Forever in Your Service

by Sandra Antonelli

“We’re not going to leave him here.” Kitt glanced at the Ford.

  Mae followed his line of site. “Into the boot, like Derek?

  “Not yet.” His hand slipped into the pocket inside his jacket.

  “Wait. What do you mean, not yet?”

  “I need a minute to catch my breath, calculate my next move.”

  “You’re going to be sick, aren’t you?”

  The man hunched onto his hands and knees and began to crawl, palms splashing through puddles.

  Kitt let loose a string of obscenities. “You just have to be determined, don’t you?”

  Suddenly, the man was on his feet, shuffling toward the side of the road, looking back at them over his shoulder. The cold wind blew the hair from his face again.

  Kitt’s eyes narrowed.

  “What time is it?” Dalton whispered.

  Mae gasped. “Jaysus, I know him. He does landscaping work for Hector. His name is Coyote.”

  “What time is it?”

  Coyote started running and shouting in a language that wasn’t Malay, Chinese, Singlish, Nepali, or even bloody Spanish, and Kitt started after one of the two men who had butchered seven people in a shipping container in Singapore. Coyote ran up and over the bank of dirty, reddish snow and down the other side.

  Mae sprinted toward the edge of the pavement and over the snow mounded on the shoulder. She cleared the bank as the two men skidded across a frozen ditch. Kitt slammed into Coyote, threaded an arm around his neck and both men went down on the ice. Coyote’s stocky weight gave him the advantage, he hunched up and twisted, fist walloping into the side of Kitt’s chin.

  Before he delivered another blow, Mae kicked out hard, the square rubber heel of her boot ramming Coyote just enough to set him off-kilter, and just enough to lose her footing. She slid, one sole split through thin ice into the water below, and she came down hard on her arse, jarring her spine.

  Shock and confusion lasted two seconds. Icy liquid poured into the top of one boot, down her ankle to her toes. Then she was flung backwards, hard fingers digging into her windpipe, the El Salvador football fan upon her. She caught a glimpse of Kitt’s motionless body and her head slammed against hard, cold ice. Ungodly pain rushed in, the pressure on her throat sharp, crushing. Stars, spots, and snowflakes danced before her, and she couldn’t breathe.

  Coyote laughed, a wad of purple-grey chewing gum in his blood-speckled mouth. She lashed out with the stick in her left hand, only it wasn’t a lump of Christmas tree that she crammed into a laughing blood, spittle, and gum-filled mouth, it was a bagel. Bits of bread and cranberry spilled down upon her when Coyote straddled her, straightened his arm, his face instantly out of the reach of her hands and fingernails. Mae planted her feet on the slick ice, grabbed the fingers at her throat and bent them back, twisting, lifting a shoulder, gulping in air as she broke his hold.

  All at once, he was gone.

  Gagging, coughing, sucking in air, she rolled onto her side and saw Coyote on his knees, arching back. Kitt hammered his face with a wet sounding sklitch-sklitch-sklitch.

  Blood arced and splattered across the icy ditch and pristine white. Scarlet, purple-grey gum, and teeth flew. Coyote fell sideways. Kitt rammed his face into the hole where Mae had broken through the ditch ice and pushed down hard.

  The wind kicked up, blowing snow. Coyote began to buck and flail and Kitt strained to keep the heavier man down, knee in his back, arms locked. Thrashing wildly, hands and elbows swinging back, legs kicking, Coyote’s head popped up out of the water, gulping air like Mae had a few moments before.

  Hacking, she scuttled over the ice, and her hands and weight bore down with Kitt’s.

  The wind howled.

  Snow blew into their faces.

  Coyote’s body smacked against the ice. Kitt bared his teeth, the air rushing in and out of his nose as hard and loud as the wind. “No!” he ground out. “No!” He shouldered her, shoving her hard. She toppled onto her hip and he forced Coyote’s face deeper into the watery hole, ice cracking. The powerful man struggled, his fists landing blows blindly, hands grabbing, slapping. Kitt bore down. Mouth ruthless, jaw set, speckles of blood in his beard, his hard blue-grey eyes fixed on a point beyond Mae.

