Fifth Victim

‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ Dina kept repeating, an edge of barely contained hysteria slashing through her voice. ‘I’m so sorry. I—’

‘Hush, darling. I know.’ Caroline Willner pressed her face into the girl’s matted hair as if she’d never smelt anything so sweet. ‘It’s all over now.’

I skimmed over Hunt with a dark gaze. His eyes were open, watchful but calm. Rarely had I met a beaten player with such composure.

Parker had his phone out and was already calling in the cops, the FBI, and the paramedics. It would not take long before this whole place was crawling with officialdom.

‘Gleason, I’d like you to go back to the stable yard and wait there for the cops,’ Eisenberg said. There was something in his tone that snatched my attention. It was too polite, too controlled. I turned and found him staring down at Hunt with smouldering intensity.

Gleason saw it, too. She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again, and nodded. She gave me a narrow-eyed stare as she came past, as if searching for something in my face. I’m not sure if she found it, but she walked away up the slope leading from the ditch without looking back.

Parker moved closer, touched my arm. ‘You OK?’

I took a moment to reply. It was as though Hunt had opened a wound between us, and sooner or later we were going to have to swab out the grit or risk it starting to fester. But now was not the time. ‘Yeah, fine.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll go fetch the pickup. The ground’s bad for getting an ambulance up here. We’ll take Dina back to the stable yard.’

I murmured assent and, after only the slightest hesitation, he followed Gleason’s tracks. It was suddenly very quiet out there, with only Dina’s muffled sobbing and the cries of the disturbed birds circling back into the trees.

Eisenberg continued to stare down at Hunt, hands clenched.

‘You murdered my son,’ he said at last, his voice deep and rusty. ‘He was dead before you even tried for the ransom money. Why? Why did you do it?’

Hunt lifted his head up slightly. His face was pale now, bathed in sweat, and his breath came short and shallow. The bullet wound must have been pulsing like hell, but still he managed to talk.

‘What do you care? You weren’t going to give up those pretty stones anyway. Not your kid, was he?’ he threw back. ‘How was I to know he had the whole of that boat wired for sound, that he’d catch me calling Lennon and realise I wasn’t who I said I was. Little bastard was going to tell everyone. Couldn’t trust him.’

‘So this was all about protecting your false identity,’ I said flatly, ‘and nothing to do with the kidnapping scam?’

He tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace. ‘That was a bonus. These kids were playing at it. There was big money to be made, if it was handled right. They were never going to take advantage of it. So I took advantage of them. Just needed that damn kid to keep his mouth shut. Fortunately, he wanted his moment in the spotlight. Got it, too.’

‘You were never going to let him live, were you?’ Eisenberg said, sounding immeasurably tired. ‘From the moment you snatched him from the beach that day, he was as good as dead.’

The gaze he turned on me was reproachful.

If you’d stepped in … If you’d stopped them …

I looked away. I had enough burden of regrets. ‘And was Dina supposed to die, too?’

Hunt gave a ‘who cares’ shrug that ended in a gasp of pain. ‘I woulda played the game,’ he said, mouth twisting cruelly, ‘if you hadn’t told me there was no chance of winning.’

‘And so you did this to my daughter,’ Caroline Willner said suddenly, her voice cold as steel. ‘You tortured her, and brought her here to bury her with no intention of telling us where to find her. She might never have been found.’ She took a breath. ‘In the name of God … why?’

Hunt’s laugh sounded more like a weak giggle. He was losing it, voice starting to slur. ‘She wanted danger. Excitement. I gave it to her in spades. Enough to last a lifetime, hey Dina?’

Dina shrank back at the sound of her name on his lips. Caroline Willner wrapped her arms more tightly around her daughter and glared at him. ‘I hope you die soon, young man,’ she said. Her tone was perfectly even, her diction clear and precise. ‘And I hope when you do that you are raped by every demon in hell.’

‘You got that right,’ Eisenberg muttered bitterly.

Caroline Willner shifted her gaze to me, and in the same detached tone, asked, ‘Do you remember, Charlie, when we first met, I asked you if you were prepared to die to protect my daughter?’

‘I remember,’ I said softly.

‘Now, after everything Dina’s been through, there is still the horror of the trial to come, and no doubt the appeals and legal arguments may drag on for years,’ she said. ‘So I would very much like you to save her from those further agonies … and kill this man.’

‘What?’ Eisenberg whispered, as much in awe as disbelief.

I looked across at Hunt. The bleeding had slowed and he was still conscious, so Parker’s shot must have missed anything vital. With medical attention on its way, he would most likely survive, and very probably recover.

He had shot me, I reminded myself. Coldly, deliberately, fully intending to kill. He had done the same to Joe McGregor. He had beaten Torquil to death, and murdered his two accomplices. He had sliced off Dina’s ear and buried her alive.

He absolutely deserved to die.

‘We’ll act as witnesses, say he attacked you – that you had no choice,’ Eisenberg said urgently. ‘Just do it. I’ll pay you – whatever you want. Name your price.’

‘Don’t be so foolish, Brandon,’ Caroline Willner snapped. ‘Charlie will not do something like this for the money. She’ll do it for justice. That’s what I want for Dina – justice.’

I hadn’t taken my eyes away from Hunt’s and saw, finally, the fear begin to seep in. I reached into my jacket pocket and brought out the Colt that Hunt had dropped when he’d fallen. Now I had a chance to study it, I saw it was a Government Model, a scaled-down .380 version of the .45 ACP. The same gun he’d used to shoot me, the day he’d trashed my Buell. I could see the irony of that was not lost on him.

The gun weighed about the same as my SIG but was more compact, with a shorter barrel and a smaller magazine capacity of just seven rounds. With one gone to dispose of Lennon, there were six shots left.

More than enough.

I thumbed off the safety and held the gun loosely by my side. Hunt shifted uneasily, not wanting to beg, but realising he may be forced into it. It took me a few seconds to realise I didn’t want him to.

I turned back to Eisenberg and Caroline Willner, flicked the safety back on and held the gun out towards them, grip first.

‘You’re both wrong,’ I said. ‘I won’t kill for money, and I won’t kill for justice, either. Die to protect? Yes. Even kill to protect if I have to. But you don’t want a bodyguard here, you want an assassin.’ I shook my head. ‘If you really want this man dead, you’re going to have to do it yourself. I won’t stop you.’

For a moment, nobody moved. Eisenberg shifted his feet, his expression a torment of frustration and grief. He didn’t have it in him to take a life in cold blood, I saw, whatever the provocation. I dismissed him.

But Caroline Willner carefully disentangled herself from her daughter’s clinging grasp, letting her hand stroke lightly across the girl’s bowed head. Then she straightened, took a step towards me, and closed her manicured and bejewelled hand around the pistol grip.

I let go of the barrel slowly, letting her get the measure of the weight and the shape of it.

‘Safety’s to the left of the hammer,’ I said, conversational. ‘Up for safe, down for fire. Use both hands and keep the front sight up. Point and shoot.’

Eisenberg turned away, almost staggering. He hadn’t the stomach to watch, never mind take part.

Caroline Willner nodded absently, as if I’d been explaining how to operate a pocket camera. She squared her shoulders, and stepped determinedly towards her prey.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

‘I really think she would have done it.’ I glanced across at Sean. ‘That lady has a lot of spine. I’ve a sneaking suspicion you’d like her.’

