by Jonas Saul
Room service had brought a coffee with two croissants after Parkman had given her the news. She’d eaten the croissants before packing. Now she took the coffee and sat by the large window overlooking the airport across the street.
She ruminated on how Vivian could be blocked from her. If whatever was blocking them was malicious, what was its purpose? How could it block them without Vivian knowing about it? There were so many questions, but little in the way of answers. After the understanding she had with Vivian when Sarah endured a near death experience in Denmark, she had thought the days of little or no information were over. It almost seemed that every time they went two steps forward, something knocked them back a step.
What she really wanted to know was who was the man in the B.C. Medical Services building? Or the man on the sidewalk below Lee’s office window? Could they be the same man? And what was the message he kept gesturing with his hand? Most importantly, how could Parkman not see him?
Something very strange was happening in Kelowna. Whatever it was, a lot of people were going to die. Because of that, Sarah had no intention of leaving.
Someone knocked on the door. Sarah got up to open it, almost stumbling over her own suitcase.
“Parkman,” she said as she stepped aside to let him in. “You got toothpicks?”
He nodded, a toothpick dangling from the side of his mouth. “I grabbed enough to do me until I get home.”
Sarah headed back to the chair by the window. “We’re not going home.”
Parkman let go of the door and it closed on its own. After a moment, Parkman sat on the edge of the unmade bed.
“We’re not?” he asked. “Even after what Lee said?”
“There’s been another murder.”
The toothpick slipped from his lips, hit the corner of the bed, and tumbled to the floor. “What?” he managed to say. “When?”
“This morning.” She faced him. “I just learned about it.”
“Did Lee call you?”
She frowned, then grimaced. “No.”
“Oh, right. Okay, I understand.” Parkman got to his feet. “Where?”
“In another city.”
“Another city? How will they connect it to the Kelowna terrorist?”
“They will.”
Another knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Parkman shouted.
“Police,” a man shouted through the door. “We’re here to escort you to the airport.”
“One sec.” Parkman moved to stand in front of her chair. “Looks like we need to leave.”
“Agreed,” Sarah said. “Be compliant.” She smiled. “Do as they say.”
She headed for the door, opened it a crack, whispered something, then closed it.
“What did you say?” Parkman asked.
“To give us a few more minutes. They can wait in the hall while we use the bathroom.”
“You knew I had to go?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s that new understanding Vivian and I have. Basic information that she possesses simply transfers to me via some kind of intelligence tether. In one respect, it’s maddening. In another, I’m grateful. I knew when you’d knock. I saw those four officers walking toward my door. I know you have to piss pretty bad right now, so I bought you some time.”
“Wow, that’s impressive.” He started moving toward the bathroom. “I don’t even know this new Sarah.”
“Me neither.”
The bathroom door shut.
Sarah opened the zipper on Parkman’s suitcase, retrieved the note from her pocket she’d written earlier with the hotel pad, and slipped it inside Parkman’s case. Then she zipped up the bag.
When he stepped out of the bathroom she was standing by the door.
“Ready?” she asked with a smile, hoping Parkman wouldn’t detect her sadness.
“All ready,” he said. “Although, I’m a little confused. We’re leaving, but we’re not. Right?”
“Something like that.” Sarah opened the door, then leaned back so only he could hear her. “Just do what they say. It’ll all work out.”
They followed the four officers to a waiting SUV at the front of the hotel. Something about the four men was off. She searched for Vivian but she was gone again.
The driver of the SUV drove quickly and parked in front of departures. All six of them exited the vehicle and entered the airport. No one said a word the entire time. The officers didn’t want them here. It was obvious how they felt in the expressions on their faces. But not just that, Sarah saw something below the surface. Especially with one man.
The older RCMP man handed Parkman two boarding passes.
“You’re all set,” he said, his tone clipped, lips tight. He pointed toward the security area. “Clear security first. Then head to your gate. You won’t need to come back.”
“We’ve done this before,” Sarah said. She stopped moving as Vivian made an appearance. She listened to what she had to say. “What do you mean when you say we don’t need to come back?”
The man swung toward her. “I wasn’t talking to you,” he snapped. The other three officers eased in closer to Sarah, crowding Parkman out.
Sarah offered the man a wry smile as she stepped inside his space. She had to look up to meet his eyes. “Was this the same attitude you showed Samantha last week when you shouted at her to move out? Or what about Vicky? Too bad she didn’t press charges for the beating you gave her three years ago, eh Officer Tom Mason? If she had, we wouldn’t be speaking right now because you’d be out of a job.”
