by Zoe Sharp
“So, has Vondie gone rogue again, or is Collingwood pulling her strings?”
He shook his head. “If Collingwood’s behind this, we’re so far up the creek they’ve never even seen a paddle,” he said. “I think we’d better assume the worst. Turn off your phone, just in case they’re tracking us through the system. We’ll find somewhere with a landline and call Parker.”
“If Collingwood’s bent,” I said, fishing my mobile out and holding down the power button until the screen went blank, “he’s going to have Parker under surveillance, too, surely?”
“Of course.” He flashed me a grim smile. “We’ll just have to make sure we’re suitably cryptic, won’t we?”
Cleaning up was a priority if we were to remain at large. We stopped at a little roadside fuel station that seemed to have branched out into garden furniture and windmills as well as the usual supplies. The rest room was round the back of the building and we had to get a key from the cashier before we could use it.
We sent my mother in, seeing as she had come out of the encounter relatively unscathed and had the least amount of blood on her. She returned with a rusty key on one end of a piece of weighted chain, just in case any of us took a fancy to it.
There was only one—unisex—rest room, which my mother took one look at and declined to use, regardless of need. It was lined largely with scuffed stainless-steel panels held together with antitamper fastenings. The cracked sink was minus a plug, but at least there was soap in the dispenser and the water was hot.
My father’s nose wrinkled, but he rolled up his sleeves and got on with it. He’d even fetched a nail brush from his overnight bag. I wadded paper towels into the bottom of the sink and kept one hand on the top of the push-down tap to fill the bowl with water.
He washed his hands with technique born of long practice, thoroughly cleaning each area of skin, including the backs and round the base of his thumbs. It was so obviously methodical that you knew he would be able to get them spotless even in the dark.
I leaned on the cracked tiles under the long slot of a window and watched him scrub at the blood I’d caused to flow. I saw again the way Vondie and Don Kaminski had got out of the Chevy, the guns in their hands, the clear intent. It was as if I needed the reassurance that it had been a necessary shot, a good clean kill. Kaminski might yet not die but, if he did, I supposed I could live with the consequences.
The adrenaline had left my hands unsteady, and increased the ache in my thigh until it was a fierce burn that I longed to alleviate with Vicodin. I was thankful we’d had a chance to grab our luggage before we’d fled the scene and I was mentally sorting through my bag, trying to remember exactly where I’d left my painkillers, in order to make their retrieval when we went back outside as unobtrusive as possible.
“Does it make you feel differently about him?” my father asked suddenly.
I’d been thinking about Kaminski and my brain immediately turned back in that direction. I blinked. “Does what make me feel differently about whom?”
My father sighed, as though I was being deliberately difficult. “Sean,” he said, all but curling his lip at being forced to say the name. “The fact that he ran, back there, and left you and your mother to be slaughtered.”
I stared at him. He met my eyes for a moment as he emptied out the dirty water and filled the bowl again to repeat the process.
“What do you mean, ‘he ran’? Of course he did—I told him to,” I said, a little blankly. “You should be bloody glad that he ran! If he hadn’t, it might have been you who was shot.”
“He left you both to die, Charlotte,” my father said. “Are you so blinded by the man that you can’t accept the unequivocal facts of the situation?”
“I’m not blind to Sean’s faults,” I said. “But I’m damned if I’m going to let you call him a coward when he’s not.” I elbowed off the wall, stalked towards him. “We told you the ground rules back in New York. Did you think we didn’t mean any of it? What you think you saw back there, that wasn’t what happened, and until you have a better understanding of what we do, I’d thank you to keep your half-baked bloody opinions to yourself, okay?” I threw him a contemptuous glance. “I’ll wait outside.”
I turned and went for the door, suddenly needing to get out of the same room before I did something both of us would regret. Damn the man to hell!
“Charlotte—”
I turned back, fully prepared to give him both barrels, but he’d stopped his scrubbing and was standing there, head down and shoulders bowed, gripping the edge of the sink with both hands, as if holding on for dear life.
Then I saw his head come up with that arrogant tilt I knew so well, and the moment of apparent vulnerability passed like it had never been.
“You’re right. I don’t understand,” he said, stony. “I saw a man who professes to love you turn his back and run in the middle of a gun battle, leaving you in danger. So … explain it to me. What exactly did I fail to see?”
I let go of the door handle and took a breath. When I let it out my voice was calmer. “We were under attack. One principal outside the vehicle, one trapped inside,” I said in a clipped tone that, ironically, must have made me sound very much my father’s daughter. I cast my eyes up and down him.
“You must outweigh my mother by—what, forty or fifty pounds? Sean outweighs me by sixty. Purely from a logistical point of view, it made no sense whatsoever for me to try and get you to cover, and leave my mother to Sean. If you’d been injured, I would have carried you, make no mistake, but I knew he could do it so much more easily. And that would make him more efficient. Better at his job.”
“But—”
“But what?” I demanded, not letting him cut me off. “All I had to worry about was getting my mother out. I didn’t have to worry about you, because I knew Sean would keep you safe—would die to protect you, if he had to. I knew exactly how he was going to react because he’s always the absolute professional and that makes him utterly dependable when the chips are down.”