Sean – lying on his back today with his head tilted slightly towards me on the hospital pillow – did not respond. He had lain without any movement at all throughout my report. I tried to tell myself that I had his full attention, the way he’d focused on me so absolutely in the past, but in truth I found his stillness unnerving. I leant across, stroked the back of his hand with a soft finger. Not a quiver.

The only reason Caroline Willner had not slotted Hunt Trevanion out there on the cross-country course was because of Dina. Bereft of the comforting embrace, the girl had lifted her head – just as her mother raised the gun and aimed it squarely at Hunt’s chest.

‘No!’ she’d cried, her voice raw from the screaming she’d done, I later discovered, when she woke from a pill-induced slumber and found herself in the middle of her own worst nightmare, just as the first shovelfuls of earth splattered down onto the lid of her coffin. ‘Please, Mom, NO!’

Caroline Willner had paused, her hand already tightening around the grip and trigger, and glanced at her daughter.

‘Why not?’ she’d asked simply.

Dina had swallowed, her throat working convulsively. ‘Please … don’t let him do this to you,’ she said at last, cracked and pleading. ‘I’ll remember what’s happened to me here for the rest of my life. Don’t let him do the same to you.’

Caroline Willner had stared at her for what seemed like a long time, her features very controlled. Then she’d swivelled her gaze towards Hunt, examining him minutely as though he was something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

I don’t know exactly what she saw there, but the fire went out of her. Her hand dropped slowly to her side, and I’d stepped in, taking the gun from her unresisting fingers, thumbing the safety back on.

She’d turned, studied me with eyes that were curious and just a little afraid. ‘How do you do it?’ she’d demanded, a tinge of bitter wonder in her voice. ‘How do you make killing seem so … easy?’

‘I told her it was all down to practice,’ I said now to Sean, a half smile twisting my lips. He would have appreciated the irony of it all, but he lay waxy quiet on the sheets, so pale beneath the dark fall of his hair that it was hard to tell where the linen ended and he began.

Caroline Willner, I recalled, had been much the same colour. Shortly after I’d retrieved Hunt’s gun from her, Parker had arrived with the GMC. He’d scanned the taut faces arrayed in front of him, and seemed neither dismayed nor relieved that the status quo remained unchanged. He’d loaded Dina and her mother into the pickup and driven them away, slow and careful, across the grass.

In the whirl of police and federal agents that followed, I hadn’t seen my principal again for twenty-four hours. When I did, she was lying in a hospital bed in a private room not dissimilar to this one.

Dina had been propped up on pillows, though, alert, as well as clean and rested, with a neat antiseptic dressing enclosing her foreshortened ear lobe. She was almost as pale as Sean, but looking into her eyes, I’d seen she had attained at least a surface measure of calm.

‘I’m so sorry, Charlie,’ she’d said, her voice a husky whisper. ‘I—’

‘Forget it,’ I’d told her. ‘There’s no need. Just … get over this. Don’t let him beat you. Live large.’ I’d watched the way her hands knotted nervously with the sheets, and said teasingly, ‘I assume your mother will ask Raleigh for the return of your horses?’

That had got a response. Dina gave a lukewarm smile that could easily have turned into a sob, shaken her head slightly, not meeting my eyes. ‘He’s already offered to give them back. And she’s been … wonderful.’

I’d sighed, pulled my chair a little closer to the bed and bent low enough that she was forced to look at me directly.

‘I’m going to give you some advice, Dina,’ I’d said. ‘You don’t have to take it, but you’re at least going to listen, OK?’

A flush of colour had lit across her cheeks, a confused mash of shame and anger and sadness and self-pity, but she nodded, just once.

‘Don’t waste this experience,’ I’d told her. ‘Never forget that your mother was prepared to kill for you. That is one hell of a declaration of love on her part. And it would have been so easy for you to let her, and then you would have been blaming each other for that wretched haul of guilt for the rest of your lives.’ I held her startled gaze. ‘But you didn’t force her to prove herself to you then. Don’t make her do it later, over and over. Get past this. Move on.’

She’d looked about to protest, but I’d seen something connect in her eyes. Maybe it was the realisation that here was an opportunity to go forwards into an adult-to-adult relationship with her mother, finally. As equals bound by courage in extreme circumstances, like soldiers.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

Whatever, she’d nodded a couple of times. There was a long pause that stretched into discomfort, so I’d asked, ‘How’s the ear?’

‘Sore.’ She’d managed a wavery smile. ‘Now’s my opportunity to become a famous painter, huh?’

I’d smiled back. ‘I think it’s been done, but you can always have cosmetic surgery.’

She gave a small shake of her head. ‘I know. Mother’s already suggested it, but …’ she shrugged diffidently, ‘… I’m kinda tempted to leave it as it is. As a reminder. Does that sound stupid?’

‘No,’ I said slowly. There’s hope for her yet. ‘It doesn’t.’

‘And I guess I can always wear my hair over it, or a clip-on earring, hide it that way.’ Another pause, more of a hesitation this time. ‘Like you hide your scar – round your neck.’

‘You’ll find that hiding it matters less, as time goes on.’

She’d nodded gravely, then a flash of guilt had crossed her face and she’d asked in a small voice, ‘How’s Joe?’

‘As I told her – McGregor’s going to be off in rehab for about three months,’ I said to Sean. ‘So, we need you back. We’re short-staffed. Hell, I think Parker was even tempted to offer Gleason that job she was angling for. She’s a redhead, by the way, so maybe that explains his interest …’

My voice trailed off and I sat in silence for a while, just watching his face with utter concentration, praying to see some rapid movement of his eyes beneath the almost translucent lids.

There was nothing.

How did I tell him what had happened between Parker and me? What I’d felt could still happen. Did I tell him at all?

He would know, I realised, as soon as he saw us together, he’d know by the way we tried to put distance between us. He always had been able to read me like an open book. And what then?

Caroline Willner had known. When I’d left Dina’s hospital room that day, she’d been waiting for me in the corridor outside.

‘Thank you, Charlie,’ she said to me. As much for what I’d said, I realised, as what I’d done.

I shrugged. ‘It would have been better to stop her being taken in the first place,’ I said. ‘Then there wouldn’t have been the need to get her back.’

‘Not just for that, although I rather think I shall be in your debt for some time.’ She gave a slight smile. ‘And I think you’ll find that I always pay my debts.’

I had no ready answer to that one. People often sounded incredibly grateful in situations like these, but I’d learnt not to set too much store by it. The memory would fade.

She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Charlie,’ she said. She paused, as if working out whether it was her place to say what she had in mind, then plunged on anyway. ‘I realise the situation is awkward, with your young man in a coma, but I hope you and Mr Armstrong come to some kind of understanding between the two of you. I confess I thought you seemed remarkably well matched.’

Would she have said the same if she’d met Sean? I’d told him he would like her. Would the same be true in reverse?

By Sean’s head sat the open cup of coffee I always brought, its aroma gently wafting upwards and outwards, teasing his nostrils.

It made no impression on him.

‘Epps let him go,’ I said out of nowhere, hoping for the shock effect of the sudden swerve. Aware, too, that Sean would know exactly who I meant. ‘The bastard offered to go undercover in a militia group and Epps fell for it – let him walk. He’s been away on his toes for the last couple of months, more or less, and they still haven’t found him.’ I paused again, head on one side. ‘Do you care?’ I wondered aloud. ‘Does any of it really matter anymore?’

