Second Shot

I paused, but reason told me that it wouldn’t gain me anything not to tell Vaughan the truth. And it could even save a lot of hassle, so I said, “We’ll be heading down to Boston first thing tomorrow.”

“That’s very wise,” he said, nodding, giving me a tight smile. He ripped open a couple of packets of moist towelettes and wiped his hands more thoroughly, fastidious about his nails. The scent of lemon cut across the fishy smell of the table, sharp and acidic. “So, your task is nearly over.”

I shook my head. “I’ll stay with Simone as long as she needs me,” I said. “As long as there’s a threat.”

“And then?”

I shrugged. “Move on to the next job.”

He reached for his glass, took a drink and stared at me. “I could use someone with your particular skills,” he said. “I think I could work something out that would make it very worth your while for you to consider relocating.”

“I’m flattered,” I said blandly. “But it would have to be a very cold day in hell.”

“Well, that’s the beauty of New England-the weather’s always just about to change,” he said. “You don’t like it, you wait five minutes.”

“The answer’s no.”

It was his turn to shrug. “A shame,” he said.

I pushed back my chair and stood. He let me take one step away from him before he spoke again.

“So tell me-has she found out the truth about him?”

“The truth?” I turned back, a flash image of that old ID photo of Lucas in front of me. “You mean he’s not her father?”

Vaughan laughed, little more than a chuckle under his breath. “That would be much too easy, wouldn’t it?”

For a moment I just stared, so tempted to ask but afraid he was just teasing to get me to beg. “And how would you know anything about that?”

“I make a point of finding out all about the people I do business with,” he said. He sat back and smiled again, more smugly this time. “So, she doesn’t know.”

“The jury’s still out,” I said shortly, losing patience. “We leave tomorrow. By the time we come back, she’ll know one way or the other.”

Thirteen

Vaughan’s boys dropped me off at the bottom of the steep driveway leading up to the White Mountain, tossing my mobile phone out into the snow after me. They did not return the Beretta, more’s the pity.

I waited until they’d turned round, avoiding the spray of slush from their wheels, and their dirty rear lights were bumping away before I stooped to retrieve the phone, drying it on my shirttail. They’d switched the phone off and I turned it back on again as I trudged back towards the hotel entrance. It rang almost immediately with a voicemail message.

“Charlie? It’s Jakes. Where are you?” said a man’s voice, anxiety threading clearly through it. “Erm, look, Miss Kerse wants to go to her father’s place. She got a call, about ten minutes ago, and she says she wants to go over there right away. I kinda told her we ought to wait for you to get back first, but she’s getting kinda angry and she won’t wait any longer. So, I’m gonna go over there with her and, when you get this, that’s where we are, OK?” There was a pause, as though he expected me to speak, or offer some kind of advice or approval. “Call me when you get this, OK?” Then the bleep of the call being ended.

I tried to get the phone to show me what time the message had been recorded but fumbled with the technology As I redialed, I was cursing under my breath.

The driveway curved round behind the hotel, but the shortest route was up a steep, snow-covered bank to the front entrance. I took it without hesitation, plunging into soft powder.

The cold scoured my throat as I struggled up the incline past the huge veranda that housed the heated outdoor swimming pool, listening to Jakes’s phone ringing out without reply Inside the lobby the blast of warmth from the central heating and the blazing log fire hit me like a wall. I staggered, coughing. The woman on the reception desk stared at me like I’d just beamed down from the Star ship Enterprise.

“Miss Fox! Are you OK? Did you have trouble with your car?”

I stared at her, uncomprehending, then realized that my jeans were wet past the knees and I was shaking.

“I need a phone,” I managed. She flicked her eyes at the mobile I clearly had clutched in my hand but thrust the desk phone at me, the way you shove a toy into a dog’s mouth to try to stop it jumping up at your clothing. I punched in the number of Simone’s room and waited, impatient and in vain, for it to be answered.

When I knew for sure that it wasn’t going to be, I swore under my breath again-or not so under my breath, if the sudden paling of the woman on the other side of the desk was anything to go by.

“Listen, I need some transport.”

“Well, I can call you a cab-”

“I don’t have time to wait for a cab,” I said, aware of the panic scrabbling at the inside of my chest, causing my heart to pound. I was sweating with the heat and the fear.

So tell me, Vaughan had said with that patronizing smile of his, has she found out the truth about him?