I stalked forwards, got right in his face and took mean satisfaction in the way he flinched back. “If he’d come back for me, there was a chance he might have just got in my way, cluttered my backgrounds when I was taking a shot. As it was, I knew Sean had my back, but not at the expense of yours.”
I paused, took a breath that went in fine but came out less steady than I would have liked. “If things had been reversed, if it had been you stuck in that car, and we’d got my mother out, I would have taken her and run, just the same,” I went on. “And, if I had, would you now be accusing me of cowardice?”
“No,” he said, low. “Of course not.”
“Well, halle-bloody-lujah,” I threw back at him. “Are you really so blinded against Sean you can’t see anything good in him?”
My father paused, brow creased in concentration. “I’m never going to be able to think of it as normal behavior,” he said at last, slowly, “that he’s prepared to kill or die for a stranger.”
I hate to break this to you, Daddy dear, but so am I.
I sighed, a long expulsion of air that did nothing to allay my frustration. “Well, try not to think about it, then,” I said tiredly. “Why don’t you just settle for being fucking grateful instead?”
CHAPTER 24
When we’d cleaned up, I called Parker’s office in New York from the little payphone outside the gas station. The line was faint and I had to stick one finger into my ear whenever there was traffic so I could hear the other end of the conversation.
To begin with, Bill Rendelson was very reluctant to put me through, but that was par for the course with Bill. And as soon as Parker himself came on the line, I knew we were in trouble.
“Charlie!” he said, a little too brightly. “Where are you?”
I took a moment to answer, raising an eyebrow at Sean, who was standing alongside me, listening in as best he could. He gave a brief shake of his head.
“Somewhere safe—for the moment,�
�� I said cautiously. “Listen, we found out the hospital severely modified Dr. Lee’s medical records. There’s no mention of Storax or the treatment he was on. They’re saying the fall killed him—indirectly, of course. My father reckons it’s all bullshit.”
“Great,” Parker said mechanically, and my trace of uncertainty solidified. “I’m sure Collingwood will check it out. Charlie, we need you to come in—you and Sean and your parents. Can you do that?”
“No—sorry,” I said without regret. “Not until we find out whose side everybody’s on. At the moment, there are too many loose ends flapping around. Not least of which are our old friends Vondie Blaylock and Don Kaminski.”
Parker sighed loud enough for us both to hear. “What about them?” he asked, but there was a little more steel and snap to his voice.
“She just threw a great party in the middle of the road and invited us to dance,” I said, keeping my own tone laconic, casual. “We declined. I imagine the car-rental people are going to be all over you sometime soon about what’s left of the Navigator we hired, though—seeing as it was secured on the company credit card.”
“Totaled, huh?”
“Totally,” I agreed cheerfully. “And I’m afraid I had to get serious with our old friend Don Kaminski, but he was pointing a gun at my mother at the time. My father treated him at the scene, and he informs me he might even make it. Vondie, incidentally, bravely ran away and left him to die.”
“Dammit, Charlie, you can’t go around killing people.”
“I can when they’re having a bloody good go at killing us first,” I shot back. “Of course, we realize that by the time Vondie puts in any kind of official report, we’ll be the villains of the piece, but whether she’s believed or not rather depends on whether she’s working with Collingwood, or in spite of him.” I let that one sink for a moment, then asked softly, “Which is it, Parker?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself,” Parker said calmly, “seeing as he’s right here?”
The phone went quiet for a moment. I jammed the receiver hard against my ear and heard increasingly frantic muttering going on at the other end, like Parker was holding the phone out to someone, trying to persuade them to take hold of it, and they weren’t keen on the idea.
Eventually, I heard a slight rattle, the uncomfortable clearing of a throat.
“Mr. Collingwood,” I said. “How is Vondie after her failed ambush? And the guy with the limp?”
“Vonda,” Collingwood corrected automatically. “And how would I know that?”
“Because she’s either got some rich uncle who’s funding her in a little private enterprise, or she’s using Uncle Sam’s money instead,” I said. “One way or another, she’s not working alone in all this.”
Collingwood said nothing. I suppose, looking at things from his point of view, there wasn’t much he could say. I imagined they were recording this phone call, and on tape was the last place he’d choose to say something that might come back to haunt him under oath.
“There is another alternative, of course,” I said. “And that’s the possibility that you are totally incompetent.”
He was cool enough to swallow the insult and not allow much more than a touch of irritation to creep through into his tone. “And just how, exactly, do you work that one out?”
“You told us there was an internal inquiry scheduled for Vondie as soon as she got back from leave,” I said.
“That’s correct.”
“So how come she’s just managed to turn up in sunny Massachusetts, armed, with a backup crew, when you’re supposed to be reining her in?” I asked mildly. “Either that’s down to the fact you’re crap at your job, Mr. Collingwood, or she’s merely following orders—your orders.”
There was an even longer pause this time and Sean began to make “Wind it up” motions, tapping the face of his Breitling. I nodded to him.
“I take your silence to mean you’re having difficulty defending your position, Mr. Collingwood,” I said. “Or difficulty tracing this call. One or the other.”
