Third Strike: A Charlie Fox Mystery

by Zoe Sharp

  “Who’s going in?” Parker asked.

  “I will—with my father,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers and hoping I could talk Sean into staying on the outside.

  “At risk of repeating myself, is that wise?” Parker said mildly. “Taking your father with you, I mean.”

  “I don’t have much of a choice,” I said. “We need complex medical information and I wouldn’t have a clue what I’m supposed to be looking for. I don’t like the idea either, but this is a one-hit deal. We only have one chance to get it right and we have to move soon.”

  “Okay,” Parker said at last, the reluctance sounding like a bad taste in his mouth. “But keep me informed, Charlie—I mean it. Every step of the way. I don’t know how much cavalry I can rustle up if you get yourselves into trouble, but I’ll do what I can.”

  By the time I’d finished the call and reached the bottom of the stairs, Sean had brought my parents into the house from the garage and was conducting awkward introductions with Terry O’Loughlin. She’d pushed the cat aside and jumped to her feet as soon as she heard the handle turn on the connecting door between the house and the garage, and waited awkwardly until the three of them walked in.

  My father barely seemed able to bring himself to acknowledge Terry, but my mother smiled at her with every appearance of sincerity.

  “I so glad we’ve met because I wanted to thank you,” she said, “for all the support you gave Miranda after Jeremy died. You didn’t have to do that, I know, but she was so grateful.”

  Terry looked flustered, but my mother gave her hand a gentle pat and moved on into the living room, looking round. Her eyes were bright with curiosity. “What an interesting space,” she said, although I heard the reservation in her voice. “Shall I make us a nice cup of tea?”

  Sean glanced hopefully at her. “I’m sure we could all do with some food.”

  “Of course,” my mother said. “If you’ve no objections?” she added politely to Terry, who was regarding her with confusion. “I’d hate to interfere. I know I don’t like anyone else in my kitchen. You must be terribly unsettled to have strangers in your house like this.”

  She made us sound like distance relatives who’d unexpectedly dropped by, rather than fugitives from justice who’d ambushed Terry and were almost—but not quite—holding her at gunpoint.

  “Sure,” Terry said, suddenly aware that my mother was still pinning her with an inquiring stare. “Why not? Knock yourself out.”

  My mother beamed at her and bustled out to the kitchen. We could hear her opening the fridge and the cupboards to take a quick inventory, talking to the cats while she did so. The black-and-white one stayed on the sofa near Terry, but the others had decided to see if they could con a second meal out of this new arrival.

  “I could do with a drink,” my father said, with an intensity that rang all kinds of alarm bells. He moved over to the bottles Terry kept by the TV set. I glanced at Sean, found him watching my father with narrowed eyes.

  “Why don’t you wait until you’ve had something to eat, Richard?” he said, his voice so calm and reasonable it sent shivers down my spine. “Elizabeth’s a wonderful cook. You wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite.”

  “I’m quite aware of my wife’s abilities,” my father snapped, slipping on his glasses to inspect the label on a bottle of Scotch. He clearly found it to his satisfaction. “But I think you’ll find that a good single malt would never spoil one’s appetite.”

  For a moment Sean didn’t move. He and my father locked gazes, and somewhere in the back of my mind I swear I heard the crack of bone and muscle as they silently struggled for supremacy. Terry’s eyes darted between the two of them. I felt the sudden mortification that can only be brought on by the embarrassing behavior of a close relative in front of strangers.

  Sean let the challenge drop with a shrug, like it was no big deal, his expression carefully neutral. My father eyed him uncertainly for a second, then his gaze shifted to Terry. “Would you mind, Ms. O’Loughlin?”

  She made a kind of “whatever” gesture, which he took to mean assent. He saw me still staring, though, and waved the bottle in my direction. “Will you join me, Charlotte?” he asked. Then, before I could answer, added with a definite taunt, “Ah, no. Best not to mix alcohol with what you’re taking, hm?”

  I hid the flinch under a flare of anger. Sean stepped between us.

