Second Shot

Two

A bodyguard?” Simone Kerse said blankly to the man sitting next to me. “Rupert, have you gone totally crazy? I absolutely do not need a bodyguard.” She raked me with a fierce gaze. “Of any description.”

My first meeting with Simone, just ten days before I was shot, over a wickedly expensive lunch at a very upmarket restaurant just off Grosvenor Square in the embassy district of London. Not exactly an auspicious start.

Simone had a very slight American accent, more an inflection than anything stronger. She was also young and strikingly good-looking, and nothing at all like my preconception of an engineer.

Just as, it seemed, I was nothing like her preconception of a bodyguard.

Rupert Harrington, on the other hand, could only have been a banker. In his early fifties, tall and thin and bespectacled, he had very little hair and a permanently anxious expression. It crossed my mind after meeting him for the first time that those two facts could easily have been connected.

“I can assure you, my dear,” he said to Simone now, with a touch of asperity, “that a number of the bank’s clients have had cause to require the services of Mr. Meyer’s people and he comes with the highest recommendations. And even you must admit that this has all gone rather beyond a joke, hm?”

He sat back in his chair, careful not to spoil the impeccable line of his conservative dark blue pinstripe suit, and flicked a pained glance in my boss’s direction as if to say, Help me out here, would you?

“I agree,” Sean Meyer said obligingly, his voice bland but with an almost imperceptible underlying thread of amusement. Not at the situation but at the banker’s discomfort because of it. “The threats have been escalating. If you won’t go to the police, you’re going to have to take your own measures.”

He leaned forwards slightly, resting his forearms on the starched white tablecloth and looking directly into Simone’s eyes. There was something utterly compelling about Sean when he pinned you down with that dark gaze, and Simone was no more immune than anyone else.

“I’m not suggesting we surround you with a bunch of heavies,” he went on, “but if you won’t accept a full team then you should at least consider the kind of discreet, low-profile security we can offer. That’s why I brought Charlie along for you to meet.”

He nodded in my direction as he spoke, and both Simone and Harrington swung skeptical eyes towards me.

In between them, although somewhat closer to tabletop height, another pair of eyes regarded me unwaveringly And, I don’t mind admitting, that was the gaze I found the most unnerving.

Simone’s young daughter, Ella, sat on a booster cushion alongside her mother and carefully speared a dessert fork into the pieces of yellow smoked haddock that had been cut up into child-friendly pieces on her plate. It wasn’t the kind of food I would have expected a four-year-old to enjoy, but she was shoveling it in with apparent enthusiasm and chewing largely with her mouth open. I tried not to watch.

Simone’s gaze drifted to her daughter and lingered there for a moment with no apparent sign of displeasure. I suppose, if you were maternally minded, Ella was the sort of child who would induce instant broodiness. She was petite, with a miniature version of her mother’s dark ringleted curls framing a heart-shaped face. Couple that to big violet-colored eyes and she had “spoiled little brat” written all over her. I wasn’t too disappointed that her mother seemed so set against my being assigned to protect the pair of them.

Suddenly, Simone let out an annoyed breath through her nose, as though gathering her internal resources.

“OK, so Matt’s having a hard time accepting our breakup-and lately I suppose he has gotten to be something of a pain in the butt,” she allowed, her eyes still fixed on Ella. She smiled at the little girl, wiped a rogue piece of fish from her chin and turned away with clear reluctance. Her focus landed squarely on me. “But that doesn’t mean I need some kind of nanny.”

Much as I didn’t particularly want the job, I thought the nanny gibe was a bit below the belt. I’d made an effort to look smart and businesslike for this meeting. Dark brown trouser suit, cream blouse. Under protest, I’d even gunked on some lipstick.

Sean was wearing a charcoal gray made-to-measure that subtly disguised the height and the breadth of him but, to my eyes, did little to hide the deadly grace that was an innate part of his makeup.

I’d caught a glimpse of our reflections in the mirror above the bar when we’d arrived at the restaurant and I reckoned, to the casual observer at least, we probably looked like accountants. That was certainly the effect we’d been aiming for.

