by Zoe Sharp
“Of course you can, darling,” she said, “but at what cost?”
As we walked through the automatic doors into the lobby, I glanced back and saw Sean and my father, still by the open boot of the car, watching us. They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, I noticed, unconsciously presenting a united front. Ironic that the first time they were in any kind of accord, it was to team up against me.
We slept like the dead, all of us. Ten straight hours. When I woke, I reached out a hand and found Sean’s side of the bed already empty but still warm from his body heat. When I lifted my head I heard the sound of running water in the shower, and I rolled over slightly to check the time on the digital clock by the bed. It was 6:08 A.M.
And as I moved, I noticed something else on the bedside table that hadn’t been there when I’d crawled into bed the night before—my bottle of Vicodin. For a moment the fear ran through me that perhaps Sean had junked the contents, to prove some kind of a point. I reached out and picked it up. The plastic bottle had some weight and I couldn’t help the sense of relief that went with that discovery.
“If you need them, take them,” Sean said from the bathroom doorway. I hadn’t noticed the water shutting off. The light was a little behind him, so his face was in shadow. He had one bath towel wrapped loosely round his hips and was wiping his neck with another.
I felt something hard and frozen tighten at the center of me. “For the moment,” I said baldly, “yes, I think I do.”
“I know,” he said, moving so he was in the light. His eyes were very dark and very cold. “But when we get back to New York, you are going to come off them. And if you need help to do that, we’ll get it for you.”
My chin came up and I met his gaze steadily. “I’m not hooked, Sean,” I said. “I won’t need any help.”
He regarded me for an elongated moment, then nodded just once.
“Okay” was all he said.
The business center was deserted when we went down to the lobby, so Sean was able to log on to the e-mail account Parker had given us without fear of anyone looking over our shoulder. There were two e-mails in the Inbox from the nondescript address Parker had set up for himself. Not worried about downloading viruses, Sean opened the first one.
Parker had clearly spent some time digging into Storax—background and financials. The number of zeros on the end of their annual profit figures had my eyes crossing.
“French parent company,” Sean muttered, scanning the highlights. “Subsidiaries in Germany, Switzerland and the Far East, as well as the U.S. government contracts for bird flu and anthrax vaccines. Fingers in lots of pies.”
“Well, Collingwood told us they had clout,” I said, “and he had no reason to lie about that.”
“Habit?” Sean suggested. He kept scrolling down. “Ah, here we are—Terry O’Loughlin. Bit sketchy, but I don’t suppose Parker wanted to raise any flags.”
The information Parker had uncovered simply said that Terry O’Loughlin had been listed as an employee of Storax Pharmaceutical for the past five years, and was registered as living alone at an address in an affluent suburb of Houston.
“Looks like they pay their legal people pretty well,” Sean murmured. O’Loughlin drives a two-year-old Porsche 911 GT3” To make identifying our subject easier, Parker had included the registration number of the car and the color—Guards red.
“If we’re going to try approaching this guy, we might be better confronting him at home,” I said. “We stand a better chance than trying to force our way into Storax’s headquarters, at any rate. My breaking and entering skills are somewhat limited.”
“Yeah,” Sean said with the ghost of a smile. “One day, when we’ve got time, I’ll show you how to do the job properly.”
“It’s a date.” I gave a wry smile of my own. “And they say romance is dead.”
He grinned at me then, if briefly, and I felt some of the tension go out of my shoulders, but when he opened the second e-mail from Parker, suddenly neither of us was smiling anymore.
Miranda Lee’s body had been discovered by local lawenforcement officers the previous evening. They’d called at her home in response to an anxious request from the friend in Vermont, who’d been expecting her that afternoon and had grown concerned when she didn’t show.
According to the reports Parker had accessed, Miranda had swallowed a large quantity of sleeping pills, washed down with an even larger quantity of vodka. She’d left a terse little note blaming loneliness and the involvement of one of Jeremy’s oldest friends in the events surrounding her husband’s death for her decision.
