Mia pointed. “You have blood on your leg.”
“Yeah? That’s because your boyfriend just shot me.”
Mia looked at Wes, and laughed. To Grace it would have looked deranged, as if Mia were laughing at the violence. Wes already knew her well enough to know that she was laughing at the description of him as her boyfriend.
He turned his attention back to Grace. Ethan’s whereabouts had been the talk of the office, which meant he could probably rule out once and for all that Garvey had him. But that didn’t help Wes to find him.
As if reading his thoughts, Grace said, “What is it you want, Wes? You want to find Ethan? Isn’t it obvious she didn’t want you or anyone else to find him? I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it looks like she didn’t want you to have anything to do with him. She didn’t even tell you he existed.”
“I was in prison.”
It wasn’t much of a response and she didn’t bother to answer it directly. “Wes, it’s clear she got him somewhere safe, somewhere she wanted him to be. She didn’t want you to find him. That’s the only explanation. So what’s left—you want revenge against Sam Garvey, Scottie Peters, anyone else involved?”
“So you do know who Scottie Peters is.”
“What does it matter? Yes, I know who he is, but I don’t know him. I know Sam Garvey runs a gray team but I don’t know where—”
“Here in Spain?”
“No, I would know if it was in Spain. Peters was here on his own.” She looked earnest, concerned, though maybe that was just the pain from her knee. “Wes, if you’re telling the truth, there are channels for dealing with what happened. Going after Garvey’s team, it just isn’t an option.”
“Isn’t it? I guess I’ve killed three of them already. That probably only leaves four or five more.”
“Are you serious? Listen to yourself. You’re trying to tell me you weren’t out of control in the Middle East and in the next breath you’re talking about killing five more people. Why? In revenge for what they did to you or what they did to Rachel?”
“I don’t know. It just feels right, I guess. And Sam seems intent on killing me, so I don’t really have much of a choice. I want my son, and I can’t have him as long as Sam’s still in the picture.”
Mia said, “Someone’s coming.”
He cocked his head, amazed that Mia had heard anything, but Grace said urgently, “Wes, please, whatever your plans, he’s not armed. I’m just . . .”
Her words dried up as Wes looked at her, but then he put his finger to his lips, letting her know that she needed to remain silent if she wanted this to end well. A key sounded in the lock, so this was a boyfriend, and Wes found it slightly sickening to see how desperate Grace was to preserve her own shot at future happiness.
“Hey! I brought another bottle just in case. I’ll put it in the fridge.” They heard him walk through into the kitchen, but he kept talking from there. “I swear to God, if that guy stays any longer, I’m moving in with you. Two weeks, they said!” Wes looked at Grace and smiled, spotting this as the likely lucky break he wanted. Grace looked stony-faced in response. “Babe?” His footsteps approached and then he appeared and saw Mia first, a double take before he smiled. “Hello?”
“Hello.”
But his smile had already dropped because he’d come into the doorway now and seen Wes, and Wes made sure he saw the gun too. There was an upright wooden chair against the wall and Wes nodded toward it.
“Pull that chair over, sit next to Grace. You try anything, the first thing I’ll do is shoot her in the stomach.”
He nodded, compliant and nervous. He was young and clean-cut, probably from the cultural section or some other department whose employees didn’t regularly get guns pointed at them. He moved the chair, but halted briefly and rocked back on his heels as he noticed Grace’s leg.
As he sat down, he reached out to her. She squeezed his hand but let it go again, and looked earnestly at Wes.
“Noah doesn’t have anything to do with this. I—”
Wes looked at him. “You’re Noah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Wes. Hello.” Noah nodded in response and Wes turned back to Grace. “I thought you didn’t have anything to do with it either?”
“I didn’t, but I know that’s not how you see it—my job, the fact that me and Rachel were friends, I get it. You’re blaming me for what happened to her.”
He ignored her.
“What’s your surname, Noah?”
“Porter.”
“So, Noah Porter, why did they move Scottie Peters in with you?”
Noah looked panicked, turning to Grace, hoping for guidance, though she only shook her head to show she had nothing for him. It had been a guess on Wes’s part, but he doubted many people had turned up in Madrid over the last few weeks seeking government accommodation.
“I . . .”
“Grace will need an operation on that leg. She may end up with a limp. But I need you to understand, that will be the least of her problems if you don’t start answering my questions.”
“I have a two-bedroom apartment, but my roommate moved out in January, so it’s just me. They needed something quick.”
“Mia, in the kitchen there’s a notepad and a pen on the counter. Would you get it for Noah, please?”
“Yes.”
She got up and left the room.
“I want you to write your address down for me. Now, I have a list of the embassy employees and their addresses, so this is just to save time. If I cross-reference and you’ve lied, I’ll come back here and kill both of you. Understand?”
Noah nodded. “But he won’t be there. He goes to the gym.”
“What time?”
“He goes about seven, comes back sometime after eight.”
Wes checked his watch. It was approaching seven thirty, so if anything Wes wouldn’t have too much time on his hands.
“Does he walk or drive to the gym?”
Mia came back in and handed the pad and pen to Noah as if she thought this a completely normal situation. She sat again.
