Текст книги "Lethal"

Автор книги: Sandra Brown

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Chapter 43

When Honor heard the song, she clapped both hands over her mouth, but started screaming behind them.

Coburn didn’t silently scream, but he felt like it. Fear, a foreign emotion to him, struck him to his core, and the mightiness of it stunned him. Suddenly it was clear to him why fear was such an effective motivator, why it reduced hardened men to mewling children, why, in the face of fear, individuals were willing to barter their god, country, anything for the threat to be removed.

His mind became a slide show of horrific images that he’d seen in war zones, the bodies of children burned, beaten, hacked at, until they no longer retained human form. Their youth and innocence hadn’t protected them from a violent, unconscionable egomaniac demanding absolute surrender. Such as The Bookkeeper.

And The Bookkeeper had Emily.

“Okay, Doral, you’ve got my attention.”

“I thought I might.”

His smug chuckle rankled. “Or are you bluffing?” Coburn asked.

“You wish.”

“Singing Elmos are easy to come by. How do I know it’s Emily’s?”

“Nice place Tori has got there on the lake.”

Coburn’s hand formed a fist. Through gnashed teeth, he said, “You hurt that little girl and—”

“Her fate is up to you, not me.”

Honor still had her fingers clamped over her lips. Above them, her eyes were watery, wide, and stark with anguish. Entering into a pissing contest with Doral wouldn’t get Emily returned to her unharmed. Although it galled him, he dispensed with the threats and asked what the terms were for getting Emily back.

“Simple, Coburn. You disappear. She lives.”

“By disappear, you mean die.”

“You’re nothing if not smart.”

“Smart enough to survive the car bomb.”

Doral didn’t address that. “Those are the terms.”

“Your terms suck.”

“Nonnegotiable.”

Mindful of the time he’d been on a phone that might possibly be traced, Coburn asked, “Where and when?”

Doral told him where to go, what time to be there, and what to do when he arrived. “You follow these instructions, Honor drives away with Emily. Then it’s you and me, pal.”

“I can hardly wait,” Coburn said. “But one last thing.”

“What?”

“Since you’ve botched everything so bad, why are you still breathing? The Bookkeeper must have a reason for keeping you alive. Think about it.”

Doral disconnected, muttering a stream of vile language.

Coburn was playing him. He was well aware of that. But Coburn was good at it.

Because he had tapped into Doral’s worst fear: He was nothing more than a flunky, and after everything that had gone wrong over the past seventy-two hours, an expendable one.

He looked over his shoulder into the backseat where Emily was sleeping, dosed with the Benadryl that he had given her so she wouldn’t be afraid or put up a fuss when it became clear to her that Uncle Doral had fibbed about why he’d taken her in the middle of the night from Tori’s lake house.

Just as he’d pulled the trigger to end Tori’s life, a piping voice came from behind him. “Hi, Uncle Doral.”

He spun around and there had stood Emily in the doorway of Tori’s bedroom, wearing a nightie, holding her Elmo and bankie, and, most disconcerting of all, happy to see him.

“Aunt Tori and I made mud pies. And guess what? Tomorrow she’s going to let me play in her makeup. How come you’ve got gloves on? It’s not cold outside. Why’s Aunt Tori on the floor?”

It had taken him several seconds to process her unexpected appearance. She started coming farther into the room, and with only seconds to spare, he had a burst of inspiration.

“She’s hiding her eyes and counting because we’re going to play hide-and-seek.”

With complete trust, Emily had played along. Sneaking downstairs with him, and out to the car that he’d borrowed from his cousin for the night, and into his backseat, Emily had stifled her conspiratorial giggles. They were several miles from the house before those gave way to wariness.

“I don’t think Aunt Tori can find us if we hide this far away.” And then, “Are you taking me to Mommy? Where’s Coburn? He’s gonna buy me an ice cream. I want to see them.”

The questions had become numerous and unnerving, and he was glad that one of his sisters had once remarked on the effectiveness of the liquid antihistamine for sedating kids. He’d stopped at a 7-Eleven, bought a cherry Slurpee and a bottle of the medication, and soon after drinking the laced slush, Emily was sleeping soundly.

That’s when he’d called The Bookkeeper to report his success. He wasn’t praised for a job well done, but he actually thought he heard a sigh of relief. “See if you can get Coburn to answer your brother’s phone. Set it up.”