‘It matters, Charlie,’ said a voice behind me. I swung round in my chair to see the nurse, Nancy, standing in the doorway. Her face was grave. ‘Don’t you ever give up hoping.’

I rose, gave a shrug. ‘I’m tired,’ I admitted. I glanced down at Sean. ‘Parker said the doctors are losing their hope. How can I keep hold of mine?’ Perhaps it’s already lost.

‘Doctors!’ Nancy sniffed, waving a dismissive hand as she bustled forwards, checked Sean’s vital signs, straightened the covers. ‘What do they know? I seen people come out of sleep way longer and deeper than your boy here. He’ll come back when he’s good and ready.’ She stroked a hand over his hair, but he didn’t stir for her, either. ‘Maybe he’s waiting for something, ain’t that right, Sean?’

She cast me a semi-reassuring smile and left.

‘Is she right?’ I murmured. ‘Are you waiting for something?’

I reached under my jacket and pulled out the SIG. I put the gun near his head, finger outside the guard, and pulled back the slide to feed the first round out of the magazine, letting the action snap forwards with a sharp metallic sound that would have been as unmistakable as it was familiar – to both of us.

Sean never moved.

I leant in closer, battling to drive the tears out of my voice with anger instead. ‘Get up, soldier. Get up and fight it, damn you. Don’t leave me here without you. What the hell are you waiting for?’

But I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I slipped the SIG back into its holster, checked the lie of my jacket over it, and walked out without looking back.

Behind me, I left the coffee steaming delicately on the cabinet by his bed.

Outside, it was raining again. I turned up the collar of my jacket, hunched my shoulders to close the gap, and headed for the nearest subway station that would take me back downtown. Parker had offered me use of one of the Navigators after the death of my Buell, but parking was always a problem.

Sean’s bike, a Buell Ulysses, was sitting under a dust cover, itself covered in dust, in the parking garage beneath our apartment building. I suppose I could have used that, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the big Mercedes pull into the kerb just level with me. I even altered my pace a little, but still wasn’t prepared for the sound of my own name.

‘Hey, Charlie!’

I turned, saw Eisenberg’s head of security, Gleason, climbing out of the passenger seat. Today she wore a high-necked cream blouse and black wool trousers, and looked as casual as I’d seen her. I stood my ground and waited for her to cross the sidewalk towards me in a couple of long strides.

She jerked her head towards the building I’d just left. ‘How is he?’

My instinct was fast anger, like she had no right to ask, but I swallowed it down far enough to be civil. ‘No change.’

Gleason nodded at that, as if she hadn’t expected any other reply. As if she’d only asked for form’s sake. I felt my teeth clench with the effort of not telling her to go to hell by the shortest route possible, but she spoke before I could phrase the words.

She nodded to the car, still idling by the kerb. ‘Get in,’ she invited. ‘It’s a lousy day to be walking outside.’

‘I like the rain.’

‘Well, I don’t.’ She sighed. ‘You think I was sent all the way up here to stand around ruining a perfectly good pair of shoes and arguing with you?’

I altered my stance, noticed she’d done the same. Combative. Any moment now, we were going to be brawling. I made a conscious effort to ease off. Besides – sent?

‘My mother told me never to get into cars with strange men – or women, come to that.’

‘Yeah? Well, mine told me never to date musicians. Looks like they’re both disappointed.’ There was a trace of dark humour lurking in her eyes that faded as she glanced pointedly towards the building behind me again. Towards Sean. ‘Get in the goddamn car, Charlie,’ she said with quiet intensity. ‘Trust me, you’ll want to hear this.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

‘Where are we going?’ I asked as I settled back into the leather upholstery of the Mercedes. The driver was another of Eisenberg’s men. From the back seat, he seemed to have no neck, his ears going straight down into his collar with no discernible alteration in width.

‘Nowhere in particular – yet,’ Gleason said as we pulled away and accelerated into traffic. ‘That’s up to you.’ She settled herself. The Merc was a brand-new S600, with enough room in the back for her to cross her legs negligently. ‘As you know, my employer is a very wealthy man. He has contacts, connections, in the highest places, and the money and power to get just about whatever he wants.’

A small smile slipped across the side of her mouth, and from it I deduced that she herself had been one of the things Brandon Eisenberg had coveted and then acquired.

‘Fascinating. How does this relate to me?’ And to Sean?

Gleason’s face flickered. She’d got this little speech all worked out, and wasn’t going to let me hurry her to the punchline.

‘I’m coming to that. As you are probably aware, I am ex-Secret Service,’ she said, straightening the cuff of her shirt, and there was more than a hint of pride in her voice. ‘I was tasked with guarding the President.’

‘Let me guess,’ I drawled. ‘Bill Clinton?’

Her mouth tightened, but she ploughed on doggedly. ‘As such, I, too, have friends in … interesting places. Including Homeland Security.’

My expression gave me away, I know it did. She saw my reaction and smiled.

‘You know Epps?’ I said. It hardly needed to be a question.

‘I guess just about everybody knows Conrad Epps,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘Unfortunately.’

Oh yeah, you know Epps all right …

‘Word is that he’s been attempting to track a certain fugitive for the past couple of months – without success. Until now, that is,’ she continued. ‘It would seem that the guy they’re after has just popped up on the radar in Omaha, Nebraska, of all places.’

I was aware of a burning sensation in my chest, which I recognised as both relief and resentment. So, they’d got him back again – maybe. But for how long? Looked at coldly, how could Epps actually charge him without having to admit his own mistakes? And if his guys slipped in and grabbed him again, quick and quiet, who’s to say he’d ever be called to any kind of account anyway?

I sighed. ‘Look, this is all very interesting, Gleason,’ I said. ‘And I appreciate Mr Eisenberg feeling the need to keep me informed, but I don’t see—’

‘I have it on very good authority – the best, as a matter of fact – that nobody will be going to check out this lead until Monday,’ she cut in. ‘We’ve confirmed that one of Epps’s guys is booked on a flight out of LaGuardia early Monday morning.’

Today was Friday. That gave the whole of the weekend for something to spook the guy. For him to disappear, escape, evade. Again …

‘So?’

Gleason studied her fingernails. ‘Mr Eisenberg believes you would like the personal satisfaction of being the one to bring this fugitive in yourself,’ she said. ‘Or … taking whatever alternative action you deem appropriate.’

‘Why?’ I seemed to be reduced to speaking in monosyllables, but it was the best I could manage.

Gleason found a rough edge on her thumbnail and frowned over it, as she said casually, ‘Because you caught the man who killed his son.’

‘That was something of a team effort.’

She shrugged. ‘He still reckons he owes you, for some reason,’ she said. ‘Take some advice – if a billionaire reckons he owes you, don’t argue. I think Mrs Willner may have put a word in for you, too.’

She reached into the seat pocket in front of her and pulled out a plain manila packet, handed it across. It weighed heavy in my hand.

‘The intel reports are all in there – I’d burn the whole lot when you’re done, if I were you,’ Gleason said, conspiratorial. ‘Mr Eisenberg’s private jet is waiting on you. The pilot has a take-off slot booked in about an hour, and a flight plan to the West Coast has already been filed.’ She paused, her tone blandly conversational now. ‘By coincidence, that would take you right over Nebraska. I’m sure no one would object to an unscheduled stop.’

