A Rush to Violence (6 page)

It was in September of 2010 that the tone changed.

“There’s no good way to say this, Camille, so it’s best to just to be out with it. That’s how you and I have always been together—straight talk. Your mother has ovarian cancer. She’s in treatment, but the cancer is aggressive and as you know, it’s among the least treatable. I know your relationship with her is strained because of your past, but would you and Emma mind coming for a week to see her? I think it’s important. I’d hate for her to pass without you two having made amends of some sort. Let me know what you think. I could use seeing you both, as well. And Blue would like to make new friends.”

It was the next letter from Camille that piqued Marty’s interest.

“Dad, I just received your letter about Mom and I can’t say how sorry I am. I’ve talked to Emma, who’s upset, and we’ll come in two weeks, when she’s on holiday from school. If you think we should come sooner, just say so. In the meantime, Emma made something for her grandmother. Take your laptop to Mom and bring up this address in your browser:
http://on.fb.me/FQ2MuT
. There’s a surprise there. We’ll see you soon. I’ll call you when I know my itinerary. And please, whatever you can do, keep my siblings away from me while we’re there. That might not be possible given the situation as I imagine they’re at her bedside collecting whatever checks from her while they can, but I’d rather be alone with Emma, Mom and you when we come to visit. If that’s not possible, don’t worry about it. I know you’re under a great deal of stress and I can shut them down myself if I have to.”

Marty looked at that web address and wondered. He took the letter over to his computer, opened a proxy server, and then opened a new browser. If Carr and his cronies were watching his IP address and following his tracks on the web, with the proxy in place, they wouldn’t be able to do so now.

He typed the address into the browser, hit enter and a photograph of Camille Miller and her daughter, Emma, appeared on the screen. A rush of excitement went through him. Finally, a clear image of Camille and also of her daughter. He dragged the image to his desktop and then printed it out. Emma was holding a large cardboard heart in her hand that she’d colored red. In black marker, she wrote in the center of the heart: “I love you, Nana. More than anything. Please be well. We’ll see you soon. Love, Emma.”

The web address Camille provided was truncated for brevity. The real address was ILoveMyGrandmotherMoreThanAnything.blogspot.com. Blogspot was a Blogger address. To gain entrance, you needed an e-mail address and a password.

It’s the e-mail address Marty wanted.

He picked up the phone and called the one person who could get it for him—his contact at the FBI, Roz Shibles.

“Do you think you can get it?” he asked.

“Let me look into it. I can try. I’ll get back to you.”

“Use this number. It’s my satellite phone.” He gave it to her, knowing that the phone couldn’t be traced.

In the interim, he made sure the proxy was still active before he sent the photo of Camille and Emma in an encrypted e-mail to Mike Hines, one of his detective friends at the NYPD. He had a circle of friends at the NYPD who were well-compensated for helping Marty do his job. In turn, when he had information they didn’t, he provided them with it.

He asked Mike to circulate the photograph and to ask others to keep a lookout for Camille and her daughter. If anyone saw either of them and could provide evidence of where she was, there was ten grand in it for them. If they actually learned where she lived, there was twenty-five grand on the table.

When Roz called back, she gave him the e-mail. “It’s an old account,” she said. “Which means the e-mail address is old. The site hasn’t been active since that first post.”

“It’s worth a try,” he said.

She gave him the address. “Lunch or dinner soon?”

“Either works for me. I’d like you to meet Jennifer.”

“It’s about time I met the other woman. See you soon, sugar.”

He hung up the phone and sat down at his desk to craft an e-mail to Camille Miller.

CHAPTER SIX

In her bedroom, Camille stood at the window facing the street while a cab pulled alongside her building and Sam emerged with a duffel bag over his right shoulder, aviator sunglasses at his eyes but no cap. He might not have had one.