  “Back off, Richard,” he said pleasantly. “This isn’t the time or the place to give your daughter a hard time.”

  My father opened his mouth to respond, took one look at Sean’s face and, uncharacteristically for him, shut it again. He settled for sweeping out in his best superior consultant’s manner, taking the whisky with him—presumably in search of a glass. So, he hadn’t quite lowered his standards far enough to swig straight out of the bottle.

  I turned back and found Terry watching me, her face thoughtful.

  My mother appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was drying her hands on a tea towel, her movements slowing as she registered the level of tension.

  “You don’t keep much in stock do you, dear?” she said, smiling nervously at Terry. “I’m going to need a few things.”

  “I eat out a lot, but I could run down to the store,” Terry offered quickly. “There’s a Randalls about two blocks east of here.”

  Sean threw her a swift glance that said Oh, please, and turned back to my mother. “It’s okay,” he said, reaching for the car keys again with a resigned sigh. “Give me a list.”

  My mother cooked mountains of lasagne and insisted we eat at the dining table with due ceremony. My father was halfway down his third shot of whisky by the time we sat down, and he was starting to show the effects. His speech was straight and his mind seemed as sharp as ever, but he was edgy and restless, his hands fidgeting with the cutlery, like he couldn’t keep them still. It scared me more than I liked to admit.

  I could have done with a drink myself, but I’d stuck to water and promised myself one Vicodin later, just to ease the dull background ache in my leg. Over the past few days I hadn’t been able to exercise it at all, and spending hour after hour sitting in a car had a cumulative effect. The pain was grinding me down, I realized, dulling my responses when I couldn’t afford for them to be anything but scalpel-sharp. I was doing my best to hide it from Sean, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding, even if he had yet to confront me with it. And if my father had been on form he would have seen it, too.

  “So,” Sean said when we’d cleared our plates with a single-minded speed that was probably both gratifying and insulting to my mother’s culinary abilities, “what’s the plan for tomorrow, Terry? How do we get in?”

  Terry sat with her forearms resting on the glass tabletop. She frowned. “I think the best idea is going to be the same way I go in every day,” she said. “Through the front entrance.”

  “It has dash and cunning, with a healthy dose of stupidity,” I said to Sean. “I like it.”

  “Ballsy, certainly,” he said, turning back to Terry. “What about security?”

  “Just the usual,” she said with a shrug. “There are a couple of uniformed guys in the lobby area, another half dozen somewhere close by. I’ve only seen them called out for real once—we had trouble with some animal rights protesters a year or so back. I’m no expert, but our guys seem to know their job. You know, they move fast, take no prisoners.”

  I hoped that was just a phrase, rather than an accurate description.

  “So, what’s the setup at the front entrance. Do you have a swipe card?”

  Terry nodded. “Outside the main door. You go through two sets of glass sliding doors into the lobby, then through the metal detectors into the rest of the building.”

  “Metal detectors?” I said. I glanced at Sean. No guns.

  Damn.

  “Isn’t there a back way in or something?” The last thing I wanted to do was go into the dragon’s den unarmed. “We might as well write ‘Eat Me’ across our forehead
s and cover ourselves in barbecue sauce.”

  Terry allowed herself a small smile, but shook her head firmly. “The whole security system was overhauled at the start of this year,” she said. “They brought in consultants and tested it pretty thoroughly. The only way you stand a chance of getting in is walking right in through the front door and having somebody they trust vouching for you.”

  The mention of the word trust brought a cloud to her face, as if the scope of her betrayal was really coming home to her.

  My mother was sitting next to her at the table. She reached across and put her hand over Terry’s, gave it a squeeze.

  “You’re doing the right thing, dear,” she said. “You must know that. These people you work for, they’re prepared to let patients die for the sake of profit, and then pass the blame on to someone else.”

  “It’s not like—” Terry began, then broke off, bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right, of course. It’s exactly like that.” She sat back and gave us all a tired smile. “Would you excuse me, please? I hate to be a bad hostess, but it’s been kind of a stressful day. I’m gonna call it a night.”