I was silent, staring at the unopened packet in my hand. A real Pandora’s box. What would be let loose if I opened it?

For what seemed like a long time, I sat there and thought about actions and consequences, about scars and grief, about justice and death.

Gleason was looking out of the car window, her head turned away as if to give me privacy. Her body was relaxed, belying the importance of this decision. The thick-necked driver continued to circle aimlessly through the busy streets. The rain continued to fall.

Eventually, I glanced across. Gleason must have caught the movement reflected in the glass, because she turned back to me, nothing but polite enquiry in her face.

‘I’ve always wanted a ride in a new Lear 85,’ I said gravely.

Only then did she allow herself a smile, as if she’d won some small internal bet, but she didn’t make the mistake of allowing satisfaction to creep into her voice. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It’s a very nice airplane.’

CHAPTER SIXTY

Omaha was deceptively warm. I sat under the awning outside a small delicatessen in the historic Old Market district, drinking espresso and watching a lazy afternoon fade towards evening amid the old brick warehouse buildings and chic boutiques.

I’d been in Nebraska for two days and been pleasantly surprised by the place. It was an area of the States I’d never visited before, and seemed to be somewhere even Americans flew right over on their way from one coast to the other.

It was a good place to disappear.

As soon as I’d made my decision back in New York, Gleason had taken me to Eisenberg’s private plane, with only a brief stop-off at the apartment so I could throw some clothes into an overnight bag. I’d hurried through packing, as though I knew I’d change my mind if given more time to think things through.

Before I left, I’d carefully locked my SIG away in the gun safe in the bedroom – a precaution against being tempted to use it. Almost as an afterthought, I’d placed my cellphone alongside it, but first I’d sent Parker a short text message, telling him I was taking a few days’ personal time, that I’d be in touch, and not to worry about me. I shut the phone off and locked it away before he had chance to send a reply.

Leaving that behind was a harder decision than the gun. I was torn between not wanting to be out of touch in case anything drastic happened regarding Sean, and not wanting to be easily tracked. In the end, head won over heart.

When I’d landed in Omaha, there was a nondescript Ford Taurus waiting for me, rented by one of Eisenberg’s myriad companies, and an open-ended room booked at the Embassy Suites on 10th and Jackson. The hotel had a convention of some description going on over the weekend and was crowded enough that I could move through the public areas with a comfortable degree of anonymity.

There were even ponds full of giant koi in the lobby to further distract people’s attention. I restrained myself from snapping at a group of little brats who were taking great delight in dropping coins onto the fish, watched with apparent indulgence by their parents. With some regret, I decided that slapping their legs for them – adults as well as children – would not help me maintain my desired low profile.

I had performed countless counter-surveillance routines since my arrival, but as far as I could tell, nobody was following me or taking undue interest. I spent most of my time on foot. The Taurus had not moved from the hotel parking garage since I’d checked in.

This evening, I’d been out for early sushi at a place called Blue. I’d always been wary of eating raw fish so far from an ocean, but it was some of the best I’d tasted outside Tokyo. Afterwards, I’d queued for specialty ice cream at Ted & Wally’s, a short walk away, and now I was finishing off with coffee at a third stop. It was a good way to keep a casual eye on the area while I watched and waited.

Gleason’s intel packet had given me the approximate location where there had been sightings of my quarry. It was a relatively compact area of boutique stores and restaurants, and it wasn’t hard to keep an eye on the main drag.

I sat with my back to the building, soaking up the last of the late sun, relaxed. A guy tried to join me, his smile ingratiating and hopeful as he indicated the empty chair opposite. I shook my head.

‘Sorry,’ I said cheerfully, putting on an all-purpose American accent, ‘but I’m just waiting for my boyfriend to finish up teaching his karate class.’

His smile froze a little and he edged away with a muttered apology. I watched him take an inside table in the back, far enough away that he could not be easily pointed out to my mythical boyfriend, when he finally turned up.

My thoughts turned logically to Sean, who’d never been the jealous type, at least not as far as other men were concerned. He had too much in-built self-assurance for that. But trust of all kinds had been a constant issue between us.

He’d felt the difference in our social backgrounds more keenly than I had, not helped by the fact that my parents had gone out of their way to make him aware of it. They had never approved of our relationship and at one point they’d tried actively to drive us apart. They had very nearly succeeded.

And now there was Parker to worry about. An added complication I could do without. When I’d checked my email on the computer in the business centre at the hotel before I’d come out, I found half a dozen messages from him, the subject line of each growing in anxiety. The last one was headed ‘CONTACT ME – URGENT!’

But knowing that Parker – or Bill Rendelson – would probably be able to trace my location if I opened it, I hadn’t done so. I hadn’t opened any of them. I would not lie to Parker about where I was or what I was doing, but that meant not contacting him or he would know, instinctively. It seemed, on some level or another, he knew already.

Unless, of course, he was trying to get in touch to tell me something had happened to Sean. Because, if I didn’t know, maybe I could put off the awful truth for a little while longer.

A horse-drawn carriage rolled past, strangely silent on the brick street. When I looked, I found the horse was wearing clip-on rubber boots to muffle its tread. With the music and chatter going on around me, I wondered who had objected to the gentle clop of hooves.

A fragment of an old WH Auden poem slipped into my mind, something about silencing pianos and keeping the dog from barking with a juicy bone. About believing love would last for ever.

About being wrong.

I took a breath, lifted my chin and stared at the couple taking a ride in the carriage. They were leaning together, heads touching, hands entwined. I looked away sharply, watched the steady nodding motion of the horse instead.

I would miss Geronimo and my morning rides on the beach with Dina, I realised. Maybe she wouldn’t mind if I joined her every once in a while – just until she went to Europe at the end of the summer.

She had finally decided to make her peace with her father, she’d told me. I wondered how Caroline Willner really felt about that. After all, the main reason she had been so keen to get her daughter away from Long Island was to prevent her becoming the fifth victim. Her fears had been both realised and neutralised. But Dina seemed determined to recover from her ordeal, and at least the sight of me did not provoke hysterics. There was a chance we might remain friends.

On the far side of the wide street, a guy ambled into view, weaving between the people and the colourful planters.

‘There you are, Roy,’ I murmured under my breath. ‘Right on time.’

According to Gleason’s security services contacts, he was currently using the name Roy Neese, and he’d made it fit. His hair was short and ginger, which it had not been the last time I’d seen him. It was a clever choice, I considered. Men do not often choose to be redheads.

He had also affected a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, which gave him a surprisingly distinguished appearance. He was wearing chinos and loafers, and a lightweight dark-blue jacket over a polo shirt. A pair of designer sunglasses perched on top of his head, which meant either contact lenses or he’d had laser treatment for his eyes. He looked reasonably affluent and totally relaxed. Not at all like a wanted fugitive.

If he had any inkling that Epps’s people were closing in, he hid it well.

And if he had any inkling that I was half a step behind him, he hid that better.

I’d tracked him down the first evening, had been trailing him ever since. Epps’s guys were due to arrive early the following afternoon, and when they did I planned on having all the answers. So, I’d been following him on and off since I’d first identified him, more by his gait than his appearance. It seemed he had turned into a creature of habit.

