by Zoe Sharp
As we joined the end of the long, shuffling line Trey was back to sulking again. “Oh man,” he complained, “anyone would think you were my mother.”
I didn’t know what had happened to Mrs Pelzner. She could have been off visiting her folks, spending her divorce settlement, or dead. It was difficult to respond to Trey’s jibe without knowing which, so I let it pass.
“Look, Trey,” I said, making a valiant stab at tolerance again. “The company your dad works for has hired me to keep you safe. It’s hard enough doing that on a bloody rollercoaster to begin with, but there’s no way I can do my job if we don’t stick together. You don’t have to like it,” I added, as he opened his mouth to protest, “but that’s the way it is, so learn to live with it.”
Yeah, right, his expression said, but he didn’t speak to me again as we shuffled our way to the front of the queue line.
I had to admit, privately, that the singles route did seem to be moving much faster. I swear I saw one kid go round twice in the time it took us to get there.
I even saw the good-looking guy again who’d been in the wooden coaster gift store. I only spotted him because one of the attendants held the car back while she made him take off his hat and sunglasses. So this one really was going to turn you upside down and shake the change out of your pockets.
The guy was a little sheepish to be singled out for censure. He looked around as though hoping no-one else had noticed. And when it was uncovered like that I couldn’t help getting the feeling that I knew his face from somewhere.
I only had a moment’s glimpse before the car was released and clanked its way up the first lift hill. After what seemed like an eternity, the clanking stopped, there was a pause, and then the usual screaming started.
They were running two sets of cars on this ride, so it wasn’t long before the last run was in and emptying. I was worrying too much about what was coming next to bother racking my memory for where I might possibly have known the Oakley guy from. As the attendant checked the overhead harness was down securely over my shoulders and buckled to the seat between my legs, I had other things to occupy my mind.
I was in for a big surprise.
After the woodies that had been my introduction to coasters, the steelie was a revelation. It was blisteringly quick, yes, but it was smooth the way a sports bike ridden hard on an open road is smooth. It inverted us so many times I lost all comprehension of which way was ground and which was sky, but for the first time I began to see what all the fuss was about.
“Now that,” I said when it was over, “is more like it!”
Trey immediately lost all interest in further turns on Demon. He hurried out along the ride exit, his amusement now blighted by my unexpected pleasure. I realised belatedly that all I would have had to do to curtail my earlier torment would have been to make a show of enjoying it. At that moment I could cheerfully have strangled him.
I went after the kid, determined not to scurry to match his petulant pace. Outside I spotted him over by some shops, perched on a low concrete wall with his arms folded and shoulders hunched. He was too cross even to put on an act in front of the two teenage girls who were sitting next to him. As I walked across the open area between us, I saw the guy from the coaster again out of the corner of my eye, now back in his Oakleys and his Yankees cap.
And something about the predatory way he moved sent the hairs rising on the back of my neck in a way no rollercoaster, however scary, would ever be able to do.
He was already closer to Trey than I was and moving closer still, focused on him, intent. His shirt was hanging loose outside his chinos but his right hand was stealing underneath the hem, going for something that was concealed at his waistband. Something I couldn’t see, but could certainly guess at.
I broke into a run, using my arms to pump up instant speed like a sprinter leaving the blocks. At the last moment Trey became aware of my full-pelt charge and looked up, startled out of his surly guise. Oakley man was watching his expression. He started to twist, head turning.
And that’s when I hit him.
I ducked my shoulder and caught him with a full body slam without breaking stride. I hit him hard and low, and was lucky to stay on my feet in the process. I was luckier still I didn’t snap my damned collarbone. He wasn’t carrying muscle bulk but he was solid, all the same.
Oakley man went down in an ungainly sprawl, letting go the .40 calibre Smith & Wesson he’d been unholstering as he went. The pistol clattered onto the concrete and spun out of both our reach under the legs of the nearest group of fleeing passers-by. I didn’t stop to wait for him to retrieve it, just hurdled his legs and kept on going.
I grabbed hold of Trey’s shirt by the front and the collar and hauled him sideways off the wall, ignoring his wail of protest. But for once, he didn’t argue about doing what I suggested, or going where I wanted him to go.
Out of there. Fast.
I pushed the kid ahead of me, trying to keep my body between his back and our unexpected attacker. I knew I should have just kept my head down and kept running, but I couldn’t resist a quick glance behind us.
Oakley man was still on the floor. His hat was missing but the sunglasses were still in place, giving his face a terrifyingly blank stare. Worse, he had managed to recover his gun. He was clasping it firmly in both hands and swinging the muzzle in our direction, heedless of the crowd.
Finding the nearest exit suddenly wasn’t as important as finding cover. I jerked Trey sideways just as the first two shots rang out, so close together the second report sounded like an echo of the first. After that I didn’t need to urge him to greater speed.
Panic ripped through the immediate vicinity. I’d heard people screaming all day but this was different. This was the real thing. A scattering became a stampede as everyone strove to get out of the firing line. In doing so they inadvertently put themselves directly into it.