He was older than she remembered, but he was still muscular and darkly handsome, though the thick head of dark curls she once loved had been shaved in favor of a military cut. He looked up at the building, saw her in the window and she couldn’t help wondering when he nodded at her if she’d made a mistake all those years ago by choosing not to be with him.

Sam Ireland was Emma’s father. When Emma was conceived, both Camille and Sam were working assassins. When Camille learned that she was pregnant, she told him that she was getting out and that she hoped he would do the same. They couldn’t raise a child under these circumstances.

Her reasoning was sound. They had more than enough money between them to live out the rest of their lives in comfort. They could marry, go away, start somewhere fresh in a new country where no one knew them. But Sam chose not to leave, which angered her as much as it hurt her. She couldn’t believe he’d choose this life over being with her and his child.

But now? Now, Camille was older. Now, she saw things differently. Back then, both were young and idealistic. They killed for money, but money isn’t what motivated them. Before they agreed to any job, there needed to be a moral and ethical reason behind the kill. Did the person rape someone and get off? Kill someone undeserving of having their life taken from them? If they were dealing with a political leader who was compromising his or her people, they’d only take the job if they felt strongly that murdering that person would improve the lives of the innocent.

On the day she left, he told her that his life’s focus was to help those powerless against the hand of others. He encouraged her to stay and to fight alongside him as she always had. But she hadn’t—she had a child to bear, protect, and raise. Looking back, their lives seemed ridiculously romantic to her. She didn’t regret how she once lived, but she certainly no longer felt the same passion that once fueled her life.

In her youth, so much seemed black and white to her, probably because she was born to privilege and thus given the luxury of idealism. There were no gray edges. Now, at thirty-nine, she had a better understanding of the world and her place within it. She was a daughter and a mother first. That’s where her priorities lay.

It was five years ago, in Paris, when she and Sam ran into each other in the Marais.

He was working another job. She was alone and doing her shopping for the day. When they saw each other, they spoke for several minutes on the street before deciding upon having a coffee at one of the nearby cafés. It was clear each needed and wanted to catch up.

When they did, the eleven years that had passed since the last time they saw each other seemed to dwindle. They fell so easily into conversation, it was disarming. The rhythm and the intensity were still there, as was the attraction and, for her, as the conversation unfolded and she saw that he was happy, an undercurrent of anger. He asked about the child and she told him a bit about Emma. Not too much, just enough so it hopefully stung. She wanted him to know just how much he’d missed out on by choosing not to be part of their lives.

Ever since then, each had known how to contact the other. They were a part of each other’s lives, but only tangentially.

So, what would happen between them now? Was he married? Was that his wife on the phone earlier? A girlfriend? Five years ago he was single and said he planned to stay that way, but people change. Earlier, on the phone, when he said business was strong, was he talking about the arms market or that he was still an assassin? She was so far removed from the life she once lived, she didn’t know the answers. But she was curious and a part of her was frightened by why she was curious. In spite of her better judgment, she still loved him. Perhaps a part of her always would because of their past and because he gave her the love of her life, Emma.

A knock came at the door.

Emma was playing her music again and while it was loud, Camille wasn’t sure if she heard the knock. She hurried out of her bedroom, moved through the living room and opened the door at the end of the hallway.

And there he was, smiling at her. Five years was a long time and so she reached out and hugged him. To her surprise, he lowered the duffel bag to the floor and held her. She could feel her heart pounding. Memories of the two of them in Paris came flooding back. Being so close to him again was bracing and upsetting. She pulled away and placed a hand against the side of his cheek. Even with the sunglasses, he looked so much like their daughter, it was disconcerting. She couldn’t remember a time when she felt so conflicted. “Emma is in her bedroom,” she said.

“I can hear that.”

“I can’t ask you in.”

“That’s fine.”

“It’s just that I need to protect her.”

“From what?”

“You know she can’t know.”

“Maybe things are different now. Maybe she should know.”

That stopped her cold, but only for a moment. She nodded at the bag. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Do you need any help?”

“I might. I don’t know what I’m facing yet.”

