Lethal (32 page)

He wasn’t even ready to call Hamilton and ask for backup from Tom VanAllen, because he didn’t entirely trust his own agency. The bureau probably didn’t entirely trust him either.

For all the FBI really knew, he had gone postal and mowed down everybody in that warehouse on Sunday night. If it became expedient for the bureau to pass him off as a veteran suffering from P.T.S.D., then that’s what they would do, and no one, probably not even the woman sharing a stolen truck—and a wanna-fuck-you-bad kiss with him—would believe otherwise.

Chances were good that he wouldn’t be around to see the smoke clear on this case. He wouldn’t be available to exonerate himself for the warehouse massacre. He’d wind up on a slab, growing cold in infamy. But by God, he wasn’t going to take the fall for The Bookkeeper’s handiwork without putting up a hell of a fight.

This morning had been a close call. As sure as he was still breathing, that engaged cell phone had brought people running to that damn tub, and in all probability Doral Hawkins had been leading the pack. If Emily hadn’t awakened him when she had, they’d all have been shot in their bunks.

Risking his own life was a job requirement. Risking theirs, no way.

Mind made up, he said, “You mentioned a friend yesterday.”

Honor looked over at him. “Tori.”

“Aunt Tori,” Emily chirped. “She’s funny.”

The gender of Honor’s friend shouldn’t have mattered to him at all. He was surprised by how glad he was to learn it was a woman. “Good friend?”

“Best friends. Emily thinks she’s family.”

“You trust her?”

“Implicitly.”

He pulled off the road, rolled to a stop on the shoulder, and dug his cell phone from his front pants pocket. Then, turning to Honor, he laid it on the line. “I gotta dump the two of you.”

“But—”

“No buts,” he said emphatically. “Only thing I need to know, when you’re free of me, are you going to call in the cavalry?”

“You mean Doral?”

“Him, the police, the FBI. Last night, you enumerated all the reasons you came with me. One of them was mistrusting the authorities. Does that still hold?”

She nodded.

“Say it.”

“I won’t call in the cavalry.”

“All right. Do you think your friend would hide you for a couple of days?”

“Why a couple of days?”

“Because that’s how long Hamilton gave me.”

“He gave you less than that.”

“Will she hide you?”

“If I ask her to.”

“She wouldn’t betray your trust?”

Without an instant’s hesitation, she gave an emphatic shake of her head.

“That means she can’t call in the cavalry either,” he said.

“That would be the last thing Tori would do.”

It went against his nature, as well as his training and experience, to trust anyone. But he had no choice except to give Honor the benefit of the doubt. As soon as he was out of sight, she might very well sic Doral Hawkins on him, but that was a risk he had to take.

The alternative was to keep her and Emily with him. If he did, they could very well get hurt or killed. He didn’t think even he, who’d seen unimaginable atrocities, and had inflicted a few himself, could handle watching the two of them die. It was his fault they were in this. He should have left Honor blissfully ignorant.

But second-guessing was a waste of energy, and he didn’t have time for regret.

“Okay. You’re about to put that implicit trust in your friend to the test. What’s her number?”

“It won’t work if you call. I’ll have to.”

He shook his head. “If you do, you could be implicated.”

“Implicated? In what?”

He glanced at Emily, who was singing along with Elmo. The ditty had annoyed him at first, but he was used to it by now and, most of the time, able to tune it out. Coming back to Honor, he spoke softly. “Implicated in any shit that may come down when my deadline expires.” Her green eyes stayed fixed on his; he read the question in them. “If I do nothing else, I’m going to take care of Doral Hawkins.”

“Take care of?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You can’t just kill him,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I can. I will. I am.”

She turned her head away and stared through the
bug-spattered windshield at the glowering sky. Visibly distressed, she said, “I’m so far out of my element here.”

“I realize that. But this is my element, so you’ve got to trust my judgment.”

“I know you’re doubtful about Stan. But he would—”

“Not an option.”

“He’s my father-in-law, Coburn. He loves us.”

He lowered his voice even more, so that Emily wouldn’t be distracted from her singing. “Do you want Emily around to witness the confrontation between him and me? Because you know it will eventually come down to that. Do you think he’s going to let me just walk into his house and start going through Eddie’s things? No. Whether he’s guilty of partnering with The Bookkeeper or Marset, or an honest citizen safeguarding his dead son’s good name, he’s going to resist my intrusion. With force. Not only that, he’ll be good and pissed with me for dragging you and his granddaughter into this.”

Her expression was a giveaway. She knew he was right. Even so, she continued to look miserably indecisive. He gave her only a few seconds before prodding her again. “What’s Tori’s number?”

She raised her chin stubbornly. “Sorry, Coburn. I can’t.”

“You don’t trust her enough?”

“This is my mess. How can I drag Tori into it? I’ll be placing her in danger, too.”

“Tough choice, I know. But it’s the only one you’ve got. Unless…” He tipped his head toward Emily. “You trust Doral Hawkins to spare her life.
I
wouldn’t bet on it.
You
might.”

She gave him a baleful look. “You always use that.”

“Because it always works. What’s Tori’s number?”

E
ven before Tori checked the light beyond her shutters, she knew by instinct that it was an ungodly hour for her phone to be ringing.