  Mae clambered onto her knees. “Oh, God. Oh, God.” Blood moved in her head, the beat of her heart in the tips of her ears, in her lips, in her aching throat. Hot, she was hot all over, sweating despite the glacial cold, despite her frozen toes and red, raw hands, and she stared at Kitt pressing down, down, down, until he said, “Enough,” and shunted himself back across the ice, puffing out little clouds that mixed with wafting snow.

  Then Mae looked down at her burning hands, long hair tangled in a black web about her fingers. She tugged and twisted and rubbed spidery, gluey locks. “Get it off! Get it off!”

  Kitt slid over and jerked away the sticky black strands entwined round her thumb and pinkie. The hair wafted away in the wind and he cradled her between his legs, breathing hard, yet cool, maddeningly controlled. “Breathe,” he said.

  “I am breathing.”

  “You’re rasping like you’ve sprinted a marathon. Slow down,” he said gently, demonstrating.

  “My throat hurts.”

  “I know it does. It hurts like hell to be grabbed like that. Breathe in slowly. Exhale slowly.”

  With a ragged inhale and then another, she twisted to look up at him. Blood oozed from a slice on his cheekbone. She looked back at Coyote. Silver and gold tinsel stuck in the man’s black hair waved in the gusting, frosty breeze.

  Kitt cupped her cheek and she turned back. “In and out. In and out. There. You’ve got it.”

  “Is he really dead?”

  “Yes.” The wind gusted and he tightened his arms around her.

  She shuddered. “Why is it called cold blood when I’m hot all over?”

  “That was not cold-blooded, Mae.”

  “I helped you kill him.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I would have if you’d let me.”

  “I know.” His eyes strayed past her to the dead man and the half-smashed, quarter-circle lump of bread that lay near his toes. “You have the most interesting taste in choosing weapons,” he said.

  “Sean once told me anything can be a weapon,’ she said, voice husky.

  “And what sort of grievous harm did you think you were going do with a bagel?”

  Mae shivered again and began to laugh. She looked at the spray of blood in Kitt’s beard, at blood-speckles on his forehead, at the sliced bruise on his bleeding cheekbone, suddenly laughing, laughing, laughing, unable to stop because everything had turned into farcical, nightmarish nonsense. She laughed until Kitt helped her up and led her over the ice, across the snow, and back up to the road and the Ford.

  “You said his name is Coyote. I know him as Popo,” Kitt gabbed a handful of snow from the side panel and rubbed it between his hands until the blood was gone and his skin was bright pink. “I’ll bet the driver who took off in the Honda is his brother, Tzin.”

  “You know the Coyote boys?” Mae shivered and snort-sniggered beside the SUV.

  “Yes. They murdered seven people and left me for dead in Singapore.” Kitt looked over to the snow banked at the side of the road.

  Bryce had mentioned the need for proof and there, on the other side of the snow bank, proof was. Although proof of what exactly wasn’t clear. Kitt had a basket full of proof with no solid connection to anything. He looked at Mae. She shivered and chewed her bottom lip, trying to stem her nervous chuckling, hands stuffed into the side pockets of her snow-dappled dark coat. She shivered again, with shock and cold, and he was concerned about her state of mind because he knew there was so much more to come.

  The wind gusted, snow blew around them. His jaw ached from Popo’s stupefying blow, but Kitt reached for her, pulled her close and kissed her hard and long and deep. Her nose was a nub of ice and it brushed his as she kissed him back with a desperately relieved edge, fingers pressing
into his chest. A car went by, slowing to veer around the remains of a Christmas tree, honking its horn.

  Mae pulled away. She touched the throbbing spot on his forehead and he got a good look at the purplish-blue thumbprint on her throat. “I’m so cold now,” she said shivering again, “but we can’t stay here like this.”

  “No, we can’t.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead and let her go, walking backwards toward the dirty snow bank. “Get in the car, start it up, get the heat going. When I come back, release the boot.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He paused, diminishing snow drifting down softly. “I need to gather evidence and you need to get warm. You’re in shock.”

  She gave him a flat look.

  “You are. You’re hot, you’re cold, and you’re standing here thinking you’ve developed a taste for violence, that you’ve become a sadist. You’ve got to process those thoughts, let them come, acknowledge them, let them go, and move on.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  Rather than answer, he said, “Please, get in the car and get warm while I drag Popo up here.”