“Give it up, Charlie,” Collingwood shot back. “Like I said before, I can make things damn near impossible for you out there. And now you’ve injured two men—shot them with an illegally carried gun. You a poker player?’
“No,” I said, “I’m not.”
“Shame,” he said. “’Cause I was just gonna come out with a clever analogy about you bluffing with an empty hand. You got nothing but trouble coming your way if you don’t turn yourselves in now. You have zip to bargain with.”
“Not happening,” I said. “Just one last thing, though, Collingwood.”
“And what’s that?”
“How did you know how many people I’d shot and injured, unless you’ve talked to your agent in the last half an hour?”
And when he didn’t answer, I hung up with a sharp snick.
Sean raised an eyebrow in my direction. “So Collingwood’s crooked.”
“As a dog’s hind leg, by the looks of things,” I said, rubbing a tired hand round the back of my neck.
“And we’re in the shit again?”
“Up to our ankles at the very least.”
He gave me a half smile, one just vivid enough to sap a little of the weariness. “That’s only a real problem,” he said as we headed for the truck, “if you’re standing on your head.”
“Great,” I muttered. “I’ll remember that if I’m ever inclined towards gymnastics.”
Sean gave a low groan. “Oh please,” he said. “Don’t get my hopes up.”
I backhanded him in the stomach, just hard enough to sting the unbraced muscle, and dodged out of reach before he could retaliate, though he was grinning. Then I looked up and found my father watching us. He didn’t say anything, just turned and climbed into the back of the pickup with grim disapproval plastered all over him.
Sean sobered instantly, everywhere but his eyes. There had been a distinct bounce in his step, I realized, ever since I’d kissed him in my parents’ room that morning. A secret bubbling happiness that even a firefight and our current predicament couldn’t dispel. If only we didn’t have Collingwood’s spooks and a global corporation on our backs, everything in the garden would have been rosy.
As we climbed into the truck, Sean glanced over his shoulder. “We need to find somewhere out of public view while we work out our options,” he said. “And we need to do it quickly. It won’t take them long to start looking for this vehicle.”
He’d already disabled the tracker he’d found attached to the underside of the chassis, but that didn’t mean Collingwood hadn’t put out the pickup’s registration to try and run us to earth the good old-fashioned way.
“And if we’re going to run far, or for long, we need some cash,” I said, pulling a fold of dollar bills out of my pocket. “I’m down to my last few bucks and, if Collingwood’s put a block on our credit cards, we’re going to have to try a bank or an ATM.”
Sean nodded. “We’ll do it sooner rather than later,” he said. “They may well have already traced the phone we’ve just used, in which case we won’t be giving them much else that’s new if we use a bank close by.”
A police car rushed past the gas station, sirens blazing as it went. I craned forwards in my seat to watch it go, mainly to make sure it didn’t do a sudden U-turn and come back after us instead but, for now, our luck held.
Sean had just put the truck in gear and was preparing to move off when my father said, abruptly, “What about Miranda?”
Sean didn’t quite sigh out loud, but inside his head it must have been another matter. “What about her?” he said, expressionless. “Either Collingwood’s got people all over her, in which case she helped—willingly or unwillingly—to set us up, or they’ve got her phone tapped. Either way, the most sensible thing for us to do is stay as far away from her as we can.”
For a moment I thought my father was going to argue, then he closed his eyes briefly and said with stiff-necked calm, “I told he
r we would get to the bottom of this, but I never dreamt that would put her in any danger. I gave her my word.” He took in a breath, as if he needed to work his way up to this. “It’s not something I do lightly and I would rather not break it, if I can avoid it.”
Sean was silent for a moment. Glancing back, I saw my mother sneak her hand into my father’s, give it a reassuring squeeze.
“Darling,” she said, anxious to the point of timidity. “If Sean thinks it’s not safe—”
“We’ll go,” Sean said abruptly. “We’ll swing by the house, but if we think it looks dodgy, we’re not going in. All right?”
My father bridled at the steely tone, but he had the sense not to make an issue out of it when he was ahead. He nodded. “Thank you.”
“And if we pass any banks on the way there, we stop,” I said. When my father’s face darkened, I added quickly, “Five minutes isn’t going to make any difference, one way or another.” And I hoped that it was true.
We washed out on both counts. A slow drive-by of Miranda Lee’s house revealed no car in the driveway and no signs of habitation. We risked a phone call, but it rang out without reply.
And when I tried cards from three different accounts in the first hole-in-the-wall ATM we came across, the cash machine gave what I imagined was a mechanical gulping noise as it ate each one and passed on the indifferent advice that I should seek financial guidance at my earliest opportunity.
“So, we need cash and we need shelter,” I said when we were back out on the road again. A state trooper passed us. I watched warily until he was out of sight. “A safe house. Somewhere to hole up.”
“If Collingwood’s put the squeeze on Parker, anything on the company’s books will be compromised,” Sean said. He glanced at my father in the rearview mirror. “If you have any wealthy ex-patients around here who owe you big favors, now would be a very good time to call them in.”
“What about your ex-clients?” my father batted back at him. “Wouldn’t any of them be grateful enough to assist?”
