Red-Hot Vengeance (8 page)

“Thought you’d never ask,” Williams said. “Here, I brought you these. I hope the size is okay.”

Carter dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and jacket, while Williams went to get permission from the doctors to transfer him to the police station. A few minutes later, Carter was sitting in the back of the car. He was oddly happy of being in a police car. There, he was safe. Or at least, he felt so.

His Place

Carter woke up slowly. He was still weak. He had vague memories of an ambulance, and Williams. He remembered spending some time in the hospital. And then Williams had come to pick him up.

He opened his eyes and discovered that he was in a little gray room. There were a table and two chairs in the middle of the room. Apart from the cold walls, Carter noticed a window and a dark blue, probably locked, door. What the hell was that place?

Carter rose on his elbows. He had been provided with a pillow; how nice. And three pairs of handcuffs; how not nice. He sat up against the wall to have a better look around. And then he finally got it. The window wasn’t really a window. It was just a glass wall behind which cops were probably lurking, spying on his every move.

He got up to stretch his long legs. There wasn’t much room to walk around, and the light was horribly aggressive; but he’d already got a pillow, it would be impolite to ask for more. Carter looked at his wrists and actually laughed. Three pairs of cuffs? Surely Williams was involved in this. Carter then walked to the window. Placing his hands on both sides of his eyes to block the light, he peered through. He couldn’t see much, but wasn’t surprised to meet Cowley’s angry look.

Carter stepped back from the glass. He picked up his blessed pillow and sat on one of the chairs. Carter chose to sit facing the glass. It amused him to be the center of attention. And that would certainly destabilize them. He smiled at the window. “Won’t anyone come and join me?” he said, pointing at the chair in front of him.

After a while, the door opened and Williams came in. He closed the door behind him slowly. Then he steadily walked toward the table and pulled the chair inch by inch. He took his time to sit down.

“Are you in slow motion?” Carter asked.

“You should be grateful,” Williams indicated.

“Oh yeah, thanks for the pillow, how thoughtful of you,” Carter answered with an ironical grin.

Williams didn’t say anything. He wasn’t in a mood to make jokes. And Carter soon understood. He kept his silence as well and waited for Williams to start bombarding him with questions. But Williams looked like he didn’t know where to start.

“Is that a new tactics to make me uncomfortable? Not saying anything?” Carter asked, not able to wait any longer. “It’s kinda working.”

“Kathleen Vaughn,” Williams started. “Who is she?”

“Kathleen? Hm, you already know more than I do.”

“Who is she?” Williams repeated.

“I just told you. I don’t know,” Carter said, just a bit too quickly.

“Carter, it’s my job to detect your lies,” Williams sighed. “I love my job, but I’m tired, so please make my life easier and don’t lie.”

“She wants to kill me because…” Carter hesitated. “For some reason,” he corrected himself.

“You’re already in trouble, you know. You might just as well tell me everything.”

Carter winced as he pressed his lips together. He moved uneasily in his chair. He released the tension in his arms to run a hand through his hair, but the cuffs prevented him from doing so. So he just clenched the pillow again.

“Are you nervous?” Williams noticed. “That’s unusual.”

“I’m not.” Carter cleared his throat. “I’m just pondering whether or not I’ll tell you that…”

“What?” Williams waited a minute to give Carter time to answer. But no word came from Carter. “Does it have anything to do with that auction sale?” Carter looked up. “Yes, I
did
see you there,” Williams continued. “Lorraine’s not exactly happy with what you did to her.”

“Lorraine? Who’s that?”

“Officer Cowley.”

“Oh. Well,” Carter looked above Williams’ shoulder and at the window. “Apologies, officer.”

“Why does Vaughn want to kill you?” Williams asked again.

Carter breathed in. “Because I sold her a fake ruby,” he said very fast so that he wouldn’t stop before the end of the sentence.

“A fake ruby?” Williams raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Carter admitted. “I made a forgery which looked just like the flower by that French dude.”

Williams stared at him, still with his eyebrow raised. “You are exasperating,” he said, marking out each syllable.

“Thank you,” Carter answered with the shadow of a smile.

Williams knew he wouldn’t get anything from Carter. Not now. He got up and walked to the door. “You can keep the pillow,” he said. “I’ll see you later.” Carter watched him leave without saying anything.

Carter cursed himself for having let his emotions show. Williams was right: that was unusual. He tried to calm down. Vaughn thought López was dead, and Farrell had vanished into thin air; thus the people he cared about were safe. And where
he
was, he hoped to be safe as well. But that meant he had to stay there. Carter sighed with a feeling close to despair. He felt like there was no way out. Carter was surrounded by dead ends.

He looked at his wrists. Those things were starting be get really uncomfortable. He was pretty sure Williams and Cowley were still spying on him through the glass, so he took immense pleasure in displaying his escape skills. In a bit less than two minutes, he had dropped the first cuffs. Two more to go.

**

The handcuffs were piled on the table when Cowley came in. She stared at them and then at Carter. He lifted his hands, giving her a ta-daa look. Cowley dropped a file on the table. She was still fixing Carter coldly, but he held her look without a flinch.

“How long did it take?” Cowley asked with curiosity, pointing at the handcuffs.

“About two minutes each. Weren’t you watching?” he said falsely disappointed. “Had I known I was not watched, I’d be long gone from here.”

Carter had just finished his sentence when he received Cowley’s fist in the jaw. The brutal shock as well as surprise took him off his chair. He rose from the cold ground and massaged his face.

“Geez! You hit like a man,” he exclaimed.

