First Drop

Nineteen

Walt drove me south in an eight-year-old Lincoln Town Car with cracked cream leather trim. We didn’t speak much once we were on the road and I was happy enough with that. The mood I was in, I wasn’t looking for polite conversation.

Walt drove down through Daytona Beach and crossed back over the Intracoastal on the same William V Chappell Jr bridge we’d used when Trey and I had gone to meet Henry. There’d been a lot of water under it since then, both physically and metaphorically.

In daylight the buildings looked faded and even a little shabby, the colours washed out without the reinforcement of their night-time neon. It matched my mood – down-at-heel, subdued.

I’d entrusted Trey to Xander and Aimee’s care, much against his will. He’d thrown a controlled tantrum at the prospect of being left behind but I didn’t have the time or the temper myself to stand that kind of bratty behaviour from him. After a few futile attempts at whiny persuasion, he seemed to realise as much and gave up trying. He settled for quiet and sulky instead, barely able to bring himself to say goodbye or good luck to me. Well sod you, then.

“Look after him,” I’d said to Xander and he’d nodded, face serious.

“Don’t sweat it,” he’d said. “He’ll be fine.”

Aimee had grinned at me. “Go kick some ass, girl.”

I’d promised them I’d call Trey on his mobile as soon as I was done. Then I watched them walk away from the little diner together. They stopped by the kerb a little way further down the street and were about to cross when Trey suddenly glanced back at me, frowning.

He knows, I thought. He’s worked it out. I turned my back on it and jogged through the slow-moving traffic to rejoin Walt, who was waiting for me on the other side of the road.

Whatever doubts I may have had about trusting Trey’s safety to anyone else, I dismissed them. The only alternative to Xander and Aimee was leaving him with Walt, which could be the same as handing the kid over to the authorities. I had a sneaking suspicion that the old couple could only hold out against their nephew and the all-consuming government body he represented for so long. Better not to put temptation in Special Agent Till’s way by having the boy dangled under his nose. Much better that he simply didn’t know where either of us were.

The only other alternative to that was to take Trey with me. That idea was out of the question from the start. If I could get Gerri Raybourn to admit the part she’d played in Sean’s death I was planning on doing more than tape-recording her and the kid had already seen too much death in my company. Not quite the kind of thing Keith had been hoping for when he’d made some throwaway comment last week about the fact I was British being good for broadening Trey’s horizons.

Now, as I sat in the faded luxury of Walt’s car listening to something in the rear suspension creaking every time we hit a lump in the road, I found myself wondering coldly where Trey’s father fitted in to all this? How much of the responsibility did he share for Sean’s death?

The answer to that one didn’t so much hit me as rise slowly and uncomfortably into my mind, like sitting in the bath while it fills from a slow-running cold tap. Livingston Brown had told me that he’d seen Keith leaving the house in Fort Lauderdale apparently of his own volition. But he also said the man had seemed nervous and in a hurry.

Supposing that wasn’t because Keith had been running away. Supposing Brown had misinterpreted the reason for Keith’s unease and instead it was because his every move was being watched by people who’d told him they had already kidnapped his son.

As the thought formed, I was half-tempted to let it go but it stuck to my fingers like static cling and I couldn’t shake it loose. Little things kept popping into my mind. Like the fact that Whitmarsh had known instantly from Henry’s e-mails that the one they were missing was Trey, not Keith.

So Keith hadn’t done a runner. He’d been taken.

And Gerri Raybourn was the one pulling all the strings.

My resolve hardened along with my certainty. I turned away from the window and glanced across at Walt in the driving seat.

“How much do you know about Ms Raybourn?” I asked.

“Oh this and that,” Walt said, voice easy and casual as ever. “She’s well-respected in her field. Did ten years with the Bureau, as a matter of fact.”

“Ah,” I said dryly, “so that’s why Special Agent Till doesn’t want to move against her without overwhelming evidence – she’s part of the old boy network.”

“Former agents are treated just the same as everyone else,” Walt said firmly but without showing irritation. “I checked her records and she left more’n three years ago. Went through a messy divorce and her ex got custody of the kids. He got laid off from his job so she’s having to pay him off and put her eldest through college. I guess she found she could make a little more money on the outside than she could working for the government.”

“So she’s short on cash,” I murmured, “and long on motive.”