Harrington opened his mouth to protest at his client’s comments, but before he could speak Sean cut in again. “As I understand it, you’ve had constant phone calls and you’ve been forced to change your mobile number-twice,” he said calmly “Your ex-boyfriend has been hanging around outside both your home and your daughter’s nursery school. You’ve had notes left on your car. Unwanted deliveries. I think you need a little more than some kind of nanny, don’t you?”

Simone switched her attention from me back to Sean. In contrast to the rest of us, she was dressed in battleship gray cargo trousers and a dark red chenille sweater with sleeves that came down almost to her fingertips. Her curly dark hair was pulled loosely back into a ponytail. Harrington had told us she was twenty-eight, a year older than I was. She looked about eighteen.

“You make it sound so much worse than it is, Mr. Meyer,” she said, folding her arms defensively. “Notes on my car? OK, they’re love letters. Unwanted deliveries? Sure, bouquets of flowers. Matt and I were together five years, for heaven’s sake! We share a child.” She swallowed, lowered her voice. “You’re making him out to be some kind of stalker.”

“Isn’t he?” Sean asked, head tilted slightly on one side. His voice had taken on the same cool note and his face the same impassive watchfulness that had always unnerved me so badly, back when he had been one of my army training instructors, and had always seen entirely too much.

Simone flushed and avoided his gaze. Instead, she spoke to Harrington directly. “I’ll talk to Matt again,” she said, her tone placatory now. “He’ll see sense eventually.” She smiled at the banker with a lot more affection than she’d shown to either Sean or me. “I’m sorry you felt you had to take such drastic action on my behalf, Rupert, but there wasn’t any need, really.”

Harrington looked about to protest further, but he correctly read the stubborn expression on Simone’s face and raised both palms in an admission of defeat.

“All right, my dear,” he said, rueful. “If you’re quite sure.”

“Yes,” Simone said firmly. “I am.”

“Mummy, I need to go wee-wee,” Ella piped up in a loud whisper. The smartly dressed elderly couple at the next table clearly subscribed to the unseen-and-unheard school of child raising. They were too British to actually turn around and glare, but I saw their outraged spines stiffen nevertheless.

If Simone noticed their disapproval, she ignored it and smiled at her daughter. “OK, sweetie,” she said, sliding her own chair back so she could lift Ella down and take her by the hand as she got to her feet. “If you’ll excuse us?”

“Of course,” Harrington said, good manners compelling him to stand also.

Sean had already risen, I noted, and for a second I was struck by the air of urbane sophistication he presented. This from a man who had left behind his roots on a run-down housing estate in a small northern city, but who still knew how to slide right back into that rough-diamond skin when the occasion demanded. The banker would not recognize Sean on his home ground.

My eyes followed mother and child as they weaved their way between the busy tables. Although Simone was not my principal-and at that stage I didn’t expect she would become so-watching people was beginning to become a habit, all part of the career I’d chosen. Or maybe the job had ultimately chosen me. I was never too sure about that.

Sean didn’t need to learn to watch anyone. For him it was an instinct ingrained deep as an old tattoo, indelible and permanent. He was just too driven, too focused, to ever let himself begin to blur.

“I’m awfully sorry about this,” Harrington said as the men sat down again and rearranged their napkins across their knees. “She just won’t listen to reason and, quite frankly, her refusal to admit there might be any kind of danger, either to herself or to little Ella, terrifies us, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

“How much did she win?” Sean asked, reaching for his glass of Perrier.

“Thirteen million, four hundred thousand, and change,” the banker said with the casual tone of someone used to working with those kinds of figures on a daily basis, but I still heard the trace of a sneer in his voice as he added, “It was, if I understand it correctly, what they term a double rollover.”

“Money’s still money,” Sean said. “Just because her ancestors didn’t steal it doesn’t make her any less rich.”

Harrington had the grace to color. “Oh, quite so, old chap,” he murmured. “But Simone is having some difficulty adjusting to the fact that, from the day she bought that winning ticket, her life was never going to be quite the same again. Do you know, she arrived at our office this morning having actually come into town, with the child, on the Tube? Didn’t want to have to try to park in the middle of London, she said.” He shook his head, as though Simone had suggested walking naked through Trafalgar Square.