Now things were in place and all he had to do was wait for the appointed time. He faced forward, unable to look into Emily’s angelic face and acknowledge what a creep he was for exploiting her affection for him. This was Emily, for crissake. Eddie’s kid. He’d killed her father. He would have to kill her mother, too. Sourly he thought that making an orphan of a sweet little girl like Emily was some fucking career, wasn’t it?

He wondered how he’d come to sink this low without his noticing. He was in so deep he couldn’t even see the surface anymore.

He’d chosen this path and there was no going back. Initially he’d thought that closing all his escape hatches was a good thing. He’d thrown off his old life the way a snake shed its skin. Having had his fill of kowtowing to his fishing charter clientele, and his usurious creditor, he had turned his back on that business and had exchanged customer service for adventure and violence. He’d relished being licensed to bully and intimidate and, if necessary, kill.

Looking back now, however, he remembered those days on his charter boat as being much less complicated than his days were now. The work had been backbreaking and the income dependent on factors beyond his control, yet he remembered that time with a nostalgia that bordered on yearning.

But when he’d signed on with The Bookkeeper he’d made a covenant with the devil, and it was a commitment for life. There was no do-over. He couldn’t throw his life into reverse.

As for his grandiose idea of eliminating The Bookkeeper and assuming control of the operation, who was he kidding? It would never happen. Even if he had the courage to attempt it, he would blunder and wind up dead anyway.

No, he would stick to the path he’d chosen until he came to a dead end.

But before he cashed out, whether it was twenty years or twenty minutes from now, he was going to kill Lee Coburn for killing Fred.

Immediately after Coburn disconnected from Doral, he punched in the number of Tori’s lake house and got an automated voice mail message.

“What’s Tori’s cell number?” he asked Honor, hoping that Tori had defied him and restored her phone’s battery.

She lowered her hands from her mouth. Her lips were white from the pressure her fingers had applied to them. They barely moved as she dully recited the number.

That call also went straight to voice mail. “Dammit!”

Tremulously she asked, “Coburn? Is Emily alive?”

“If they had killed her, they wouldn’t have anything to bargain with.”

He could tell she wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe it.

She hiccupped a sound. “Is he holding her hostage at the lake house?”

“Sounded like he was in his car.”

“Do you think Tori is—” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question and ended on a whimper.

Coburn punched in 911, and when the operator answered he gave her the address of Tori’s lake house. “A woman at that address has been assaulted. Send police and an ambulance. Got it?” He made the operator repeat the address, but when she started asking questions, he disconnected.

Honor was trembling. “Will they kill my baby?”

As bad as the bald truth was, he refused to lie to her. “I don’t know.”

She made a sound of such abject despair that he put his good arm around her and pulled her hard against him, laying his cheek on the top of her head.

“We’ve got to call the police, Coburn.”

When he didn’t say anything, she raised her head and looked up at him. “We can,” he said quietly.

“But you don’t think we should.”

“She’s your kid, Honor. You’ve got to make the decision. Whatever you decide, I’ll go along. But I think if you bring the cops into it, The Bookkeeper will know in a matter of minutes.”

“And Emily will be killed.”

He nodded bleakly. “Probably. The Bookkeeper wouldn’t back down. He’d have to follow through on the threat or he’d look weak. He won’t let that happen. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I won’t bullshit you.”

She gnawed her lower lip. “The FBI office?”

“Is no better. Case in point, VanAllen.”

“So it’s up to us?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to save her life.”

“Whatever it takes.” Both of them knew what that implied. “That’s the deal, isn’t it? You for Emily.”

“That’s the deal.” But he didn’t say it with his customary shrug. He wasn’t as indifferent to his mortality as he had been only a few days ago. Death was no longer a possible outcome he regarded with nonchalance.

“I don’t want you to die,” she said huskily.

“Maybe I won’t. I’ve got another good bargaining chip.”

He released her, sat down at the computer desk, and accessed the contents on the USB key.

“We don’t have time for this.” Honor stood at his shoulder, wringing her hands. “Where do they have Emily? Did you hear her crying?”

“No.”

She made a mournful sound. “Is that good or bad? She has to be afraid. Why wasn’t she crying? Do you think that means… What do you think that means?”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”

Her near hysteria was justified, but he tried to tune her out long enough to concentrate on what he needed to do hurriedly but without making any mistakes. He opened Gillette’s web browser, went into a web-based email service, and used his password to access his account. He sent the file on the USB key as an attachment to an email, then reversed the process by rapidly logging out and closing the browser, but not before remembering to clear the browser history, so that no one could tell, not in a timely fashion anyway, that he’d visited an email service.