I remembered our drive from the airport when she’d got the call that told her news of the program had leaked out to the press. Her display of anger then had certainly seemed genuine but I suppose if she was planning on stealing the program along with its inventor, the fewer people who knew about it the better. She’d had me fooled into thinking I could trust her the night I’d called her for help from the motel. And look how that had ended.

Walt glanced wryly at me. “Motive for what?”

“For wanting the program for herself,” I said. “I think she engineered the trouble at the company recently so she could call in Sean and me as back-up. That way, when she took Keith and Trey—”

“Which she’s claiming you’re responsible for,” Walt cut in.

I ducked my head in agreement. “True, she is, but bear with me on this. As I said, that way she already has us in place as fall-guys. She has her boys grab Sean along with Keith and hopes to get Trey and me at the park on the same day. That way she’s got the option of either claiming Keith’s done a runner, or that we’ve taken him.”

Good as his word, Walt didn’t immediately dismiss my suggestion. Instead he nodded slowly, frowning. Ahead of us the lights changed and he braked smoothly to a halt.

“But her man fumbles the ball,” he said then.

“Yeah, he did,” I agreed. “So, next best thing, she puts it out that I’ve got Trey. But, the last thing she can afford to have happen is for the cops to get hold of us. That might blow the whole thing. So when they nearly do, she has her boys step in and kill the cop. By then she’s past caring about getting hold of Trey alive. He was only to secure Keith’s good behaviour anyway. She just wants us dead.”

The lights changed and Walt set the car moving forwards again. His measured driving style reminded me of police drivers in the UK. He negotiated a parked truck in the right-hand lane before he spoke again.

“So it’s not until that guy you mentioned – Henry – offers you to them on a plate that she realises that without Trey the program kinda won’t work.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Because after that Whitmarsh was desperate to take us alive, but the message obviously hadn’t got through to Haines. I have no idea why not. It could simply have been a cock-up in communications. But Whitmarsh was even prepared to shoot Haines’s men to protect us. And to let me go when I threatened Trey myself.”

Walt looked surprised. “You didn’t mention that part.”

“You try living with that kid twenty-four hours a day and you’d want to shoot him, too,” I said, only half joking.

Walt frowned again, but whether it was deep thought, or whether he disapproved of my flippancy in the circumstances, it was difficult to tell.

“So you reckon Gerri Raybourn’s holding Keith somewhere, hoping she can still get the pair of them.”

I nodded. “That’s how it seems to me. One’s not worth much without the other.”

He let his breath out tiredly, almost a sigh. “Makes it kinda all the more important she’s stopped, Charlie,” he said.

“I know,” I said. And inside my head another voice added, Oh I’ll stop her all right, Walt. Don’t you worry about that . . .

***

Less than an hour after we’d left Daytona Beach and headed down the coast, Walt slowed the Lincoln to a halt on the dusty shoulder of the highway and nodded towards the other side of the road. The other traffic continued past us at speed, close enough to rock our car each time they did so.

“That’s the place,” he said.

All I saw was a neatly rendered low white wall bordering suspiciously man-made looking grounds of part grass and part tropical forest. It looked sculpted for effect rather than natural. The grass was artificially green and bright, and the wall itself seemed to go on for miles in both directions. I tried to remember when it had first started but I hadn’t been paying enough attention.

A little way from where we’d stopped was an impressive wrought-iron gateway, next to which was a lavish sign. It showed an artist’s impression of a range of Mediterranean-style villas, all white stucco and terracotta tiles, surrounding a lake in the centre. Around the edges of the sign were depictions of Prozac-happy couples playing golf, or water skiing, or sharing an intimate after-dinner drink at sunset.

The sign announced a new and exclusive opportunity in vacation resort ownership. It sounded like the copywriters were trying desperately to squirm out of using the word time-share, with all the sharp-practice baggage that entailed.

“So what are you suggesting – that I go over the wall?”

“You can do if you really want to,” Walt said, cocking me a wry glance, “but this place is only two-thirds built and half sold. It’d sure be easier for you to just walk up to the front gate and tell ‘em you’re interested in buying.”

I spread my hands to indicate my current garb. “And you really think, me dressed like this, they’re going to fall for that?” I demanded.