  “You’re going to put him in the boot?”

  “Would you prefer I strap him in the backseat?”

  “Jaysus, the things people do to hire cars.” She shook her head. “What if someone should drive along?”

  “How many cars have come by in the last fifteen minutes?”

  Mae got into the Ford. The engine turned over. For a moment, she watched Kitt climb over the piled-up ruddy snow. When his head disappeared, she leaned over and adjusted the dash air-vent, hands quivering. Rosy smears streaked her knuckles—dirt, blood or both she didn’t know. She found her handbag and the antibacterial wipes inside, dragged out three and scrubbed the marks. She tilted the rear-vision mirror and checked the state of her face. Mascara pooled beneath her eyes. She dabbed the marks away and lifted her chin. Red and bluish blotches sat on her throat. She returned to her handbag, found the pink Hermès silk scarf Taittinger had given her for Christmas, and tied it around her neck. Her actions were a mundane activity to disguise what had happened, mentally and physically.

  Kitt tapped the rear window.

  The Ford’s boot lid rose. Popo slung over his shoulder, Kitt stepped forward, bent his knees, prepared to shift the man’s weight and dump him into the boot. Instead, he paused. “What the hell?”

  Not quite as large as one might expect, the Ford’s rear space was big enough for a set of golf clubs, or two suitcases, or a body, but not two bodies.

  Kitt reached in and lifted away an overcoat shroud of camel-coloured cashmere. The blue eyes staring out were fixed and hazy. On his back, knees up, mouth open, a small calibre bullet hole in his heart, Walter Molony’s fair English complexion had a greyish cast typical of a body dead for a few days, rather than a few months.

  Kitt let the cashmere fall and two things clicked into place. The well-respected professor, expert and consultant who had assisted Special Operations Division and countless other intelligence agencies had fooled everyone, and Dalton had indeed died in the container.

  “What in underfeck?” Mae suddenly stood there, staring into the boot. “I’ve seen this man. He brought Ruby to the house, he was her driver. Jaysus, what do you think this means?”

  Kitt glanced at her. “It means Popo is riding in the back seat.” He turned, dead man swinging on his shoulder.

  Chapter 19

  The car splashed and sped, travelling the curving and rolling five kilometres to Taittinger’s estate, the road clear of snow and Christmas trees that had come adrift. Kitt drove, peering beyond the cracked web of windscreen.

  “I can’t reach Reed. There’s no signal here, Kitt.” Mae set the mobile in her lap.

  “Try again when we clear this rock face.” He glanced at the pock-marked stone walls on either side of the roadway. You were right when you said this was like an Agatha Christie mystery. Bodies disappear and show up in car boots. I think someone’s been trying to clean up a mess they made.”

  Mae hugged herself, fingers tugging at the scarf she’d put on. “Where does this mess start?”

  “With a man pretending to be something he wasn’t.”

  A half-snorted laugh popped from Mae’s nose and mouth. “I could say that about you and Reed, but do you mean Taittinger, Milton Foley, the man in the boot, or someone else?”

  Kitt glanced at her sideways. “The man in the boot.”

  She was quiet for a moment or two, phone at her ear. Still no signal. “The dead man in the boot, do you—”

  “Walter Molony. His name is Walter Molony.”

  “The professor, the art expert who died in the container?”

  “Mm.”

  “Do you think he was working with Taittinger and Milton Foley?”

  “It’s looking likely.” Kitt planted his foot on the accelerator.

  “Aren’t you driving a little fast for these conditions?”

  “We need to get back as soon as possible, to make up for the ten minutes we lost at Hector’s lecture, and the time we’ve lost back there. Reed’s going to wonder where we are. Let’s find him and get the hell out of here. I hear Belize is lovely this time of year.” Kitt took the curve from the centre of the road.

  Mae steadied herself. Popo flopped against the side window. “There’s something I’ve wondered about. Before I came back into my quarters, the night of the party, I met Reed on the patio outside the laundry. Where were you?”

  “In Grant’s room. It’s my fault Felix got out. I knew there was a dog, I just didn’t know he’d be in your quarters.”