The email address to which he’d sent the file was assigned to only one computer, and it could be opened with a password known to him and Hamilton exclusively. The location of the computer was also known only to the two of them.

The job done, he pulled the key from the port, stood up, and placed his hands on Honor’s shoulders. “If it wasn’t for me, you could have died of old age without ever knowing the significance of that tattoo. None of this would have happened.”

“You’re apologizing?”

“Sort of.”

“Coburn,” she said, shaking her head frantically. “I don’t care about an apology now.”

“Not for what I’ve done. For what I’m about to ask you to do. If you want Emily back alive—”

“You always use her as leverage.”

“Because it always works.”

“Tell me what to do.”

Following his conversation with Hamilton, Crawford had stepped outside the building, whose walls had ears, and used his cell phone to call police officers and sheriff’s deputies he trusted implicitly. He’d asked for their immediate assistance. It was imperative that he beef up his search for Mrs. Gillette, her daughter, and Lee Coburn.

He had a brief and secret meeting with those whom he enlisted and emphasized discretion. Some he asked to patrol areas they’d already patrolled. “Go back to the boat, Coburn’s apartment, Mrs. Gillette’s house. We might have missed something.”

He dispatched others to follow up on various leads, everything from the crazy lady on Cypress Street who called in at least once a day reporting sightings of Mussolini, Maria Callas, and Jesus—who’s to say she hadn’t mistaken Coburn for one of them?—to a rural couple who’d returned home from a two-week Mediterranean cruise to discover that during their absence a car had been stolen from their locked garage, their kitchen had been rummaged through, and the apartment above the garage had been inhabited by what appeared to be at least two people. The occupation looked recent. The towels in the bathroom were still damp.

Probably these would be dead ends, but at least he was being proactive, not reactive, and he hadn’t liked having his hand spanked by Hamilton of the big, bad FBI. He decided to interview Mrs. Gillette’s father-in-law himself.

Stan Gillette, who popped up anywhere the action was, had what seemed to be a direct line into local law enforcement. His association should have ended when his son died. It hadn’t. And that bothered Crawford. A lot. Just how much did Gillette know about Honor’s so-called abduction? What was he withholding?

He didn’t want to wait until daylight to pose these questions to Gillette. He would wake him up and go at him hard. People dragged from bed were groggy and disoriented and more likely to make mistakes, like giving up information they wouldn’t ordinarily disclose.

But when he arrived at Gillette’s house and saw that it was lit up inside like a Christmas tree, Crawford felt a tingle of apprehension. A veteran Marine might be in the habit of rising early, but this early?

Crawford got out of his car and went up the walkway. The front door was standing ajar. He pulled his service weapon from its holster. “Mr. Gillette?”

Getting no answer, he tapped on the front door with the barrel of his pistol and, when that received no response, pushed the door open and stepped into a living room that looked like a cyclone had gone through it. Drops and smears of blood showed up bright red on the beige carpeting.

In the center of the room, securely taped to a straight chair, was Stan Gillette. His head was bowed low over his chest. He appeared to be unconscious. Or dead. Moving quickly but carefully around the bloodstains, Crawford made his way toward him, calling his name.

The man let out a moan and raised his head just as Crawford reached him. “Is anyone else in the house?” the deputy whispered.

Gillette shook his head and replied hoarsely, “They left.”

“They?”

“Coburn and Honor.”

Crawford reached for his cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Gillette asked.

“Calling this in.”

“Forget it. Hang up. I won’t have my daughter-in-law arrested like a common criminal.”

“You need an ambulance.”

“I said forget it. I’m okay.”

“Coburn beat you?”

“He looks worse.”

“Mrs. Gillette was complicit?”

His lips hardened into a firm, straight line. “She had her reasons.”

“Honest ones?”

“She thinks so.”

“What do you think?”

“Are you going to get me out of this chair or not?”

Crawford replaced his pistol in the holster. As he sawed through the tape with the sharp point of his pocketknife, Gillette filled him in on what had taken place. By the time he’d finished with his story, he was free from the chair, stamping to restore feeling to his feet, flexing and extending his fingers to increase circulation.

“They took the USB key with them?” Crawford asked.

“As well as the soccer ball.”

“What was on that key?”

“They refused to tell me.”

“Well, it had to be something significant or your late son wouldn’t have gone to such great lengths to hide it.”

Gillette said nothing to that.

“Did they tell you where they were going?”

“What do you think?”

“Give you any hint? Did you pick up on anything?”

“They were in an awful rush when they left. As they raced through here, I demanded to know what was going on. Coburn stopped and leaned down, putting us eye to eye.