“Well, OK,” he allowed. “Maybe you should tell ‘em as how your folks are interested and you’re meeting them here. You seem a resourceful kinda girl, Charlie.”

I considered. “OK,” I said.

But as I reached for the door handle, Walt stopped me.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

When I didn’t respond he leaned across and opened the glove compartment. Inside was a small memo recorder, the kind that takes micro cassettes for business meetings. He lifted it out, checked the tape inside was at its beginning, and handed it over, showing me the voice activation button.

“Just press that and leave it,” he said. “It’ll start up automatically when someone starts speaking. That way you don’t have to worry none about running out of tape.”

“OK,” I said again. “Just one thing, though, Walt. How much of a confession do you need me to get out of Gerri when I get in there?”

“I reckon you’ll know that when you hear it. Just get us something we can use as a lever and we’ll do the rest.”

We, I noted. Us. I wondered if Walt would ever consider himself completely retired from the job.

“I see,” I said. I unzipped the bag and crammed the recorder inside. It was a tight fit with the SIG as well but I just managed to get both articles in there and close the bag up again. When I was done I found Walt watching me gravely.

“Don’t do anything in haste you might regret at leisure, Charlie,” he said softly, but he didn’t mention the gun.

I reached for the door handle to get out, then paused. “She’s behind the men who murdered Sean.”

Walt glanced at me, then let out a long sigh. “Aw hell, Charlie, I know that,” he said. “I guess I’m just hoping MacMillan was kinda right about you.”

“Right about what?” I said. I remembered our earlier conversation. “About my instinct?”

“No,” Walt said now. “He told me you’d killed, but that he didn’t believe you were a killer.” He turned his head and gave me a long level stare. “I don’t believe that either and I’m kinda praying to the good Lord we’re both right, or I just made myself an accessory to the crime.”

I got out of the car without answering that one, just shut the door behind me.

“Don’t wait for me,” I said through the open window. “I’ll make my own way back.”

I walked quickly to the gateway without looking back, not giving Walt the chance to realise that both he and MacMillan were about to be proved wrong.

Dead wrong.

The iron gates were intended more for decoration than security and looked as though they’d never been shut. I was still aware of a shiver of apprehension as I passed between them. A short distance beyond, there was a guardhouse in the middle of the drive. Next to that was a barrier to block off the road but it was in the up position and it stayed there as I walked towards it.

It was close to midday and the sun was at the highest point of its arc so that I cast a very short shadow on the block paving under my feet. My shirt had stuck to my back and I could feel the back of my neck burning. The little flowered bag containing the tape recorder and the SIG with its almost-empty magazine bumped against my hip as I walked.

As I approached I saw a head appear in the window of the guardhouse, then the figure moved to the doorway and came out to watch me. For a moment I tensed but as I drew nearer I saw the uniformed guard could only have been a year or two younger than Walt.

“Afternoon, young lady,” he said cheerfully. “What can I do for you today?”

I manufactured a gormless teenage expression. “I’m s’posed to be, like meeting my mom. She’s got a place here, y’know?” I said, looking about me vaguely, as though expecting her to materialise out of the shrubbery.

The old guard didn’t look either fazed or suspicious of my story.

“No problem,” he said, picking up his clipboard. “What’s her name?”

“Gerri Raybourn,” I said, trying not to hold my breath after I’d said it. “She and my dad are, like, divorced and I’m s’posed to be staying with her ‘til I go back to college next week. It’s a real drag.”

Too much information, my mind yelled in my inner ear. Shut up!

“No problem,” the guard said again. He found the name and made a note against it. “You know where to find her villa?”

I shook my head, hoping the clueless guise would be a good enough excuse.

“Tell you what, then, you step inside out of the heat and I’ll have someone come down and give you a ride. Save you the walk. Then if your mom’s stepped out you can have a tour or sit by the pool at the clubhouse and have a soda while you wait for her to come get you, OK?”

My God, I thought. How young exactly do I look? “Cool,” I said out loud, and did as I was invited.

Inside the guardhouse wasn’t air conditioned but the old guy had an oscillating fan set up on the desk right in front of his chair, and it was going full belt. A rake of high-quality security monitors were laid out across the back wall, showing constantly updating views right across the property.

The coverage was impressive and it looked like Walt had been right. If I’d tried to creep in I would have been caught before I’d got halfway across the grounds. This way I didn’t even need to worry about directions.