  The Ford rose up over a hillcrest and Mae’s stomach moved along with it. “Reed got a call when we were on the patio. He said, ‘You’re right, I’ve run into some trouble with the housekeeper,’ or something along those lines.”

  “You’ve nailed his accent, but what are you getting at, Mae?” Kitt barely slowed to turn into the estate’s drive, side mirror coming close to one of the brick pillar lamp posts at the mouth of the driveway. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Only what you thought about Bryce and what Bryce asked you about Reed. Do you trust your brother?”

  The Ford slid a few metres before Kitt regained control and accelerated, snow crunching beneath the tyres. “He told you.”

  “No. I guessed. When I first saw him, I was taken by how he moved like you, I imagined his smile was like yours when you really smile, but then I saw your ghost everywhere, even Taittinger reminded me of you. I didn’t really put it together until yesterday. There’s something about the way you glare at each other, how you speak to one another with an animosity that isn’t animosity as much as it is the sort of antagonism siblings have. You said Reed kissed you to irritate you, and I said I never understood that teasing, that I hated when Sean goaded me.”

  The Ford rolled up and over the hilly drive. “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Yes. It’s about safety, mine, his, yours. He didn’t tell me because he respects your need for safety, but what if that sibling antagonism is actually animosity. Maybe he...perhaps he...”

  “Hates me?” He smiled suddenly. It was a strange thing to smile about, to know Mae cared about his safety. Her concern was natural, but it was a kind of balm that soothed the ragged parts of the soul he’d accepted he had and come to value. “Reed understands. For years, self-preservation has been a priority. An intelligence officer never wants to be compromised or compromise those she, or he, cares for. What good would I be if someone I cared for was put in a dangerous position, if that person was used against me?” He brought the car to a halt at the front of Taittinger’s home and cut the engine. Turning to her, he narrowed one eye, like she often did. “Oh, wait, that did happen. With you. It keeps happening with you. Up to now, I’ve never failed so miserably, or put Reed in the position where you are. I promised him, I promised our mother, I never would. Occasionally Reed finds my adherence to that promise frustrating and openly goads me.”

&
nbsp; She touched his chin. “I find mocking you works better than goading. So, do we leave Popo here to disappear or take him with us?”

  THERE WAS A TRAIL OF vomit in the foyer.

  Kitt glanced at the scratched but legible face of his watch. They had a little over an hour before Bryce notified Station SWUS and matters took their due course. The Rohypnol had been administered nearly fourteen hours ago. Depending on size and weight, the effects of the drug, combined with alcohol consumption, could last anywhere from twelve to fifteen hours. It was foolish of him to hope the time frame leaned more in the direction of fifteen hours.

  “Mind where you step, Mae,” he said, pushing up the cowboy hat to look at her over a shoulder. He watched her move around the smelly splatter and go past him instead of heading toward the staircase with him. “Where are you going?”

  “To get Felix.”

  “It may be difficult to enter Belize with a dog, strict quarantine laws in place and such.”

  “Then you pay a live animal import fee or bribe an official. I know you’ve bribed officials before.” She walked toward the great room and stopped dead at the edge of the large, open space. “All right. I suppose I’ve become used to this now.”

  Tongue pushing against a loosened molar, Kitt hurried ahead. “Used to what?”

  “Finding bodies.”

  Kitt moved a little faster. “Whose?”

  “Mr Nash is on the floor with a hole in his head. Felix is on the sofa, beside Dr Jools. Dr Jools has a gun in his hand, and I think this time his pistol is real.”

  Kitt swore. “Why aren’t you running?”

  “He’s not pointing a gun at me, he’s pointing it at himself, and... Hello, Felix...yes, you’re a grand dog, a grand little man.” She bent forward slightly. “Belize will never have seen a dog as gran—”

  “And what, Mrs Valentine?”

  “He’s crying, sir.”

  “Goodness me.” Carefully, Kitt moved around the edge of the room, parallel to where Mae stood looking down at the sofa and ottoman that faced the giant picture windows. The dog stretched up against her and licked her hands. Taittinger’s hair stuck up on his head in wild tufts. He was barefoot, vomit on his chin.