“He reminded me that when a Marine has a duty to perform, he doesn’t let any obstacle stand in the way of performing that duty. I told him yes, of course, what of it? Then he said, ‘Well, I’m a former Marine, and I’ve got a duty to perform. Intentionally or not, you could be an obstacle. So you should understand why I gotta do this.’ Then the son of a bitch slugged me, knocked me out. Next thing I know, you’re here.”

“Your jaw is bruised. Is it okay?”

“Have you ever been kicked by a mule?”

“I don’t suppose you saw what kind of car—”

“No.”

“Where’s your computer?”

Gillette led him down a hallway and into the master bedroom. “It’s probably in sleep mode.”

Crawford sat down at the functional desk and activated the computer. He checked the email server, the home page on the web browser, and even Gillette’s documents file. He didn’t find anything, nor had he expected to.

“Coburn wouldn’t have left us a trail that was that easy to follow,” he said. “I’d like to take your computer with me, though. Give it to the department techies, see if they can find what was on that key. I guess all we can do now—”

He drew up short when he stood up and turned around. Stan Gillette was holding a deer rifle in one hand and pointing a six-shot revolver at him with the other.

Chapter 44

It’s Coburn.”

Hamilton yelled at him through the phone. “About time. Damn you, Coburn! Are you still alive? Mrs. Gillette? The child? What happened with VanAllen?”

“Honor is with me. She’s okay. But they’ve got her daughter. I just talked to Doral Hawkins. The Bookkeeper wants to trade. Me for Emily.”

Hamilton exhaled noisily. “Well, that sums it up.”

“It does.”

After a beat, Hamilton asked, “VanAllen?”

“Honor didn’t meet him, I did. I suspected a trap, but I thought it would be him springing it. As it turned out…”

“Tom was clean.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? I understand he was practically vaporized.”

“Bad guys get double-crossed, too. Anyway, he answered his phone before I could warn him not to.”

“Where are you now?”

“Later. Listen, I found what I’ve been after. Turned out to be a USB key loaded with incriminating information.”

“On who?”

“Lots of people. Locals. Some not. A shitload of stuff.”

“You’ve actually seen it?”

“I’m holding it in my hand.”

“To swap for Emily.”

“If it comes to that. I don’t think it will.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I don’t think it will come to that.”

“No more fucking riddles, Coburn. Tell me where you are, I’ll get—”

“I emailed you the file a few minutes ago.”

“Nothing’s come in from you on my phone.”

“I didn’t send it to your regular email address. You know where to look.”

“So it’s good stuff?”

“Yes.”

“But it doesn’t ID The Bookkeeper.”

“How’d you know?”

“If it had, you’d have told me that first.”

“You’re right. We weren’t that lucky. But this will make him traceable. I’m almost positive.”

“Good work, Coburn. Now tell me—”

“No time. I’ve got to go.”

“Wait! You can’t do this without backup. You could be walking into another trap.”

“That’s a chance I gotta take.”

“No way. And I’m not going to argue with you over this. I spoke with Deputy Crawford. I think I can safely vouch for him. Call him and—”

“Not until Emily is back with Honor. Then she’ll notify the authorities.”

“You can’t confront these people alone.”

“That’s the condition of the swap.”

“That’s the condition of every swap!” Hamilton shouted. “Nobody sticks to the conditions.”

“I do. This time I do.”

“You could get that little girl killed!”

“Maybe. But it’s a sure thing she’ll die if cops and feds swarm the scene.”

“Doesn’t have to be that way. We can—”

Coburn disconnected, then turned off the phone. “Bet he had some choice words for me,” he said to Honor as he tossed the phone onto the backseat.

“He thinks you should call in reinforcements.”

“Just like in the movies. Give him his head, he’d have S.W.A.T. guys, choppers, every badge within fifty miles converging on the scene, an army of Stallones who’d only fuck it up.”

After a moment, she said quietly, “I was very angry at you.”

He glanced over at her with silent inquiry.

“When you ruined Eddie’s football.”

“Yeah, I know. My cheek still stings where you slapped it.”

“I thought you were being unreasonably cruel. But actually your intuition was right. You just picked the wrong sport.”

It hadn’t been intuition that had caused him to plunge the knife into that football. It had been jealousy. Raw, fierce, animalistic jealousy over her facial expression as she’d stroked the football’s lacing and lovingly reminisced about her late husband. But they’d both be better off if he didn’t correct her misconception. Let her think he was an intuitive jerk rather than a jealous wannabe lover.