Five minutes later an electric golf cart zipped up outside and a young man bounced out. He was dressed in designer tan chinos and a dark green polo shirt with the resort logo on the front and he was far too slick a professional to look dismayed by the obvious lack of money suggested by my appearance.

“Hi there!” he said. He stuck out his hand. He had great teeth, a great tan, and a manicure. “I’m Randy.”

I kept my face as straight as I could manage and didn’t inquire if that was an introduction or a declaration of intent.

“Cool,” I said again. “Let’s go.”

As I climbed into the golf cart alongside Randy I realised I could almost see myself as he saw me, a kid with pink hair and an attitude. It was like I had stepped outside my own body, my own mind. Like I was slowly detaching myself in advance from my actions. Hiding from them.

Randy made chatty one-sided conversation all the way along the immaculately tailored drive, going into sales pitch mode as he pointed out the championship golf course, the driving range and the tennis courts, all complete with their own pro instructors. I tuned him out until I realised I’d nearly missed a name I recognised.

“Who?” I said.

“Livingston Brown III,” Randy gushed. “He’s the property developer. Been doing this kinda thing most of his life. Nearly got wiped out a few years ago when we had the last big hurricane – that one nearly wiped out most of the east coast – but he bounced right back. He shoulda retired by now but I guess the guy just loves his work. He built this whole place. Puts us twenty-somethings to shame, let me tell you. Quite a guy.”

“Wow,” I murmured, as though I couldn’t imagine anyone still being able to walk unaided at such an advanced age, but my nerves tightened at this piece of news. If I was likely to bump into him, would Brown recognise me in this get-up? “Is he here?”

“Oh he’s usually around someplace,” Randy said and flashed me a slightly condescending smile. One that said no way was the boss man ever going to come into contact with someone as far down the food chain as me, not if he could help it.

On the way to the villa belonging to my ‘mother’ he took a detour to show me the campfire area near one of the pools. “We organise barbecue nights and sing-alongs round the fire in the evenings that you and your mom can join in on,” he said. “It’s a lotta fun.”

“Oh boy, I can hardly wait,” I said between my teeth. He looked at me a little oddly but I managed to dredge up a saccharine smile that seemed to convince him I’d been expressing genuine enthusiasm.

If it didn’t sound the kind of place I’d want to come and spend my holidays, there were plenty who were willing to be swayed. An army of green polo-shirted staff were leading prospective customers round the lushly-planted pathways, or driving them about the place in golf carts similar to Randy’s.

The staff were all young and good-looking but that only added to the vaguely sinister feel of the place, like they were the identical minions at the chief baddie’s secret lair in a James Bond film.

When I reached the villa Randy indicated I let him knock on the door for me, keeping as far to one side of him as I could, out of sight of the Judas glass set into the centre panel. I had one hand dipped into the bag, but not to reach for the voice activation button on the recorder. That remained switched off. Instead, my fingers curled round the pistol grip of the SIG. I became aware of an ever-expanding bubble of tension somewhere deep in my chest.

“Well, doesn’t look like she’s home,” Randy said cheerfully when his loud knocks produced no movement from inside the villa. “We’ll try over at the clubhouse.”

The clubhouse seemed to be the centre of activity. Raucously carnival-type music belted out of speakers on the outside of the building to whip you into the buying frame of mind. As he led the way inside I caught snatches of other conversations.

“If you’da known five years ago what was going to happen to the price of real estate in this area, would you have bought then?” asked another slick salesman.

“In a heartbeat,” said the fat man following him.

Randy stopped by the main reception desk and explained he was trying to locate my mother. He waited with a touch of impatience while the receptionist tapped something into her computer. “Just checking to see if your mom’s booked in to the health spa, or on any of the courts,” Randy explained.

“If you find her, please don’t, like, tell her I’m here, will you?” I said quickly. “Only, I kinda wanted to surprise her.”

“Sure,” he said, easily enough. Either I was getting very good at telling lies, or these people were abnormally trusting.

“OK, I’ve located Ms Raybourn,” the receptionist said, smiling at me. “She’s with Mr Brown at the moment, then she’s due for a massage and a facial after lunch.”

Randy glanced at me with something akin to respect. If my mother was important enough to have meetings with the main man, his look clearly said, I’d gone up in his estimation.

