by Zoe Sharp
“I’m sorry it’s come to this between the two of you,” I said, and meant it.
“Thank you,” Parker said, and sounded like he meant that, too.
I had come to the States with Sean Meyer almost as part of a buy-one-get-one-free deal. I’m sure Parker initially took me on only because if he hadn’t, he knew he wouldn’t get Sean. Since then, I reckon I’d more than proved my worth—earned his professional admiration, even his trust.
Shame he hadn’t done the same for me.
Parker drained the last of his coffee and we both rose. Out of habit, he eased the jacket of his dark suit so it wouldn’t catch on the Glock he wore behind his right hip, but made no immediate moves towards the door.
I said nothing, just cocked an eyebrow in his direction.
He let his breath out slowly down his nose. “And…I need you to surrender your weapons.”
I nodded without speaking. Of course you do. Officially, my own SIG, and the back-up Glock in the safe under the bedroom floor, both belonged to the company.
I fetched the weapons and the two boxes of 9mm hollow-point rounds that had been stored with them in the safe—also company property—and presented them to him with the slides locked open and magazines out alongside, very formal and correct.
Still he hesitated.
“What else, Parker?” I kept my tone dry. “It’s not as though I have a badge you can demand I hand over as well.”
His eyes narrowed a little at that, the only outward sign of emotion he displayed.
“I don’t know what you intend to do next, Charlie, but I hope you weren’t looking to take a position with another agency?”
“Oh?” A noncommittal response. In truth, I hadn’t given it much thought. About time I did—especially as I now needed to find new digs as a matter of some urgency.
Parker cleared his throat. “There’s a non-compete clause in your contract. You can’t go get a job with anyone else in the same line of business.”
“For how long?”
“A year.”
I stared at him blankly. “A job with anyone else in New York, you mean?”
“With anyone in the United States.”
We both knew I could have argued against the restriction in court—if I had the money or the will to do so—just as we both knew that the resultant bad publicity would make me practically unemployable anyway.
“Well, bloody hell, Parker, you’re just the anti-fairy godmother today, aren’t you?” I said, finally letting a bitter note creep into my voice.
He turned away, reached the door to the hallway and paused again with it held half open.
“I’m sorry, Charlie,” he said then. “But leaving was your choice, not mine.”
And with that he went out. Behind him, the solid click of the door seemed to take on a far greater significance than it should have done.
You know what they say—as one door closes, another one slams shut in your face.
5
The ripple of planks on the old wooden bridge leading to the Stephenson farmstead alerted me to the approach of several vehicles. The farmhouse was a sturdy timber-framed building with a covered verandah all round and external shutters on the windows.
I moved to the living room window and looked out, keeping far enough back to be invisible from beyond the glass. The farm was isolated, set in its own woodland. The mailbox was at the end of the driveway on the road, and visitors were not a regular occurrence while I’d been in occupation.
It was the morning after the attempted ambush on Helena Kincaid. Her husband’s men had delivered me back, as requested, the previous afternoon. I hadn’t expected to hear more from any of them so soon, never mind receive what looked like a state visit.
I went out onto the screened porch at the front of the house and watched the small convoy of vehicles curve around the pond and pull up on the hard standing between the house and the main barn. A couple of top-spec Range Rovers, followed by the old GMC pick-up I’d been driving the day before. That image of an old carthorse came back to me, now trailing behind a pair of fancy thoroughbreds. Still, it looked in remarkably better nick than the last time I’d seen it.
I waited until everyone who was getting out had done so before nudging open the screen door and advancing as far as the top step, keeping my empty hands in view. Three guys from the point vehicle, two from the second car, including the slim bodyguard, Schade, and the guy driving the pick-up. I recognised the latter as my chatty guard from the day before. None of the men had their jackets buttoned up. I guessed that meant they had weapons close at hand, even if nothing was on view at the moment.
When they’d glared into the surrounding trees long enough to make the local bear population do a runner, one of them opened the rear door of the second Range Rover and Eric Kincaid got out.
“Ms Fox,” he called across in greeting as I stepped down from the house. “I hope I haven’t caught you at an inconvenient time.”
“You brought back my transport,” I said, nodding to the pick-up. “I’d call that fairly convenient at any time.”
I accepted the keys from Chatty and took a good look at the front of the pick-up. As far as I could tell it was better than new—not because it appeared factory-fresh, but precisely because it didn’t. The damage had been repaired to match the age and condition of the rest of the vehicle seamlessly. Even the replacement driver’s headrest was the same faded velour as the original. The only thing they hadn’t replicated were the scratches on the old windscreen from grit caught under the wiper blades. I wasn’t going to complain about that.
“Clever.” I patted the front bull bar with something akin to affection for the old bus.
“And forensically clean, of course,” Schade added. “If the local LEOs check this baby out they won’t find a trace of anything—or anyone—that shouldn’t be there.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I murmured, although I hoped things wouldn’t get to the stage of involving any Law Enforcement Officers, never mind what they might or might not find. “Thank you.”
Kincaid inclined his head. “It was the least I could do, Ms Fox.”