The senior officer glared at her, his face tight and gaining a reddish hue. He moved nose to nose with her. Rage oozed from his pores, exciting Sarah for what was to come. She wouldn’t be bullied and when she was, there was no greater revenge than having that person pay for their actions.
“How about it, Officer Mason?” Sarah turned to the man on her right. “Officer Brent Waters, you remember Vicky, right? You helped cover it up.”
“That’s enough, Sarah,” Parkman cautioned from behind Mason. “Let’s just leave.” He tried to squeeze his way inside the officers’ inner circle but the men tightened their ring. “C’mon guys,” he added. “Let it go. She’s only taunting you.”
“Hey, Officer Waters, wait a second.” Sarah raised her hand for silence. After two heartbeats, her eyes closed, listening, she glanced back up at Mason. “Officer Brent Waters. Vicky came to you for help and you threatened her into silence.” Sarah looked at each officer’s face in turn. “All of you are common thugs.” She stepped back as Parkman pulled on her sleeve.
She snatched her arm out of his grip.
“Officer Jeff Calder.” She studied the man to her left. “What have we here? A man who has planted evidence on several occasions to get your informants off the street because they got too wise, knew too much about you. Like where you buy your personal stash.”
Calder grabbed Sarah’s arm just under the shoulder and jerked on it.
“Listen here, you little bitch,” Calder snapped. “Don’t meddle where it’s not safe. You seem to know way too much.”
“Hey,” Parkman shouted. “Take it easy. Let the girl go.”
Calder held on a moment longer, then released his grip by shoving her away from him. She bumped into Mason who stood his ground. It was like bumping into a padded wall.
“We done here?” Mason asked. “Or do you have any more cute parlor tricks for us?”
Sarah took her time to look into the eyes of all four men, pausing slightly on Parkman’s face, then ending on the last of the four. Officer Simon Amparo.
“Simon, you’re new,” she said. “Two years on the force and still on the straight and narrow. Maybe that’s why you’re with these guys. So you can be trained on the subtleties of police work. There’s a fine line between doing the right thing and doing the thing right.”
Parkman shoved his way inside the inner circle. “We’re leaving. And don’t try to stop us.”
He wrapped an arm around her and push
ed past Calder and Mason. Mason grabbed Sarah’s wrist and wrenched her back toward him. Parkman’s arm slipped off Sarah’s shoulder. Mason moved to block Parkman with his body.
“What you just did here,” Mason said, “was threaten four police officers—”
“No. I did not.” Sarah pushed into him, but Mason was around two hundred pounds of solid male form. Her arm brushed against the holster he had on his belt, hidden under his light jacket. “What I did was tell the truth. That little tiny word, truth, is what hurts. It’s biting into your gonads as we speak. Pain causes you to lash out.”
“I’ll lash out all right. So hard you will always know my name as synonymous with pain.”
“You threatening me now?” Sarah asked.
“Roberts bitch,” Mason nearly growled. “Get on that fucking plane and never come back to my city.” Small pieces of spittle landed on her cheek, cooling instantly. Arms, shoulders, guts, all crammed in around her, locking her in place.
Vivian whispered through it all and Sarah listened.
“Mason, tell me something.”
His grip tightened in reply, her hand cooling as circulation was reduced to her lower arm.
“Do you want to kill me?” she asked. “For the murder of Barry Ashford? You were friends, right?”
He pulled her in close, then appeared to hug her, his mouth edging close to her right ear.
“For my dear friend Barry Ashford, I will rip you limb from limb, tear your eyes out, and piss in your fucking skull, you worthless whore of Satan.” He pulled away from her slightly. “So yes, you could say that.”
His grip released. Parkman slipped inside the group again. Several people had gathered to watch the ensemble.
“Show’s over,” Mason shouted. “Keep moving.”
“I see it now,” Sarah mumbled to herself. “Your arm. Broken. On your dash cam. I see everything.” After nodding in confirmation of the new data she had just received, she felt marginally better. “Do you believe in God, Mason?”
“Fuck you, Sarah.”
“You’re going to meet him.”
“That’s enough taunting, Sarah,” Parkman said as he moved between them.
The four officers stepped away. Parkman gently nudged Sarah the other way. She glanced over her shoulder. “When I see you again, Mason, walk the other way.”
“Sarah, come on,” Parkman persisted.
“Leave here,” Sarah shouted back at them. “Leave here and forget about me. It’s the only way to keep breathing.”
She offered the four men one last sarcastic smile and turned around to walk with Parkman.
“What was that all about?” Parkman asked, his voice an octave higher than usual. “Did you have to do that?”
“They sent those four guys to drive us to the airport because they volunteered to get the bitch—their words—out of Kelowna. You saw the hate Mason had for me. He was Ashford’s best friend. He wants me dead for what happened to his old partner, even though it was Ashford’s wife who killed him.”