“Where’s Mr Brown’s office?” I asked. “I’ll just go and kinda wait until she’s done there.”

“He’s upstairs and I have instructions not to disturb him,” the receptionist said, still smiling but with a touch more steel than before. “If you’d like to wait out by the pool, I’m sure someone will let you know when she’s done.”

I plastered on a cheery smile and cursed inwardly as Randy led me through the clubhouse itself and out to a paved terrace overlooking a curvy pool with a waterfall and a bar in the centre.

Kids were running round the water’s edge, shrieking the way only small children can to signify enjoyment. Their parents were sitting in the water drinking lurid coloured cocktails made with half a fruit salad and half a dozen little paper umbrellas. If drowning their sorrows in drink didn’t do the trick, there was always the real thing to fall back on. Or into.

But this didn’t get me any closer to Gerri Raybourn. And it was much too public for what I had in mind.

Something was folded tight inside now, clamouring to be allowed out. For the first time I was afraid of what might happen if I let it loose. I pushed away that fear.

Randy was making moves to disentangle himself. I could see his greedy eyes flickering over the likely-looking purchasers who were being assigned to other salesmen. I could see him calculating his lost commission with every second he wasted on me. My best hope was slipping away.

As he started to turn I reached out and clasped his arm. He tensed under my fingers instantly, trying to make the most of his biceps. Pride was always a useful vanity to exploit.

I gave him my most wheedling smile.

“You’re not leaving me already, are you?” I said, a little breathless. “Only, it’s kinda hot and crowded out here.” I tugged at the collar of my shirt to demonstrate the effect of the heat and the crowds. I loosened a couple of buttons in the process. His eyes followed for a moment, lingered. Encouraged, I even tried a quick flutter of the eyelashes, ladling on the innuendo. “Isn’t there anywhere, like, quieter we could go?”

Inwardly, I was flinching. Surely nobody would ever fall for such a blatantly awful pickup as this.

For a moment Randy studied me with a slightly narrowed expression. I could almost hear the wheels turning as he made up his mind whether a quick fumble he could boast about in the changing rooms at his local sports club tomorrow was worth missing out on a possible lucrative deal. It only took him a couple of seconds before he decided that it was.

“Well, OK honey,” he murmured, and he’d lowered the pitch of his voice as well as the volume. “I guess I could give you the—” his eyes dipped to my cleavage again, “—personal guided tour.”

I simpered and followed as he led the way back inside. He was hurrying now, his mind totally controlled by some other part of his anatomy.

He hustled me down a short corridor and tried two offices before he found one that was unoccupied, the lights switched off. As soon as the door was locked behind us he had me backed up against a filing cabinet, his hands everywhere. Jesus, here was a boy who didn’t need to be asked twice. He had the bad breath of a smoker, despite those gleaming white teeth.

I locked down my revulsion somewhere round my back teeth, hardly feeling it. Under the surface I was crackling like a high tension power line in the rain. The further into this course of action I got, the less chance there was of turning back. I had to go through with it.

What was more, I wanted to.

I wrenched my mouth free, turning my head away enough to mutter, “Wait. I got something in my bag for you.”

I managed to get my arms inside his and lever him away. Looked like he really did live up to his name. He let go of me with reluctance and watched as I reached into the bag.

“You sure came prepared, huh?” he said thickly, giving me a knowing leer.

“Yep, I sure did,” I muttered.

When my hand came out of the bag again, the SIG was in it. I had to wedge the end of the barrel against Randy’s breastbone and prod him back with it before I finally got his full attention. I wiped his slobber from my mouth with the back of my other hand.

“Hey! What’s going on?” he blustered, too annoyed yet by the sudden interruption to be as frightened as he should have been. “What’s your game, honey?”

“I am not your ‘honey’,” I bit out, dropping all pretence at the American accent. I shoved him backwards and circled so I was between him and the door. For the first time he began to show alarm.

“I want to know where Brown and Gerri Raybourn are,” I said, cold. I made a big show of racking back the SIG’s slide to chamber the first round. The noise alone made him recoil. “If you can’t tell me, I will shoot you and find somebody else who can.”

“I don’t know where they are!” he protested. “Jesus, lady, I’m just a freakin’ time-share salesman, y’know?”