“Bastards,” I said slowly, clenched with an impotent rage. “They suicided her.”
“Looks that way.”
“Bloody hell.” I stood for a moment, then let my breath out. “What do we tell my parents?”
Sean erased the e-mails, dumped the cache and logged off. “The truth,” he said. “As much as they can stand of it.”
“It makes me keener than ever to talk to O’Loughlin,” I said bitterly. “Did he know what they were planning—is that why the cryptic warning? And, if so, why not tell her straight?”
“I’ll make a point of asking that when we meet him,” he said, getting to his feet. “But we must still be nearly six hundred miles from Houston. I suggest we make a start as soon as your parents are awake. We can grab breakfast on the way.”
“So, how do we approach this guy?” I wondered aloud as we walked to the elevators and punched the call button. “Phone? E-mail?”
“I think we might be better just turning up unannounced. Less chance of him setting us up if he doesn’t know we’re coming. We’ll get a more honest reaction face-to-face.”
“Okay, as long as you’re not planning that we go sneaking in there in the middle of the night,” I said.
Sean raised his eyebrows. “We’ve done plenty of sneaking, in our time,” he pointed out mildly.
“Yeah, but this is Texas, Sean,” I pointed out. The elevator doors opened and we stepped in. “This is the state where you practically have to explain to the licensing authority if your vehicle doesn’t have a gun rack. No way do I want to go sneaking into somebody’s house in the middle of the night when they’re likely to be armed and trigger-happy.”
“Come on, Charlie. He’s a lawyer.”
“So?” I muttered. “That just means he knows how to shoot you and get away with it.”
By 7:30 A.M. we’d raided the hotel breakfast buffet and hit the road. We left Little Rock and drove to Texarkana, which straddles the border between Arkansas and Texas. It was purely my imagination, but I could have sworn the sky seemed bigger here.
We dropped off I-30 at Texarkana and took the smaller roads, a mix of dual and single carriageways that meant progress was slower than before. The alternative was a long detour to stick to the interstate, going via Dallas.
We’d broken the news about Miranda to my parents as soon as we were on the road.
“Oh, Richard,” my mother had murmured with a chokedoff sob.
My father’s face had taken longer to react. “We should never have left her on her own,” he said, remote.
I braced myself for condemnation for not providing her with protection, even though she’d rejected our offer of help, but he lapsed into silent brooding after that, refusing to be drawn into conversation.
East Texas was more thickly wooded than I’d been expecting. We drove past lakes and forests, through small towns with curiously old-fashioned signs outside the local businesses, like they hadn’t been updated for the past forty years. Getting into the urban sprawl of Houston was a shock after the seemingly slower pace. The journey had taken forever and now, suddenly, we were here.
Traffic was starting to build, but we were all anxious to take a look at our enemy. Storax had their base of operations on a twenty-three-acre site in an area called Pearland, just outside Beltway 8. The site was on a high-tech industrial park, and surrounded by a good deal of chain-link fencing.
>
Even on a cursory drive-by, we saw patrols with dogs and CCTV that had been positioned by someone who knew what they were doing, backed up by more sophisticated and much less obvious security.
The grounds were not as attractively landscaped as those surrounding the hospital in Boston, but they were much more carefully thought out from a defensive point of view. The building itself was mirror glass and pale gray concrete, giving nothing away. Apart from the name in letters a meter high along the front wall, it could have housed anything. It wasn’t even easy to identify the main entrance.
“We’d need an army to break into this place,” Sean muttered, eyes still on the image of the pharmaceutical giant in the rearview mirror as we drove away.
“Well, Sergeant, considering we are all the troops you have,” I said, glancing across at him, “let’s just hope we don’t need to break in.”