“Yeah, but pissing him off usually leads to trouble we don’t want.”
“Once we’re through security, I’ll tell you the reason that just happened.”
Parkman raised one eyebrow as he pulled off his belt and slipped out of his shoes to place them on the conveyer belt. Once their bags were on the belt, Parkman, then Sarah, walked through the body scanner.
At their gate, Parkman sat down across from her, elbows on knees, and rolled his hand in the air twice in a give-it-up gesture. “Come on, Sarah,” he said, calmer now. “Out with it. Why did that verbal scuffle just take place?”
“Because we’re not leaving Kelowna and those men will be back to pick us up. At one point, several of them will have a question of conscience to deal with and I want them to choose my side. Before what just took place, they would not choose my side. All I did was create leverage.”
“But what if their decision is against you and leads to your death. Then what? You wouldn’t be around to get them into trouble.”
Sarah leaned forward. “The time will come and the decision will be made. If it’s against me it won’t be my death they’re concerned about. It will be theirs.”
Chapter 11
Officer Stephen Lee stared at the clock on his desk. He’d been there since six in the morning, writing one report after another. It was almost eight. Sarah and Parkman would be at the airport by now. His son, Nick, would be awake with his family as they got ready for whatever it was they did during the summer months.
Nick had two young girls, four years old and a six-month-old baby. Lee had never met them but stayed up-to-date on his son’s family when he could through Facebook. He loved Nick’s wife’s name, June Sumner. Sumner reminded him of a character in a Greg Iles novel he’d read years ago.
The decades-old spat had been a misunderstanding. The family dispute fueled several fights, and ultimately led to an estrangement. It had been so long, Lee couldn’t remember the exact reason for the dispute. It had something to do with Lee’s wife—Nick’s mother—before she died.
Nick had gone to the right schools, but dropped out early and became a salesman. Nick and his mother didn’t get along well for the last year of her life. She died before he could get to see her one last time. During the grief Lee endured at the loss of his wife, Nick had been distant. That chasm increased over the years from phone calls at Christmas and birthdays to just Christmas, and no calls for at least six years.
Lee had tried a couple of times, but Nick didn’t return his messages. Maybe Lee reminded him of the law enforcement job his mother had attempted to force upon him years ago. Was there guilt behind that memory? How in his mother’s dying days Nick hadn’t listened to her final wishes?
As confusing as Sarah’s directive to contact Nick was, Lee had no idea what to say to his son when he finally made that call. He picked up the phone, hovered a finger over the buttons, then set the phone down again.
What would he say?
He picked it up and dialed Nick’s number. He had to do it. He trusted Sarah. He wouldn’t have had her come to Kelowna if he didn’t trust her. And if Nick had met their unsub at some time in the recent past, he was definitely someone they needed to speak to.
The phone rang at the other end.
He leaned back in his chair and let the chair spin away from the desk, his stomach doing small flips.
On the fourth ring, he placed a hand on his stomach to calm it. Someone picked up. A child cried in the background.
“Hello?” a woman answered. “Just tell me Nick’s okay.”
“Hello?” Lee said, sitting forward.
“I have call display,” the woman said. “You’re calling from the RCMP. Is it about Nick?”
“No, no, it’s not Nick. Well, maybe. I’m Stephen, Nick’s father.”
He was sure he heard an intake of breath on the other end of the line. There was a long enough pause. He was about to ask if she was still there when she spoke.
“Nick’s father?” she whispered. “Is this for real?”
“Yes,” Lee said. He placed his free hand on his forehead and closed his eyes. “It’s for real.”
“He’s not here.”
“I know.”
“How do you know—”
“When I called, you wouldn’t have worried for his safety if he was home.”
“Oh. Right.”
“When will he be home?”
“I’m not sure.”
The baby in the background cried louder. Evidently, mom’s attention was diverted elsewhere.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“Is this June Sumner?”
“Yes, your son’s wife. Been married five years.” She moved somewhere else in the house because the baby got quieter. “Too bad we had to meet on the phone.”
“Do you need to attend to the baby?” Lee asked.
“I was feeding her. She’s in the high chair. No food equals mini tantrum. She’s fine for a mi
nute more. You want to tell me what this is about?”
“I want to see Nick, talk to him.”
“That sounds nice and all, but Nick is going to want to know why. He’s got a life now. He’s moved on from what happened in the past.”
“What happened in the past?” Lee asked, slightly surprised he was talking to June—a stranger to him—about a family issue.
“Nick told me his side of the story several times. Just know, he’s happy now. If whatever you want to talk about brings him down, he won’t want any part in it.”
