Road Kill (58 page)

In this book, I really wanted to finally explore Charlie’s difficult and often destructive relationship with her parents – and in particular with her father. Charlie has to protect her mother and father from harm at all costs, but is hampered by trying not to let them witness just how cold-bloodedly their daughter must act in order to be effective at her job. It puts her in an often impossible situation, brings her relationship with Sean to an explosive head, and causes her father to reveal a side of himself everyone will find disturbing.

Not only that, but the story ends with big questions over Charlie’s entire future.

By the start of
FOURTH DAY
, where Charlie, Sean and Parker Armstrong are planning a cult extraction in California, Charlie has still not solved the problems that arose during the previous book – nor has she found the courage to explain it all to Sean. When she volunteers to go undercover into the Fourth Day cult, she’s looking as much for answers about her own life as about the man who died.

It's this battle with her own dark side that is one of the most fascinating things for me as a writer about the character of Charlie Fox. I wanted a genuine female action hero, but one who had a convincing back story. I've tried to ensure she stays human, with all the flaws that entails – a sympathetic character rather than just a 'guy in nylons' as someone described some tough heroines in fiction.

In the latest instalment,
FIFTH VICTIM
– involving a deadly kidnap plot among the jet-set of Long Island – there are complications with Sean’s ongoing condition, and Charlie’s increasing awareness that her boss, Parker, views her as so much more than a mere employee. Charlie is forced to make decisions this time out that will change her life forever . . .

The instinct and the ability to kill

Characters who live on the fringe have a certain moral ambiguity that we find seductive, I feel. Charlie has that obscurity to her make-up. She discovers very early on that she has both the instinct and the ability to kill. And although she does it when she has to and doesn't enjoy what it does to her, that doesn't mean that if you push her in the wrong direction, or you step over that line, she won't drop you without hesitation.

Dealing with her own capacity for violence when she's put under threat is a continuing theme throughout the books. It's not an aspect of her personality that Charlie finds easy to live with – a difficulty she might not have if she was a male protagonist, perhaps? Even in these days of rabid politically correct equality, it is still not nearly as acceptable for women to be capable of those extremes of behaviour.

But Charlie has evolved out of events in her life and, as you find out during the course of the series, things are not about to get any easier. I do rather like to put her through it! She's a fighter and a survivor, and I get the feeling that if I met her I'd probably like her a lot. I'm not sure she'd say the same about me!

Although I've tried to write each of the Charlie Fox books so they stand alone, this is becoming more difficult as time goes on and her personal story overlaps from one book to the next. I'm always expanding on her back story, her troubled relationship with her parents and her even more troubled relationship with Sean, who was once her training instructor in the army and, when she moves into close protection, he then becomes her boss. He continues to bring out the best and the worst in her.

And their relationship is becoming ever more complicated as the series goes on. In the next outing, Charlie is struggling to deal not only with the dangers faced by her client, but also from the one person she should be able to trust with her life . . .

If you’re a fan of Charlie Fox, you may well enjoy this standalone crime thriller from bestselling author, Lee Goldberg:

Tom Wade was a cop in the elite Major Crimes Unit . . . who discovered that his fellow detectives were corrupt. He turned them in to the Justice Department and his testimony sent the detectives to prison. But instead of being decorated for his actions, he is reviled by his fellow cops, busted down to uniform and banished to a three-man substation in the deadliest neighbourhood in the city . . . with no back-up, no resources, and no hope of survival. Somehow he must tame a lawless, poverty-stricken hell-hole . . . while investigating a string of brutal murders of young women that the police have ignored for years.

Praise for Lee Goldberg:

“You'll finish this book breathless!” NYT bestselling author Janet Evanovich

“As dark and twisted as anything Hammett or Chandler ever dreamed up . . .” Kirkus starred Review

“Lee Goldberg is known for his cleverness and sense of humor. He shows how a masterful plotter can take a character in a comic situation and lead him into unexpected danger in an eye-blink.” NYT bestselling author Thomas Perry

“Approaching the level of Lawrence Block is no mean feat, but Goldberg succeeds.” Publishers Weekly

“With books this good, who needs TV?” Chicago Sun Times

“You'd be hard-pressed to find another recent work that provides so many hip and humorous moments.” Bookgasm

“Can books be better than TV? You bet they can – when Lee Goldberg's writing them. Get aboard now for a thrill ride.” NYT bestselling author Lee Child

www.LeeGoldberg.com

Chapter One

Tom Wade was asleep in bed beside his wife when the call came. He had a pretty good idea what the call was about before he answered the phone. He’d been dreading it for the last few days.

“Yeah,” he whispered, rolling over onto his back. Alison stirred and grumbled something unintelligible.

“We moved on all of them thirty minutes ago,” It was Carl Pinkus, the prosecutor Wade had been working with at the Justice Department.

Wade checked the alarm clock. It was 2:00 a.m. The green glow of the numbers glinted off of his badge on the nightstand.

He could guess how it went down. All across the city, strike teams made up of FBI and ATF agents kicked down the doors at the homes of all seven men at precisely the same instant, hoping to surprise them in bed, naked and defenceless.

It was standard operating procedure in situations like this, designed to minimize risk and prevent any of the targets from being warned that the law was coming for them.

It usually worked.

