DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) (46 page)

“You were.”

Silence overtook us again. There was so much I wanted to say but the words wouldn’t come, wouldn’t form. I leaned on my elbows and sipped more of my coffee, both hands clasped around the mug as if trying to pull strength from it.

“I need time, Charlie,” Sean said. “Ever since I came back I’ve felt under pressure to fulfil a role that feels completely alien to me. I see the constant anxiety in your eyes, in Parker’s. Like you’re willing me to somehow just . . . snap out of it.”

“Sean, I—”

“I’m not saying you’re doing it deliberately. But I still don’t know how much is left of the person I was before—there might be nothing at all. But the snatches I get . . . to be honest with you, I’m not sure how much I
want
there to be.”

The irony of that was not lost on me.

Just when finally I become more like you, you become less like yourself.

“There was nothing wrong with the way you were,” I said, gently.

“If Baptiste is to be half believed, I killed a wounded man without a second thought.”

I took a breath. “Where does that leave . . .?”

“Us?”

“Everything.” The single word seemed stark against the high ceiling of the apartment. I gave a helpless shrug in an attempt to soften the effect. “Life, work, us. All of it.”

“I don’t know,” he said, his gaze level. “I think that’s more up to you.”

I didn’t understand but I nodded anyway, trying not to let the bewilderment show. “In what way?”

“You rang Parker from New Orleans and asked him to recall me,” he said. “Told him I wasn’t right—wasn’t ready.”

“I had . . . concerns,” I admitted. “Parker told me to sort them out on the ground.”

“Yeah.” His voice was dry. “And look how well that worked out.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sean. If you want to blame anyone, blame that tosser Vic Morton. He set the whole bloody mess in motion.”

“We’re paid to anticipate trouble and to prevent it,” Sean said. “Aren’t we? But in that case I failed on both counts.”

There was a stubborn set to his jaw I recognised of old. It troubled and infuriated me in equal measure, made my voice snappier than it should have been.

“What are you saying—that you want me to tell Parker you’re not up to the job and save you having to make your own decision?”

“That’s something only you can decide, Charlie. But I don’t want another dead principal on my hands—or my conscience.” He paused. “Do you?”

Inside my head I saw again the paramedics pulling a sheet over Blake Dyer’s body, the weary defeat in their eyes. Another battle lost.

I pushed up from the breakfast bar and put my empty coffee cup in the dishwasher, using the excuse of tidying away to give myself time to think. No useful thoughts came.

When I straightened I found Sean watching me. “Losing someone always hurts—it’s supposed to,” I said. “As for what I’m going to tell Parker, well, until he asks the question . . . I don’t know what my answer will be.”

I found out later the same morning. We weren’t due into the office for our official debrief until the afternoon. Sean had gone out for a run, leaving me alone with my troubled thoughts.

When the buzzer at the apartment door sounded, I knew before I glanced through the Judas glass that it was going to be Parker. Only he had a key to get past the ground-floor security.

I tried to suppress my dismay, took a deep breath and opened the door.

Parker’s face broke into a genuine smile at the sight of me. “Charlie,” he said. “You’re looking good.”

“Thank you,” I said. I stepped back before he could close in on me, aware from the flicker in his face that he’d registered it. There was very little Parker missed. I kept my voice pleasant, light. “Come on in. I’m afraid Sean’s not here at the moment.”

He moved past me into the living area, looking around. “I had a feeling he might not be,” he said candidly, turning to face me. “I confess I was hoping I’d catch you alone.”

“What’s on your mind?”

He studied me for a moment, eyes shrewd as he took in my businesslike tone. I watched him mentally readjust, and somewhere inside my head I heard a door closing very softly.

“I’m sorry to disturb you at home,” he said, more formally, “but we need to discuss Sean—his performance. I wanted to do that outside the office.”

“Of course,” I said. “How have things been affected there?”

He shrugged. “Purely from the agency’s point of view things are not as bad as they might be,” he said, matter-of-fact. “O’Day’s PR people seem to be giving us an easy ride.” He allowed himself an austere smile. “Maybe the fact you saved Ms Sinclair’s life has something to do with that.”

“I should have let you put the word out about Morton earlier,” I said. “We might have managed to cut him off at the knees before he could do so much damage.”

“I think this game was already in play well before anybody got to New Orleans,” Parker said. “And Sean seemed to think he was OK.”

I realised for the first time that Parker had been in contact with Sean while we’d been away as much as he’d been in contact with me.

Should have expected that.

“It was a difficult situation for Sean,” I said. “His memory of Morton is far different now to what it was before. He only remembered him as an OK kind of guy. And don’t forget that Morton was going out of his way to reingratiate himself.”

“Nevertheless—”

“In the end, Sean came down on the right side.”

Parker frowned. “But just how much of a close call was it?” he asked softly.

My brain was revving in time with my pulse.

“Until he asks the question . . . I don’t know what my answer will be.”

I moved across to the wall near the window, leaned my shoulder against it and folded my arms as I regarded him. “It was close,” I admitted. I lifted my chin, looked my boss, my friend, straight in the eye and ignored the stab in my heart. “Sean’s undergone a change in mindset, certainly, but his reactions are still fast and his instincts are sound.”

