Second Shot

He stiffened, made a conscious effort to relax, then saw I’d noticed both reactions and gave up on trying to hide either. “Do we?”

“Oh, come on, Lucas!” I said, allowing some bite to show through without letting my voice rise because the last thing I wanted was Simone hearing us. “Think about it for a minute-the masks, the suppressors on the guns, the fact they didn’t even bother getting close enough to my bed to find out I wasn’t in it before they wiped me out. It was a kidnapping attempt, pure and simple.”

He stuck his nose back into his coffee cup, almost gloomy, as though hearing it out loud somehow made it more real for him. Eventually, he looked up, looked right at me and said, “I want you to take Simone and Ella home.”

I took a moment to drain the last of my coffee, then put the empty cup down on the desk behind me, using the time it gave me to consider.

“Why?”

He blinked. “Why?” he repeated. “Charlie, as you’ve just pointed out so correctly, someone tried to kidnap my daughter last night.” He leaned forwards slightly, lowered his voice. “Right out of my house.”

“So you’re afraid for your safety,” I said, a deliberate taunt delivered in a bland tone, maybe a small payback for that car park stunt the day we’d driven up here.

His lips thinned. “No, but I’m certainly afraid for their safety,” he shot back. “Aren’t you?”

“Of course,” I said evenly. “And I did my best to ensure it this morning. I’ve already taken steps to make sure any further attempts won’t succeed, either.”

He seemed suddenly uncertain how to proceed. “Well… good,” he said. He gave a rueful smile. “She was a lovely kid. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed her, but I’d rather send her away now than lose her again for good.”

I turned slightly, so I was facing him, and saw … something. Something that flitted in and out of his eyes, quick as a fish, then was gone.

Guilt. Not big guilt. Not weigh-you-down-and-crush-you-with-the-sheer-bone-numbing-size-of-it guilt, but guilt, nevertheless.

“How long have you known?” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Neither you nor Rosalind has asked the right questions about all this, Lucas-like ‘why?’ for a start,” I said. “That should have been the first thing you wanted to know. Armed men break into your house in the middle of the night and make a damned serious attempt to snatch your daughter and granddaughter from under your nose, and you just don’t seem surprised about it. Where’s the righteous anger, the outrage?”

He kept his eyes resolutely on his cup, even though it was as empty as my own had been. I lifted it out of his fingers and put it down on the desk. It landed with more of a rattle than I’d been intending.

“Look, there are things going on here — I can’t explain,” he added when he saw I was about to speak. “You’ll just have to take my word for it. I thought I could keep Simone separate from it all, but I can’t. There’s a chance,” he went on, flicking his eyes to my face as if to check how I was taking all this. “There’s a chance that last night was aimed as much at me as at Simone’s — “

He broke off and I gave him a thin smile. “Her money?” I finished for him.

He nodded, folding his arms so that his shoulders were hunched, as if he were cold.

“Yes, OK, we know about the money,” he admitted, sounding every one of his years. “Ever since Barry O’Halloran came to see me.”

“He told you?” I said, surprised.

“He didn’t have to. He told me my daughter was looking for me and as soon as I realized how much effort had been put into finding me, I ran her name through a search engine on the Web. There were any number of hits from the tabloid newspapers back in England.”

Ah, of course

“So you discovered your daughter was a millionairess and lo and behold you suddenly decided you did want to be found after all.”

“I’d already made that decision,” he said with dignity. “I would just rather have waited until the business we’re involved in here was over and done with.”

“Which is?”

“That’s got nothing to do with you, Charlie.”

“It is if you want me to persuade Simone to go home,” I said mildly. “I’m guessing Felix Vaughan is an integral part of whatever’s going on.”

“You’re right. And, I admit, when I first heard about it, I thought that some of that money would sure help get us out of the hole we’ve got into with him, but not if it’s going to put her in danger. Nothing’s worth that. So, do what you have to, Charlie, but persuade her to go home.”

“I’m not leaving.”

We both swung round to find Simone in the connecting doorway between the two rooms, one hand on the frame. She came in and closed the door quietly behind her, watching through the diminishing gap, presumably that Ella didn’t wake. Simone gave the Smith amp; Wesson on the bed a single almost incurious glance as she passed it.

“Look, Simone, honey-”