She was rubbing her upper arms, a sign of her anxiety. “Honor.” When she turned her head toward him, he said, “I can call Hamilton back. Have him send in the cavalry.”

“Two days ago, you wouldn’t have given me an option,” she said, her tone throaty and intimate. “Coburn, I—”

“Don’t. Whatever else you were about to say, don’t.” Her misty expression alarmed him more than if she’d launched an RPG at him. “Don’t look at me all calf-eyed. Don’t nurse any romantic notions about me just because I told you that you’re pretty or related a sob story about some old horse.

“The sex? Mind-blowing. I wanted you, and you wanted me back, and I think even before we kissed on the boat we both knew it was a sure thing, only a matter of time. And it felt terrific. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that I’m a different person than I was when I crawled up into your yard. I’m still mean. Still me.”

He made himself sound harsh, because it was important that she understand this. In an hour, possibly less, one way or another, he would exit her life as swiftly as he’d entered it. He wanted to make that exit painless for her, even if it meant wounding her now. “I haven’t changed, Honor.”

She gave him a wan smile. “I have.”

Tori’s eyes refused to open, but she received intermittent impressions of motion and light and noise, all of which were magnified to an excruciating level, followed then by a darkness so absolute it swallowed every stimulus until she was jarred into awareness again.

“Ms. Shirah, stay with us. You’ve been seriously injured, but you’re on your way to the trauma center. Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand?”

What a stupid request. But she obliged and was congratulated by a voice that then said, “She’s responding, Doctor. We’re two minutes out.”

She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue felt thick and uncooperative. “Emily.”

“Emily? She’s asking for Emily. Anybody know who Emily is?”

“There was nobody else in the house.”

The blackness descended again, causing the disconnected voices to waft in and out.

“No, Ms. Shirah, don’t try to move. We’ve had to secure you to the gurney. You sustained a gunshot wound to your head.”

Gunshot wound? Doral wearing a stupid ski mask. A fight with him over—

Emily! She had to get to Emily.

She tried to sit up but couldn’t. She tried to remain conscious but couldn’t. Oh, Jesus, here comes that blackness again.

When next she emerged from it, the lights were bright against her closed eyelids and there was a lot of racket and activity surrounding her. Oddly, she had the sensation of floating above it all, watching from a distance.

And was that Bonnell? Why was he wearing that silly bandage on his forehead? And were his ears bloody?

He was clutching her hand. “Sweetheart, whoever hurt you…”

Was he crying? Bonnell Wallace? The Bonnell Wallace she knew was crying?

“Everything will be all right. I swear to you, I’ll make it all right. You’ll get through this. You have to. I can’t lose you.”

“Mr. Wallace, we have to get her to the OR.”

She felt Bonnell’s lips brush hers. “I love you, honey. I love you.”

“Mr. Wallace, please step aside.”

“Will she survive?”

“We’ll do our best.”

She was being pulled away from him, but he kept hold of her hand until he was forced to let go. “I love you, Tori.”

She tried to outrun the encroaching oblivion, but as it enveloped her, her mind cried out, I love you, too.

Since Coburn was bent on staging a one-man show, Hamilton had to find a way to stop him before he had a total disaster on his hands. Tom VanAllen’s death hadn’t convinced Coburn of the agent’s innocence, so it was more vital than ever that Hamilton talk to his recent widow to gauge what she knew, if anything.

But when he and his team arrived at the VanAllen home, as Hamilton had predicted, there were no other vehicles there. The widow was passing the night alone. But she wasn’t sleeping. Lights were on inside the house.

Hamilton alighted from the Suburban, strode up the walk, rang the doorbell, and waited. When she didn’t respond, he wondered if maybe she was asleep after all. Perhaps, because the son needed around-the-clock care, the lights in the VanAllen household never went out.

He rang the bell again, then knocked. “Mrs. VanAllen? It’s Clint Hamilton,” he called through the wood door. “I know this is an extremely difficult time for you, but it’s important that I speak to you right away.”

Still getting no response, he tried the latch. It was locked. He reached for his cell phone, scrolled through his contacts, and found the house phone number. He called it and heard the phone ringing deep inside the house.

After the fifth ring, he hung up and shouted back to the vehicles parked at the curb. “Bring the ram.”

The S.W.A.T. team joined him on the porch. “This isn’t an assault. Mrs. VanAllen is in a delicate state of mind. There’s also a disabled boy. Take care.”

Within seconds they had busted through the front door. Hamilton barged in, the others fanned out through the rooms behind him.