Oakley man wasn’t deterred by having human obstacles in his way. He fired another two-shot salvo towards us just as a terrified woman darted across our path. Both rounds caught her in the body. The second passed straight through in an explosion of blood. She was so close to us that we were both splattered with it as she tumbled.
I didn’t even stop to check if she was dead.
In a heartbeat, Trey had shifted from pain in the backside to principal. My sole concern was to get him away from the source of the danger and to keep him alive. Nothing else mattered.
I’d automatically taken in enough of the park layout during the morning to know where to find the exits. The security guards we encountered on the way were too busy heading for the trouble-spot to try and detain us, despite our freakish appearance.
We bolted out through the turnstiles and I was suddenly glad Trey had insisted we pay for preferred parking so he didn’t have to walk from the far parking area to the front gate. Nevertheless, by the time we reached the Mercury Sable I’d been allocated the sweat had glued my polo shirt to my back and drenched through where it was tucked in to the waistband of my shorts.
I fumbled with the key in the door, then bundled Trey straight across the front bench seat into the passenger side, jumping in after him. As I jammed the key into the ignition and cranked up the engine my eyes were frantically searching the nearest rows of cars for the first sign of those wraparound shades.
I yanked the column-mounted gearlever down into drive and released the parking brake, chirruping the tyres as we set off. I forced myself not to put my foot down too hard on the way out. If Oakley man didn’t know what car we were driving, there was no point in making it obvious. My eyes constantly scanned the rear-view mirror.
Trey sat huddled in the corner of the passenger seat furthest away from me, his eyes wide and blank with shock. I knew I should do something to reassure him, but for the life of me I couldn’t think what.
“Put your seatbelt on,” I said instead, calmly. He threw me a disbelieving glance, but buckled up without demur. Shit, he really is frightened.
I fol
lowed the signs for the freeway doing my best not to exceed the posted speed limit. No cars seemed to be making an effort to get close to us. Still, I didn’t start to breathe again until we were on I-95 heading away from Fort Pierce, south towards Fort Lauderdale.
It was only then, as my heartbeat finally began to settle and my brain started to come out of survival mode, that the question returned of where I’d seen Oakley man before. It lurked brooding at the back of my mind, an itch I couldn’t scratch.
I pulled the mobile phone they’d given me out of my pocket, noticing for the first time the blood on my bare forearms, and I remembered again the woman who’d been shot in front of us. I glanced down and saw that her blood was all over the front of my pale fawn polo shirt as well, a livid splash of colour already turning dark as it dried. Trey had a few flecks, but I’d caught the brunt of it and looked like an extra from a Tarantino flick. No wonder he’d been unnaturally co-operative.
I hit the speed-dial for the house. Whitmarsh was in charge of house security and he was going to go ape-shit. But that was nothing to what my boss, Sean was going to do when he found out my low-risk babysitting job had ended in a full-scale assault. The fact that, technically, Whitmarsh had authority over Sean would make very little difference.
The Pelzners’ home number rang without reply, the endless long burr of the US phone system. I let it ring until it clicked off, then tried it again, checking carefully that I’d punched in the right number. I steered with one hand, flicking my eyes from the phone to the road. There was no mistake.
I tried Sean’s own personal mobile, but all I got was a recorded message telling me the number I was calling was switched off. I knew that the house was never empty and my boss never had his phone off without leaving it on divert or answering machine.
Right there, in a big car on a big stretch of open road in a big country, I suddenly began to feel very small, and very lonely.
And then, because I’d pushed it to some peripheral part of my brain, my mental retrieval system finally connected and spat out the information I’d been searching for. I remembered exactly where I’d seen Oakley man before and I wished to God that I hadn’t.
It was just about this time I realised how much trouble we were really in.
ROAD KILL
Charlie Fox book five
by Zoë Sharp
“If you stay involved with Sean Meyer you will end up killing again,” my father said. “And next time, Charlotte, you might not get away with it.”
Still bearing the emotional scars from her traumatic first bodyguarding job in the States, Charlie Fox returns to her former home to try and work out both her personal and professional future.
Instead of the peace for which she's been hoping, Charlie is immediately caught up in the aftermath of a fatal bike crash involving one of her closest friends. The more she probes, the more she suspects that the accident was far from accidental – and the more she finds herself relying on the support of her troubled boss, Sean Meyer, despite her misgivings over the wisdom of resuming their relationship.
And Charlie's got enough on her plate trying to work out who suddenly wants her dead. The only way to find out is to infiltrate a group of illegal road racers who appear hell-bent on living fast and dying young.
Taking risks is something that ex-Special Forces soldier Charlie knows all about, but doing it just for kicks seems like asking for trouble. By the time she finds out what's really at stake, she might be too late to stop them all becoming road kill . . .
‘After the traumatic events that took place in First Drop, Charlie Fox is back in England to recuperate. But then an old friend is seriously injured after a motorbike accident (that kills the driver) and Charlie's lethal instincts kick in to find out what the real story is, and who the true target was. It's really quite impossible to put this book down, but what really makes this (and the whole series) shine is how Charlie's kickass skills are rooted in her own femininity and character. So why might this not be published in the US? "Too British." More like too bad if it proves to be the case.’ Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind
SECOND SHOT
Charlie Fox book six
by Zoë Sharp
'Take it from me, getting yourself shot hurts like hell.'