  Sean and my father both got to their feet as she did. She gave them another wan little smile and headed for the stairs.

  “What about her phone?” I asked quietly once Terry was out of earshot.

  “I removed the landline phones from every room except the living room, and I have Terry’s mobile right here,” Sean said, lifting a small gloss-black cell phone out of his pocket.

  “She gave it up without a fight?” I said. “You surprise me.”

  “Did you have to remind me about that?” Sean winced a little. “I wasn’t prepared to go another round with that lady.”

  My father, meanwhile, seemed to be paying little attention to our conversation but was focusing on his whisky glass, which was now all but empty. He tilted it and stared regretfully into the bottom, then pushed his chair back purposefully.

  “I think you’ve had enough, Richard,” Sean said, and this time he allowed the fangs to show through the veneer of civility that habitually cloaked him. It even made my father pause, but only for a second. With a careless shrug, he reached for the bottle of single malt.

  “In your opinion, perhaps,” he said.

  “No, Richard, in my opinion too,” my mother said with quietly commanding dignity. She looked across the table straight into his eyes and suddenly her face seemed much less soft than I could ever remember it. “Tomorrow’s going to be a trial, but with any luck this will all be over soon,” she said, her voice soothing. “We can go home—back to our normal life.” She let that one sink in for a moment, then added gently, “Why don’t you go to bed, darling? Get some rest. I’ll be up shortly.”

  He seemed to waver, then nodded, his face grave. There was a very slight sway to him, I noticed. The food had not quite managed to absorb the amount of spirits he’d put away over the last couple of hours. He was not a drinker by nature and his system wasn’t hardened. It was starting to land punches.

  “It seems I’m outnumbered,” he said stiffly. “In that case, I’ll say good night.” And, with an almost firm tread, he walked out of the room.

  We watched him go. Sean glanced at my mother. “Thank you,” he said.

  She made a little self-deprecatory movement of her shoulders. “I didn’t do it for you,” she said simply. “I did it for Richard. And for myself, if I’m honest.”

  She looked down at her hands, at the plain gold band on her left hand. “And I’m going to do something else for Richard tomorrow—and I know you’ll argue, Charlotte, but my mind is quite made up about this.”

  I saw it coming, felt the jolt of that realization like a fist to the stomach, knocking the breath out of me. “No,” I said. “No, you can’t—”

  “Elizabeth—” Sean began at the same time, his voice a low growl.

  “Yes, I can,” she said calmly. “He needs me. You’ve seen that—both of you. He’s been strong for me for most of our married life. Now it’s my turn to be strong for him.” She got neatly to her feet, her face almost serene now her mind was made up. “When you go into Storax tomorrow, I’m going with you. And I’m afraid,” she added with a firm but apologetic smile, “that nothing either of you can say will stop me.”

  CHAPTER 30

  At precisely 8:15 P.M. the following evening, we drove through the main gate into Storax Pharmaceutical.

  I was with Terry in the Porsche. The Camry containing my parents followed more sedately behind, with Sean at the wheel.

  Terry greeted the guy on the gate with an easy rueful smile that made me wonder about her acting abilities. She behaved as though coming into work on a weekend evening was normal, rather than the exceptional circumstance of trying to smuggle four people into the building who might very well topple the company. It was only if you saw how tightly her hands were gripping the steering wheel that you would have realized anything was wrong.

  Fortunately, it was a Saturday night and there was some kind of ball game playing from the radio in the gatehouse. The guard waved us on after only a cursory inspection.

  Terry had driven the GT3 with verve and skill on the way there, zipping through the light traffic without appearing to take risks, or hold anyone up. She was immaculately dressed, too, every inch the successful corporate lawyer, in another suit that looked as if it cost about the same as the car. By contrast, I felt very shabby. No change there, then.

  We’d spent a restless night from Friday into Saturday morning. Sean and I had taken turns to keep a watch, dozing on the sofa between times. The cats ambushed us at regular intervals, as though they’d been instructed to make sure we got little rest. I tried shutting them in the kitchen, but they just yowled until we let them out again.