“Thanks, Mia.”
“You’re welcome, Wes.”
Noah looked between the two of them, then said, “Er, he drives. I don’t have a car, so he uses my parking space.”
He started to write on the notepad.
“Your parking space?”
“It’s a modern apartment building near the cathedral. There’s an underground parking garage.”
From the corner of his eye, Wes could see Mia stir in response to that. “Do you go to the cathedral?”
He tore off the top sheet of the notepad and handed it to Wes as he said, “I beg your pardon?”
“She asked if you went to the cathedral—I think it’s a pretty simple question.”
“No, I haven’t. I . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know what you want from me.”
“You’re doing fine, Noah. Scottie ever talk about what he’s doing here?”
“No.”
“Okay, empty your pockets onto the table here, take off your watch, your belt. Grace, take off any jewelry.”
They did as he said, Grace with resignation, Noah with a growing appearance of confusion and fear. Once they’d finished, Wes picked up the cuffs and pointed to Grace’s left hand. She held it forward and he fastened one of the cuffs around her wrist.
“Okay, Mia, you can wait here. You two, let’s visit the bathroom.”
“I can’t walk.”
“Yes, you can. Noah will help you.”
They stood and Noah helped her into the bathroom. It wasn’t large, but it was perfect for what Wes had in mind, not least because of the sturdy sink resting on a pedestal.
“Okay, Grace, on the floor there, slip your hand behind the sink pedestal.”
Noah helped her down, then stood again and turned to Wes.
“You want me to sit on the other side?” He’d probably just begun to realize Wes wasn’t going to kill them, and his resu
lting air of compliance was steeped in gratitude.
Wes patted him down, then pointed with the gun. Noah got down onto the floor and put the other cuff on his own wrist. Wes crouched down to check it was tight enough and secure. He stepped back then and looked at the two of them sitting cramped with their backs against the wall, hands linked behind the pedestal. In that position it would be hard to pull the pedestal away from the wall anyway, and neither of them looked possessed of any great strength.
Wes went into the kitchen and turned off the water supply, then went back into the bathroom and closed the window. He removed their shoes and threw them out into the hallway. He sat on the edge of the tub then.
“I’ve turned off the water, so flooding the apartment below isn’t an option. You could shout and scream, try to attract attention, or you could work at getting the pedestal away from the wall—looks pretty solid though. Failing that, I guess when you don’t show up for work in the morning, someone will come investigate.”
Still wearing her professional hat and determined to try one last attempt at talking him down, Grace said, “What are you gonna do, Wes?”
“Oh, I think you know the answer to that.” He looked at his watch again. “Now, I need about forty minutes. So you have a dilemma. If you escape before then and mess up my plans, but don’t mess them up enough, I’ll track you both down and I’ll kill you. If you wait forty minutes before trying to escape or raise the alarm, you’ll never see me again.” He pointed at Grace with the gun. “You know I’m taking a risk by leaving you alive, and you know I don’t take risks. So be smart. I want the two of you to have a chance at the life I didn’t get to live.”
In truth, it wasn’t much of a risk—it would take them more than forty minutes to get out of there. And Grace cared enough about Noah Porter that she’d make sure of it.
Wes stood and headed out of the bathroom, but stopped when Grace said, “Wes!” He turned. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry about what happened to her. But I didn’t know.”
He stared back at her for a second but could find nothing to say. He walked to the living room. Mia was staring with fascination at the various items on the coffee table, but she looked up now and smiled at him. Wes smiled, too, as he took Noah’s keys off the table.
“We need to go.”
“Okay.” She stood and followed him out and it wasn’t until they were on the street again that she said, “Where will we go now?”
“I need you to go back to the hotel. I’ll be away for a few hours, but then we have to leave Madrid. I know you probably wanted to visit the cathedral.” She nodded. “It’ll have to wait until some other time.”
“I’ll wait at the hotel for you.”
“Yes. It could be late, maybe even after midnight, but I’ll be back.”
“Then we’ll leave. And we haven’t really been here at all.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s the point. But you can come back to Madrid someday.”
“Those people.” She looked over her shoulder as if expecting to see Grace and Noah following them down the street. “They were very scared of you.”
“They thought I might kill them.”
“No.” She laughed. “They were very scared of you, like you might do something worse.”
“Worse than killing them?”
“Maybe.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”
Maybe there were some benefits to having such a terrible reputation, no matter how unjustified it was. Sam had convinced everyone that Wes had been out of control, and ironically, Grace and Noah had undoubtedly been more compliant than they would have been if they hadn’t believed that version of events. Scottie Peters knew the truth, so he wouldn’t have the same fear, but Scottie was going to die anyway.
Twenty-Eight
Noah’s apartment block was an anonymous modern building that could have been just about anywhere. So it looked particularly out of place sitting halfway between the heart of the old town and the cathedral.
It was just before eight when Wes got there, and still light, the streets full of daytime tourists as well as people dressed for the evening ahead. No one paid any attention when he headed down the ramp into the underground garage.
There was no security, and despite the modernity of the building, there were no cameras in there either. Most of the parking spaces were occupied, but Wes could see the gap that was assigned to Noah’s apartment, so he knew Scottie was still out.