She groaned and buried her head deep into her pillow to escape the noise. Then, remembering the events of yesterday, she rolled toward her nightstand and grabbed her phone. “Hello?”

“Tori, did I wake you up?”

Not Honor and not Bonnell, who were the only people on earth whom she might forgive for calling her at dawn. “Who’s this?”

“Amber.”

Tori scowled and flopped back down onto her pillow. “What? And it had better be good.”

“Well, just like you instructed me, the first thing I do each morning after turning off the alarm is to turn on the sauna and whirlpool in both locker rooms so they can be getting hot. Then when all the lights in the studio have
been turned on, I unlock the front door, because sometimes there are people waiting—”

“For godsake, Amber, get to it.”

“That’s when I check the main number’s voice mail. This morning, somebody left a weird message at 5:58, just a few minutes before I opened up.”

“Well, what was it?”

“ ‘What does Barbie see in Ken?’ ”

Tori sat bolt upright in bed. “That’s all she said?”

“Actually it was a man.”

Tori thought on that for several moments, then said, “Well, isn’t it obvious to you that it was a crank call? Don’t bother me with crap like this again.”

“Are you coming in today?”

“Don’t count on it. Cover for me.”

Tori ended the call and bounded out of bed. She skipped doing her hair and makeup, which she
never
skipped, and dressed rapidly in the first clothes her hands touched when she reached into her closet. Then, grabbing her keys and handbag, she left through the front door.

But halfway to her car in the driveway, she noticed a beat-up panel truck parked at the curb across the street, about a third of the distance to the corner. Anyone inside it would have an unobstructed view of her house. She couldn’t tell whether or not anyone was behind the wheel, but Doral’s words came back to her.
I’ll be on you like white on rice
.

Maybe she’d been watching too many crime shows on TV, maybe she was being super-paranoid, but she’d never seen the truck on her street before, her best friend had been kidnapped yesterday, and she’d been threatened and manhandled by a local hoodlum.

She’d rather be paranoid than stupid.

Rather than continuing on to her car, she bent down and picked up the morning issue of the newspaper that was lying in the wet grass. Pretending to read the front page, assuming a casual saunter, she retraced her steps back into the house and soundly closed the door behind her.

Then she quickly went through her house, slipped out her back door, and, cutting a path that couldn’t be seen from the street, walked across her lawn, which melded into that belonging to the house directly behind hers. There was a light on in the kitchen. She knocked on the door.

It was answered by a handsome, buff young man. He was cradling a smug-looking cat in his arms. Tori despised the cat, and the feeling was mutual. But she adored the man, because he’d once told her that in his next life he wanted to be an unapologetic diva bitch just like her.

He was a client who never missed a workout. Well-defined biceps bulged when he pushed open the screen door and motioned her in. “This is a surprise! Hon, look who’s come to call. Tori.”

His partner in this, the only gay marriage in Tambour, whose body was equally buff, entered the kitchen as he speared a cuff link into his sleeve. “Hell must have frozen over. I didn’t know you ever got up this early. Sit down. Coffee?”

“Thanks, no. Listen, guys, can I borrow a car? I gotta go… somewhere… in sort of a hurry.”

“Something wrong with your Vette?”

“It’s making a funny noise. I’m afraid it’ll quit on me, and I’ll be stranded.”

She hated telling them such a transparent lie. They’d been excellent neighbors, and over the years had become loyal friends, dispensing expensive wine and commiseration each time she got divorced. Or married, for that matter.

They looked at her, then at each other, then back at her. She knew that they knew she was lying, but if she tried to explain, they would drive her to the nearest loony bin.

Finally the one with the cat asked, “The Lexus or the Mini Cooper?”

Upon seeing Stan, Crawford exclaimed, “What the
hell
?”

Under other circumstances, Stan might have enjoyed the deputy’s humiliation and bafflement, but he could feel the egg on his own face. Unused to being made a fool of, he was trying very hard to keep his dignity intact and his fury under control. It wasn’t Crawford he wanted to lash out at, however. It was the man who, twenty-four hours ago, had robbed him of Honor and Emily.

“My daughter-in-law’s cell phone,” he said, extending it to Crawford.

He snatched it from Stan. “I know what it is and who it belongs to. How the hell did you get it, and what are you doing here with it?”

“Well, one thing I’m
not
doing with it is playing Thomas the Tank Engine games,” Stan retorted.

Crawford activated the phone. From the screen, the cartoon steam engine smiled up at him.

“It’s Emily’s favorite game,” Stan told him.

“So they have been here.”

“Those are my late son’s clothes,” he said, motioning to the damp heap on the boat console. “There’s food and water below. Empty cans and wrappers. Yes, they were definitely here, but they’re gone.”

To Crawford’s further consternation, Doral joined them from the cabin below. The deputy holstered his gun and placed his hands on his hips. “Mrs. Gillette must have
called you and told you where she was. Why didn’t you notify me?”

“Honor didn’t call anybody,” Stan said stiffly. “I already checked her call log. It’s been cleared. Even the calls she and I exchanged yesterday are no longer on there.”

The deputy’s eyes shifted back and forth between them, landing on Doral with an accusatorial glare. “If she didn’t call you, then one of your late brother’s friends in the police department must have tipped you that we’d got the signal.”