“Do you think they’re all involved?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, but I need to be sure.”

“How will you find out?”

“The moment I’m alone with them.”

“And then?”

“If they killed my father, I’ll know. I’ll see it in their eyes. And if I do, I’ll kill them.”

“Don’t you think they know that?”

“Probably.”

“Don’t you think they’ve hired protection?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m here, Camille. I can help.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Then you don’t remember me very well.”

He smiled at that, but regardless of the sunglasses he wore, she knew it wasn’t a smile that reached his eyes. They were different now. Time had changed them.

“Are you still working?” she asked.

“No.”

That surprised her. “You’re out?”

“I stopped three years ago.” He looked down at the duffel bag at her feet. “That’s what I do now. I help out people like you. But if you need me to go back into it, I’ll do it.”

“I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“You may have no choice.”

She couldn’t deal with this now. She needed to make this as brief as possible. “I need one more favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Hair color. Scissors. Makeup. There’s a second-hand clothing store just around the corner. I need something that I can move easily in. There’s also a pharmacy nearby. I can’t look like this. They can’t recognize me. At least not immediately.”

He looked at her body. “Still a size two?”

“Make that a three.”

“What color?”

“Blonde. But I’ll need to strip it first or it will look ridiculous.”

“You think I’ve forgotten? I was there when you first went orange. And I was there when you learned what it took for someone with dark hair to go blonde.”

She turned behind her. French pop music thumped from her daughter’s boom box. Emma wouldn’t stay in her room forever. She needed for him to leave.

“How are you going to protect her?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve told me about your family. You know you can’t trust them, so you know you can’t leave here without her. Who will watch her when you’re out?”

“Nobody knows I’m here.”

“You’re smarter than that.”

“They’ll think I’m somewhere in Manhattan. They won’t think of Brooklyn.”

“Come on, Camille. It’s me.”

There was no sense in arguing. The truth is that she didn’t know what she was going to do with Emma. It was the one thing she worried about most. She didn’t have an answer and so she shrugged at him. “I have nobody. And don’t say that I have you. I appreciate all that you’re doing, but I can’t involve you any further than I already have.”

He took off his glasses and for the first time in years, she saw his eyes. Brown and clear. Thick lashes and brows. Fine lines where there weren’t fine lines before. She could remember a time when his skin was so smooth and poreless, she envied him for it. Now they were getting older.

And if that wasn’t love she saw in his eyes, she’d be lying to herself.

He looked at her wordlessly before he left the duffel bag and stepped back into the hallway. “Give me an hour or two. I’ll get what you need.”

“I’ll be at the window watching. Could you leave everything on the steps? I’ll run down and get everything when you’re gone.”

The disappointment that crossed his face was unmistakable. “You have my number,” he said. “Use it.”

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

“You’ll come to your senses.”

He started to walk down the hallway.

“That woman on the phone,” she said. “Was she your wife?”

She hated herself for asking the question, but she wanted to know.

“Why does it matter?”

“You said you’d never marry.”

“Who said I have? Look for me in the window. Call if you need anything else.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

It took him ninety minutes to buy what she needed.

The cab stopped outside her building, he got out, glanced up at her in the window and then went to the stairs, where he dropped off the bags before getting back into the cab and driving away without looking back.

She was more focused now than ever. She couldn’t let him inside—literally or emotionally. If she needed him, she knew where to call. And she knew he’d be there for her if she did.

She moved into the living room, passed the door that led to Emma’s noisy bedroom, and hurried into the hallway. She unlocked the door, darted down the two flights of stairs, grabbed the bags from the granite steps and raced up them again.

When she entered the apartment, she eased into it and listened. She could hear nothing but the drumming sounds of muted music. Emma’s door was closed. Earlier, Camille tucked the duffel bag beneath her bed. Not the perfect hiding spot, but in this apartment, it’s all she had and it would have to do. The items Sam just dropped off would be easier to hide.