I stood up, trapping a dollar bill under my empty cup. I’d paid for my coffee when it arrived, so I could make a quick getaway when I needed to. I left the receipt the waitress had provided, though. I didn’t think I’d be putting in an expenses claim for this trip.

Casually, I crossed the uneven street, stepping down carefully from a kerb that seemed to be the best part of a foot high. The cars were all parked nose-in on a slant, and a number of the regulars had one corner of the bumper bashed in as testament to the unexpected steepness of the camber.

I waited for a custom Cadillac to rumble past, floating along on a blue neon glow that reminded me of Eisenberg’s yacht. The windows were down and the stereo was thumping. It was Sunday evening in old Omaha – the perfect time to show up and show off.

It was also my last chance.

My quarry, meanwhile, had turned the corner at the end of the street and disappeared from view, but I didn’t hurry. If yesterday and the day before were anything to go by, I knew exactly where he was heading.

The packet of intel Gleason had provided was brief but solid at the same time. There hadn’t been much in it, but what there was turned out to be accurate, and that was worth pages of ifs and maybes.

By the time I reached the corner, I could see Neese a hundred metres ahead, walking briskly but showing no alarm in his stride. I crossed over at the lights with a group of conventioneers who were heading back to the Embassy Suites, lurking amid their chatter just in case he glanced back.

He did, just once, in what had clearly been a habit of survival at one point, now grown somewhat lax. I veered unnoticed away from the group when we reached the hotel entrance, dipped quickly through a park and jogged down a sloping side road, glad of my dark jeans and trainers. I was heading towards the Missouri River that wound along Omaha’s eastern edge and partly separated it from neighbouring Iowa.

Getting into town from the prosaically named Eppley Airfield, I’d discovered to my amusement, had involved crossing briefly into the next state. The river’s meandering course had changed and nobody had bothered to redraw the borders.

Away from the stores and restaurants, it was apparent how fast the light was dropping, stars beginning to pop above the slow relentless river. In the distance I could see the hulking flyover for Interstate 480, and beyond that the twin uprights of the swooping pedestrian bridge linking Nebraska to Iowa.

The footbridge was known locally as ‘Bob’, for a reason I’d yet to discern. I’d walked across it the day I’d arrived, during my first recce, and found it bounced alarmingly under foot. I didn’t know if the flyover had an official name, although the graffiti artists who’d clambered into its steel rafters with their cans of spray paint had made up plenty of their own.

A planked walkway led under the flyover, over the top of the railway line and past an old pumping station, before coming out alongside the river. During the day it was a popular spot for walkers and joggers and a few tourists. At night, even though it was lit, the whole area tended to be more secluded.

Secluded was good.

I reached the point under the flyover where the traffic made eerie howling noises on the concrete high above, eyes searching for my target. Yesterday, he had stuck to the roadways, which were better lit, before cutting across to the paved area beside the river. If I had my timing right, he should have appeared there just ahead of me. But when I reached the turn in the walkway, there was no sign of him.

Shit!

Had I moved too fast and got too far in front of him? Or had he taken a different route back to the river – maybe headed to Rick’s Café Boatyard for a drink? I reminded myself that I was not an expert when it came to surveillance. My job was to blend into the scenery and to spot people who were themselves out of place, not track and trace.

I hesitated, and then some sixth sense made me turn abruptly, twisting to look over my shoulder.

The man who had become Roy Neese was standing on the walkway about four metres behind me. There was a gun clasped firmly in his right hand, pointing at my stomach. The muzzle didn’t waver.

‘Hiya, Charlie,’ he said. ‘Did ya miss me?’

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

‘OK, let’s see the weapon,’ the man said, and even his voice seemed different, lower and more gravelly, although that could just have been the tension. ‘Take the piece out, nice and slow, and toss it over the railing.’

I shook my head sadly. ‘I’m not carrying.’

He was silent for a moment, then he flicked towards my torso with the barrel of the gun. It was another nine-mil Glock, I saw, like the one he’d used to shoot Sean. He was getting a taste for them.

‘Show me.’

Obligingly, I lifted the hem of my sweatshirt, just high enough to expose the waistband of my jeans, turned a slow circle. It went against all my training to present my back to an armed assailant, but he wasn’t going to shoot me just yet.

Not without discovering what I knew – and who else knew it, also.

When I was facing him again, he gave a sardonic smile. ‘Don’t know why that should surprise me – you always were so sure of yourself.’

‘With reason,’ I said coldly. ‘I caught you, didn’t I?’ Twice.

The smile lost some of its internal backing, became more forced. Not a memory he wanted to dwell on. His chin lifted on a taunt. ‘Tell me, Charlie – those reflexes of yours quick enough to dodge a bullet?’

‘What does it matter?’ I shrugged. ‘Epps has a bullet with your name on it, and you can’t dodge that one for ever.’

‘Dodged it pretty good up ’til now,’ he said with satisfaction. His eyes were everywhere, I saw, as if expecting the Homeland Security man to storm in with a full SWAT team behind him at any moment. It took half his concentration away from me and I needed to use that while I had the chance.

I cursed the fact I’d left the SIG behind in New York, but I had set out to confront and detain, not to kill. The man in front of me may not have started out personally violent, but he’d certainly picked it up along the way. Who knows what else he’d had to do in order to survive on the run?

My heart rate had stepped up, but I let my arms dangle, kept my knees soft and my shoulders relaxed. Strangely, I felt no fear. I had no doubts that the man behind the gun was prepared to use it if he had to. He might even be looking forward to it, but if it was my destiny to die here, I was ready for it.

And I would not provide him with an easy kill.

‘I hope you’re not too attached to good old Roy Neese, because he’s blown out of the water.’ I watched the information filter through the layers of nerves, tightening and tangling as it went. ‘Roy Neese. Where did you find that one? Doesn’t quite have the ring of your old name, does it?’

As I spoke, I turned sideways, leant back and rested my elbows on the rusted steel handrail that bordered the walkway. I let my hands droop, and hooked one heel onto the lower railing, keeping it all very casual, relaxed. And all the while hoping he wouldn’t notice that one arm was now half a metre closer to him, and I had a solid object behind me to launch from.

‘Had to pick something.’ He flashed his teeth quick enough for it to be more grimace than grin. ‘Too many people in my … position go for names that stand out, for one reason or another. Or they keep a hold of their initials.’ He paused, as if not sure he should be telling me so much, but realising it didn’t matter either way. ‘I used one of those random-name generators you find online.’

‘Clever,’ I agreed sedately, nodding. ‘I heard Epps sent you after one of the militia groups linked to Fourth Day. What happened – did being a double agent not do it for you?’

I kept my voice comparatively quiet, so the background roar of traffic overhead would make it harder to hear. And as I watched, he shifted his stance a little, unconsciously edging closer.

‘You think I ever intended to spy on those crazy bastards?’ he asked, almost incredulous. ‘Let me tell you, they do not take kindly to that kinda thing. And paranoid? They make guys like Epps look real trusting.’

‘He must have been, to turn you loose on a solemn promise to be a good little boy, cross your heart and hope to die.’