“I told her she should have hired a car and driver to take her door-to-door and she looked absolutely baffled,” the banker went on. “It simply doesn’t cross her mind that she can afford to do these things. Nor does it occur to her that, by not doing them, she’s putting both herself and her daughter at risk from every crackpot and kidnapper out there-quite apart from the situation with her former, er, boyfriend.”

“It does, as you so rightly point out, make them prime targets-Ella especially,” Sean agreed. “How serious a threat do you consider her ex?”

“Well, if you’d asked me that a few weeks ago, I would have said he was a minor irritation, but now …” The banker broke off with an eloquent shrug. “One of the first things Simone did with her money was hire various private investigation agencies to try and trace her estranged father. One of them now believes they have a promising lead, and ever since that report came in, this Matt chap just seems to have become completely unreasonable.” Harrington paused, frowning. “Perhaps he believes a reunion between Simone and her father will spoil his own chances of a reconciliation with her,” he added with an almost imperceptible curl of his lip. “She’d have to be quite mad to take him back, of course.”

“What’s the story with Simone’s father?” I asked.

Harrington’s head came up in surprise. Not at the question, but that I’d been the one who’d put it. Even on such short acquaintance, I’d realized that Harrington didn’t speak to anyone he considered at servant level unless he had to, and even then he avoided eye contact. With that in mind I’d let Sean do most of the talking so far. From the expression on the banker’s face, he clearly hadn’t expected me to wade in at this late stage. His eyes swiveled warily in my direction.

Sean flashed me a lazy smile, one that would have made my knees buckle if I hadn’t already been sitting down, and raised an eyebrow to Harrington, as if to repeat the question.

Harrington coughed. “Naturally, one doesn’t wish to be indiscreet, but… well, as I understand it, Simone’s mother was an American, who came over here and married an Englishman, Greg Lucas-an army chap, so I understand. They divorced when Simone was not much more than a baby, and mother and child went back to the States — Chicago, I believe it was-but her father rather dropped off the map, as it were.”

He broke off as the wine waiter glided up to the table and smoothly topped up his glass, finishing the bottle. Harrington ignored him and I wondered briefly what kind of pivotal decisions were made in the afternoons in the world of high finance after boozy lunches just like this one.

“I assume Kerse is Simone’s mother’s name?” I said when the waiter had departed.

Harrington nodded. “She went back to it after the divorce. Anyway, Simone’s mother died a few years ago. There were no siblings, her grand-parents on both sides are long gone and Simone herself is currently expending considerable effort-not to mention her now not insubstantial resources — on attempting to locate this Lucas chap.” He stopped to take a sip of his wine.

“Unsuccessfully?”

“Hm.” Harrington dabbed fastidiously at his mouth with his napkin. “So far, but then, as I mentioned, a couple of weeks ago one of the firms she’s using in Boston thought they’d made some progress and she’s been talking about going over there ever since.”

“Boston,” I repeated blankly, glancing at Sean and finding no reassurance there. “As in Massachusetts, not Lincolnshire?”

Harrington frowned. “Naturally,” he said with a flicker of irritation. “The rumor was that Simone’s father had followed his ex-wife to the USA, so of course that’s where she started looking.” He paused, eyes darting from one of us to the other and registering the sudden undercurrents. “Urn, one knows America is supposed to be a civilized country and all that, but bearing in mind Simone’s somewhat unique circumstances, and given the trouble with her ex, we’d be happier if she had some kind of security consultant along with her when she goes over there.” He nodded to Sean but didn’t shift his gaze away from me. “Mr. Meyer suggested you’d be just the lady for the job, as it were,” he finished with a hearty cheerfulness that didn’t quite succeed in masking his natural aversion to female equality in the workplace.

Sean had no such prejudices. During the seven months that had passed since I’d started working full-time for his exclusive close protection agency, he’d sent me on jobs all over Europe, South Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and I hadn’t turned a hair.

Things didn’t always go smoothly, of course, and sometimes that had nothing to do with dangers from outside sources.

