Lethal (31 page)

Mommy wasn’t using her phone now, so she probably wouldn’t mind if she played a game.

She had watched when Coburn showed Mommy how to put the battery in. She could do it. Coburn had said so.

He didn’t move when she picked up the phone. She lined up the gold bars on the battery and snapped it into place, just like Coburn, then turned on the phone. When all the pretty pictures came on the screen, she tapped on the picture of Thomas the Tank Engine. Of all the games, she liked the puzzle best.

Concentrating hard, she started with the wheels, then added the engine and the smokestack, and all the other parts, until there was a whole Thomas.

Each time she worked the puzzle, Mommy told her how smart she was. Mommy knew she was smart, but Coburn didn’t. She wanted him to know that she was smart.

She crept toward the head of his bunk and lowered her face close to his. “Coburn?” she whispered.

His eyes popped open. He looked at her funny, then looked over to where Mommy was sleeping before looking back at her. “What?”

“I worked the puzzle.”

“What?”

“The Thomas puzzle. On Mommy’s phone. I worked it.”

She held it up for him to see, but she didn’t think he really looked at it, because he jumped off the bed so fast he banged his head on the ceiling.

Then he said a really bad word.

D
eputy Sheriff Crawford was surprised to discover that their destination was a derelict shrimp boat that seemed not to be floating so much as squatting in the water.

As hiding places went, it was a sorry choice. First, it was an untrustworthy-looking vessel. Bad enough. But then it was also situated between miles of hostile terrain and a labyrinth of bayous in which one could easily become hopelessly lost before reaching the Gulf of Mexico, if that was indeed the planned escape route.

Maybe Coburn wasn’t as smart as he’d given him credit for. Maybe he was becoming desperate.

Using only hand signals to communicate to the men with him, they approached the craft on foot with stealth and extreme caution.

The team, working out of the temporary command center in the Tambour Police Department, consisted of himself, two other sheriff’s deputies, three Tambour policemen, two FBI agents, and one state trooper who’d
just happened to be in the room chewing the fat with the others when a techie came in and announced that he was getting a signal from Honor Gillette’s cell phone.

His attempt to locate it using triangulation was successful.

It then took an agonizing hour of discussion to determine how best to get to the isolated location. By air, land, or water? Once it was decided that land was the best option in terms of a surprise, Crawford had yielded the floor to the closest thing that either the Tambour P.D. or the sheriff’s department had to a S.W.A.T officer, who had taken a few classes in his spare time and at his own expense.

He shared his limited knowledge and summarized by saying, “Don’t screw up and shoot the woman or kid,” which Crawford could have told the group himself in five seconds rather than thirty-five minutes.

They piled into three official SUVs, then drove through fog and mist for what seemed like hours, but was actually only forty minutes, until they could go no farther, not even in vehicles with four-wheel drive.

Besides, Crawford didn’t want their approach announced by engine noise. They’d proceeded on foot, and now were hunkered down among the trees, watching for signs of life aboard the boat, from which the phone’s cell signal was emanating. Crawford thought it a miracle that there was a cell tower anywhere near this place, but he wasn’t going to question either the benevolence of the gods or the foresight of the cell provider.

The sun was rising, but the eastern horizon was so heavily banked by clouds that daybreak did little to relieve the dim and gloomy atmosphere. The water in the bayou, which looked swollen after last night’s torrential rains, was absolutely still, as was the Spanish moss that hung from
tree branches in saturated clumps. It was too early even for birds. The silence was as thick as cotton.

Crawford motioned the men forward. They had no choice but to risk exposure as they covered the distance between the tree line and the creek bank. When Crawford reached the boat, he crouched down against its hull, checked his weapon again, then climbed over and stepped lightly onto the deck. Others followed, but Crawford was the first inside the wheelhouse, the first to hear a vicious curse and movement coming from below, the first to aim at the man coming up the steps.

Stan Gillette stepped out of the passageway into the wheelhouse with his hands raised. In one of them, he was holding a cell phone. “Deputy Crawford. You’re late.”

He’d made the kid cry.

When he’d wrenched the cell phone from her hand, she’d let out a howl that could’ve raised the dead. It got her mother up off the bunk, all right.

He’d scooped up the bawling kid and practically slung her over his shoulder, freeing his other hand to get Elmo and bankie. He’d shoved them into her chubby arms, then grabbed Honor’s hand and dragged her—protesting—up the steps, through the wheelhouse, and onto the deck.

Alone, it would have taken him only minutes to abandon the boat, wade through the bayou, then sprint the half mile through sucking mire to where he’d left the pickup. Even in the semi-light of predawn, he’d have been away from there in a fraction of the time it had taken him just to get them off the boat. Honor had balked at stepping into the water, but he’d pushed her, and she’d managed to splash her way out of the shallows. Twice she’d stumbled during their mad dash to the pickup.

And all that time, the kid had kept a stranglehold on his neck, wailing in his ear over and over, “I didn’t mean to.”

When they reached the truck, she was still blubbering. He’d handed her over to Honor, who’d scrambled into the passenger seat. He’d slammed the door, run around the hood, vaulted into the driver’s seat, and crammed the key into the ignition. The tires had spun in the mud, but eventually gained traction, and the pickup had lurched forward.

