Fifth Victim

by Zoe Sharp

  ‘What?’ Eisenberg whispered, as much in awe as disbelief.

  I looked across at Hunt. The bleeding had slowed and he was still conscious, so Parker’s shot must have missed anything vital. With medical attention on its way, he would most likely survive, and very probably recover.

  He had shot me, I reminded myself. Coldly, deliberately, fully intending to kill. He had done the same to Joe McGregor. He had beaten Torquil to death, and murdered his two accomplices. He had sliced off Dina’s ear and buried her alive.

  He absolutely deserved to die.

  ‘We’ll act as witnesses, say he attacked you – that you had no choice,’ Eisenberg said urgently. ‘Just do it. I’ll pay you – whatever you want. Name your price.’

  ‘Don’t be so foolish, Brandon,’ Caroline Willner snapped. ‘Charlie will not do something like this for the money. She’ll do it for justice. That’s what I want for Dina – justice.’

  I hadn’t taken my eyes away from Hunt’s and saw, finally, the fear begin to seep in. I reached into my jacket pocket and brought out the Colt that Hunt had dropped when he’d fallen. Now I had a chance to study it, I saw it was a Government Model, a scaled-down .380 version of the .45 ACP. The same gun he’d used to shoot me, the day he’d trashed my Buell. I could see the irony of that was not lost on him.

  The gun weighed about the same as my SIG but was more compact, with a shorter barrel and a smaller magazine capacity of just seven rounds. With one gone to dispose of Lennon, there were six shots left.

  More than enough.

  I thumbed off the safety and held the gun loosely by my side. Hunt shifted uneasily, not wanting to beg, but realising he may be forced into it. It took me a few seconds to realise I didn’t want him to.

  I turned back to Eisenberg and Caroline Willner, flicked the safety back on and held the gun out towards them, grip first.

  ‘You’re both wrong,’ I said. ‘I won’t kill for money, and I won’t kill for justice, either. Die to protect? Yes. Even kill to protect if I have to. But you don’t want a bodyguard here, you want an assassin.’ I shook my head. ‘If you really want this man dead, you’re going to have to do it yourself. I won’t stop you.’

  For a moment, nobody moved. Eisenberg shifted his feet, his expression a torment of frustration and grief. He didn’t have it in him to take a life in cold blood, I saw, whatever the provocation. I dismissed him.

  But Caroline Willner carefully disentangled herself from her daughter’s clinging grasp, letting her hand stroke lightly across the girl’s bowed head. Then she straightened, took a step towards me, and closed her manicured and bejewelled hand around the pistol grip.

  I let go of the barrel slowly, letting her get the measure of the weight and the shape of it.

  ‘Safety’s to the left of the hammer,’ I said, conversational. ‘Up for safe, down for fire. Use both hands and keep the front sight up. Point and shoot.’

  Eisenberg turned away, almost staggering. He hadn’t the stomach to watch, never mind take part.

  Caroline Willner nodded absently, as if I’d been explaining how to operate a pocket camera. She squared her shoulders, and stepped determinedly towards her prey.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  ‘I really think she would have done it.’ I glanced across at Sean. ‘That lady has a lot of spine. I’ve a sneaking suspicion you’d like her.’

  Sean – lying on his back today with his head tilted slightly towards me on the hospital pillow – did not respond. He had lain without any movement at all throughout my report. I tried to tell myself that I had his full attention, the way he’d focused on me so absolutely in the past, but in truth I found his stillness unnerving. I leant across, stroked the back of his hand with a soft finger. Not a quiver.

  The only reason Caroline Willner had not slotted Hunt Trevanion out there on the cross-country course was because of Dina. Bereft of the comforting embrace, the girl had lifted her head – just as her mother raised the gun and aimed it squarely at Hunt’s chest.

  ‘No!’ she’d cried, her voice raw from the screaming she’d done, I later discovered, when she woke from a pill-induced slumber and found herself in the middle of her own worst nightmare, just as the first shovelfuls of earth splattered down onto the lid of her coffin. ‘Please, Mom, NO!’