I’d just returned from a month in Prague as part of a four-man detail. The otherwise all-male team had started out trying to treat me as a cross between their own personal maid and private secretary. Three days in, one of them had made what turned out to be, for him, a very unfortunate remark about the sexual proclivities of the Women’s Royal Army Corps, of which I’d once been a member, and my temper had finally got the better of me. Still, they reckoned he should be out of his cast inside six weeks. His colleagues-and his forewarned replacement-had treated me with the utmost respect after that, and the job went off without further unpleasantness.

I’d proved, or so I’d thought, that I was capable of doing the job. It was just the question of where that was still causing me some qualms.

America.

There was no logic to it, but when I glanced at Sean I felt a dull anxiety almost akin to panic. I’m not ready to go back.

His face carried no expression beyond a cold determination I barely recognized. If not now, then when?

“Urn, is there some problem?” Harrington finished, as the atmosphere finally negotiated its way past the merlot that had formed a constituent part of his lunch. “If it’s a question of timing, this trip probably wouldn’t be for a month or so, if then. The investigation is still in its early stages at the moment, from what one can gather. There would be no point in Simone going out there until they’ve actually found the man, or at least until they have more information for her, would there?”

“It’s not that.” I took a deep breath. “It’s just-”

“I think you should check on Simone and Ella, Charlie-make sure they’re OK,” Sean said. He spoke quietly, calmly, but the demand for utter obedience came across loud and clear in the very softness of his voice, nevertheless. I spiked him with a short vicious glare, tempted to outright mutiny. I told myself the only reason I didn’t was because such behavior would be totally unprofessional in front of a client. Part of me even believed that as a viable excuse.

“Of course,” I murmured demurely, pushing my chair back and dumping my napkin onto the table top. Later, Sean … “If you’ll excuse me?”

Harrington didn’t treat me to the full rise, just lifted himself partly out of his seat. I saw his eyes flicker with curbed curiosity between the two of us, but he didn’t ask questions. Or not until I was out of earshot, at least.

I turned my back and stalked through the restaurant away from them, following much the same path between the tables that Simone had taken, trying not to let my anger show as badly on the outside as I felt it raging under the surface.

America.

Sean knew how I felt about working there again. We’d practically been living together for six months, so how could he not?

The last time I’d been across the Atlantic was to Florida during the previous March. My first official assignment for Sean, to a holiday destination that had turned out to be anything but.

What should have been a simple babysitting job had escalated into a disaster of major proportions. I’d ended up on the run with my teenage charge and, although I’d got through it, the cost had been a high one on every level. I was still coming to terms with what had happened there. It had taken me several months afterwards to make the decision that close protection was where my future career lay

Since then, I’d never actually asked Sean not to send me to the States and he’d never actually asked me to go back-before today I tried not to think of the people who’d died in Florida as a result of the unfolding catastrophe I’d found myself caught up in. I’d been personally responsible for three deaths-“personally” being the operative word.

Small wonder, then, that I was in no hurry to return.

Now, I pushed open the door to the ladies’ room, where a rake of low-voltage spotlights picked out the sparkle and flash in the black marble and granite that had been used to lavishly line the place.

Simone was leaning against the doorjamb of one of the cubicles, holding the door itself closed with one hand on the top of it. She had her back to the exit, but the wall opposite had a row of mirrors above the freestanding washbasins.

Our eyes met in the reflection and she smiled briefly before her eyes slid away, as though I hadn’t made enough of an impression to hold her attention for any longer.

I didn’t want to make it obvious that I’d only come in to keep an eye on her, but I didn’t want to go into a cubicle, either, just in case she left before I came out. Instead, I walked past her to the basins, which were frosted green glass bowls with taps that you had to wave at in order to get any water out of them. I wet my hands, more to give me something to do with them rather than through any dire need. The soap smelt of bergamot, which was nice if you liked to carry out your ablutions in Earl Grey tea.

“Are you OK in there, sweetie?” Simone called.

A big sigh emanated from inside the cubicle. “Ye-es, Mummy,” came Ella’s voice, slightly singsong, humoring her.