The light was starting to drop and when it went, it went fast, the blue end of the spectrum fading to leave a soft lingering red and orange cast. In under half an hour it seemed to go from squint-inducing sunlight to dark enough for the Camry’s headlights to make a difference. Night didn’t so much fall in Texas, it plummeted.
We headed back towards Houston Hobby airport, where there were any number of hotels and motels to choose from, and picked one almost at random. My parents weren’t keen on being left there, but the lure of a real bed quickly overpowered their protests. Sean and I grabbed a couple of hours’ rest ourselves to let the rush hour die. Then we had a hot shower and a change of clothes, used the business center to print out route maps, and headed out again.
“You do realize,” Sean said quietly, as we pulled back out onto the freeway, “that they should have caught us by now, don’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve been wondering about that,” I said. “If Collingwood sounded the alarm after Vondie’s ambush failed to net us, we never should have made it out of Massachusetts.”
“Mm, so does that make us good?” he asked. “Or just lucky?”
I flashed him a tired smile. “Can’t we be both?”
CHAPTER 28
Terry O’Loughlin lived in a large house that showed both modern and Spanish influences, in the quiet, well-to-do suburb of West University Place. It was an area of wide leafy streets, triple-car garages and lawn sprinklers, just inside the 610 Loop, an inner ring road that circled the skyscraper heart of Houston.
We drove past slowly, while I made a bit of a show of holding up the map and pointing at signposts, just in case the neighbors were nosy. I had a sudden abrupt sense of déjà vu—of cruising past Miranda Lee’s house and of what had been lurking inside. The O’Loughlin house, too, was quiet and dark.
“Look’s like there’s nobody home yet,” Sean murmured. I heard the slightest catch in his voice and knew he, also, was thinking of Miranda.
“Hey, he has a Porsche lifestyle to support,” I pointed out. “That probably means long hours—even for a corporate lawyer.”
Sean considered this, nodding his acceptance. “Plus, he lives alone, so there’s nobody to rush home to.”
“So, do we broach him on the doorstep, or let him get inside?” I asked.
Sean shook his head. “Neither, I think,” he said. “A GT3 is a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of motorcar over here. There’s no way you’d leave it on the driveway.” He nodded at the attached garage. “There’ll be an electric opener on the garage door. He may never need to get out of the car outside the house. And once he’s inside there’s no guarantee he’ll open up to us. Particularly if he’s feeling jumpy after what’s happened.”
“So … are you suggesting we break in and wait for him to turn up?”
“That would be my choice,” Sean agreed.
“What about the alarm system? A house like that is bound to have one.”
He gave me an offended look. “Do I look like an amateur?” he said. “Besides, most people get lazy about setting the alarm. Particularly,” he added, leaning forwards and pointing towards a gray shadow that had suddenly appeared in one of the front windows, “when they have house cats.”
The gray shape solidified into a large white cat, who’d jumped onto the windowsill and sat up to wash its own chest with an exaggerated nodding motion, one forepaw dangling.
We left the Camry parked on the main road, near a church, which we hoped would excuse its presence, and walked back to the house. The place was still in darkness when we arrived and Sean quickly led the way past the garage towards the rear. We walked confidently, like we had every right to be there.
The back door had a solid bottom half, complete with cat flap, and a series of small panes of glass at the top. Sean slipped his pocketknife out and, while I kept a nervous watch, sliced through the putty holding the nearest piece of glass to the lock. In moments, he was reaching inside.
Despite his confidence over the lack of alarm, I still held my breath while he turned the key left on the inside like he was removing the fuse from a booby-trapped device. The lock disengaged smoothly and the door clicked open without any fuss. I listened for the shrill beeping that usually means you’ve got thirty seconds to enter your disarm code, but there was nothing.
We stepped through into a small tiled hallway—over the doormat, just in case—and Sean threw me a quick, if rather smug, smile which I pretended not to see. I’d taken the SIG off my hip as soon as we’d got inside. Sean’s Glock was already in his hand, though I hadn’t even seen him reach for it. The handling of a gun came so naturally to Sean that it just seemed a part of him.