  Caroline Willner had paused, her hand already tightening around the grip and trigger, and glanced at her daughter.

  ‘Why not?’ she’d asked simply.

  Dina had swallowed, her throat working convulsively. ‘Please … don’t let him do this to you,’ she said at last, cracked and pleading. ‘I’ll remember what’s happened to me here for the rest of my life. Don’t let him do the same to you.’

  Caroline Willner had stared at her for what seemed like a long time, her features very controlled. Then she’d swivelled her gaze towards Hunt, examining him minutely as though he was something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

  I don’t know exactly what she saw there, but the fire went out of her. Her hand dropped slowly to her side, and I’d stepped in, taking the gun from her unresisting fingers, thumbing the safety back on.

  She’d turned, studied me with eyes that were curious and just a little afraid. ‘How do you do it?’ she’d demanded, a tinge of bitter wonder in her voice. ‘How do you make killing seem so … easy?’

  ‘I told her it was all down to practice,’ I said now to Sean, a half smile twisting my lips. He would have appreciated the irony of it all, but he lay waxy quiet on the sheets, so pale beneath the dark fall of his hair that it was hard to tell where the linen ended and he began.

  Caroline Willner, I recalled, had been much the same colour. Shortly after I’d retrieved Hunt’s gun from her, Parker had arrived with the GMC. He’d scanned the taut faces arrayed in front of him, and seemed neither dismayed nor relieved that the status quo remained unchanged. He’d loaded Dina and her mother into the pickup and driven them away, slow and careful, across the grass.

  In the whirl of police and federal agents that followed, I hadn’t seen my principal again for twenty-four hours. When I did, she was lying in a hospital bed in a private room not dissimilar to this one.

  Dina had been propped up on pillows, though, alert, as well as clean and rested, with a neat antiseptic dressing enclosing her foreshortened ear lobe. She was almost as pale as Sean, but looking into her eyes, I’d seen she had attained at least a surface measure of calm.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Charlie,’ she’d said, her voice a husky whisper. ‘I—’

  ‘Forget it,’ I’d told her. ‘There’s no need. Just … get over this. Don’t let him beat you. Live large.’ I’d watched the way her hands knotted nervously with the sheets, and said teasingly, ‘I assume your mother will ask Raleigh for the return of your horses?’

  That had got a response. Dina gave a lukewarm smile that could easily have turned into a sob, shaken her head slightly, not meeting my eyes. ‘He’s already offered to give them back. And she’s been … wonderful.’

  I’d sighed, pulled my chair a little closer to the bed and bent low enough that she was forced to look at me directly.

  ‘I’m going to give you some advice, Dina,’ I’d said. ‘You don’t have to take it, but you’re at least going to listen, OK?’

  A flush of colour had lit across her cheeks, a confused mash of shame and anger and sadness and self-pity, but she nodded, just once.

  ‘Don’t waste this experience,’ I’d told her. ‘Never forget that your mother was prepared to kill for you. That is one hell of a declaration of love on her part. And it would have been so easy for you to let her, and then you would have been blaming each other for that wretched haul of guilt for the rest of your lives.’ I held her startled gaze. ‘But you didn’t force her to prove herself to you then. Don’t make her do it later, over and over. Get past this. Move on.’

  She’d looked about to protest, but I’d seen something connect in her eyes. Maybe it was the realisation that here was an opportunity to
go forwards into an adult-to-adult relationship with her mother, finally. As equals bound by courage in extreme circumstances, like soldiers.

  Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

  Whatever, she’d nodded a couple of times. There was a long pause that stretched into discomfort, so I’d asked, ‘How’s the ear?’

  ‘Sore.’ She’d managed a wavery smile. ‘Now’s my opportunity to become a famous painter, huh?’

  I’d smiled back. ‘I think it’s been done, but you can always have cosmetic surgery.’

  She gave a small shake of her head. ‘I know. Mother’s already suggested it, but …’ she shrugged diffidently, ‘… I’m kinda tempted to leave it as it is. As a reminder. Does that sound stupid?’