He ignored the mockery in my tone and shook his head, the barrel of the Glock starting to drift downwards. ‘You just don’t get it, do you, Charlie?’ he demanded. ‘I’m hardly a blip on his radar. In fact, Epps is better off with me off of his radar altogether, because then he’ll never have to answer for the errors he made in California. Errors that caused the deaths of his own people.’

‘The way I remember it,’ I said tightly, ‘that was down to you.’

‘Semantics,’ he dismissed. He paused, gave me a pitying look. ‘You really think I didn’t know they were coming for me tomorrow? You think, even if I wasn’t planning to be gone by then, that I won’t be loose again a month from now?’

I tried not to show how hard that set me reeling, was suddenly glad of the railing at my back. ‘But you didn’t know I was coming for you today.’

He laughed. ‘You forget – I spent some time with you, Charlie, and you’re one of the good guys. I had a feeling you might come with them, want to be the one who slapped on the cuffs with a self-righteous air. Didn’t expect you to spring for an advance flight, though. You’ve been tailing me since – when? Saturday morning?’

So, my surveillance skills really did need improvement. ‘Friday night, actually,’ I said, as calmly as I could manage.

He smiled. ‘Should change your looks some, if you’re gonna do this professionally. Once seen, never forgotten.’ His eyes suddenly narrowed. ‘Epps told me Meyer survived, so what’s this all about, huh?’

The implications of his false assumption flashed through my brain as fast as the synapses could fire. For reasons of his own, Epps hadn’t told him Sean was still in a coma.

So use it.

‘You really don’t know?’ I murmured. ‘Never mind about me – you think Sean would be happy to let a little shit like you get away with taking him down?’ I deliberately softened my voice still further. He leant close enough for me to smell his aftershave, strong enough to remind me that he was not a field operative, or he wouldn’t wear something so distinctive in still air. I smiled. ‘You really think I’d come out here after you, alone and unarmed, for any other reason than as bait?’

I saw the convulsive jump of his Adam’s apple. ‘Bait?’

I let my eyes slip past his face to a point behind his left shoulder. ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’

His head snapped round, knees ducking his body as he turned, as if to avoid a blow. I kicked away from the railing and jabbed my knuckles hard into the rigid tendons at the back of his right hand. The hand sprang open immediately, a completely involuntary reaction. The gun clattered onto the planking and spun away behind him.

I followed up with a fast elbow to the throat, both to disable and to silence him. He crashed backwards, scrabbling for the collar of his polo shirt as though the soft cotton was responsible for his lack of breath, and I realised I’d put all my pent-up rage and heartache into that single blow.

By the time he’d got his senses back under him, I’d picked up the Glock, checked the magazine and was pointing it in his direction. He shielded his head with his arms, palms outward and fingers spread, while he gulped for air and speech.

‘Wait,’ he managed at last, rasping. ‘I’m on a boat – in the Riverside Marina. I have money on board! I can pay—’

‘Pay?’ I heard my voice crack, harsh and raw, and something else seemed to split open inside my head, my heart, and come pouring out like poison. ‘Do you honestly think there’s enough money on a boat – on a whole fleet of fucking boats – to begin to make up for the damage you’ve caused?’

Smoothly, easily, I stepped back a pace, brought the muzzle of the gun up until the sights were aligned on the centre of his forehead.

‘Charlie, wait! Please—’

‘Too late,’ I said, and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Twelve hours later, I found myself alone in a police interview room, having been temporarily relinquished by the Omaha Homicide detective who was in charge of the case.

On the scarred desktop by my elbow was a cup of tepid coffee. It had been barely drinkable when it was hot, and was even less so now. In front of me lay a yellow legal notepad with a few scrawled notes written on it.

I sat with my hands folded in my lap and stared back into myself, trying to work out how I felt about what I’d done.

Sean had once told me that killing without hesitation or fear was something you got used to. Something that got easier over time. That the danger sign was if you started to enjoy it.

I had not, I decided objectively, enjoyed killing the man pretending to be Roy Neese. It had seemed necessary and I’d done it, that was all.

And the fact remained that if I’d killed him months ago – right after he’d taken Sean down, while he was fleeing the scene with the weapon still hot in his hand – there would have been few questions asked.

But I’d wanted more, and I’d been naive enough to expect the justice system would provide it.

Not the first time I’d been wrong about that.

Behind me, to my left, the door to the interview room opened and I turned my head, expecting to see Detective Kershner return. Instead, it was Parker Armstrong who stood there, almost hesitant, as though he’d had to steel himself to face me. He closed the door quietly and moved further into the room, onto the opposite side of the table.

‘Charlie,’ he said gravely. ‘You OK?’ He seemed to ask me that a lot.

‘Surviving.’ I shrugged, realised I couldn’t read his eyes, and added carefully, ‘I didn’t expect you to come.’

‘How could I not?’ He paused. ‘The identity of the … victim has been confirmed?’

‘Yes.’

He closed his eyes a moment, rubbed his temple. ‘They gave me the gist,’ he said. ‘Single gunshot wound to the head, gun alongside him. Any chance it was self-inflicted?’

‘Would be nice to think he’d finally developed a conscience, wouldn’t it?’ I said, regretful, ‘but you know as well as I do that’s an unlikely scenario.’

Apparently casual, Parker leant against the wall in the corner right under the camera, where its view was poorest. His gaze was on me fully now, intense to the point of pleading. ‘Why not?’

‘The location of the body, for one thing,’ I said. ‘He was probably on his way to the little marina at Riverside, where he had a boat moored. The walkway is neither one place nor another. Suicides tend to go somewhere specific, symbolic even, to do the deed. And the gun had been wiped clean.’

‘So he was murdered,’ Parker said flatly, the words almost forced out of him. ‘Could this be a random killing – unconnected to his … past?’

I shook my head. ‘I doubt it. From what Detective Kershner’s told me of the crime rate in Omaha, it’s a pretty safe town.’

Parker sighed, as if he was trying his best and I was being deliberately difficult. When he spoke there was a trace of anguish underlying his even tone. ‘Why did you come here, Charlie?’

I met his gaze squarely. ‘Because certain information came into my hands about his location, and I knew Epps wasn’t going to follow it up fast enough,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want our boy to simply disappear again.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Well, that’s for sure.’

‘A round to the head tends to make certain of that,’ I agreed, and saw the anguish turn to active pain.

‘Charlie … What have you told them?’

‘Everything,’ I said. More or less. ‘It would have been foolish to do otherwise. After all, it was all bound to come out sooner or later. Why hold anything back?’

He hid a flinch, not well. ‘You know I’ll help you,’ he said. ‘Whatever it takes.’

‘Parker, trust me, I don’t need your help.’ I spoke gently, easily, all the time acutely aware of possible listeners on the other side of the mirrored wall. ‘I assume Epps’s boys have finally turned up?’

‘Yeah, we came in on the same flight.’

I nodded. ‘Better late than never, I suppose.’

The door opened again and Detective Kershner hovered there, checking out Parker with a wary gaze. He was young, home-grown and relatively inexperienced, but sharp for all that. I had watched my step very carefully with him. His eyes slid to me.

‘The department would like to thank you for your assistance, Miss Fox,’ he said formally. ‘We have your contact details in New York, should anything else come up, but you can go.’

‘Thank you.’ I stood up. ‘And good luck with this one.’