“You could have waited until morning to tell me,” Wade said, sitting up.

“It is morning,” Pinkus said.

“What went wrong?” Wade asked. His wife was wide awake now, he could tell from her breathing.

“I’m outside of Roger Malden’s place. He wants to see you, Tom.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to him.”

“He must have something real important to say to you,” Pinkus said. “He’s holding his wife and kids hostage and if you don’t get your ass down here now, he’s going to kill them.”

“I’ll be there in four minutes,” Wade said and hung up the phone.

Roger lived two miles away in a tract home with the same floor plan as Wade’s. They even had the same pool man. That wasn’t all that they had in common.

He threw back the sheets, stood up naked, and went to the easy chair where he’d draped the clothes he’d been wearing last night, a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. He could feel Alison’s eyes on his back. He pulled his sweatshirt over his head.

Wade was six feet tall, fit and lean. He had the hands of a man who worked with them – wielding an axe, a shovel, or a pick – but that came more from heredity than it did from hard labour, though he’d done his share of that before he became a cop.

“What is it?” she asked.

Alison was used to the late-night calls but not the troubled undercurrent that was in Wade’s voice during the short conversation. He knew that she’d pick up on it.

“A hostage situation,” he said, turning to look at her as he pulled up his pants and buckled his belt.

Alison was sitting up, not bothering to cover her nakedness. Wade couldn’t have a discussion naked and uncovered but she was totally comfortable with it. In the semi-darkness, she looked just the way she did the first night that they’d slept together twenty years ago.

“You’re not a hostage negotiator,” she said.

He hadn’t planned to tell her about it like this. For weeks, he’d been rehearsing exactly what he was going to say, how he would explain the two long years of subterfuge.

“It’s Roger. He’s threatening to kill his family.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She shook her head. “No, I don’t believe that. Not Roger.”

“The FBI raided his house tonight, Ally. He’s been indicted on corruption charges.”

“That’s crazy,” she said. “He’s a good man.”

“They’ve arrested the entire Major Crimes Unit.”

She stared at him, realization slowly dawning on her. “But they didn’t come for you.”

He reached for his badge. “We’ll talk about this when I get back.”

Wade hung the badge on a lanyard around his neck and hurried out. It felt like he was running away from her. He’d never run away from anything before.

***

Detective Roger Malden’s two-story tract home was illuminated like a movie set, bathed in harsh white glow from portable arc-lights that were brought in on trailers.

The residents of the adjoining homes had been cleared out and were being kept behind a police line at the end of the block.

Wade drove up in his department-issued Crown Vic, which might as well have been a badge on four wheels. The uniformed officers waved him through without a glance or a check of his ID. They looked confused. He couldn’t blame them. They had no idea what was going on. Nobody in the department did.

He parked behind an FBI armoured assault unit. As he got out of his car, he noted the sharpshooters on the rooftops and the Kevlar-vested agents crouched behind their vehicles, aiming their guns at Malden’s house as if it might leap from its foundation and attack them.

Carl Pinkus was easy to spot among the agents. He wore a Kevlar vest over his suit, a tactical helmet on his head, and was wielding his Blackberry instead of a gun, firing off text messages with his thumbs. He pocketed the device when he saw Wade approach.

“What’s the situation?” Wade asked.

“You’re standing out in the open, asking to be shot,” Pinkus said from behind a car. “Take cover.”

“If I wanted cover, I would have stayed in bed.”

“You didn’t tell us that Roger is an insomniac.”

“I didn’t know.”

“He saw the agents coming,” Pinkus said. “He fired off some warning shots before we even got close. We think he’s herded the family into the kitchen.”

Wade nodded and started towards the house. Pinkus grabbed him. “Put on a vest before you walk in there.”

“You think that would make my head off-limits for him to shoot?”

“We need you alive to testify.”

“Thanks for giving me something to live for.”

Wade sauntered across the street and up the front walk as if he was going to another one of Roger’s weekend barbeques. He knocked on the door.

“It’s me,” he yelled.

“Are you alone, Tom?” Roger replied in a loud voice from deep inside the house. Wade didn’t hear panic or desperation underscoring his words. He heard bitterness.

“Yeah, but I’m carrying a gun in each hand and a stick of dynamite in my teeth.”

“So am I. Come on in and we’ll party.”

Wade opened the door and stepped into the darkened house. Same floor plan but different furniture, electronics and art. Roger’s stuff was more upscale and contemporary than what Wade had. But Wade didn’t have Roger’s money.

He walked to the kitchen. After every Walden barbeque, Ally always raved about their travertine floors, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.

Roger sat on the edge of the centre island, near the stove top. He was wearing a terrycloth bathrobe over a T-shirt and draw-string pyjama pants. He didn’t have a stick of dynamite but he was holding a Glock in each hand.

“I figured the traitor had to be you,” Roger said. “You are always so fucking self-righteous, whether you’re making an arrest or a sandwich.”

Wade glanced to his right and saw Sally Malden and her daughters, ages nine and eleven, all in their nightgowns and huddling together on the floor, their legs curled up against their bodies. She held her daughters close to her, one under each arm. They were all crying silently, trails of tears and snot running down their faces.

He focused his gaze back on Roger. “You don’t want to hurt your family. You want to hurt me. I’m here now. Let them go.”

“They need to see this,” he said.