When the latest assignment of ex-Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, ends in a bloody shoot-out in a frozen forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, she's left fighting for her life, with her client dead.
Simone had just become a lottery millionairess but she never lived long enough to enjoy her newfound riches. Charlie was supposed to be keeping Simone's troublesome ex-boyfriend at bay and accompanying her on a trip to New England to track down the father Simone had never really known. A relatively low-risk job.
But Simone's former SAS father has secrets in his past that are about to come back and haunt him, and the arrival of his long-lost daughter may be the catalyst that blows his whole world apart. Was the prospect of getting hold of Simone's money tempting enough to make him engineer her death? And what happens now to Simone's baby daughter, Ella?
With Simone gone, Ella's safety becomes Charlie's main concern. She's determined, despite her injuries, not to let anything happen to the child. But the closer Charlie gets to the truth, the bigger threat she becomes. Only, this time she's in no fit state to protect anyone, least of all herself . . .
‘James Bond, watch your back. There’s a tough new breed of British muscle on the block, and her name is Fox, Charlie Fox. A former British Army soldier (and survivor of a brutal gang rape), Charlie now earns her living guarding others, a duty that has a nasty habit of putting her in harm’s way. Her latest assignment is no exception. She’s protecting beautiful British engineer (and recent lottery winner) Simone and her four-year-old daughter from an obsessed ex-boyfriend. She’s also helping Simone search for her long-lost father. The trio travels to New England to follow leads on Simone’s dad. (Charlie also figures they’ll be safer there, a good distance from the ex-boyfriend.) Trouble ensues soon after arrival, when charismatic Greg Lucas claims he’s Simone’s father. (Is Lucas really her flesh and blood, or does he just want her money to bail himself out of a precarious financial situation?) Two bullets add wounds to Charlie’s scar repertoire, but even in a weakened condition, the gutsy twenty something is undeterred. British novelist Sharp’s second thriller to appear in the US (after First Drop, in 2005) crackles with suspense, showcasing crisp prose, plenty of plot twists, and a heroine who adds new meaning to the term femme fatale.’ Booklist starred review
THIRD STRIKE
Charlie Fox book seven
by Zoë Sharp
'I was running when I saw my father kill himself. Not that he jumped off a tall building or stepped in front of a truck but – professionally, personally – what I watched him do was suicide.'
The last person that ex-Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, ever expected to self-destruct was her own father, an eminent consultant surgeon. But when Charlie unexpectedly sees him admitting to gross professional misconduct on a New York news program, she can't just stand by and watch his downfall.
That's not easy when Richard Foxcroft, always cold towards his daughter, rejects her help at every turn. The good doctor has never made any secret of his disapproval of Charlie's choice of career – or her relationship with her boss, Sean Meyer. And now, just as Charlie and Sean are settling in to their new life in the States, Foxcroft seems determined to go down in a blazing lack of glory, taking his daughter and everyone she cares about down with him.
But those behind Foxcroft's fall from grace have not bargained on Charlie's own ruthless streak. A deadly professional who's always struggled to keep her killer instinct under control, this time she has very personal reasons for wanting to neutralise the threat to her reluctant principal.
And when the threads of the conspiracy reach deep into a global corporation with almost unlimited resources, the battle is going to
be bitter and bloody . . .
‘Get set for a rollercoaster ride with Sharp's third [US-set] Charlie Fox thriller (following First Drop and Second Shot). The British bodyguard, now living in New York City, has recovered from the life-threatening injuries she sustained in Second Shot and finds herself watching her father on television admitting that he was negligent in the death of another physician and that he has a drinking problem. Charlie, estranged from her parents, wants to know what is happening to her much-acclaimed surgeon father. She and boss (and lover) Sean Meyer must save her family from a mysterious threat that remains undisclosed until the horrifying denouement. Sharp, a Barry award finalist for her previous two Fox books, captures readers on the first page and doesn't let go. Highly recommended for all collections.' Library Journal starred review
‘Razor sharp and surprisingly vulnerable, professional bodyguard Charlie is an intriguing character in Sharp's breathtakingly fast-paced thriller. Each word is honed to have the impact of one of Charlie's karate chops, and they catch the reader in the solar plexus. Charlotte 'Charlie' Fox never expected to have to protect her own disapproving parents from a deadly threat, but when she watches her father, eminent UK surgeon Richard Foxcroft, commit professional suicide in front of the New York press, she knows something is terribly wrong back home. And where, she wonders, is her steadfast mother? Though he never approved of her choice of profession, or of her relationship with her boss, Sean Meyer, Charlie races in to rescue her father from a deadly and powerful enemy – whether he likes it or not. Compelling – a page-turner.’ Pat Cooper, Romantic Times four-star review
FOURTH DAY
Charlie Fox book eight
by Zoë Sharp
‘Randal Bane smiled, a little sadly, and asked in that utterly calm and reasonable voice, “Can you suggest one salient reason why I shouldn’t follow my first instincts and rid myself of you at the earliest opportunity?”’
