Lethal

by Sandra Brown

  “You don’t have to ask me twice. Meanwhile, are you going back to the police station?”

  “What, and have reporters bugging me?” Fred shook his head. “Look here.” Their map had been spread out on a section of relatively dry ground. The twins hunkered down over it and Fred traced his finger along a faint blue line indicating a long, narrow channel. “See where this eventually leads?”

  “To Eddie’s place.”

  The twins looked long and hard at each other. Fred spoke first. “Bothers me some.”

  Doral said, “You read my mind. Stan was supposed to go out there yesterday evening for a birthday dinner, but he told me later that Honor had canceled the get-together because she and Emily were sick with a stomach thing. Wouldn’t hurt to check on them.”

  Fred refolded the map and stuck it in the back pocket of his uniform trousers. “I’ll feel better once I have. Besides, somebody has to search that bayou. Might as well be me.”

  When Honor woke up, what surprised her most wasn’t that her hands had been cut free from the headboard, but that she had awakened at all. She hadn’t expected to fall asleep and was amazed that she had. The light outside was pinkish with predawn.

  She was alone in the bed.

  She vaulted off it and raced to Emily’s room. The door was ajar, just as she’d left it last night. Emily was sleeping peacefully, a tumble of butter-colored curls on her pillow, her face buried in her “bankie,” her plump hand clutching Elmo.

  Honor left her and rushed through the living room and into the kitchen beyond. The rooms were empty, dim, and silent. Her keys were missing from the hook beside the back door, and when she looked through the window, she saw that her car wasn’t parked out front.

  Coburn was gone.

  Perhaps the cranking motor of her car was what had awakened her. But the house had a still quality, indicating to her that his departure might have been earlier than that.

  “Thank God, thank God,” she whispered as she rubbed her hands over her chilled upper arms. They were covered with gooseflesh, but that was evidence that she was alive. She hadn’t believed that he would go, leaving her and Emily unscathed. But miraculously they had survived an excruciatingly long day and night spent with a mass murderer.

  Relief made her weak.

  But only for a moment. She must alert the authorities to what had happened. They could pick up his trail from here. She could call them, give them her car tag number. They—

  The surge of thought was rudely interrupted by a new realization. How would she call anyone? Her cell phone was last in Coburn’s possession, and she no longer had a landline. Stan had tried to dissuade her from having it disconnected, but she’d argued that it was a monthly expense for something that had become superfluous.

  That argument came back to haunt her now.

  She quickly went back through the house looking for her phone. But she didn’t find it, nor had she expected to. Coburn was too clever to have left it behind. Taking it would delay her from notifying the authorities and give him crucial time in which to get farther away.

  Without a phone, car, or boat—

  Boat.

  That’s what had awakened her! Not her car coming to life, but a boat motor idling down. Now that she was fully awake, she recognized the difference, because she’d been around boats all her life.

  She ran to her front door, unbolted it, and practically leaped across the porch and clambered down the steps, landing hard on the ground and pitching forward. She broke her fall with her hands, then scrambled down the slope, her sneakers slipping on the dewy grass. She managed to keep on her feet the rest of the way to the dock.

  Her footfalls thudded hollowly on the weathered boards, startling a pelican on the opposite bank. With a noisy flapping of wings, he took flight. She shaded her eyes against the rising sun as she looked in both directions of the bayou for signs of a boat.

  “Honor!”

  Her heart lurched and she spun in the direction of the shout. Fred Hawkins steered a small fishing boat from beneath the leafy cover of a willow.

  “Fred! Thank God!”

  He goosed the motor and reached the dock within seconds. Honor was so glad to see him, she almost missed the rope he tossed her. She knelt down and wound it around a metal cleat.

  Fred had barely got his footing on the dock when Honor flung herself against him. His arms went around her. “Honor, Christ, what’s wrong?”

  She gave his large torso a hard squeeze, then let him go and stepped back. There would be time later for gratitude. “He’s been here. The man you’re after. Coburn.”

  “Son of a—I got this weird premonition about thirty minutes ago when we found… Are you okay? Emily?”

  “We’re fine. Fine. He… he didn’t hurt us, but he—” She paused to gulp air. “He took my car. My phone. That’s why I was running down to the dock. I thought I’d heard a boat. I—”

  “You’re sure it was Coburn who stole—”

  “Yes, yes. He showed up here yesterday.”

  “He’s been here all that time?”

  She nodded furiously. “All day yesterday. All night. I woke up just a few minutes ago. He was gone. I don’t know what time he left.”

  Her chest was hurting from breathing so hard. She pressed her fist against it.

  Sensing her distress, Fred placed his hand on her shoulder. “All right, slow down. Catch your breath and tell me everything that happened.”

  She swallowed, took several deep breaths. “Yesterday morning…” In stops and starts, she described Coburn’s arrival and the daylong ordeal. “Two sheriff’s deputies came by last night.” Breathlessly she recounted what had happened. “Maybe I should have tried to communicate to them that he was inside, but so was Emily. I was afraid he would—”

  “You did the right thing,” he said, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Is he injured? We found blood on the trail.”