I didn’t speak, just adjusted my grip on the SIG so the business end was centred about on the logo on the front of Randy’s shirt.

His face collapsed and he started to cry. “I just work here,” he sobbed. He reached out towards me with both hands, pleading, then thought better of it. “Hey, I got a wife and a baby.”

I recalled the ease with which he’d been persuaded into the office and the disgust rose.

“Stop giving me even more reasons to shoot you,” I snapped. I stepped back to one of the desks and picked up the phone receiver. “Just call your switchboard and find out where Brown is.”

“That’s it?” he said, pathetically hopeful now. “That’s all I have to do and then you let me go, right? You don’t hurt me?”

Letting him go was going to be a tricky one. He was the type who would swear on his mother’s grave that he would stay quiet, then scream for security the moment he was out of range.

“Just make the call, Randy,” I said.

I stayed close up behind him while he dialled the switchboard operator. Mr Brown, she told him, was on his usual extension, but he was on a call. Would he hold?

I pressed my finger down firmly on top of the phone, cutting him off, then peeled the receiver out of his hand and dropped it back on its cradle.

“Hey, you promised I could go,” he said. His tears had vanished now, his bravado starting to come back with a touch of belligerence, too.

“Take me to him,” I said.

When he made to argue I brought the gun up a little more firmly into view. This time when his eyes followed it they had a hint of cunning to them, as though he was waiting for his chance. What better way to serve his grasping ambition than to save the boss from some gun-wielding nutcase.

It seemed a shame to disillusion him.

“You watch the news much, Randy?” I asked.

He shook his head, nerves making him babble. “A little, y’know. Mostly I’m a sports kinda guy. I just catch the headlines.”

“Uh-huh. And have you seen any reports about an English girl who’s been shooting people left, right and centre over the last couple of days?”

As soon as I said it, it clicked. I saw it in his suddenly bone-white face. He nodded. I never thought all that bad publicity would come in so useful.

“Just bear that in mind,” I murmured as I pushed my whole hand, still gripping the gun, back into my bag to keep it out of sight, “if you should think about doing anything stupid or heroic on the way to Brown’s office, hmm?”

A lamb now rather than a lion, the salesman led me out of the office, back down the corridor and into a lift across the hallway. We only went up one floor but Randy obviously didn’t like to walk.

All the time I kept the bag close to him, so he wouldn’t be in any doubt. He glanced at it a couple of times while we were in the lift, and I thought I saw him swallow, but he stayed docile. He was lucky that he did.

The energy and the anger inside me was winding tighter and burning brighter with every step. My pulse had started to thunder, beating a harsh tattoo at my temple.

I didn’t have a qualm that I’d lied to Walt and that I was about to disappoint all Superintendent MacMillan’s hopes for me. I’d known it for a while now that I had the ability to take a life. I’d justified it to myself by saying it was only under the most extreme of circumstances. Only when it was a case of them or me.

Well, not this time.

It was almost a relief not to have to hide behind the pretence of civilisation any more.

The lift doors opened and I pushed Randy out ahead of me. In front were more offices, larger this time, their doors more widely spaced. Expensive-looking potted plants livened up the spacious corridor.

At the end was a door with an engraved stainless steel plaque on it which read, ‘Livingston Brown III – President and CEO’. I turned the handle and pushed open the door without knocking.

The man inside was indeed on the phone as the switchboard had claimed. He was sitting behind a huge limed oak desk, leaning back in his executive chair so he could admire the subtly tinted view of his empire out of the floor-to-ceiling picture window that made up one entire wall.

As we came in he sat up abruptly, his expression first one of irritation, then surprise, as he took in his terrified minion. And me.

Sitting in a chair on the side of the desk closest to me was a tiny blonde woman, dressed today in a lavender power suit and lethal-looking white slingbacks. When she caught sight of me the recognition was instant, despite my disguise. Her mouth rounded into a silent O.

Our eyes locked. My target’s and mine. The object of this journey of execution.

“I’m sorry, sir, she made me do it!” Randy gabbled, taking advantage of my distraction to duck out of my grasp and bolt for the door. I didn’t bother to stop him going. He’d served his purpose.

“Hello Gerri,” I said, bringing the gun up straight and level so I had a sight picture that put her scarlet-painted upper lip dead centre stage. “Remember me?”