Hamilton found Lanny’s room at the end of the wide central hall. The room had the sweetly cloying odor unique to the bedridden. But except for the hospital bed and other medical paraphernalia, everything was perfectly normal. The television was on. Lamps provided a soothing ambient light. There were pictures on the walls, a colorful rug in the center of the floor.

However, the tableau of the motionless boy lying on the customized bed was almost gothic. His eyes were open but his stare was blank. Hamilton walked to the side of the bed to assure himself that he was breathing.

“Sir?”

Hamilton turned to the officer who had addressed him from the open doorway. He didn’t say anything, but his aspect conveyed, SITUATION, as he jerked his helmeted head toward another part of the house.

Doral saw the car headlights approaching from the side street. Showtime.

Seated in his borrowed car, he took one last drag on his cigarette, then flicked it through the open window. The cigarette sketched a fiery arc in the darkness before falling to the pavement and burning out.

He activated his phone and called The Bookkeeper. “He’s right on schedule.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

Doral’s heart hitched. “What?”

“You heard me. I can’t afford for you to screw up again.” Then the phone went dead.

It was a slap in the face. But, he supposed, the collaboration with the Mexican cartel hung in the balance, so The Bookkeeper was taking no chances of something else going wrong.

And this wasn’t strictly business anymore. Not like Marset, who’d been gumming up the works. Not like the state trooper who’d balked at carrying out an order. Not like all the others. This was different. The Bookkeeper had a personal score to settle with Lee Coburn.

Coburn had stopped the car about forty yards away, its idling motor an uneven growl in the stillness beneath the football stadium bleachers, where Doral had chosen to do this. This time of year, the place was deserted. It was on the outskirts of town. Ideal location.

Coburn had the headlights on high beam. The car itself looked like little more than a rattletrap, but somehow it seemed menacing, reminding Doral of a Stephen King story about a car that went psycho and killed people. Doral pushed the ridiculous thought aside. Coburn was screwing with his head again.

But the fed also wasn’t going to come any closer until he saw that Doral did indeed have Emily.

Doral had made sure the interior lights wouldn’t come on when he got out of his car. Crouching lower than the roof, he opened the rear door, slid his hands under Emily’s arms, and lifted her out. Her body was limp, her breathing deep, her sleep peaceful as he placed her on his left shoulder.

What kind of man would use thirty-five pounds of sweet little girl to save his own skin?

He would. He was.

Coburn had mind-fucked him into feeling lower than whale shit, into being nervous and unsure of himself. But he couldn’t allow himself to buy into that or he was as good as dead. All he wanted was one crack at Coburn. If he had to use Emily in order to take out Coburn, well, that was just life, and nobody had ever said that life was fair.

He placed his right hand, his gun hand, in the center of Emily’s back so that it could be seen. Then he stood up and walked around the hood of the car, forcing himself to appear in charge, in control, and perfectly relaxed, although in reality his palms were slick with sweat and his heart was knocking.

Coburn’s car began to roll forward at a snail’s pace. Doral’s gut tightened. He squinted against the headlights. The car came to within fifteen feet of him and stopped. He called out, “Turn off the headlights.”

The driver got out, but despite the glare, he made out Honor’s form.

“What the hell? Where’s Coburn?”

“He sent me instead. He said you wouldn’t shoot me.”

“He said wrong.” Shit! Doral hadn’t counted on having to kill Honor while face-to-face. “Move away from the car and raise your hands where I can see them. What kind of trick is Coburn trying to pull?”

“He doesn’t need tricks, Doral. He doesn’t even need me any longer. He’s nailed you, thanks to Eddie.”

“What’s Eddie got to do with this?”

“Everything. Coburn found the evidence he had collected.”

Doral’s mouth went dry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do. That’s why you killed him.”

“Are you wearing a wire?”

“No! Coburn has already got what he came for. He doesn’t care what happens to me or Emily now. But I care. I want my daughter.”

Doral gripped his pistol tighter. “I told you to get away from the car.”

She stepped from behind the cover of the open door, hands raised. “I won’t do anything, Doral. I’m leaving you to the legal system. Or to Coburn. I don’t care. All I care about is Emily.” Her voice cracked on her daughter’s name. “She loves you. How could you do this to her?”

“You’d be surprised what a person can do.”

“Is she…?”

“She’s fine.”

“She’s not moving.”

“You’ve got only your friend Coburn to blame for this. All this.”

“Why is Emily so still?”

“Where is Coburn?”

“Is she dead?” Honor screamed hysterically.