

  I went up there and met her the day before. She was wearing a long narrow skirt and white blouse with a high ruffled collar, the overall effect vaguely Edwardian. I, in contrast, had come on the Buell to cut down the time I was away from Dina, and had on a bike jacket over a T-shirt and Kevlar-reinforced jeans. Until I stated my business at the reception desk, I think they were planning on showing me the door with all haste.

  As it was, the indomitable Ms Harling quick-marched me around the place, firing facts and specs back over her shoulder in time with the machine-gun rat-a-tat of her sensible heels. From having a paramedic team on standby, to knowing off the top of her head the local police response times, to having already cleared an emergency exfil route from the grand ballroom through the kitchens to the rear parking area, she seemed to have everything pretty well mapped out. When I told her as much, she unbent enough to bestow a fractional smile.

  ‘We certainly do our best,’ she said. Her tour had brought us neatly back to the front entrance and she glanced at her PDA – not quite as pointed as checking her watch. ‘Now, unless you have any questions …?’

  ‘Just one,’ I said. ‘If anything goes down, what means do the various close-protection teams have of ID’ing each other? I’d hate to be in a situation where I draw my weapon, only to be mistaken for one of the bad guys.’ I thought it best not to mention the words ‘friendly fire’.

  Her plucked and carefully redrawn eyebrows rose slightly. ‘I will point out in the briefing packs that there are female protection personnel present,’ she said at last. ‘Although we have never encountered any problems in the past.’

  ‘Really?’ I murmured.

  Her mouth relaxed a little more as her eyes drifted over my appearance, and this time I thought I detected the merest hint of a twinkle. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Most of the time, my dear, bodyguards look like … bodyguards.’

  It took Dina all afternoon to prepare for the big night, from a facial and massage to a visit to her hairdresser and nail salon. She changed her mind at least three times about her outfit, despite having bought a selection specially for the occasion.

  Eventually, I managed to talk her out of something I felt was trying much too hard and into a bold but simple bronze sheath of a dress that showed off her figure and hair to best effect. She teamed it with the pearl drop earrings she’d worn that first day I’d met her, out riding Cerdo on the beach. They had been her grandmother’s, she told me.

  When I finally left her hovering indecisively in front of the mirror, I had barely half an hour to grab a quick shower and scramble into my own posh frock.

  I had been planning to drag out my all-purpose stretchy dress for a return match, but Dina had flatly refused to be seen out with me in the same thing twice, and insisted on treating me to something new. I tried to say no, but she would not be deflected. In the end it was easier not to put up a fight.

  I found what I was looking for in a designer outlet store, much to her dismay, on the marked-down rack. It was another black dress, although the silky material flipped almost to silver according to the light, like pearl lacquer on paint. It was a little crumpled, but nothing a night under my mattress hadn’t cured.

  The dress was almost floor length, but had a split up the left thigh to give me mobility, and a bolero jacket that was sufficient to conceal the SIG.

  The other advantage of the jacket was it had a high collar that largely hid the scar around the base of my neck. There were days now when I looked in the mirror and it wasn’t immediately obvious to me that someone had once tried to cut my throat. I’d learnt to cover it, partly with make-up and partly by how I dressed, and tonight a string of graduated pearls – fake, of course – did the rest.

  I stashed some essentials into a small evening bag and headed out, only to find that I’d still beaten Dina to the living area where Caroline Willner waited in flattering dowager pale blue, glittering with diamonds. Alongside her, looking very suave in a well-fitting tuxedo, was Parker. He automatically got to his feet when I walked in, gave me a slow appraisal.

  ‘Charlie. You look … wonderful.’

  ‘Thank you. I do scrub up on occasion,’ I returned with a wry grin. ‘You look none too shabby yourself, Parker,’ but he didn’t smile back. I saw Caroline Willner flick us a shrewd glance and realised belatedly that I’d probably been a touch too flippant towards my boss in front of a woman who was not only a client, but one who also used to be a countess.

  Fortunate
ly, I was saved from having to stumble through an apology, or awkward silence, by Dina’s dramatic entrance. Parker made gallant and appreciative noises, which Dina coyly accepted. Almost on cue, the arrival of the limo was announced, and we trooped out into the blood-warm night.

  As Parker passed me he murmured a quick, ‘Sorry’, which only served to confuse me. Sorry for what?

  Outside, Torquil stood by the open rear door of a stretch Cadillac CTS, waiting impatiently for us to emerge. His usual pair of bodyguards were ranged behind him. Both wore boxy evening dress that had been chosen more for ease of movement than for flattery of fit, like a conscript’s uniform. Ms Harling of the country club, I considered, definitely had a point.

  Caroline Willner sailed down the stairs first, with Dina behind her. Torquil managed to play the gentleman enough to greet his date’s mother with civility and hand her into the limo, although his manner didn’t alter noticeably with Dina. I wondered if she was disappointed that all the effort over her appearance seemed to have gone unnoticed.

  As he ducked into the car, Parker nodded to the troops, who stiffened as if suddenly realising they were raw recruits in the presence of a veteran. One hopped in smartly behind us, the other took the front seat next to the driver.

  Inside, the Cadillac was cavernous in a slightly tacky way, with inset LED lighting everywhere, mirrors on the ceiling, flat screen TVs, and champagne on ice. It could seat ten in squishy cream-leather comfort, three abreast at the front and rear of the huge rear cabin, and along one side on a four-seater sofa that would have been too big to fit most British living rooms.

  When the door clunked shut behind us, I saw there were two other passengers already in occupation. One was a statuesque red-haired woman in a charcoal silk tuxedo, who was clearly security. The other, lounging at the far end with his back to the raised privacy screen behind the driver, was a thin man in his sixties. He cut a striking figure, with a shock of white hair and Colonel Sanders-style moustache and narrow strip of a beard. So, this was Eisenberg Senior, Torquil’s gazillionaire father. Physically, they were not much alike, but in manner they mirrored one another. Of Torquil’s mother, there was no sign.