  ‘No,’ I said slowly. There’s hope for her yet. ‘It doesn’t.’

  ‘And I guess I can always wear my hair over it, or a clip-on earring, hide it that way.’ Another pause, more of a hesitation this time. ‘Like you hide your scar – round your neck.’

  ‘You’ll find that hiding it matters less, as time goes on.’

  She’d nodded gravely, then a flash of guilt had crossed her face and she’d asked in a small voice, ‘How’s Joe?’

  ‘As I told her – McGregor’s going to be off in rehab for about three months,’ I said to Sean. ‘So, we need you back. We’re short-staffed. Hell, I think Parker was even tempted to offer Gleason that job she was angling for. She’s a redhead, by the way, so maybe that explains his interest …’

  My voice trailed off and I sat in silence for a while, just watching his face with utter concentration, praying to see some rapid movement of his eyes beneath the almost translucent lids.

  There was nothing.

  How did I tell him what had happened between Parker and me? What I’d felt could still happen. Did I tell him at all?

  He would know, I realised, as soon as he saw us together, he’d know by the way we tried to put distance between us. He always had been able to read me like an open book. And what then?

  Caroline Willner had known. When I’d left Dina’s hospital room that day, she’d been waiting for me in the corridor outside.

  ‘Thank you, Charlie,’ she said to me. As much for what I’d said, I realised, as what I’d done.

  I shrugged. ‘It would have been better to stop her being taken in the first place,’ I said. ‘Then there wouldn’t have been the need to get her back.’

  ‘Not just for that, although I rather think I shall be in your debt for some time.’ She gave a slight smile. ‘And I think you’ll find that I always pay my debts.’

  I had no ready answer to that one. People often sounded incredibly grateful in situations like these, but I’d learnt not to set too much store by it. The memory would fade.

  She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Charlie,’ she said. She paused, as if working out whether it was her place to say what she had in mind, then plunged on anyway. ‘I realise the situation is awkward, with your young man in a coma, but I hope you and Mr Armstrong come to some kind of understanding between the two of you. I confess I thought you seemed remarkably well matched.’

  Would she have said the same if she’d met Sean? I’d told him he would like her. Would the same be true in reverse?

  By Sean’s head sat the open cup of coffee I always brought, its aroma gently wafting upwards and outwards, teasing his nostrils.

  It made no impression on him.

  ‘Epps let him go,’ I said out of nowhere, hoping for the shock effect of the sudden swerve. Aware, too, that Sean would know exactly who I meant. ‘The bastard offered to go undercover in a militia group and Epps fell for it – let him walk. He’s been away on his toes for the last couple of months, more or less, and they still haven’t found him.’ I paused again, head on one side. ‘Do you care?’ I wondered aloud. ‘Does any of it really matter anymore?’

  ‘It matters, Charlie,’ said a voice behind me. I swung round in my chair to see the nurse, Nancy, standing in the doorway. Her face was grave. ‘Don’t you ever give up hoping.’

  I rose, gave a shrug. ‘I’m tired,’ I admitted. I glanced down at Sean. ‘Parker said the doctors are losing their hope. How can I keep hold of mine?’ Perhaps it’s already lost.

  ‘Doctors!’ Nancy sniffed, waving a dismissive hand as she bustled forwards, checked Sean’s vital signs, straightened the covers. ‘What do they know? I seen people come out of sleep way longer and deeper than your boy here. He’ll come back when he’s good and ready.’ She stroked a hand over his hair, but he didn’t stir for her, either. ‘Maybe he’s waiting for something, ain’t that right, Sean?’

  She cast me a semi-reassuring smile and left.

  ‘Is she right?’ I murmured. ‘Are you waiting for something?’

  I reached under my jacket and pulled out the SIG. I put the gun near his head, finger outside the guard, and pulled back the slide to feed the first round out of the magazine, letting the action snap forwards with a sharp metallic sound that would have been as unmistakable as it was familiar – to both of us.

  Sean never moved.

  I leant in closer, battling to drive the tears out of my voice with anger instead. ‘Get up, soldier. Get up and fight it, damn you. Don’t leave me here without you. What the hell are you waiting for?’

