Deliver Us From Evil

68

REGGIE DECIDED against seeking refuge in the underground shooting range. This was principally because she didn’t think her still queasy stomach could take the pungent smells created by the weapon’s discharge in close quarters. Yet she didn’t want to remain inside the distinctly chilly atmosphere at Harrowsfield, so she settled on wandering the grounds. That of course led her to the graveyard and then to the gravesite of Laura R. Campion. She’d visited her mother’s and brother’s graves only once, years ago, and her father’s never. And yet here she was, for the hundredth time standing in front of what was almost certainly a stranger’s final resting place.

Are you going mad, Reg? Is this what it feels like?… Is this what happened to my… dad?

She had long ago convinced herself that her father had become insane, because that was the only way to explain what he’d done. But at a certain level she knew that might not be true. And it terrified her.

She said out loud, “Do you just go mad? Or are you simply born evil? Or do you simply slaughter because history gives you the chance?”

“Yes to all three,” said a voice.

Reggie nearly toppled over as she spun around, her mind recognizing the voice but also at the same instant wondering how it could possibly be.

Shaw stood at the edge of the yew hedge that nearly surrounded the cemetery.

“How?” she began, before Shaw put a finger to his lips as he came forward.

He stood beside her. “Good to see you again too.”

“How the hell did you get here?”

“The phone I gave back to you? GPS.”

“That’s impossible. We disable all GPS chips in our phones when we’re on mission to prevent just this sort of thing.”

“I know. That’s why I had to put one in it on the boat ride over.”

Reggie groaned and put a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe I was that incredibly stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, you’re really good. But I’m pretty good at what I do too.”

Reggie looked around nervously. “If they find you here?”

“What? They’ll kill me?”

“We don’t do that,” she said sternly.

“Oh really?” He reached in his jacket pocket and slipped out the syringe he’d taken from Niles Jansen at the cottage where he had been held captive. He held it up.

Reggie looked from the syringe to Shaw. “What are you doing with that?”

“They were going to kill me with it, Reggie.”

“That’s impossible. We never told anyone-”

“The guy I knocked out said the order came from someone else.” He looked in the direction of the mansion. “Maybe somebody in the big house I passed?”

“Shaw, that is just not possible.”

“So do you guys just carry this stuff around with you?”

“That poison was intended for Kuchin. But we already had a syringe with us.”

“So why a second one?”

“In case something happened to the first, I imagine,” she said lamely.

“Or in case someone got in the way. Like me.”

“This is absurd. He actually said that somebody ordered him to kill you?”

“I’m not really in the habit of making stuff like that up. I mean, what would be the point?”

Reggie slowly moved away from him and slumped down on a weathered stone bench on the edge of the small cemetery. Shaw joined her there, drawing up his collar against the chilly air and cloudy skies that had come back to England with a vengeance as if to make up for the rare heat and sunshine.

“The plan was to let you go once we’d finished with Kuchin.”

“Plans change if the right person wants them to. Who here has that kind of clout?”

Reggie involuntarily glanced toward the mansion.

“So I was right. They’re in there. You got a name?”

“Why? Are you going to go in there and arrest him?”

“So it’s a he? Trouble is, I don’t actually have any authority to arrest anyone.”

“Then what? Kill him? You go after him you’ll have a lot of other people you’ll have to kill too.”

“Including you?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

“Well, then I find my options limited.” He handed her the syringe. “Just make sure whoever you stick with that really needs killing. No second chances there.”

Reggie held the capped needle in her open palm while gazing up at Shaw. “Why did you come here?”

“Wanted to see for myself the competition, I guess. Nice digs. My office is either at forty thousand feet or right at ground level with lots of excitement going on all around me.”

“Is that all?”

“Oh, there was something else. I wanted to make sure you weren’t still puking your guts out. See, I feel a little responsible for that. And I guess I wasn’t as sympathetic to you as I should have been while we were bouncing across the water.”

This drew a meager smile from Reggie. “Well, truthfully, I’m still a bit wobbly, but my bearings are slowly returning.” She paused while carefully pocketing the syringe. “Does your boss know that you’re here?”

“We’re not always in sync.”

She glanced once more in the direction of the old mansion. “Actually, I can relate to that. How long will you be in England?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you’ll agree to have dinner with me tonight. If yes, I’ll be here at least another day. If not, I’m out of here right now.”

Reggie glanced down.

“Problem getting away?” said Shaw.

“Actually we’ve all been given a spot of time off. But if anyone sees you. Whit or-”

“No one’s going to see me. I’ll go back out the way I came in. I kind of make a living sneaking around. But to be on the safe side let’s meet in London around eight tonight.” He gave her the name of a side street off Trafalgar Square. “We can pick a place to go after that.”

“Can I let you know?”

“Yeah, right now, or I’m flying out tonight. And I doubt I’ll be back, Reggie.”

“You don’t give a girl much time to make up her mind.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“All right. But what are we going to talk about at dinner?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find something of mutual interest. And if we’re lucky, it might even be entertaining too.” He looked over her shoulder at the sunken ground of the cemetery. “And it might cheer you up a bit. Looks like you need it.”

“I guess it seems weird to you, my staring at graves.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I do it too.”