He gave a wry smile. ‘We’re gonna need it,’ he said. He paused, aware I wasn’t quite a fellow professional, but I wasn’t quite a civilian either. ‘Thought you’d like to know that Ballistics ran the weapon through IBIS and got a hit from an execution-style homicide about six months ago in California, thought to be connected to a militia group out there.’

Parker’s head snapped up. ‘Wasn’t he supposed to be infiltrating a militia?’ he said, puzzlement in his tone.

‘That is my understanding, yes sir.’ The detective nodded. ‘Looks like they got wise to him, maybe followed him here.’

Parker’s eyes skimmed over me, thoughtful. ‘Yeah,’ he murmured. ‘Looks that way.’

Kershner walked us out, flicking little covert glances at the pair of us as we went. I realised he’d checked up on both of us. This was probably the first time he’d met anybody with Parker’s credentials, and was trying to work out what made us tick.

By the entrance, he shook our hands and left us. Parker jerked his head towards the door and I followed him out into bright sunshine. There was a light breeze, just enough to set the Stars and Stripes on the nearest flagpole rippling lazily. It could just have been something to do with the air conditioning in the building, but the air smelt sweet and clean outside.

Parker let us get as far as the front seats of his rented Chevy Suburban before he spoke again.

‘I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what the hell just happened back there?’ he demanded with a dangerous softness.

I leant back against the headrest and closed my eyes, feeling utterly exhausted. ‘I found the body,’ I said. It was easier to avoid telling the whole truth with my eyes shut.

‘You found the body?’ he repeated flatly. ‘Hell, Charlie, I get a call from Epps first thing this morning, telling me the guy was dead and you’re being held by the cops out here.’ He shook his head a little and rubbed a frustrated hand around the back of his neck. ‘Do you have any idea what I thought …? What I felt?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and meant it. ‘But I was being interviewed as a witness. That’s somewhat different from being arrested as a suspect.’

I couldn’t deny, though, that as I’d watched the last flicker of life expire from my target’s eyes, I’d debated on simply surrendering to fate and the police, in that order.

But, I realised I’d made the decision to overcome this before I’d even taken the shot. By stepping back, making it a non-contact wound, I’d avoided the inevitable blow-back mist of blood. I’m still not entirely sure what made me do that, other than some inbuilt survival instinct. A desire to distance myself from this crime.

Moments later, I’d wiped down the gun and dropped it alongside the corpse, walked back to my hotel forcing myself not to hurry. I didn’t look back.

My clothes had gone straight into the hotel laundry, right down to the trainers I’d been wearing. Even though I was almost certain my sleeves had covered it, I scrubbed my waterproof Tag watch in the bathroom sink, left it to soak while I stood braced against the tiles in the shower for as long as I could manage.

Even so, I’d waited until the early morning for any possible remaining gunshot residue to dissipate before I retraced my steps towards the river. I confess that I was half expecting to see the police already on the scene, or the body vanished like part of some bizarre murder mystery.

Neither scenario played out. The body was exactly as I’d left it, with the exception of a couple of inquisitive seagulls. I ventured just close enough to verify the gun was still alongside him, then jogged to the nearest building and called it in.

The rest, Parker knew – or suspected.

They’d checked the time I arrived back at the hotel, but there was enough leeway with time of death for that to be inconclusive. As a matter of course, they also tested my hands and clothing for gunshot residue and found nothing, which had seemed to allay their immediate suspicions. I guessed the discovery of the murder weapon’s unexpected provenance would do the rest.

Parker started the engine, dropped the Suburban into gear, and cruised sedately back towards my hotel without needing to be given directions.

‘Charlie, why did you come here?’ he asked when we were almost there, sounding weary.

‘I told you,’ I said, keeping my voice even. ‘I wanted to make sure he didn’t run again before Epps’s people caught up with him.’

‘And that’s all?’ Parker persisted.

I could have lied to him. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I twisted slightly in my seat.

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘I …’ He sighed, and I saw his hands flex around the rim of the steering wheel. ‘No,’ he said at last, sounding more defeated than I’d ever heard him. ‘You should have told me. I would have come with you. This is not something you should have tackled alone. If I’d had any idea where you were, or what you were doing …’

‘I thought you knew,’ I said slowly. ‘Why else the emails?’

He acknowledged my admission that I’d ignored his messages with a bitter quirk of his lips. ‘Your cell was switched off. I couldn’t reach you. I thought maybe you’d … decided to do something stupid.’

And maybe I had. I shied away from going there. It was a dark corner I would not look into.

‘Do away with myself, you mean?’ I asked dryly. ‘You really think, Parker, after all the shit I’ve been through, I’d take the easy way out now?’

He pulled up outside the entrance to the Embassy Suites and glanced over at me, his gaze coolly assessing.

‘It would have been the ultimate cruel irony, if you had,’ he said, and something in his voice sent my pulse buzzing, tightened my chest.

No. Oh, no …

‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘If you’d opened those emails, you’d know,’ he said. He paused, a wealth of conflicted emotions in his voice, his face. ‘Sean’s awake.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Parker and I flew back into New York by scheduled flight, landing at Newark late that same evening. On the journey, I’d asked him over and over for more details about Sean, but he knew little beyond the bare facts.

He told me that Sean’s brain activity had started to pick up on Friday afternoon, not long after I’d left the hospital. I wondered about the cause of that, whether the sound of a weapon being readied reached far deeper into his psyche than touch or smell could ever do. The memory of violence overcoming intimacy.

Parker received the call from the hospital not long after my text message came in. He’d tried to contact me, but my phone went straight to voicemail – hardly surprising as I’d switched it off before I left. When calling the apartment brought no response, Parker had Bill Rendelson check the airlines for a ticket in my name. Needless to say, there wasn’t one.

Though he’d reported all this in a matter-of-fact tone, I could tell that was the moment he’d begun seriously to worry. He’d sent his first email that night, and kept sending them, from his PDA at Sean’s bedside.

He relayed what the doctors had told him, that Sean seemed distressed, like a man trapped in a nightmare. His heart rate and temperature had soared, rapid eye movement increasing as he became more restless.

‘It was like watching someone clawing their way out of the grave,’ Parker said, his voice hollow. ‘Like he was fighting for his life.’

And I hadn’t been there, fighting alongside him.

Instead, I’d been out committing cold-blooded murder in his name.

Through Saturday, as I’d tracked Roy Neese through his normal daily subroutines in downtown Omaha, Sean had become increasingly lucid, and increasingly disturbed. It was soon apparent that he recognised nobody around him and remembered nothing of how he came to be shackled to a hospital bed in a strange country with his body wasted and his mind in fragments.

And I hadn’t been there to anchor him.

Now, as Erik Landers drove us in from the airport with blatant disregard for the posted speed limits, my heart was clenched tight in my chest. It didn’t matter how many hours I’d sat by Sean’s bedside during those three long months of his unconsciousness. All I knew – all he would know – was that I hadn’t been there at the moment he needed me most.

I was wracked with a faithless dismay, stripped to the bone by guilt and fear, that by not being the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, the memory of what we had would be somehow squandered.

And I hadn’t been there to reinforce it in his mind.

‘How much does he remember?’ I demanded now. Alongside me, Landers dipped his eyes away from the road for a moment.

‘Bits and pieces, mainly. He thought he kinda remembered me.’ He gave a downturned smile. ‘Thought we’d served together in Kosovo.’

