Second Shot

I glanced over and found, despite his apparent jubilation, Matt’s eyes were misty. We’d had to tell him, again and again, every tiny thing we could remember about Ella’s appearance today and he’d been storing it away ever since, hugging the memory close like a blanket. “My baby,” he said and his voice wavered a little. He took a swig from the glass of Sam Adams in front of him. “My God, I miss her.”

Into the silence that followed that statement came the trilling of my mobile. I rooted in my jacket pocket, ignoring the pointed stares from other diners at nearby tables. Irritation with the mobile phone, it seemed, was universal.

I fumbled the phone open awkwardly with my left hand. “Hello?”

“Charlie?” said a man’s voice. “It’s Greg Lucas.”

“Is it really?” I said, skeptical, mouthing his name to the others. “That, it seems, is a matter of opinion.”

I heard his annoyed expulsion of breath. “Can we put that matter aside for the moment?” he snapped. “This is serious.”

More serious than what happened to the real Greg Lucas?

“Go on,” I said.

“It’s Ella,” he said, his voice rising. He stopped, got control of it, and added, “She’s gone.”

“What?” Now it was my turn to snort. Then I was speaking fast and low. “I don’t know what the hell game you’re playing, Lucas — “

“For God’s sake,” he burst out, anger and anguish distorting his voice. “This is no game! I got back from the store and found Rosalind absolutely distraught. She said you’d been round to see her this afternoon. They came and took Ella, right from the house, just after you left.”

“Who took her?” I demanded. The others had been listening to my side of the conversation and all three of them tensed at that. Matt started to speak but I waved him quiet. I waited, but Lucas still didn’t respond. “Who took her?”

At last he said, reluctantly, “We think it’s Felix Vaughan. From what Rosalind said, it sounded like a couple of his guys. They turned up while we were out shopping this morning, trying to scare us, I think. Looks like they got bored with that and went for the real deal.”

“Have they said what they want?”

“What do you think?” Lucas said, acid now “Money. Ten million dollars. They left a note when they took her. If we go to the cops, they mail her back in pieces.”

“Are you at the house?” I said, struggling to fish my crutch out from under the table with my right hand. Sean was already on his feet. “We’ll come now.”

“No!” Lucas said sharply “They might be watching the house. I–I can’t risk that.” I had to hand it to him, he sounded genuinely shaken. But then, whatever his identity, he was Ella’s grandfather, after all. “We’ll come to you.”

“What if they try and call you?”

“They have my cell, and they said they’d call tomorrow, anyway. Where are you?”

I glanced at Sean. He seemed to understand my unspoken question and gave me a brief nod. “We’re up at the White Mountain Hotel,” I said.

“OK, we’ll meet you up there,” he said, then added with a bitter twist to his voice, “personally, I’d rather meet you in hell, but Rosalind seems to think you may be our only chance of getting Ella back alive.”

It was already dark outside. We waited in the car park with the lights of the hotel behind us. It was dazzlingly cold, with the monolithic slab of Cathedral Ledge looming up into the star-cast sky above. I’d picked out the constellation of Orion hanging high and bright above the trees as we came out. We sat in the Explorer with the engine running and the air con set to full heat, but I was shivering violently nevertheless.

Ella.

I recalled, starkly, her terror when the press photographers had ambushed her in her mother’s kitchen. The brush of her lips against my neck afterwards. An urge to rampage against the men who’d taken her now was so strong I had to clasp my hands tight in my lap to keep them from acting. So this must be part of what it’s like-maternal instinct. I’d thought that particular emotion had passed me by.

I had the front passenger seat purely because I needed the legroom. Sean was behind the wheel, leaving the backseat to the others. Neagley was sitting behind Sean.

As soon as we’d climbed in, Sean had reached over and taken the Beretta we’d won from Reynolds out of the glove box. Neagley had studiously looked in the other direction as he checked it over and slid the gun into the side pocket of his jacket. I noticed she pulled her handbag with the.357 Smith amp; Wesson a little closer towards her, bringing the gun out just far enough to confirm it was loaded and ready to go. Habit, more than necessity.

Sean twisted in his seat.

“Have you ever had cause to use that for real?” he asked, nodding to the revolver.

Neagley hesitated, then shook her head. “Not really,” she admitted. “I don’t even take it to the range much.”

“So why have it?”