The hallway had a utility room off of it, with a locked door that presumably led to the garage. We moved on, into a large modern kitchen in glossy white, its surfaces wiped down and clear of clutter. There was an automatic water bowl on the floor. The only noise came from the constant trickle that flowed into it, the shunt of the refrigerator, and the distant hum of an air-conditioning unit.
As we stood there, letting the silences of the house settle around us, we heard a thump. The white cat we’d seen washing itself in the front window came stalking arrogantly into the kitchen and sat down in the center of the tiled floor to fix us with an accusing stare. I swear its unblinking eyes shifted from us to the huge double doors of the fridge and back again, pointedly.
“Feeding time, huh?” Sean murmured. “No chance, pal. Go and catch something.”
As if understanding perfectly, the cat’s tail lashed twice. It got up abruptly and trotted out again, giving a last annoyed flick just as it disappeared through the doorway.
Enough illumination from the street filtered in through the front of the house to light our path. We followed the cat out of the kitchen, past an open-plan dining room with a glass-topped table supported on what appeared to be two blocks of marble. Huge ornate lamps were placed at either end. The table had only one place mat set on it.
Past the dining room was the living room with its big front window, which was where we’d seen the cat from the street. Just as we drew level with the doorway, the lights in the living room clicked on, nearly giving the pair of us a heart attack.
I hit the wall, bringing the SIG up instantly to cover the vestibule. Light from the living room spilled starkly into it, showing it to be empty apart from another cat, a tabby with a startlingly white bib and paws, sitting on a side table near the huge front door. The cat regarded me with disdain.
On the other side of the doorway, Sean had swung the Glock round to cover the living room. I glanced across at him.
“Clear,” he said tightly. “Lights must be on a timer.”
“Oh yeah, one of those scare-the-burglars-to-death timers.”
“We’re not burgling.”
“Mm,” I said. “Try telling that to the local cops if we get caught.”
“Well,” Sean said, “I wasn’t planning on it … .”
Aware we could be seen easily from the street through the uncurtained windows, I peered quickly into the living room without entering. Thick rugs, white leather co
rner sofa, bigscreen TV in an open cabinet with what looked to me like top-end hi-fi. To one side of the TV were half a dozen bottles of various spirits. Most of them were full, or very nearly.
In front of the sofa, three or four different remotes were scattered across the glass-topped coffee table, which was a scaled-down version of the one in the dining room. On the shelf underneath were a couple of magazines about American football and what looked like a travel brochure for Tanzania.
“Real bachelor pad,” I said quietly.
Sean raised his eyebrows and jerked his head upwards. We climbed the open-tread stairs out of the vestibule carefully, to avoid the creaks. The landing was also open-plan, with a gallery that looked down over a balcony into the living area. Everywhere was white. Another cat—dark gray this time—streaked past us on the landing and bolted for the stairs, a long sly blur in the gloom.
How many damn cats does this guy have?
Before we had a chance to go nosing into the upstairs rooms, we heard the sound of a powerful engine revving slightly as it changed gear for the turn into the driveway. The motor dropped back to a throaty idle, but the sound grew louder and more echoing, which could only mean the garage door was rising.
“Utility room?” I said. We needed to grab O’Loughlin as soon as he came into the house, without giving him chance to run, counterattack, or call for help. The ute was the most sheltered spot, unseen from the street. And just about roomy enough to take him down physically, if it came to that.
Sean nodded. He was already moving for the stairs, stealth discarded in favor of speed. As we reached the utility room, we saw a thin stream of light coming in from under the door leading to the garage. There was the clank of a motorized mechanism moving slowly through its operation, and then the sounds of the street were muffled again.
Sean and I braced ourselves on either side of the door. I slotted the SIG back into its holster, making sure my jacket slid free over the butt, just in case. Sean watched me and lifted a brow.