  We spent most of Saturday cooped up inside, waiting, each preparing in the way we knew best. With some reluctance, Terry had gone about her usual Saturday domestic chores. My father stayed largely in his room and I didn’t feel inclined to disturb him. Sean went out to the garage to strip and clean our guns, one at a time. We wouldn’t be taking them in, but it was a soldier’s ritual for him, I recognized, soothing as a mantra or a rosary.

  My mother, on the other hand, chatted brightly with Terry over laundry and lent a hand with the ironing, commenting cheerfully that it was only what she’d be doing if she were at home.

  I knew full well that my mother had a morosely efficient cleaning lady who came in twice a week and could iron with military precision, but I didn’t spoil the illusion. My mother caught my eye with a faint smile and I realized she was quite intentionally mounting a charm offensive. As if that would make it harder for Terry to betray us, if she liked us.

  Now, Terry wheeled the Porsche into a space that had O’LOUGHLIN on a little white marker board at the head of it, like a grave. Sean pulled into a designated visitor’s slot further down. Terry switched off the engine and sat for a few moments, not moving, staring straight ahead at the huge building that loomed in front of us.

  “As my mother said, Terry,” I told her quietly, “you’re doing the right thing.”

  “Am I?” She turned her head, regarded me bleakly. “So, why do I get the feeling that nothing good will come of this, either way?”

  “We just need you to get us through the door,” I said, sidestepping the question. “After that, you can walk away. Claim we duped you—threatened you, blackmailed you. Whatever you like. But don’t back out on us now.”

  “I won’t,” she said, eyes flicking back to the building again. She let out a shaky breath. “I’m just not used to all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, you know?”

  Sean appeared by my door, opened it for me. “All right?” he said.

  I nodded. Last thing, before I got out, I slid the SIG, complete with its holster, out of my waistband and tucked it into the glove box, trying to ignore the deep sense of foreboding to be leaving it behind.

  We climbed out and walked sedately towards the front entr
ance, the five of us. I saw my mother move close alongside my father, but she didn’t take his hand, even though I knew she wanted to. Terry had warned us there were security cameras on the outside of the building that would be monitoring our every move.

  We’d talked over a cover story that afternoon. If questioned, Terry was going to claim we were legal people, working on something to do with the licensing of the new treatment in Europe. Important enough to warrant a weekend meeting. We were all wearing suits. Even my mother had dug in her voluminous suitcase and brought out something businesslike for the occasion. And between us we had a smattering of enough European languages to be reasonably convincing, unless anyone really gave us the third degree.

  The front entrance was well lit, spotlighting our approach. Terry led the way, swiping her ID card through a scanner outside the first set of glass doors, which slid open in front of us. I followed her through. My father’s manners had him stepping back automatically to allow my mother to go ahead of him.

  It was pure chance, then, that the three of us women entered the lobby first and, as we did so, I saw a figure emerge from one of the office doorways on the far side of the metal detectors. A blond woman, tall, slim. Familiar.

  Vondie.

  “Out, out, out!” I shouted, grabbing my mother as I started to wheel for the doorway. Sean didn’t hesitate. He piled into my father like a rugby tackle, forcing him back through the outer doorway when he’d barely stepped inside the building. Alarms started to shriek all around us.

  Terry froze. I reached for her arm but she darted out of my grip, and I wasted maybe half a second going for her again. By which time it was too late. The doors had slammed shut and red lights glared above them. I caught sight of Sean’s face, bone white with fury, safe on the far side of two sets of antiballistic glass. Then he was gone, hauling my stunned father with him by the collar of his coat.

  By the time I turned back, there were six Storax security men forming a semicircle around us. Big guys, not intimidated at all at the prospect of taking on a trio of unarmed women. Three had extending batons, two had TASER stun guns, and one was bare-fisted, carrying PlastiCuff restraints. Just for a moment, my own rage had me coldly calculating the odds.