There was a moment’s awkward pause while I waited for him to make his excuses and leave. He didn’t, which was instructive in itself. He was not the kind of man with time to fritter on social conventions.
“Can I offer you coffee or something?” I asked without much expectation.
“Coffee would be good, thank you.” He smiled, making me blink. He was more overtly good-looking than his wife but, like Helena, the rearrangement of his features transformed them. It also made him seem deceptively harmless.
He followed me into the house with Schade at his heels, leaving the rest of the posse outside.
As soon as we were indoors, Schade slipped into the hallway and disappeared on silent feet. Checking the place out. In his position, I would have done the same.
I was halfway through spooning fresh grounds into the filter machine when he joined us in the kitchen. He smiled at his boss. “She even makes the bed in the morning when there’s no-one else here to see it,” he reported. “This one’s a keeper.”
I scowled across at him. “You want to drink coffee or wear it?”
Kincaid took a seat at the Shaker pine table, its original blue stain softened by age. Schade leaned his hip against the counter near the doorway, folded his arms and seemed to fade into the background hum of the room. Much the same way he’d blended into the décor when he stood behind the door at the Kincaids’ place. More like a hunter than a protector for the hunted.
As for Kincaid, I could feel his eyes scanning the comfortable country décor of the kitchen, the box near the stove containing a female cat nursing half-a-dozen kittens, and lastly me.
I gestured to the kittens. “One of the reasons Frank and Lorna wanted to have somebody here while they were away.”
He didn’t speak until I’d finished assembling milk, sugar, and a pair of the slightly deformed mugs that we
re products of Lorna’s abandoned pottery classes—a wise move on her part since it was something for which she clearly showed no aptitude. I thought of the Limoges coffee service and hoped he didn’t mind slumming it.
“So, I’ve been doing a little more of that ‘homework’ you mentioned,” he said at last.
“Oh?”
“Yes indeed.” Another pause while he took an experimental sip of coffee, drinking it black and apparently finding it to his liking, wonky mug notwithstanding. “You used to work for Parker Armstrong in New York.”
That threw me. “You know him?”
“Only by reputation.”
He glanced at Schade, who stirred himself long enough to say, “They reckon he’s one of the best.”
“He is,” I agreed.
“And yet you left a couple of months ago.” Kincaid again. Half statement, half question. “Playing mama to a bunch of kitty cats seems a waste of your talents.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I needed some time off.”
“Well, you’re going to get your wish. I understand you signed a contract that precludes you getting another job in the industry for a year.”
“It’s a standard clause.” Yeah, but it still stung that Parker had chosen to enforce it.
“Still not going to be easy for you—financially, at least. And when that year is up, let’s just say you’re not going to find it a cinch to step back in.”
I said nothing, but no doubt my face gave me away.
“Your former boss has put the word out,” Schade supplied helpfully. “You’re on some kind of blacklist.”
I did react to that one, swearing under my breath.
Kincaid acknowledged my response with a twitch of his lips. “What did you do to upset him so much?”
“I resigned.”
“And that’s not allowed?”
“Let’s just say, not under circumstances that Parker would wish to become widely known.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That likely?”
“No-one will hear about it from me, if that’s what you mean. But since when has that ever stopped anyone being paranoid?”
“He must be,” Schade said cheerfully. “He’s also whispered in the right ears to get your firearms ticket cancelled.”
I sighed into my own coffee. “Yeah, that figures, I suppose.”
Another short silence ensued. The mother cat, a tabby with a white bib, stood up, arched herself into a twanging full-body stretch, and climbed out of the box, shedding kittens as she went. She padded over to her food bowl and sat, staring up at me with unblinking yellow eyes.
I put down my coffee, fetched a plastic container out of the fridge and spooned some of the contents into the bowl. She tucked in as if she hadn’t seen food in a month.
“What’s that?” Kincaid asked.
“Hard-boiled egg and canned tuna. And watch yourself—she’d mug you for it.”
He shook his head as if unable to understand how or why people kept pets that didn’t run fast or bite hard.
“Frank and Lorna will be back from their trip in a week,” he said then. “What else do you have lined up?”
“It’s good of you to be so concerned for my welfare, but I’m sure something will turn up.”
“Must be a worry, living from week to week, not knowing where the next paycheque is coming from.”
“I’ll survive. I can always go home.” And it might just come to that.
“To England, you mean?”
I nodded.
“Not your first choice, I gather.”
“That obvious, huh?”
“Accepting an offer from me would make that more of a choice and less of a necessity,” he pointed out. “Think of this as a temporary solution to your problems, if you like—just until that non-compete clause expires.”
“Ah, but I’m not sure working for you would be any better for my long-term job prospects than going home would be.”
His turn to raise an eyebrow and say, “Oh?”
“You’ve been doing your homework, Mr Kincaid, but I’ve been doing mine, also. You deal in armaments in the kind of quantities that can start a war—or finish one.” I let my gaze drift over Schade. He returned it without blinking. “That means you run with an…interesting crowd, shall we say.”
Kincaid said nothing. I gave him a wry smile. “Just because I’m prevented from working in the industry here anymore, doesn’t mean people in it aren’t still willing to talk to me.”
