Second Shot (37 page)

“So how did you find out they’d taken the test?” I asked.

“The results arrived back by courier. Greg was out. I didn’t know what they were and I was curious, so I opened them … and then I knew he’d lied to me, all these years.”

You should have been expecting that, Rosalind. His whole life’s been a lie since before he ever met you.
…

“So you rang Simone at the hotel,” I said. “Why? What was that going to achieve? If it was the money you were after, surely your best course would have been to keep quiet and say nothing. Simone was already convinced Greg was her father, and she turned out to be right. Why spill the beans?”

“I was jealous,” she said simply. ‘And hurt, and angry. So, I told her to come to the house because the results were back … and then I told her the truth.”

I sucked in a breath. “Which part of it?”

“I told her that Greg wasn’t really Greg Lucas,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “And I also told her that he’d killed the man she thought of as her father.”

“Does that mean,” I said carefully, “that you neglected to tell her the part about Greg actually being her
real
father?”

There was a long pause while we drove on, Rosalind’s eyes fixed so firmly on the taillights of the car ahead that she couldn’t possibly actually be looking at them. Then she said, barely audible, “Yes.”

My God,
I thought.
That would have been enough to send anyone off at the deep end.
I was suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness that went bone-deep.
What a waste. What a bloody awful waste.

‘And how did she react to that?”

“She went crazy,” Rosalind said, sounding not surprised exactly but maybe slightly awed at the force of Simone’s reaction. “She went for me with her claws out. I ran upstairs to try and get to my bedroom—at least there’s a lock on the door—but she caught up with me before I’d reached the top of the stairs and she was screaming because she was angry, and Ella was screaming because she was frightened. Then the bodyguard she had with her—Jakes—he came to try and break us up.”

She paused again, took a deep shaky breath. “I don’t think she meant to hit him, but somehow she did and he fell… and I knew as soon as I saw him hit the floor that he was dead. And then Greg walked in and Si-mone looked at him, standing over Jakes’s body in the hallway, and then she
really
lost it.”

I thought back to the words I’d heard that night and even I had to admit that it all fitted. I glanced back over my shoulder. Matt was sitting behind Rosalind, leaning forwards so his head was almost between the front seats. He was listening with a mix of emotions playing round his thin features, from anger to disbelief to an all-engulfing grief. I could see the tears had finally broken cover and were running freely down his cheeks, but he didn’t seem to be aware of them and made no moves to brush them away I closed my heart to his pain and pressed on, regardless.

“So how did you all get from the upper floor to the basement?” I said.

Rosalind glanced at me. “I shouted to Greg that Simone had gone crazy, that she had killed her own bodyguard and I needed his help. He bolted for his gun safe in the basement but—”

“What about that Smith & Wesson revolver? Wasn’t he still carrying it?”

She looked momentarily surprised. “No,” she said slowly, frowning. “I suppose he can’t have been. He doesn’t always.”

We’d turned off the main street now and were starting to thread through the quieter residential side roads leading towards Mount Cran-more. The lights for the ski runs were clearly visible, stretching above us.

“So he got to his gun safe and pulled a gun,” I prompted. “What then?”

“He couldn’t do it,” Rosalind said, her voice barely audible. “It didn’t matter than Simone could have killed me as well as Jakes. He let her walk right up to him and take the gun out of his hand.” She glanced sideways again. “And then you arrived and, well, I guess you pretty much know the rest.”

Not really….

“I don’t suppose,” I said, “that you happened to mention any of this to Detective Young after Simone was killed?”

Rosalind shook her head. “How could I and still protect Greg’s identity?” she said, mournful. “And what good would it have done? My duty was to the living.”

“Including Ella?”

“Of course,” Rosalind said, brusque. “She may not be mine—in any sense of the word,” she added with a rueful little half smile, “but I’ve come to love her like she was my own. I’m sure we both do.”

“So why let Greg take her? If he’s so fond of his granddaughter, why did he use her like a human shield out there in the forest?”

Rosalind made the final turn into the car park and slotted the Range Rover into a parking space outside the apartment, right next to Neagley’s Saturn, putting the gear lever into neutral.

