Chasing the Lost (21 page)

“You’re still lying,” Chase said. “You were lying from the beginning, you’ve always been lying, and you’ll never stop lying. That’s who
you
are. I’ll never know the truth from you, but I don’t need to.”

Sarah sighed. Her focus was on the other woman now, even though the words were directed at him. “I tried to tell Erin that about you. That you were a good man. But Erin never understood that about you, and she knew you longer than I did.”

Chase looked at Erin. “Why?”

Erin drained her flute of champagne and tossed it away. It crashed on the patio behind her. “Because you weren’t there when I needed you. You didn’t show up when I needed you.”

Chase was mystified. “What did you need me for?”

“You broke my heart, Horace. You broke it when I was seventeen, and then you broke it again when you came back. You put your life on the line, searching for a boy that didn’t exist. I couldn’t believe it. But I saw it. It was like you were going out of your way to slap me in the face with your every action.”

Chase did what would have been unthinkable just five minutes earlier, turning to Sarah for amplification. “All this over a teenage fling?”

Sarah sighed, and Chase could clearly see it in her eyes now, something he’d seen in a handful of men in combat. She was one of those who had no real fear outside of them. A psychopath, through and through. One to whom everyone was like the large chess pieces outside Erin’s old office. Pieces to be moved and played.

“Horace,” Sarah said, “Erin is upset because you walked away when she got pregnant.”

Chase blinked in stunned disbelief and Sarah registered that, leaning forward on her chaise, her first surprise of the meeting. “You never knew?”

Chase could only shake his head.

Sarah glanced over at Erin, who was as still as one of those pieces.

“Don’t act like you didn’t know,” Erin said, her voice cold.

“Of course he didn’t,” Sarah said, nodding in understanding. “He nearly got killed trying to find my kid, who didn’t even exist. You don’t think he’d have given a shit about his own?”

“I called you,” Erin said. “I wrote you.”

Chase’s mind was racing, thoughts tumbling over one another in a confusing cascade: what had happened to the child? Did she have an abortion? Adopt it out? Raise it? “I didn’t know. I was in Beast Barracks at West Point. We couldn’t get calls. Or even letters, for those two months. Nothing.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Sarah said to Erin.

“Shut up!” Erin finally cracked, screaming at Sarah. “How the hell can you know?”

“Because if he’d have known, he’d have crawled over broken glass to help you,” Sarah said. Her head was swiveling back and forth between the two of them, as if sorting out a Gordian Knot from so many years ago. “You gave up,” Sarah suddenly realized, staring at Erin. “You made a feeble attempt to contact him, just to cover yourself, and then you just gave up. Because you
did
know he’d come back. He’d give up West Point, everything. He’d have come back for you and for the child. You did understand him. Even if you don’t know you did. You didn’t want him to do that, and, ultimately, you didn’t want him.”

Chase felt stupid, listening to them talk about him as if he weren’t even part of this, but Sarah’s words sent a chill through him on another level.

“No,” Erin said. She seemed confused. “My father. He wouldn’t have it. When we didn’t hear back from Horace right away, he said I had to leave. I had to go to my mother’s in Oklahoma. That she’d take care of me. My father got rid of me. Just like you did, Horace,” she hissed at the end, drawing her hatred back to the present.

Chase took a step toward Erin. “I’m so sorry. I
would
have come. I’m sorry you had to go through it alone. I’d have held your hand.”

Sarah laughed, sending Chase’s thoughts into freefall.

“Horace! Erin knew you so much more than you ever knew her. She didn’t want you there holding her hand while she got an abortion. Because she didn’t get one. She didn’t want you there holding her hand while she gave birth to your son.”

Chase’s knees buckled, and he almost fell. “My son?”

Sarah got to her feet. She was focused on Erin. “That’s what this has all been about to you, isn’t it, you bitch?” There was real anger in her voice. The betrayer, betrayed. “This has been a game to get Chase here, right now, because you knew he’d show up. You want to hurt him. All you’ve ever wanted to do is hurt him. It was never about the money. Why? Why, Erin? Why was that so important to the point you’d get us both killed to do it?”

“Because he left me,” Erin said.

“I didn’t leave you,” Chase protested weakly, his mind elsewhere. “I had to report to West Point.”

“You left me,” Erin said. “Everyone left me.”

“You never asked me to stay,” Chase said. “We have a son?”

“You left me,” Erin said, and then her right hand snaked behind her back and she brought the gun out.

Chase didn’t even attempt to lift the MP-5 as she brought it to bear on his head.

She was the mother of his son.

The shot startled him.

Erin looked down at the small black hole in her upper chest, just over the top of her sundress. She gave the slightest of smiles. “His name is Horace, too.”

And then she crumpled, in the inelegant way the dead do.

At least Gator hadn’t used the Barrett, was the bizarre thought that went through Chase’s brain as he looked down at Erin’s body.

Chase turned to Sarah.

Her face was white. “I didn’t know she was crazy like
that
, Horace. You have to believe me.”

Chase stared at her, the weight on his heart gone. “The money—whatever’s left—will switch accounts in”—he looked at his watch—“twelve minutes.”

Sarah stiffened. “What?”

“Sarah.” Chase shook his head. Clearing it. Feeling a warm glow, growing deep inside. “I might have my faults, but stupid isn’t one of them.” He reached into his waterproof bag, tied to his waist, and pulled out the USB key. “My acquaintance in black ops programmed this. He did what I should have done. As soon as I called him on my way down to see Karralkov, he checked on you. He learned you didn’t have a son. Or a husband. He knew who you were, and what you were. But he let it play out for his own reasons. And it worked for him. You might be good, Sarah, but he’s in a world you can’t even imagine.

“Before I left the
Fina
, I sent a retrieval code so that it automatically moves your money to several pre-programmed destinations. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.” He checked his watch. “Eleven minutes.” He turned and headed back toward the point.

“Horace?” Her voice had lost all its allure, and bordered on the shrill.

Chase turned. “You know, if I can find you, so can someone else. And they’re looking. Hard. Karralkov had friends. And the bettors, those whose millions you took, they aren’t happy, either.”

He opened the gate and took the stairs down to the beach. He threw the USB key into the water, took off the running shoes, and retrieved his fins. He couldn’t see the
Fina
at this level, but knew it was just a couple of hundred yards offshore. He whistled, and heard Chelsea’s short bark. Chase whistled back, turned in that direction, and dove into the water heading toward his dog and his friends.

It was over, but it wasn’t over.

It was just beginning.

He had a son, and his son’s mother was dead.

It was all just beginning.

The End

by Bob Mayer

"Heart-racing, non-stop action that is difficult to put down."-Mystery News on Bodyguard of Lies

"Thelma and Louise go clandestine."-Kirkus Reviews on Bodyguard of Lies

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