I swallowed. ‘And Parker? Did he remember him?’

And me? Does he remember me?

Landers’ gaze flicked to his boss, sitting in the rear seat, as if being asked to tell tales. ‘Well, he was more kinda hazy on that.’

‘They’re trying not to pressure him to remember anything, Charlie,’ Parker said gently. ‘It’s the last year or so that seems to be the worst affected – the biggest blank. The doctors reckon his longer-term memories are clearer.’

I twisted in my seat and exchanged a brief look with him. He’ll remember you, Parker’s eyes declared. I clung to that unspoken promise.

Landers dropped us outside the main entrance and I took the steps three at a time, galloped along familiar corridors with Parker at my shoulder. When I skidded to a halt outside the door to Sean’s room, the figure of his nurse, Nancy, appeared in my path.

‘Charlie!’ she said, her face anxious. ‘I—’

But I didn’t wait, ducking round her shoulder before she had a chance to give me an update.

For the first time, as I entered that room, Sean was half sitting up in his bed, eyes open and mostly clear. He turned to stare at us, slow and jerky, as if his neck would hardly support the weight of his head. I drank in the sight of him, greedy, needy.

All the way back from Nebraska, I’d prayed that I would not arrive and find all this had been a mistake, a false alarm. I had visions of walking in and finding him laid out as usual, those ridiculously long eyelashes fanning his cheeks, his body still and without animation.

Instead, there he was, shaky, weakened, but … there. And he would come back from this. We both would. I felt my eyes fill.

Sean’s own eyes were very dark, his pupils huge as though still adapting to the light. His gaze swept across Parker, at my elbow, without a hint of recognition, then settled clumsily on me and he went very still.

I took a step forwards, hardly aware that Nancy had followed us in, had laid a gentle restraining hand on my arm.

‘Charlie?’ Sean said, his voice raw and croaky and incredulous.

I gave him a shy smile. ‘Hi, Sean.’

He froze at the sound of my voice, a mix of frenzied emotions flashing across his face, chased on by a scowl. ‘What the fuck is she doing here? This some kind of joke?’ he demanded. His chest heaved with the effort of breath and he had to swallow between sentences, as though speech was still difficult after long disuse. And at the same time I realised his accent was more pronounced than it had been, the last time he’d spoken. Now it was more like it used to be. Back when I first knew him.

Back when …

‘Sean—’ It was Nancy who went to his bedside, tried to calm him.

‘Get Foxcroft out of here. I don’t want to see her.’ He raked the nurse with a furious gaze, summoning up the energy with such effort it made him tremble. He turned on me with such intensity that I flinched in the face of it. ‘How could you think I’d ever want to see you again, after what you’ve done?’

EPILOGUE

‘It’s not that he doesn’t remember you, Charlie,’ Nancy said. ‘It’s just that he seems to remember you as … somebody else.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ I said dully. ‘That’s the problem.’

We were sitting in the small nursing station at the end of the corridor furthest away from Sean’s room. I’m not sure if that was for my benefit or for his.

Nancy was at her desk with the seat turned towards me. The space was small enough that our knees were almost touching. She sat hunched forwards in her uniform, forearms resting on her thighs and pain in her eyes. Parker stood leaning in the doorway, face closed down.

‘Who does he remember, Charlie?’ he asked quietly. ‘What happened between the two of you?’

I put my hands to my face, pressing my fingers together as if to hold the words inside. They could not stay that way for ever.

All kinds of guilty associations had bolted through my mind at Sean’s initial accusation before the last tattered shreds of sanity kicked in. No way could he know what I had just done. Not unless he’d been having an out-of-body experience. So, that meant …

I sat up, let my hands fall away and willed my eyes to dryness, like my throat. ‘He called me Foxcroft,’ I said. ‘That’s who I was when we first met – in the army. I volunteered and passed my selection course for Special Forces training,’ I added, for Nancy’s benefit. Parker had, after all, pored over my CV before he’d offered me a job alongside Sean. I glanced at him. His face still told me nothing.

‘As for what happened, well, let’s just say there was an element that didn’t approve of the fairer sex moving into that particular branch of the military,’ I went on, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice now. ‘And one night a group of them decided to demonstrate just how vulnerable female soldiers were. I—’

‘You don’t have to go through all this,’ Parker said tightly. ‘I know what they did to you, Charlie. Sean told me – some of it, anyways.’

I shook my head. ‘But not all of it. We were … involved, back then. Shouldn’t have been, of course. Sean was one of my training instructors. They posted him just before my … assault. By the time he came back, I’d been through court martial and I was well and truly out in the cold.’

‘Wait a moment, now,’ Nancy said, her own voice low with angry disbelief. ‘They attacked you, and you were the one who was court-martialled? Where’s the justice there?’

I shrugged. I’d long since run out of indignant rage at the way things had turned out. The scars still lingered, but they were deep beneath the surface, a blunt ache where once they’d been excruciating. The last thing I wanted to do was open them up to scrutiny again. ‘I tried to get in touch with him, while I was still in hospital, but the messages somehow never got through.’

And when he did finally hear about what had happened to me, he was given a very different version of events.

‘They told Sean I’d failed the course and when they tried to have me RTU’d – that’s “returned to unit” …’ I said quickly, seeing Nancy’s frown. I took a breath. ‘… well, that’s when they said I’d started shouting about him taking advantage of his position. I believe the current term for it is “command rape”.’

I heard Parker suck in a quiet breath. ‘That’s—’

‘An ugly situation,’ I agreed. ‘I thought he’d abandoned me by refusing to answer my calls, appear in my defence at the trial. He thought I’d dropped him in it to try and save my own skin.’

‘How long?’ Nancy asked eventually. ‘How long did it take before you both realised what had really happened?’

‘About four years,’ I said bleakly. ‘At the time, the press got hold of it and had a field day. Certain misogynist elements of the powers that be used it as the perfect PR exercise to keep women out of combat roles.’ They hadn’t been able to get rid of Sean so easily, so while I did my best to hide, they’d given him all the one-way missions, only to discover he was too bloody stubborn to die on the job.

‘So that’s when you changed your name,’ Parker said slowly, ‘From Foxcroft to Fox.’

‘Yeah, and it’s pretty clear that Charlie Foxcroft is who Sean remembers now.’ I gave them both a twisted smile. ‘The girl who betrayed his love, his trust, and then ruined his career along with her own.’

Nancy put her hand on my arm, fingers smoothing my sleeve. I stared down at them, noted the worn wedding ring.

‘He’ll remember the rest of it, Charlie,’ she said, but I heard the layer of doubt beneath the reassuring words. ‘Just give him a little time. He’ll remember.’ When I looked up I caught the frown, quickly masked.

On the other side of the room, Parker’s face was drawn, skin stretched tight across his bones. He loved me, I realised, but maybe it was the kind of love that only flourishes because it’s unrequited, and the worst thing that could happen was for it to be given free rein. In the stress of the past few weeks, it had never crossed either of our minds that Sean might wake and simply not want me anymore.

I killed for a man who doesn’t remember me except with hate. What does that make me?

Suddenly the years peeled back, leaving me stripped and alone and vulnerable. I looked up at the pair of them, utter despair in my voice.

‘What if he doesn’t remember?’

copyright © 2011 by Zoë Sharp