First Drop

Henry’s e-mails that the one they were missing was Trey, not Keith.

So Keith hadn’t done a runner. He’d been taken.

And Gerri Raybourn was the one pulling all the strings.

My resolve hardened along with my certainty. I turned away from the window and glanced across at Walt in the driving seat.

“How much do you know about Ms Raybourn?” I asked.

“Oh this and that,” Walt said, voice easy and casual as ever. “She’s well-respected in her field. Did ten years with the Bureau, as a matter of fact.”

“Ah,” I said dryly, “so that’s why Special Agent Till doesn’t want to move against her without overwhelming evidence – she’s part of the old boy network.”

“Former agents are treated just the same as everyone else,” Walt said firmly but without showing irritation. “I checked her records and she left more’n three years ago. Went through a messy divorce and her ex got custody of the kids. He got laid off from his job so she’s having to pay him off and put her eldest through college. I guess she found she could make a little more money on the outside than she could working for the government.”

“So she’s short on cash,” I murmured, “and long on motive.”

I remembered our drive from the airport when she’d got the call that told her news of the program had leaked out to the press. Her display of anger then had certainly seemed genuine but I suppose if she was planning on stealing the program along with its inventor, the fewer people who knew about it the better. She’d had me fooled into thinking I could trust her the night I’d called her for help from the motel. And look how that had ended.

Walt glanced wryly at me. “Motive for what?”

“For wanting the program for herself,” I said. “I think she engineered the trouble at the company recently so she could call in Sean and me as back-up. That way, when she took Keith and Trey—”

“Which she’s claiming you’re responsible for,” Walt cut in.

I ducked my head in agreement. “True, she is, but bear with me on this. As I said, that way she already has us in place as fall-guys. She has her boys grab Sean along with Keith and hopes to get Trey and me at the park on the same day. That way she’s got the option of either claiming Keith’s done a runner, or that we’ve taken him.”

Good as his word, Walt didn’t immediately dismiss my suggestion. Instead he nodded slowly, frowning. Ahead of us the lights changed and he braked smoothly to a halt.

“But her man fumbles the ball,” he said then.

“Yeah, he did,” I agreed. “So, next best thing, she puts it out that I’ve got Trey. But, the last thing she can afford to have happen is for the cops to get hold of us. That might blow the whole thing. So when they nearly do, she has her boys step in and kill the cop. By then she’s past caring about getting hold of Trey alive. He was only to secure Keith’s good behaviour anyway. She just wants us dead.”

The lights changed and Walt set the car moving forwards again. His measured driving style reminded me of police drivers in the UK. He negotiated a parked truck in the right-hand lane before he spoke again.

“So it’s not until that guy you mentioned – Henry – offers you to them on a plate that she realises that without Trey the program kinda won’t work.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Because after that Whitmarsh was desperate to take us alive, but the message obviously hadn’t got through to Haines. I have no idea why not. It could simply have been a cock-up in communications. But Whitmarsh was even prepared to shoot Haines’s men to protect us. And to let me go when I threatened Trey myself.”

Walt looked surprised. “You didn’t mention that part.”

“You try living with that kid twenty-four hours a day and you’d want to shoot him, too,” I said, only half joking.

Walt frowned again, but whether it was deep thought, or whether he disapproved of my flippancy in the circumstances, it was difficult to tell.

“So you reckon Gerri Raybourn’s holding Keith somewhere, hoping she can still get the pair of them.”

I nodded. “That’s how it seems to me. One’s not worth much without the other.”

He let his breath out tiredly, almost a sigh. “Makes it kinda all the more important she’s stopped, Charlie,” he said.

“I know,” I said. And inside my head another voice added, Oh I’ll stop her all right, Walt. Don’t you worry about that . . .

***

Less than an hour after we’d left Daytona Beach and headed down the coast, Walt slowed the Lincoln to a halt on the dusty shoulder of the highway and nodded towards the other side of the road. The other traffic continued past us at speed, close enough to rock our car each time they did so.

“That’s the place,” he said.

All I saw was a neatly rendered low white wall bordering suspiciously man-made looking grounds of part grass and part tropical forest. It looked sculpted for effect rather than natural. The grass was artificially green and bright, and the wall itself seemed to go on for miles in both directions. I tried to remember when it had first started but I hadn’t been paying enough attention.

A little way from where we’d stopped was an impressive wrought-iron gateway, next to which was a lavish sign. It showed an artist’s impression of a range of Mediterranean-style villas, all white stucco and terracotta tiles, surrounding a lake in the centre. Around the edges of the sign were depictions of Prozac-happy couples playing golf, or water skiing, or sharing an intimate after-dinner drink at sunset.

The sign announced a new and exclusive opportunity in vacation resort ownership. It sounded like the copywriters were trying desperately to squirm out of using the word time-share, with all the sharp-practice baggage that entailed.

“So what are you suggesting – that I go over the wall?”

“You can do if you really want to,” Walt said, cocking me a wry glance, “but this place is only two-thirds built and half sold. It’d sure be easier for you to just walk up to the front gate and tell ‘em you’re interested in buying.”

I spread my hands to indicate my current garb. “And you really think, me dressed like this, they’re going to fall for that?” I demanded.

“Well, OK,” he allowed. “Maybe you should tell ‘em as how your folks are interested and you’re meeting them here. You seem a resourceful kinda girl, Charlie.”

I considered. “OK,” I said.

But as I reached for the door handle, Walt stopped me.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

When I didn’t respond he leaned across and opened the glove compartment. Inside was a small memo recorder, the kind that takes micro cassettes for business meetings. He lifted it out, checked the tape inside was at its beginning, and handed it over, showing me the voice activation button.

“Just press that and leave it,” he said. “It’ll start up automatically when someone starts speaking. That way you don’t have to worry none about running out of tape.”

“OK,” I said again. “Just one thing, though, Walt. How much of a confession do you need me to get out of Gerri when I get in there?”

“I reckon you’ll know that when you hear it. Just get us something we can use as a lever and we’ll do the rest.”

We, I noted. Us. I wondered if Walt would ever consider himself completely retired from the job.

“I see,” I said. I unzipped the bag and crammed the recorder inside. It was a tight fit with the SIG as well but I just managed to get both articles in there and close the bag up again. When I was done I found Walt watching me gravely.

“Don’t do anything in haste you might regret at leisure, Charlie,” he said softly, but he didn’t mention the gun.

I reached for the door handle to get out, then paused. “She’s behind the men who murdered Sean.”