“No, better,” Cowley answered. “Most of my male colleagues hit hard, but can’t aim correctly. They always end up with bruised fingers.”

Carter was about to talk back, but something extinguished the voice in his throat. Cowley’s comment reminded him of Farrell. It made the sting in his chest come back for half a second.

“Sit down.” Cowley indicated the chair.

Carter did as he was told without complaining, which made Cowley raise her eyebrows in surprise. She sat on the opposite chair and took a picture out of the file.

“Nice,” Carter said when he saw the ruby.

“Where is it?”

“No idea.”

“Seriously?”

Carter lifted his eyes. He sat back, picked up the pillow (which had fallen when Cowley hit him), and just looked at her. “Are we really gonna talk about last year’s case?” he asked after a while.

“Fine,” Cowley replied, playing his game. “What is it
you
wanna talk about?”

“I’m sorry I hit you the other day, but you were kind of in my way, so…”

“Are you really sorry or are you just being polite?”

Carter grinned. “Granted,” he said.

“Why do you have such a bad opinion about women?” Cowley asked, taking him aback.

Carter laughed. “Because they,
you
, have been nothing else than troublemakers in my life. All manipulative liars with the disguise of a fragile, sometimes sexy, shape. Women are either too evil or too ignorant to be trusted.”

“Okay, stop, or I’ll punch you again.”

“You asked,” Carter said in an it’s-not-my-fault tone.

“Have you never been in love?”

Carter wanted to say no, but Farrell’s laugh resounded somewhere in the back of his mind. “Why are you asking that?”

“I’m trying to get to know you better, that’s all.” What Cowley was actually doing was to study Carter’s reactions to her questions. She examined the movement of his eyes to be later able to tell whether he was lying or not.

“And how much do you already know about me?”

“I know you’re wanted by the FBI for fraud and identity theft,” she said factually.

An unusually sincere smile stretched Carter’s lips. “Identity theft,” he echoed with a slight sigh. “Yeah, I have quite a nice memory of that one.”

“Tell me.”

Carter came back from his reverie. “So that’s what you were doing, huh?” he defended himself. “Getting to know me better. Yeah I get it now. And I don’t think I’ll be talking to you no more.” He sat back, clenching his pillow, and gave her a freezing gaze.

“Then you’ll stay here for a while,” Cowley said while getting up. “Better get comfortable.”

“Got my pillow, that’s all the comfort I need,” Carter concluded in a challenging tone.

**

Williams was watching Carter through the glass panel. He had listened to his conversation with Cowley and was now wondering why Carter hadn’t tried to escape. He obviously had very little chance to make it without any exterior help, but it wasn’t like Carter to not even try. When Cowley had walked out of the room, Carter had lain down on the floor, his back to the window.

“Hey,” Cowley interrupted Williams’ stream of thoughts. She handed him a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” Williams said.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Why didn’t he try to escape?” Williams answered, still reflecting on the matter.

“Yeah, I was thinking about the same thing. Perhaps he knows he won’t go far even if he tries.”

“No, there must be something else,” Williams insisted. “I mean, think about it, since when does Reese Carter accept to surrender without a fight?”

Cowley sipped on her coffee. “Good point,” she said. “Maybe he met someone,” she tried, almost joking.

“What?” Williams raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you see the look on his face when I asked if he was in love?” Cowley further explained.

Williams reported his attention back to Carter. He had to admit that there
was
something different about him. But Williams couldn’t yet say whether it was good or bad. For all he knew Carter could as well be preparing something, or worse, waiting for someone.

Williams let Carter sleep for a while before going to talk to him once more. Carter started up when the door opened. He stretched lazily and sat up.

“I see you’re getting comfortable,” Williams noticed.

“She told me to,” Carter said, yawning.

“Well, get a chair now. You’ve slept enough, we need to talk.”

Carter got up and sat heavily where Williams indicated. “How can I help you, officer?” he asked with irony.

Williams gave him an energy bar. “Thought you might be hungry.”

“Wow, thanks,” Carter said. “Can I have a beer too?”

“Don’t push your luck. Last time, you told me you made a forgery of Duval’s ruby and sold it to Kathleen Vaughn,” Williams lectured. “I’m not finished,” he said when he saw Carter open his mouth to talk. “Then you refused to cooperate with officer Cowley when she asked you about the
real
ruby. So, I’ll try again: do you know where it is?”

“No,” Carter simply said. Williams was staring at him, expecting more. “Okay,” Carter sighed. “It was sold at the auction sale the other day.”

“By whom?”

Carter had seen the question coming so he stayed calm and focused. “I don’t know,” he said, working hard on his tone so that it wouldn’t sound like a lie.

“To whom?”

“Some guy with huge glasses and apparently a lot of money. I don’t know his name.”

“Have you seen Juliana Farrell lately?” Williams attacked.

This time Carter hesitated. “Have you?” he tried.

Williams didn’t answer. Of course he’d seen her at the auction sale. And of course he knew Carter was lying. While he’d been quite nervous before, he was now answering with great composure. That could only mean he was hiding something.

“Why didn’t you try to escape?” Williams asked, choosing another angle of attack.

“Because some crazy bitch wants me dead, and I feel safe here,” Carter confessed.

**

Williams sat next to López’s bed. The Spaniard was still in a critical state. Williams looked at him while pondering the whole ruby affair. He still had to find the ruby, bring it back to its rightful owner, and put whoever stole it behind bars.

He’d been tracking the gem for a year and when, finally, he’d found it, not only had it disappeared again but new problems had emerged. Vaughn had tortured Carter and destroyed López’s pub; who knew what she would do next. Compared to that, finding the ruby seemed almost trivial.