Parker continued to frown. Then he nodded, a little sadly. “That’s . . . good,” he said. “I’m happy for him.”

Parker knew, I realised. I wanted to go to him, but how did I explain the unexplainable? That—as Morton had pointed out—I may have got only half of Sean back, but he still had all of me.

And somehow it seemed like he needed me now more than ever before. Even if he didn’t really know it.

“I’m sorry,” I said at last. The words seemed hopelessly inadequate.

Parker, to his credit, managed to raise something that resembled a smile. “Don’t be,” he said. “I’m happy for you both.”

By supporting Sean, I realised, I had almost certainly burned my bridges with Parker. I remembered Autumn Sinclair’s offer, if I ever decided to go out on my own. I never expected to be giving it serious consideration.

At that moment I heard Sean’s key in the front door. He appeared in the hallway, still breathing hard and sheened with sweat from the exercise. He looked as though he’d pushed himself to a punishing pace.

“Hi, Sean,” Parker said. “I just called by to check you guys made it home OK. But I won’t cut into your personal time any longer.” His glance took in both of us. “I’ll see you in the office later.”

“No, I’m glad you’re here,” Sean said. “I guess you two have been talking about me.”

Parker said nothing, which in itself was a confirmation.

Sean nodded as if he’d spoken. “I’ve been doing some heavy thinking,” he said. His eyes met mine and I was surprised to see a lack of conflict there. The dark depths were almost tranquil.

“Sean—”

“I don’t know what Charlie’s said about the way things went down,” he said. “But I really don’t think I’m cut out for this job any more . . .”

One of my favourite movies has always been the old Bruce Willis/Alan Rickman classic,
Die Hard
. I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to do an homage, if you like, to that movie, where the Bruce Willis character was running around during a hostage situation, doing his best to inconvenience Rickman’s bad guys, but with the handicap of bare feet and no weapon except what he could scrounge or improvise.

I wanted to put Charlie in that kind of situation, with no weapon of her own, no real outside assistance, and some kind of bare feet handicap – metaphorical if not literal. The enclosed setting of a riverboat on a night trip on the Mississippi around New Orleans came about after I’d visited the city and witnessed first-hand the devastation from Hurricane Katrina that still haunts many parts of it. The strongest stories, I always feel, are the ones where the place is so integral to the plot that it becomes another character. So it was with New Orleans.

And once that decision was made, the choice of title – a combination of
Die Hard
in The Big Easy – became an obvious one. This seemed like a good time to break from the numerical title sequence requested by one of my former publishers. As this started at FIRST DROP, which was actually book four, and then bypassed ROAD KILL: Charlie Fox book five, before hopping to book six, SECOND SHOT, I hope it all makes a little more sense now!

The character name Tom O’Day is taken from a real person – as is his wife, Marie. The couple made the winning bid at the charity auction held at Left Coast Crime in Santa Fe, New Mexico in March 2011, to benefit non-profit literacy agency, ReadWest Inc. And Charlie’s client, Blake Dyer, was first seen in ‘Served Cold’ from FOX FIVE: a Charlie Fox short story collection.

As always, although writing may seem like a solitary occupation, it could not be done without the help and support of other people.

In no particular order, therefore, I would like to thank fellow author and firearms expert, Tony Walker, for providing valuable information about Stress Under Fire courses; SWAT team leader Luke Causey for great insights into SWAT training; fellow author Kate Kinchen, and her husband Ben, for letting me into the Secret Ways of Ninjitsu; fellow author John Billheimer for sharing his knowledge of baseball; Phil Shuter for letting me know which golf clubs make the best real clubs; Murderato Allison Davis for New Orleans and legal info; Jane Hudson at NuDesign for the brilliant eBook cover; and to the wonderful Toni McGee Causey and her husband Carl for giving me the guided tour of the bits of New Orleans
not
usually seen on the tourist trail. Oh, and the crawfish!

Retired pilot Andrew Neal provided such terrific detail on how to crash a helicopter—most of which he knows from personal experience—that the least I could do was allow him to fly my fictional helo in this book.

My test-readers worked tirelessly, as always, to dig up the plot-holes. I am forever indebted to Peter Doleman, Claire Duplock, Derek Harrison, Sarah Harrison, Kate Kinchen, P.D. Martin, Caroline Moir, and Tim Winfield for reading through the first draft with such care and attention. And also all the members of the Brewhouse Writers Group in Kendal, who gave their input as I went along. A special thank you to eagle-eyed John Dowling, who set me straight.

My US publishers, Pegasus have been unfailingly enthusiastic in their support. I would very much like to thank Claiborne Hancock—the only person I know in the publishing industry who replies to email at weekends—as well as Jessica Case, and my careful and attentive editors, Maia Larson, Pat Sims and Liz Hatherell, who have undoubtedly worked towards making this a far better book than it might otherwise have been. Dosier Hammond, Director of Library Sales and Marketing at distributor WW Norton also deserves special mention. Thank you all.

And finally, I was honoured and delighted to be able to include Tom and Marie O’Day as characters in this novel. Tom made the winning bid at the charity auction held at Left Coast Crime in Santa Fe, New Mexico in March 2011. The auction benefits ReadWest Inc, a non-profit literacy agency.