Run With Me (32 page)

I have my tricks though. I put
on my pair of night vision goggles, just like when I tailed Kitty,
and turn off my headlights. It's not like being out in the country,
though, with a thick blanket of cloud to hide under. Here, in the
city, even without headlights you're going to be illuminated by
street lamps. But it still helps.

I tail Rugger for about 20
minutes through the city, and not once does he show signs that he
knows I'm there. Eventually he pulls up outside a rough apartment
building and steps from the car. He looks tired and weary as he moves
towards the door, enters a code, and disappears from sight.

For about 10 minutes I sit and
wait down the street, expecting him to reappear. Then it dawns on me
that this is where he lives – a grimy apartment block full of crack
addicts and meth dealers. I don't know why I expected any different.
He'd fit in quite nicely here. I suppose it's the thought that
Carmine pays him well enough to live somewhere nicer. Or, maybe, this
is where he feels he belongs.

It's past 3 in the morning when
I creep through the night towards Rugger's car. I know there's little
I can do now. As much as I want to, breaking in and killing him now
isn't an option. For one, I don't know which apartment is his, and
secondly, his death would quickly get back to Carmine. Despite
Rugger's hand in this, Carmine is still the ultimate goal, and he has
to come first.

I have one move. I retrieve the
small tracking device from my pocket and place it secretively on the
underside of the car. Now Rugger's working for me.

Kitty

Colt's apartment is bare. It
feels cold and unwelcoming, like a hotel room without any character.
In a strange way, it reminds me of the room I was kept in by Carmine
only a few day ago. Empty, desolate, lonely.

There are no paintings on the
wall, no pictures, no color. The furniture is sparse. A sofa in the
living room, an unplugged television opposite it. It's still got a
thin plastic film over the screen, and looks like it's never been
used. Dust gathers on the top edge, and I wonder how long it's been
sat there for. Months. Maybe even years.

The kitchen is spotless. Brand
new pans and cooking utensils hang, sparkling a shiny silver. The
cupboards are mainly bare. The refrigerator is all but empty. It
looks like an apartment that someone's only just bought, but haven't
yet begun to flesh out. I suspect, however, that Colt's owned this
place for a while.

I finish my tour in the bedroom.
The bed is made, the duvet perfectly tucked in. I don't know when
Colt was last here, but I'd imagine he'd make the bed just right
every morning. It's that perfectionist quality he seems to have.
Slightly OCD even. I've noticed it in the motels we've stayed in. The
way he orders things and straightens things out, even though the
cleaners are going to come in and do it anyway. I know, too, that he
takes the same quality into his work. I hope it pays off, one last
time.

In the bedroom is a built in
wardrobe. I open it to see lines of suits and dark clothing hanging
along a rail. He certainly favors the more sombre colors. At the
bottom, sitting on the floor, is a box. I pull it out and open it up.
Sitting at the top is a picture. A beautiful woman, medium length
blonde hair and gleaming white smile. Holding her hand is a toddler.
She has shiny blonde hair, like her mother, and bright blue eyes,
like her father. Then my eyes turn to Colt, standing in his military
uniform. His eyes sparkle with pride and happiness, his face is
tanned and lean and cleanly shaven. They look like the perfect
family.

A tear rolls down my cheek as I
step back to the bed and place the box beside me. I remove the top
picture and find another, one of Colt smiling as Ellie, his daughter,
kisses him on the cheek. Then one of Colt and Sophie kissing as Ellie
plays with a toy in the grass. There are others, stacks of them.
Hundreds of pictures of Sophie and Ellie and Colt. Of the two of them
in high school. Young and blissfully happy. Of their wedding. It
looks like a small affair, with only a handful of guests. Of Sophie,
pregnant with their child. Baby pictures of Ellie in her mother's
arms. Hundreds of memories. A box of pain.

There are letters, too. Letters
between Sophie and Colt from when he was away on tour. Love letters
from their youth when they were first dating. The first words of
Ellie as she learns to write. '
I love you daddy
' is written at
the bottom of many of Sophie's more recent notes. I can't stop now as
I sift through cards – for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries –
and drawings done by Ellie. One is of a man in army gear, standing
next to a woman in a blue dress with blonde hair. '
Mommy and
daddy
' it reads, with a line of x's underneath.

I don't know how much time
passes as I look through the box, examining every picture, reading
every letter. I must sit there for hours, digging deeper into Colt's
past, into the life that was taken from him. I think of the man now.
His entire world bent on revenge. His life mimicking his apartment.
Cold and efficient. No pleasure, no joy. Just one job after the next
to keep him occupied, keep him numb from his pain.

I know I'm being nosy, that this
is none of my business, Colt's personal things that no one is ever
intended to see. Yet I can't stop. I'm drawn to it, sucked in by
images of a younger Colt, a happier Colt. I begin to hope that the
man smiling with a wide grin will re-appear one day. That with
everything that's happened, he'll be able to fully move on. I've seen
him in glimpses, perhaps. A smile her, a touch there. But for the
most part he's consumed and unable to fight his way out. Maybe now
that will change.

I'm so invested in his past that
I don't notice when he appears for real, standing in the doorway in
silence. In the corner of my eye I see a shadow, watching me, and
quickly turn my head up towards him. He's staring at me, an
expression I can't place on his face.

“
Colt,” I say with a start,
quickly placing pictures and letters back into the box. “I'm
sorry....I...how long have you been there.” I fumble my words, like
a naughty child caught doing something they shouldn't.

“
A few moments,” he says,
still staring at me. It's like he's refusing to arch his eyes down to
the box and its contents, keeping his gaze fixed on me.