I grinned into the mirror at the tone. Simone let her breath out fast down her nose and rolled her eyes, but a sneaky little smile made a bid for freedom across the corners of her lips. Just for a moment we shared the connection before the smile ran its course and faded away. I finished washing my hands and shook off the excess water into the bowl.

As I moved across to the stack of individual hand towels, Simone said, almost abruptly, “Look, I’m sorry if I was rude out there. Rupert kind of sprang this whole thing on me and I don’t like surprises.”

I shrugged. “Part of my job,” I said mildly, “would be to make sure you didn’t get any”

She pulled a face, considering, then said, “You don’t look like a bodyguard.”

Not the first time I’d heard comments like that. I glanced into the mirror one last time and saw an ordinary face — to me, nothing special- surrounded by a short bob of red-blond hair. Neat, businesslike. Together with the suit, the surface look said quiet, competent, maybe even a little wary, but the last thing I’d been aiming for was to stand out in a crowd.

I dropped the used towel into the laundry bin provided and returned Simone’s cool appraisal, probably still too unsettled to be as diplomatic as I might otherwise have been. “And you don’t look like a millionairess.”

She froze, her eyes widening. But just when I’d braced myself for an outburst, she smiled, a genuine show of amusement.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Charlie, but everybody’s been acting so timid around me lately,” she said with a bubble of laughter rising through her voice. “They all want to tell me how to live my life, but you’re a breath of fresh air after all these stuffed shirts.”

If that’s how you think of Sean, lady, then you’re not looking nearly deep enough.…

“I’m sure they only have your best interests at heart,” I said neutrally.

She gave a snort of derision. “Oh, sure,” she said, cynicism making her face suddenly hard. “Either that or their best interest rates-one or the other. Everybody seems to want a piece of me.”

“Including Matt.”

She shot me a quick warning glance, then shrugged. “Matt’s trouble was that he’s a man,” she said, abrupt. “He didn’t always think with his head-if you know what I mean.” Her eyes slid to the closed cubicle door, but her free hand gestured expressively to the front of her cargo trousers.

“Even after you won the money?”

Simone’s smile twisted. “No, he lucked out there,” she said with a hint of bitter sadness. “I knew he was fooling around with some of the girls at the place he works. Oh, he always denied it, but sometimes you just know, don’t you? Then one night I caught him coming in late with some lame excuse and I–I just totally lost my temper with him. I just went postal,” she admitted, flushing. “He didn’t say anything, which was as bad as an outright admission, right? He just went upstairs, packed a bag of his stuff and walked out. I thought he’d come back the next day, but he didn’t-how’s that for guilty conscience? And then a week later my numbers came up and now everything’s a whole lot more complicated.”

There was something in her face. I paused, tilted my head on one side in a way I knew I’d picked up from Sean. “You still love him,” I said, that part of it a statement. “So why not take him back-forgive and forget?”

She gave a restless twitch. “It’s not that simple anymore, is it? Why did he wait until after he found out about my win before he came back? How can I ever be sure …?”

“That he came back for you or for the money,” I finished for her.

Simone nodded unhappily. ‘And as for the way he’s behaving over trying to stop me looking for my dad, well, that’s just unbalanced,” she said in a low voice, breaking off and shaking her head. She gave a slow, weary smile. “Sometimes I wish I’d never bought that goddamn ticket.”

“Language, Mummy,” Ella’s voice drifted over the cubicle door, making both of us start. Simone colored again, as though she’d forgotten her daughter’s eavesdropping presence.

“Four going on forty,” Simone muttered, and, louder: “Sorry, sweetie.”

“That’s all right, Mummy,” Ella said in a patient tone that suggested she knew adults couldn’t really be held responsible for their actions. “I’m all finished,” she added.

Simone let go of the top of the door and pushed it open for Ella to come out. She’d tucked most of the back of her skirt into her tights, but apart from that she seemed to have managed to re-dress herself just fine. I waited until Simone had helped her daughter to wash and dry her hands, then held the door for them.

It was for that reason I was behind the pair as they made their way back to our table. Harrington and Sean were still deep in conversation, but I saw Sean’s head lift as soon as we appeared in his line of sight. Sean’s eyes met mine for a moment, then slid across my left shoulder and narrowed.