“He’s not a professional soldier, Charlie,” she said, with just a hint of the patronizing in her voice. “He was frightened and he genuinely thought that by taking the child he could get her to safety After all, it
was you
who brought her down to the basement and put her into danger.”

I sat for a moment without speaking, working through what she’d said and trying to get it straight in my own head. Matt was silent behind us. I undipped my seat belt and turned to face Rosalind.

“You’re good,” I said, reflective. “Very good, in fact.”

“Excuse me?”

“Very convincing,” I said. “You damned near had me convinced, that’s for sure. I think claiming Simone was the one who hit Jakes was overegging it a little, but otherwise you play the loyal wife and the doting grandmother almost to perfection. Academy Award stuff, really”

She tensed and her eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you talking about?” she said, almost a growl. “I’ve told you nothing but the truth.”

I gave a short laugh devoid of mirth. “Oh, there might be some truth mixed up in there, but it’s been so watered down with the lies, it’s difficult to tell.”

Her mouth opened, closed again. “Frankly, Charlie, I don’t really care much one way or the other what you think.” She reached down to unclip her seat belt. “What matters at the moment is Ella.”

“Of course it does,” I agreed. “And the ten million dollars you hope to get for her. This has nothing to do with Felix Vaughan, has it, Rosalind?” I raised an eyebrow but she didn’t answer. “That’s just a wild-goose chase.”

“Oliver Reynolds—it
is you
he’s working for, isn’t it?” I cut across her, my voice turning harsh. “Just remember one thing, Rosalind. If he hurts her, I will kill you myself.”

Rosalind’s face was blank for a moment longer before it twisted into a derisive smile. She brought her hand back up again—the one that had been fiddling with her seat belt—only now there was a 9mm Beretta in it, and she was pointing it firmly in my direction.

“Oh yes?” she said silkily. ‘And just how do you propose to do that?”

I mentally cursed myself for not seeing that one coming and made sure I kept my hands very still.

“Give me a minute and I’m sure I’ll think of something,” I said, and she snorted.

“How did you know? I thought I’d covered all the bases.”

I nodded towards the apartment building in front of us. “You never asked directions,” I said. “But Reynolds knows where we are. He paid us a visit.” I eyed the gun but she held it confidently, relaxed, like she was only too familiar with handling and firing a weapon. Hardly surprising when I thought about her background. Shame I hadn’t thought about it earlier. “If you’d kept up the outraged innocence, you might even have got away with it.”

A flicker of annoyance skimmed across her face. Then she shrugged. “Ah well,” she said. “Too late for that now.”

There was a moment of silence while the big, fat snowflakes floated down softly and lay on the windscreen and died in the residual warmth coming up through the glass.

I sat quiet in my seat with my right hand lying in my lap and felt the sharp throbbing in my back that had been there since the shooting, and the dull ache in my left leg that never quite seemed to go away.

Oh, I knew all the theories for dealing with armed opponents. I’d studied the methods and in the past I’d practiced until the bruises wrote their own record, but it was always a last resort. Besides, any of the moves I knew required outstanding speed and strength and agility, and at the moment I was severely lacking in all three.

I thought of Matt, frozen in shock or fear—or quite possibly both— in the rear seat, but I resisted the urge to glance at him and draw Rosalind’s attention there. He’d come to my rescue with Reynolds, but Matt wasn’t a fighter by either instinct or training. I couldn’t—and didn’t— expect him to butt in now.

I looked up.

“What is it that you want, Rosalind?”

She smiled, recognizing my capitulation for what it was, and rooted in her coat pocket with her left hand, quickly pulling out her mobile phone. She keyed in a number without having to take her eyes off me. All the time the gun never wavered.

“Just in case you get any ideas,” she said, tucking the phone up to her ear while the call rang out, “my daddy taught me well and I’m a very good shot. Not up to your standard, probably, but at this distance I hardly need to be. Of course, I’d rather not make any additional holes in this car, if I can help it, but if it comes down to it, well—” she shrugged, careless, “—the lease agreement’s in Greg’s name.”

Tinnily, I heard the phone answered. Rosalind’s face was tense now, but she never dropped her guard.

“Get me Felix Vaughan,” she said, clipped. My heart started to canter at an uneven rhythm, accelerating. “Felix? … It’s Rosalind. Oh, let’s dispense with the pleasantries, shall we? I have a proposition for you.”