They were well away from the shrimp boat now, but he didn’t let his guard down. Honor’s cell phone would have been as good as a damn beacon on a lighthouse, leading the police straight to them. As soon as it was discovered that they were no longer aboard the boat, the chase would resume.

He didn’t know at what time the kid had turned on her mother’s phone. Minutes before she woke him up? Hours? But he had to assume the worst, in which case he was surprised they’d escaped at all. At best, they couldn’t have got too much of a head start.

So he blocked out the presence of the sobbing kid and her mother and concentrated on putting as much distance as possible between them and the boat, in the shortest amount of time, without getting too lost, driving into a bayou, or hitting a tree.

Honor shushed Emily, crooning to her as she hugged her close to her chest and smoothed her hand over her hair. Eventually the kid stopped crying, although every time he glanced at them he was met with four reproachful eyes.

He finally came upon a main road. Not wanting to get stopped for speeding, he let up on the accelerator and asked Honor if she had any idea where they were.

“South and east of Tambour, I think. Where did you want to go?”

Where did he want to go?

Fuck if he knew.

Presently, all he was doing was burning precious gas, so he pulled into the parking lot of a busy truck stop, where the pickup wouldn’t be noticed among so many similar vehicles. By the looks of things, the combo fuel stop and convenience store was a gathering spot for day laborers who stoked themselves on coffee, cigarettes, and microwave breakfasts before going to work.

For easily thirty seconds after he cut the engine on the pickup, no one said anything. Finally he looked over at the two females who were sorely complicating his life. He intended to tell them as much in unmitigated terms, when the kid said in a trembling voice, “I’m sorry, Coburn. I didn’t mean to.”

He closed his mouth. He blinked several times. He looked at Honor, and when she didn’t say anything, he looked back at the kid, whose damp cheek was still lying against Honor’s chest. He mumbled, “Sorry I made you cry.”

“That’s okay.”

Her mother, however, wasn’t in as forgiving a mood. “You scared her half to death. You scared
me
half to death.”

“Yeah, well it would have scared me half to death if I’d woken up looking into the double barrel of Doral Hawkins’s shotgun.”

Honor bit back a retort she obviously was itching to say. Instead she bent over Emily’s head and kissed the top of it.

The comforting gesture somehow made him feel even worse about setting the kid off. “Look, I said I was sorry. I’ll get her a… a… balloon or something.”

“She’s afraid of balloons,” Honor said. “They scare her when they pop.”

“Then I’ll get her something else,” he said irritably. “What does she like?”

Emily’s head popped up as though it was spring-loaded. “I like Thomas the Tank Engine.”

Coburn stared at her for several beats, then the absurdity of his situation got the better of him, and he began to laugh. He’d been eyeball to eyeball with villains whose best chance at an afterlife lay with taking off his head. He’d ducked heavy gunfire, dodged a rocket launcher, jumped from a chopper seconds before it crashed. He had cheated death too many times to count.

Wouldn’t it have been funny if he’d been done in by Thomas the Tank Engine?

Honor and Emily were watching him warily, and he realized that neither had ever heard him laugh. “Inside joke,” he said.

Happy once again, Emily asked, “Can we have breakfast now?”

Coburn considered, then said under his breath, “Why the hell not?”

He got out and opened a toolbox that was attached to the back of the truck’s cab. He’d discovered a denim jacket in it the day before. It smelled of gasoline and was covered in grease, but he pulled it on. Standing in the open wedge of the door, he leaned in. “What do you want?”

“Would you rather I go?” Honor asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“You still don’t trust me?”

“It’s not that. In this crowd…” His gaze moved over her tousled hair and whisker-burned lips. It took in her snug T-shirt and the clearly defined shape beneath it, which
he knew by feel was the real deal, not fake. “You’d attract attention.”

She knew what he was thinking because her cheeks turned pink. She had ended last night’s kiss, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t liked it. In fact, he figured it meant she’d liked it a lot. Too much. He’d stayed on the deck for half an hour after her speedy retreat, but when he did go below, he’d known she was still awake even though she’d pretended otherwise.

Even after he’d lain down on the bunk, he’d stayed restless and hot for a long time. If she’d been as worked up over that kiss as he’d been, it was no wonder that she was blushing now and having a hard time looking him in the eye.

Face averted, she said, “Anything you get will do.”

He put on the cap and sunglasses he’d found in the truck, and, as he’d expected, he blended with the other customers. He waited in line to use the microwave, then took his heated breakfast sandwiches to the cash register and paid. As soon as he’d handed the sack of food over to Honor, he started the truck and drove away.

While driving, he ate his sandwich and sipped his coffee, which was chicory-enhanced and bracingly strong. But his mind wasn’t on either the hot food or the coffee, because it was busy assessing his situation and deciding on his next course of action. He was in a jam, and he wasn’t certain how to proceed.

Like the time in Somalia when his weapon had malfunctioned just as his target spotted him. He’d had to make a choice: Abandon the mission and save his own skin, or carry out his assignment and ante up on surviving it.

He’d had a nanosecond in which to make up his mind.

He’d dropped the weapon and used both hands to snap the guy’s neck.

He didn’t have much more time for decision-making now. He couldn’t see his pursuers yet, but he sensed their urgency to find him.

The odds weren’t in his favor, but he wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, abandon his mission, and let The Bookkeeper continue conducting business.