Second Shot

I‘m beginning to have some serious doubts about Greg Lucas,” I said. It was the morning after Vaughan’s visit and I was sitting in my room, on the bed, watching the icicles hanging from the guttering outside the window, melting gently like they were weeping. Simone and Ella were downstairs and, much as I didn’t like to leave them unaccompanied with Rosalind and Lucas, I felt I needed to bring Sean up to speed.

“Why?” Sean’s question was put in that calm, neutral voice of his.

I gave it a moment’s further consideration. “He just doesn’t give off the right vibes,” I said at last, knowing he wouldn’t dismiss my answer out of hand. “The training he had, the amount of time he spent in the Regiment …” I let my voice trail off, shook my head even though I knew he couldn’t see me do it. “I don’t know. He just doesn’t move right, doesn’t have the right instincts. I know he’s been out for a long time, but I don’t think you ever really lose that.”

“You could be right,” Sean said. “And I don’t think the Lucas we’ve been finding out about would stand there and let this guy Vaughan walk all over him, like you said.”

“No,” I agreed. I twisted away from the window, back towards the room’s interior, which was almost gloomy by comparison. Hannibal the psycho teddy bear watched me with a glassy stare from the chair across the other side of the room. I switched my gaze back to the window again.

“Funny, isn’t it?” I said. “From the information that Neagley gave me, and what you’ve found out since, Felix Vaughan fits the role of Simone’s missing father much better than Lucas does.”

“Now there’s a thought.”

“I know, but Vaughan’s certainly got that nasty streak in him, and I should imagine there’s quite a temper lurking beneath the surface. And although he didn’t say anything, he made me for what I was, almost as soon as we met.”

“Whereas Lucas didn’t.”

“No,” I said. “And I’m not that good an actress. He should have cottoned on. Maybe not in Boston, but when he nearly left me behind on the way up here I thought I gave myself away big-time then.”

“He could just have been playing with you,” Sean said. ‘Apparently he was noted for playing mind games with trainees, and they pulled him out of any involvement with Selection after he blindfolded and handcuffed two guys and pushed them out of a helicopter during a Resistance-to-interrogation exercise.”

“Hedidwto?”

“Yeah, well, they’d stopped us doing that by the time you were on the course,” Sean said with a hint of a smile in his voice. “And in Lucas’s case they were only about six feet off the ground, but one of them landed badly and broke his collarbone. Even back then, when there was less of a stink about training methods than there is these days, there was hell to pay.”

“So,” I said, my voice tinged with sourness, “should the opportunity arise to get into a helicopter with him, remind me not to sit next to the door.”

“The other things that came up were that he was very good at hand-to-hand, and an excellent shot with a pistol.”

“Oh great,” I said. “What am I supposed to do to find out for definite if he is who he says he is, then-pick a fight with him?”

Sean laughed softly. “I know who I’d put my money on,” he said.

When I walked down the staircase I heard the quiet murmur of voices behind the door to the study. Simone and Lucas. I thought briefly about knocking but couldn’t think of a good excuse to do so other than nosiness. For a moment I was tempted to use that one anyway, but I didn’t.

So far, Lucas and his wife had been somewhat nonplussed by the news of my real role in Simone’s life. Simone had explained my presence by telling them about her problems with an ex-boyfriend-being careful not to name Matt, or admit he was Ella’s father. She also left out all mention of the fact that most of her problems had started the moment she became a millionairess.

Even I have to admit the way she put it, it sounded reasonably convincing. She’d been stalked, she’d said, and Ella had been scared by the whole thing. The promising reports from the private eye, O’Halloran, had convinced Simone to fly out to Boston and I’d come along to make sure the boyfriend didn’t follow her over here and cause more trouble.

Yes, there were holes in the story if you looked closely enough, but fortunately neither of them seemed inclined to do that. Interestingly, they had asked if she had any hopes for a reconciliation with her ex. When she said a categorical no-even going so far as to hint he was into drugs — they’d lost a lot of the stiffness in their attitude, become friendly again. I thought I’d even caught a hint of relief in them, but I could have been wrong about that.

Now, I followed the sound of chattering voices to the open-plan kitchen, where Rosalind and Ella were baking cookies. At least, Rosalind was baking the cookies and Ella just seemed to be making a mess over as wide an area as possible. At Rosalind’s invitation, I helped myself to coffee from the pot and stayed well back, strictly in an observational role.