The voice at the other end—obviously Vaughan—gave some short indication of assent.

“I want my business back, Felix,” Rosalind said, her voice ringing with conviction like struck steel. “No, that old threat won’t work anymore,” she interrupted when he began to speak again. “Greg’s about to be unmasked anyway…. That’s right.. . the bodyguard.” She said the words looking right at me, contempt rich in her voice.

There was a long pause and I could picture Felix Vaughan taking the information in, sifting through it, analyzing the content, looking for the angles.

“Yes, I know the agreement’s watertight, Felix, believe me. What I’m proposing is a trade,” Rosalind said when he began to speak again. My chest tightened. I knew where this was going. There could only be one outcome. “You sign the business back over to me and I’ll give you something much more valuable in exchange—Ella.”

Vaughan’s derision was clear. Rosalind cut across him like a razor, so sharp he didn’t feel the slice of the blade until it was already through his skin. “She’s worth approximately twenty-five million dollars, Felix. The money was Simone’s, but Ella is, after all, her only heir. I’ll give you an hour to think about it. Then call me. Oh, and as a gesture of good faith, I think I should warn you that Greg is on his way over there now. He’s got a couple of hired guns with him. Professionals.” She gave a tight little smile. “Yes, I’m sure you will, Felix.” And she ended the call without saying good-bye.

In the backseat, Matt began to hyperventilate like he was about to have an asthma attack.

“You bitch,” he muttered. “How could you just—just
sell
her off like that? What kind of a monster are you?”

“The desperate kind,” Rosalind said calmly.

Matt started to curse her then, getting louder and more fluent as he got into his stride. Rosalind sighed and twisted a little farther round in her seat so her back was more against the window glass and she could keep both of us in view.

“Don’t make me shoot you just to shut you up,” she said to him, her dispassionate tone silencing him better than venom would ever have done.

She stiffened as another car turned into the parking area, its lights sweeping across us. For a moment I entertained a tiny glimmer of absurd hope that it was Sean and Neagley, who’d somehow seen through Lucas’s story—and Rosalind’s trap—and come back to rescue us. The car drove past and disappeared round the end of the next apartment block.

“OK,” Rosalind said. “Let’s go inside. Who has the keys?”

For a moment neither of us spoke.

“You’re not just making things worse for yourselves by being awkward,” Rosalind said, holding the mobile phone up. “Perhaps you’d like to consider Ella’s welfare.”

“I’ve got the keys,” Matt said, speaking fast and a little breathless. He fumbled in his pocket and brought them out, his hands shaking so badly that they jingled on their ring. “Just don’t let him hurt her. Please.”

Rosalind made no moves to take the keys. “We’re all going to go inside—you first,” she said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Matt scrambled down out of the Range Rover’s backseat, too frightened to get creative. As soon as he was out of the car, I said softly, “I meant what I said. If you hurt Ella, I
will kill
you. You do know that, don’t you?”

Rosalind gave me an assessing glance, one hand on the door handle.

“If I was foolish enough to give you the opportunity?” she said. “Yes, I reckon you would.”

I took my time about getting out of my side, exaggerating it, trying to give Matt time to do something. I’m not entirely sure what I expected of him, exactly. But he didn’t do it, anyway.

Eventually, Rosalind tired of my tactics, moving in behind me and kicking into the back of my left knee. The leg buckled and I collapsed against the side of the Range Rover, gasping. I let go of the crutch, which bounced off the bodywork and clattered onto the icy ground.

“Pick it up,” Rosalind said to Matt. “And quit stalling,” she added to me. “Get inside before I lose my patience completely.”

This time, the way I hobbled to the door to the apartment didn’t have to be feigned. It was eight degrees below freezing that night, but by the time we reached the doorway I was sweating under my coat.

Rosalind stayed well back from the pair of us, keeping the gun steady. At some point during the walk from the car, she’d taken the time to screw a suppressor to the end of the Beretta’s barrel, very like the one Reynolds had used when he’d made his abortive attempt to snatch Ella from the house. At least I now knew where he shopped for his weaponry. All those ex-military M9 Berettas. I hadn’t given it a second thought.