“You wouldn’t be working for me,” he pointed out. “You’d be working for my wife. She plays no part in any of my…business dealings.” His face tightened, and the dangerous undertone was back in full force, like the sudden tidal bore on a river. “It seems there are some people I do battle with in the boardroom who are not prepared to view her as a civilian outside of it.”
“It’s been my experience that the first casualties in any battle are usually the civilians, Mr Kincaid.”
He shifted, restless in a way that made me suddenly wary. “That doesn’t make it right—or acceptable, Ms Fox.” He flicked his eyes in Schade’s direction and the slim bodyguard twitched away from the counter, almost glided further into the room. When he reached the box of kittens by the stove, he stopped and looked down, nothing in his face. “Are you going to tell me that the life of Mrs Kincaid is of less value to you than these cats?”
I’d moved without thinking, not towards Schade, which something told me might be a painful waste of effort, but closing to within a few feet of his boss. I ran through a fast mental checklist of the man’s height and weight and point of balance and what he was likely to be carrying and where the weak points might be in his levels of expertise, all in the time it took to blink.
And he did blink, just once. I suppose I’ve had plenty of practice at overturning other people’s expectations of me.
Kincaid turned his head and we stared at each other. His eyes, I noticed for the first time, were a mix of not just pale green and hints of blue, but were flecked with amber and moss, like verdigris on old copper. After a second or so, he looked away. The tension went out of him. Schade bent to fuss the mother cat as she curled around his ankles on her way back to her brood. And I thought cats were supposed to be good judges of character.
The moment passed.
With my eyes still on Schade, I said, “You must have other bodyguards on your payroll?”
Kincaid shook his head. “Not women. No-one at that kind of level—your level.” He hesitated. “Helena said you made her feel safe, almost the moment you arrived, and I will do anything to ensure she stays that way.”
“I admire your devotion to your wife,” I said. “But why me? There are plenty of other qualified women out there. I can probably suggest a dozen names off the top of my head. Good people, working for top-class outfits, who would have the backup and support needed to do the best possible job.”
“She wants you.”
“Oh, and what she wants, she gets?”
He inclined his head, more at my tone than my question. “Helena is no spoiled princess, Ms Fox. She’s a strong-minded, independent woman who has made a decision based on what she witnessed with her own eyes yesterday.”
Yesterday. Was it really only yesterday?
“How is Illya, by the way?”
“Still with us,” Kincaid said. “Which is, I gather, also largely thanks to you.”
“Yeah, the doc sends his compliments,” Schade put in. “Says he’s never seen gunshot wounds plugged by such unusual means.”
I couldn’t suppress a brief smile. “I think you’ll find most women are familiar with the absorbent effectiveness of a tampon.”
“That’s my point,” Kincaid said. “First you used your truck as an available weapon, then improvised with whatever was at hand.” He stopped, took a breath. “I have some delicate negotiations coming up. I cannot afford to be distracted worrying about Helena while all that’s going on. You have the right mind-set—the right skills—to protec
t her. And for that I am prepared to pay.”
I opened my mouth to protest, deny, whatever, but he cut over the top of me, naming a figure that made my head spin.
“Wait a minute.” I glanced at Schade for confirmation. “Is he talking…per month?”
“Hell, no. I wouldn’t get out of bed for that kind of money per month. He’s talking per week.”
Holy shit…
I’d thought Parker Armstrong paid well, but it was practically a subsistence allowance compared to what Eric Kincaid was offering.
I went very still, mind racing. If Parker really had blacklisted me, then it was either this or…?
Or nothing.
I held out my hand.
“OK, Mr Kincaid. Consider me hired.”
He reached to clasp my hand in his own and there might have been just a sliver of disappointment in his face. But, like an eel in shallow waters, it was gone too fast to tell.
“Just like that?” he queried.
“Yeah. Just like that.”
I agreed to stop by his place to tie up the paperwork as soon as Frank and Lorna were back. He didn’t try to push me to start sooner, accepting that I’d given them my word, and that was worth more than any amount of monetary incentive.
After he and Schade had gone, I moved through to the living room to watch the pair of Range Rovers rumble back across the planked bridge. As they picked up speed where the driveway disappeared into the trees, I switched on the burner phone I’d been given for just this eventuality. When it had gone through its start-up routine, I dialled a memorised number. The line rang out twice before being picked up. Nobody spoke at the other end.
“It’s me,” I said. “Tell him I’m in.”
6
Six weeks after Parker Armstrong came to the apartment and gave me notice to quit, I found myself working security at a BDSM nightclub in the Meatpacking District, not far from where the old Pastis restaurant used to stand—a New York landmark, long since defunct.
It wouldn’t have been my first choice of job—or my second or third choice, come to that—but living in Manhattan was not cheap at the best of times. When you’re an unemployed and therefore barely legal alien, that just complicates things. I’d managed to cadge temporary accommodation from a friend-of-a-friend in Washington Heights while they were working on a play down in Atlanta. But the run had ended early and the friend’s friend was coming home at the weekend, so that left me looking for yet another place to stay.