“
I was just...looking at some
of your old pictures,” I say. “I'm sorry. It's not my place.” I
place the lid back on the box and move back towards the closet,
placing the box back on the floor inside. When I stand, I find that
Colt is close to me, right behind me. It startles me slightly, how
quietly he can move.

“
It's OK,” he says to me,
“there's no need to apologize.” Now he glances down behind me at
the closed box, back in its position, hidden within his wardrobe. “I
don't take it out much any more.”

I nod. I understand. The pain is
too great.

“
How long were you looking?”
he asks.

“
Not long,” I lie, and I
know Colt can tell I'm not being truthful.

“
It's really OK,” he says
again. “It's just a box of memories. They were beautiful, weren't
they. Sophie and Ellie.”

I nod and smile. “You were a
beautiful family.”

He raises his arm behind me,
glances one last time at the box, and shut the wardrobe. Then he
turns and I follow him through into the living room, where we sit on
the sofa.

“
How did it go tonight,” I
ask him. I'm praying it's already over, but I have a feeling that it
won't be that easy.

“
I've got a lead,” he says.
“I tailed Rugger to his apartment in South LA and put a tracker on
his car. It's just a matter of time now until he leads me to
Carmine.”

“
Do you think Carmine's still
in hiding?” I ask.

Colt half nods. “It's
possible. I could be wrong, but I've got a hunch he's waiting
somewhere where he'll have an alibi for when Klein gets killed. He
won't want anything to be able to trace him to it.”

“
That makes sense. And you
think Rugger will lead you there?”

“
I know it.”

That night I sleep alone in
Colt's bed. He tells me to rest, that he wants to keep an eye on the
tracker to see where and when Rugger moves. When I wake in the
morning, Colt remains seated on the sofa, his laptop open ahead of
him. There's a red light blinking on it in the same position as the
previous night. Rugger's car hasn't moved.

The day wears on and the tracker
begins to move. It returns to the bar before going to several other
locations around the city. Each time the car stops, Colt checks the
address. Restaurants, bars, clubs. All owned by Michael Carmine. It
seems Rugger is keeping an eye on that side of the business. For
several hours in the evening the car stops outside a strip club. I
don't know whether it's another of Carmine's businesses, or merely
part of Rugger's social schedule. Could quite easily be both.

By now it's become obvious that
Colt can hardly keep his eyes open, so I offer to keep watch.
Rugger's car has returned to his apartment, presumably for the night,
so there should be little activity, for a few hours at least. Colt
puts up a bit of a fight, but eventually agrees once I've promised
I'll stay awake.

“
We have to work as a team,”
I tell him. “You can't do all of this on your own.”

He trundles off to bed and I
start my vigil on the sofa. Thankfully Colt does have some coffee in
the apartment, which I use to keep me alert as my own eyes being to
drop. Hours pass, and I stare at nothing but a blinking red light. By
the time dawn surfaces, I think I'm going half mad.

Then there's movement. It's
still early morning, but the light is inching along the map on Colt's
computer. Now I don't need any coffee to stay alert. I sit entranced
as the blip moves northwards through LA, veering west up into
Beverley Hills. The car stops on a street for a brief moment, before
moving forward again up a private driveway.
It's gone through a
private gate
, I think to myself.

The car stops, but I keep my
eyes on it for a moment to make sure it doesn't move off. A couple of
minutes pass, and nothing. A mansion in Beverley Hills. It can only
be Michael Carmine's.

Now I'm quickly on my feet and
marching towards Colt's bedroom. If he's there – if they're both
there – now's the time to strike. I open the door and he jumps up
with a start, his hand clutched at his gun. “What's going on?” he
questions immediately.

“
I think I've found him.”

His eyes widen and he jumps from
the bed, dressed only in a pair of boxer briefs. He rushes past me
towards the laptop, and I follow behind. I see the blinking red
light, still situated outside the house in Beverley Hills, and tell
him that he's just driven there.

“
Carmine's house,” he
whispers, staring at the map, before turning and rushing back to his
room. Within a few moments he's stepping back out, dressed in a pair
of black pants and slim fitting black top. He moves towards the door
but my words stop him in his tracks.

“
I'm coming too,” I say.

He turns to me. “It's not
safe. You should stay here.”

I step forward with authority.
“Carmine's ruined my life too. Killed people I love. I want to
come. I can help.”

I don't really know what I'll be
able to do, and for a split second I question what I'm saying. But
then I realize I want to stay close to Colt. I want to know when the
job's been done. I want to know when it's all over. I can't sit here,
in this lifeless place, and wait. I don't want to go through that
again.

Colt keeps his eyes on me for a
few moments, before nodding gently. “OK,” he says. “But you
need to do what I tell you.”

An abbreviated smile flashes
over my face as Colt turns out of the door and I follow in behind
him. When we reach the car Colt hands me a small device with a large
screen. On it blinks the red light, still outside the mansion.

“
I don't know the area,”
Colt says, “so you'll have to guide me.”

I can't tell whether this is his
way of making me feel like I'm needed, or whether it's actually
useful having me along for the ride. I'm sure this car has some sort
of navigation system that could get him there just as easy as me. In
any case, I don't question it, and keep my eyes on the map, zooming
out and into our current location to direct Colt through the city and
up into the hills.

Soon we're approaching, and for
the first time we get a clear, true look at the street and the houses
lining them. They're all gated, all set back from the main, wide,
tree lined road. Inside are luxury cars parked outside imposing
mansions, although it's hard to make out much more beyond the tall
walls that surround each property.

Our target house is right up
ahead, and I'm surprised when Colt doesn't stop, but continues to
drive past. As he does he slows down, ever so briefly, and twists his
neck to check out the front gate. Then he continues on down the
street, turns to the right down another road, and parks the car.

“
There's no one manning the
gate,” he says. “It opens electronically either using a control
or from someone inside the mansion.”