I saw him tense instantly, start to come out of his seat. Then I was twisting to the side, keeping my knees soft as I started to turn. I had no idea at that point what I was going to see.

A young, bearded man with a gaunt, intense face, wearing jeans and a baggy military-style jacket, had entered the restaurant and stepped into view only a couple of meters behind us. With surprising agility he’d shrugged away the hand of the maitre d’ who had tried to detain him, and his whole being was now focused on Simone and the child. His jacket was open and he had his right hand inside it, holding something concealed tight against his body.

Behind me, I sensed Sean was already going for the principals. There was no further need for communication between us. I knew instinctively that he’d selected his role based purely on cold logistics, leaving the threat for me because I was nearer, because it made more sense.

I saw the man’s arm flex as he began to withdraw his hand and I took a fast stride sideways, moving to intercept. I grabbed his right forearm just below his elbow and dug my left thumb hard into one of the main pressure points located there.

With my right hand I reached for his throat, using my own forward momentum to force him over backwards with that hold, hooking my leg around his calf to unbalance him and take him down. At the last moment I jerked my hand up slightly, enough to protect his head but not enough to stop him winding himself.

He landed with a sharp explosive whump of sound, the air gushing out of his lungs. His breath in my face smelt of peppermint. His right hand had drooped where I’d dead-armed him, letting whatever it was he’d been hiding slip to the floor.

I took a fraction of a second to scan it, just in case. It was a pink soft toy, a rabbit with long silky ears. I found myself kneeling partly on the toy animal’s body as the man who’d been carrying it struggled against my restraint.

A pink rabbit?

Suddenly, Ella’s voice was a piercing wail in my ear, accompanied by the stab of two tiny fists beating at my upper arm. Damn, she had a healthy punch for a four-year-old.

“Don’t you hurt my daddy!”

Daddy?

My grip on the man’s throat slackened just a fraction and he didn’t need a second invitation. In a flash he had levered his body half off the floor, shoving me backwards. I fought for balance and lunged for him again, seizing his jacket at the shoulder. He gave a kind of jerking twitch, as though to jettison the coat. I yanked the back of his collar down and twisted a great handful to form makeshift handcuffs around his lower arms. Then I piled onto his back, forcing him face-first into the carpet.

When I looked up I found the entire restaurant had frozen and were staring down at us. Harrington was on his feet, gaping at the tableau we presented in openmouthed horror.

Sean had his body between where I had the man pinned and Simone, his eyes scouring the rest of the crowd in case this was a diversion rather than the main event.

Simone had swept a loudly weeping Ella up into her arms. She was cradling the little girl on her hip and glaring ferociously at the man on the floor. His head was turned towards her, his nose mashed into the carpet by the pressure of my knee on the back of his neck. That might have been what had brought the tears to his eyes, or it might not.

“Simone, baby, please listen to me,” he managed in a muffled voice, scratchy with stress. “Don’t go to America. Don’t take Ella away from me. Please-”

“For God’s sake, Matt!” Simone snapped, and any trace of affection she’d shown for her ex when she’d spoken of him in the ladies’ room only a few minutes before had vanished, flattened out by anger and embarrassment. She leaned down towards him. “Who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?”

“Baby, please, don’t go. You don’t need him. I love you. I’ll do anything to make it up to you. Please.” He was almost gabbling, his voice wavering between a whine and a plea. “I’m begging here.”

“Well save your goddamn breath,” Simone told him in a savage whisper, and this time Ella didn’t bother to admonish her mother for swearing. “It’s nothing to do with you what I choose to do, or where I choose to go, or who I choose to see anymore. Get used to it!”

She straightened, juggling a tear-streaked Ella to the other hip, and swept her eyes over Harrington’s shocked and immobile figure. He was still standing by the table, with his napkin still clutched in his hand. Si-mone’s defiant gaze met mine over the top of Matt’s tethered body.

“I think I just changed my mind about needing a bodyguard, Charlie,” she said, her voice tired and bitter to the bone. “You’re hired.”