He looked around and spotted a door into a boiler room. He worked the lock, stepped inside, and closed the door so it allowed a view over just a narrow strip of the garage, including the empty space that interested him.
He settled in for the wait then. A car came in after a few minutes but it was an older man and Wes didn’t see where he parked. He heard him getting out of the car, whistling tunelessly and taking the elevator.
Ten minutes later, a dark blue Lexus pulled into the garage and eased into the empty space. The engine stopped and the trunk popped open, but at the same time, Wes could hear the elevator whirring into action. That could complicate things—Wes really needed Scottie to be on his own down here. But if it came to it, Wes didn’t think it would be too difficult to take him in the apartment.
The driver’s door opened and Scottie got out, still in his gym clothes—knee-length shorts, a fresh-looking T-shirt that didn’t suggest he’d done much in the way of a cardio workout. He ambled to the back of the car but the elevator doors opened out of Wes’s eyeline and Scottie looked across.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
Wes guessed it was a woman, and that Scottie still hadn’t lost his tendency to hit on every female he encountered. It was a scattergun technique that had brought him a fair amount of success in that department, in among all the understandable rebuffs from women who probably recognized a predator when they saw one.
“Very well, thank you.” She spoke with a Spanish accent, her tone formal rather than friendly.
The sound of her heels clacked on the floor but she didn’t come into view.
Scottie was staring determinedly in her direction and said, “Just back from the gym.”
“Yes, I can see that.” She laughed a little, nervously. “Have a nice evening.”
“Sure, you too.” He continued to watch as she got into her car and started the engine. He looked irritated when he finally gave up and turned back to the trunk of his own car, like he couldn’t work out why she’d been so aloof with him.
Wes was already thinking of backup plans—following Scottie to the elevator or waiting until he was settled in the apartment, maybe in the shower. But Scottie appeared to be taking his time, sorting through something in his gym bag, and then the woman’s car glided past at a decent speed, the engine noise raising a notch as it fired up the ramp.
Wes didn’t wait. Using the cover of the car’s departure and Scottie’s preoccupation with his gym bag, he pushed out of the boiler room. He walked quickly, maybe ten steps, the gun at his side in case he needed it. Wes was maybe a step or two away when Scottie sensed a presence and started to turn, but not with alarm, not with the air of someone who thought he was being threatened.
Wes moved fast, locking his hand onto the back of Scottie’s neck and slamming his head forward into the edge of the raised trunk lid, producing a fleshy crunch. Scottie threw himself back into his assailant, and swung his arm with force, landing a blow on Wes’s neck that was so hard it felt like it had cut off the blood supply.
Scottie continued to turn as Wes staggered backward, but Wes knew he couldn’t afford to let Scottie get the upper hand now. He threw his weight into Scottie’s body. Scottie lashed out blindly, but Wes had the momentum now, driving him forward until he crunched into the car again and his upper body smashed down into the trunk space.
Wes gave him a couple of sharp hard punches to the side of his face as he landed, and before Scottie had registered what was happening, Wes had the gun barrel pushed up under his jaw and a knee on
his back.
“Move and I’ll shoot you right here.”
“Wes?” He sounded surprised, but confused rather than fearful.
Wes reached for his second pair of cuffs, slipping one quickly onto Scottie’s right wrist. Realizing what was happening, Scottie started to struggle again, so Wes pushed the gun deeper into his flesh. He felt like driving the barrel right up under Scottie’s jaw and through the inside of his skull.
He was surprised by how much anger he felt toward the stricken man beneath him. He knew it wasn’t entirely justified. Scottie would have been ordered to kill Rachel, and would since have been spun the line that Wes had gone rogue, as shown by his killing of Pine and his colleagues. But Scottie had a mind of his own, he knew the kind of boss Wes had been, and he should have gone above Sam to question why Rachel was being targeted.
Wes cracked him over the head with the gun, not hard enough to knock him out but hard enough to stun him for a second or two. He used that moment to cuff the other hand so his arms were pinned behind his back. Wes pulled the gym bag free and out onto the garage floor, then heaved Scottie’s legs into the car. And now, for the first time, Scottie was staring at him, his mouth and nose bloodied, his eyes unfocused.
Wes kept an eye on him as he bent down to the gym bag, and he understood now why Scottie’s T-shirt had been so pristine. There was another one inside the bag, still sweat-soaked—Wes took it out and tore it.
“Wes, this is insane.” Whatever Wes had done to his face with that first blow, Scottie’s voice sounded groggy, like he’d just come back from a visit to the dentist. “I don’t know what—”
Wes tied the torn T-shirt around Scottie’s head, and Scottie cried out as it tightened against his injured mouth. Wes looked in the pockets of Scottie’s shorts and found the car’s key fob but nothing else. He closed the trunk.
Wes knew Scottie wouldn’t go to the gym without his cellphone—he checked the bag, and found it there. There was a lock on it, and he knew he wouldn’t get that information out of Scottie, so the benefits of finding any clues within the phone were probably outweighed by the risk of Sam Garvey and the rest of the team using it to trace their location.
The Names of the Dead Page 13