Second Shot

She caught something in my voice, glanced up, frowning. “Well, I’ve got some photos, if you’re up to looking through them?” she said, slipping some glossy prints out of the file.

I reached out my left hand for them. The IV line had twisted in among the bedsheets and I had to untangle myself first. It was awkward to straighten it, one-handed, but my right arm still did little more than flop, and forcing any more than that out of it caused sufficient pain and frustration to curtail further attempts. Not to mention the fear.

I saw Neagley eyeing me, unsure whether to let me struggle or risk offending me with an offer of help. She settled for pretending a sudden interest in the pictures in front of her, sorting them as though into order, and I was glad that was the path she’d chosen.

Once she’d handed them over, I leafed through the prints. Some were formal police mug shots, but others were more candid, taken in a hurry with a long lens and very fast film if the grain was anything to go by. I didn’t ask where they’d come from.

Near the bottom of the pile was one of a couple of men talking to each other. They were on a street and the photographer had been on higher ground. One man had his back to the camera and was wearing a hat. The other was caught in midsentence, or possibly laughter. His mouth was open, slightly amused, and his hands were spread as though he was shrugging. Difficult to identify anyone from that. The hair looked similar, but he was taller than I was and I’d only seen him standing, so the view of his crown was unfamiliar. I looked again, and something about the pure self-confidence of him struck a cord. That and the coat. He was wearing what looked very like the same tweed coat that Aquarium man had on when he’d approached us on Boston Common. I hesitated a moment longer, then set the shot aside, separate from the others. None of the remainder were even vague possibilities, and I came back to that one shot again.

“This one might be him,” I said. “ ‘Might’ being the operative word.”

She sighed. “I always hated relying on eyewitnesses when I was a cop,” she said, pulling a face. “Give me good solid forensic evidence any day.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Who is this guy, by the way?”

She took the shot back and studied it, though I was sure she knew the details without needing the memory jog.

“A fine upstanding individual called Oliver Reynolds,” she said. “Ex-military. Fancies himself as a bit of a ladies’ man. Works freelance as a debt collector, hired muscle. According to my sources, his specialty is putting the squeeze on women-particularly if they’ve got kids. He’s very good at worming his way in, then turning nasty, but he’s never been arrested for it. Mostly people are too frightened to stand against him.”

“Nice,” I said.

“Yeah, well, by all accounts he’s a man who enjoys his work.”

Vividly, I remembered tackling the masked intruder on the landing of the Lucases’ house, of having my forearms clamped around the man’s neck and tightening my grip. That infinitesimal moment in time when we were balanced rocking on the blade edge of fate. If I was right and Aquarium man was this Reynolds character, and if I’d known his history then, would I have done it? Would I have finished him? Something shuddered down my spine.

Probably better that I hadn’t known.

“Are you OK?” Neagley asked, and I realized that she’d stopped talking and was watching me again.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry, my concentration is all shot to hell-if you’ll excuse the pun.”

She pulled a face again. “Anyway, if you think this might be our guy, I can dig a little deeper, see what I can find out about who he might be working for.”

“That would be useful,” I said. “He picked us up in Boston, before Lucas made contact, and I don’t think it was chance. He knew who Simone was and that must mean he also knew about-” I broke off abruptly

“It’s OK, Charlie,” she said, her voice wry “Mr. Meyer filled me in on the details. I know about Simone’s fortune. To be honest, the amount of money she was spending on the search, we kind of had an idea she must have been pretty rich.”

“Yes, but there’s rich and then there’s rich” I said. “Whenhe and his oppo broke into the house the other night, I think he was after Ella.”

She paused in the middle of sliding the gray file back into her bag. “A kidnap, you mean?”

I nodded. “And if that’s the case, he’s not going to let a little thing like Simone being dead stop him, is he?”

“You think he might make another try for the kid?”

“I don’t know. I’d certainly be happier if she was somewhere safer than with Lucas, that’s for sure. I don’t trust him an inch-or the kind of people he chooses to do business with. And we still don’t know what made Simone go after him the night-” I broke off again, couldn’t even say it, improvised instead. “The night Jakes was killed.”