  But I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I slipped the SIG back into its holster, checked the lie of my jacket over it, and walked out without looking back.

  Behind me, I left the coffee steaming delicately on the cabinet by his bed.

  Outside, it was raining again. I turned up the collar of my jacket, hunched my shoulders to close the gap, and headed for the nearest subway station that would take me back downtown. Parker had offered me use of one of the Navigators after the death of my Buell, but parking was always a problem.

  Sean’s bike, a Buell Ulysses, was sitting under a dust cover, itself covered in dust, in the parking garage beneath our apartment building. I suppose I could have used that, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the big Mercedes pull into the kerb just level with me. I even altered my pace a little, but still wasn’t prepared for the sound of my own name.

  ‘Hey, Charlie!’

  I turned, saw Eisenberg’s head of security, Gleason, climbing out of the passenger seat. Today she wore a high-necked cream blouse and black wool trousers, and looked as casual as I’d seen her. I stood my ground and waited for her to cross the sidewalk towards me in a couple of long strides.

  She jerked her head towards the building I’d just left. ‘How is he?’

  My instinct was fast anger, like she had no right to ask, but I swallowed it down far enough to be civil. ‘No change.’

  Gleason nodded at that, as if she hadn’t expected any other reply. As if she’d only asked for form’s sake. I felt my teeth clench with the effort of not telling her to go to hell by the shortest route possible, but she spoke before I could phrase the words.

  She nodded to the car, still idling by the kerb. ‘Get in,’ she invited. ‘It’s a lousy day to be walking outside.’

  ‘I like the rain.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’ She sighed. ‘You think I was sent all the way up here to stand around ruining a perfectly good pair of shoes and arguing with you?’

  I altered my stance, noticed she’d done the same. Combative. Any moment now, we were going to be brawling. I made a conscious effort to ease off. Besides – sent?

  ‘My mother told me never to get into cars with strange men – or women, come to that.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, mine told me never to date musicians. Looks like they’re both disappointed.’ There was a trace of dark humour lurking in her eyes that faded as she glanced pointedly towards the building behind me again. Towards Sean. ‘Get in the goddamn car, Charlie,’ she said with quiet intensity. ‘Trust me, you’ll want to hear this.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked as I settled back into
the leather upholstery of the Mercedes. The driver was another of Eisenberg’s men. From the back seat, he seemed to have no neck, his ears going straight down into his collar with no discernible alteration in width.

  ‘Nowhere in particular – yet,’ Gleason said as we pulled away and accelerated into traffic. ‘That’s up to you.’ She settled herself. The Merc was a brand-new S600, with enough room in the back for her to cross her legs negligently. ‘As you know, my employer is a very wealthy man. He has contacts, connections, in the highest places, and the money and power to get just about whatever he wants.’

  A small smile slipped across the side of her mouth, and from it I deduced that she herself had been one of the things Brandon Eisenberg had coveted and then acquired.

  ‘Fascinating. How does this relate to me?’ And to Sean?

  Gleason’s face flickered. She’d got this little speech all worked out, and wasn’t going to let me hurry her to the punchline.

  ‘I’m coming to that. As you are probably aware, I am ex-Secret Service,’ she said, straightening the cuff of her shirt, and there was more than a hint of pride in her voice. ‘I was tasked with guarding the President.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ I drawled. ‘Bill Clinton?’

  Her mouth tightened, but she ploughed on doggedly. ‘As such, I, too, have friends in … interesting places. Including Homeland Security.’

  My expression gave me away, I know it did. She saw my reaction and smiled.

  ‘You know Epps?’ I said. It hardly needed to be a question.

  ‘I guess just about everybody knows Conrad Epps,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘Unfortunately.’

  Oh yeah, you know Epps all right …

  ‘Word is that he’s been attempting to track a certain fugitive for the past couple of months – without success. Until now, that is,’ she continued. ‘It would seem that the guy they’re after has just popped up on the radar in Omaha, Nebraska, of all places.’