  She explained about his head wound. “It was a fairly deep gash, I think. He was scraped and scratched from going through brush, but otherwise he wasn’t hurt.”

  “Armed?”

  “He had a pistol. He threatened me with it. At one point last night, we fought over it. I had it, but he got it back.”

  He dragged his hand down his weary face. “Jesus, you could have been killed.”

  “I was so afraid, Fred. You have no idea.”

  “I can guess. But the important thing is that he took shelter and then moved on without hurting you.”

  “He didn’t come here for shelter. He knew who I was. He knew Eddie. At least he knew of Eddie. He came here for a reason.”

  “What the hell? Was he somebody Eddie had arrested?”

  “I don’t think so. He said he’d never met him. He said… He… he…” She couldn’t control her stuttering, and Fred sensed that.

  “Okay. You’re all right now.” He muttered words of concern that were liberally sprinkled with profanities. He placed his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the house. “I’ve got to call this in. Let’s go inside.”

  Honor leaned against him heavily, relying on his support as they made their way up the slope. Now that the crisis was past and she and Emily were no longer in danger, she was trembling. With the arrival of help, the courage it had taken to protect herself and Emily abandoned her. As her friend had said, she could have been killed. She’d thought for sure she would be.

  The full impact of how narrowly she had escaped death struck her and brought her close to tears. She’d heard of this phenomenon, of people acting with incredible valor during a crisis situation, then coming apart completely after surviving it.

  “He ransacked the house,” she told Fred as they approached the porch. “He was insistent that Eddie died with something valuable in his possession.”

  Fred snorted with incredulity. “Not the Eddie I knew.”

  “I tried to tell him he was wrong. He refused to believe me. He ripped up my house for nothing.”

  �
�What was he looking for? Money?”

  “No. I don’t know. He didn’t know. Or so he said. But he insisted that this—whatever it is—was the reason Eddie had died.”

  “He died in a car wreck.”

  Stepping up onto the porch, she looked up at him and shrugged. “That didn’t sway Coburn.”

  Fred drew up short when they entered the living room and he saw the damage Coburn had done. “Criminy. You weren’t kidding.”

  “He stopped just short of tearing down the walls and pulling up the floors. He was dead certain that I had something that Eddie had died protecting.”

  “Where’d he get that notion?”

  She raised her hands to her sides, indicating to him that she was at a loss. “If you can find that out, maybe you’ll uncover his motive for killing those seven people.”

  He took a cell phone off his belt and started punching in numbers. “I gotta let the others know.”

  “I’m going to check on Emily.”

  She tiptoed down the hallway and moved to the door of Emily’s room. Peering through the crack, she was relieved to see that Emily had flipped over onto her back, but was still sleeping. If she were awake, she would view Fred’s visit as a social one and would be confused if he didn’t stop everything and play with her.

  Besides that, as the widow of a policeman, Honor knew she faced hours of questioning. Soon she should call Stan to come and take Emily for the rest of the day. He could be overprotective and overbearing, but today she would welcome his help.

  For now, she pulled her child’s bedroom door securely closed, hoping that she would sleep a while longer.

  As she reentered the living room, Fred was where she’d left him, holding his cell phone to his ear. “Mrs. Gillette isn’t sure what time he slipped out, so we don’t know how much of a head start he’s got or which direction he’s moving in. But he’s in her car. Hold on.” He covered the mouthpiece. “What’s your tag number?”

  She recited it to him, and he repeated it into the cell phone, then described the make and model of her car. He raised his eyebrows in silent query: Was he remembering right? She nodded.

  “Put out an APB on the car immediately. Inform the superintendent of this and tell him—request—that I need every officer available.” After clicking off, he smiled at her with regret.

  “In a very short time, cops are gonna be swarming this house inside and out. It’s gonna get even more torn up, I’m afraid.”

  “It doesn’t matter, so long as you catch him.”

  He replaced his phone in the holster at his belt. “Oh, we’ll catch him. He couldn’t be far.”

  No sooner had he said the words than the front door burst open and Coburn barged in. He was holding the pistol with both hands, and the muzzle was aimed at the back of Fred’s skull. “Don’t you fucking move!” Coburn yelled.

  Then, a bright red starburst exploded out the center of Fred Hawkins’s forehead.

  Chapter 14

  Honor clamped her hands over her mouth to trap her scream and watched in horrified astonishment as Fred’s body fell face first onto the floor.

  Coburn stepped over it and strode toward her.

  On an adrenaline surge, she spun around and bolted down the hallway. He grabbed her arm from behind. As he brought her around, she swung her other fist at his head.

  Cursing liberally, he caught her in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides, and lifted her off the floor. He backed her into the wall with enough impetus to knock the breath out of her and positioned himself between her legs to make her vicious kicking ineffectual.

  “Listen! Listen to me!” he said, his breath striking her face in hot pants.

  She fought like a wildcat to get free, but when her limbs proved useless, she tried to bang her forehead against his. He jerked his head back in the nick of time.

  “I’m a federal agent!”

  She went perfectly still and gaped at him.

  “Hawkins—that’s his name?”

  Her head wobbled.

  “He was the shooter at the warehouse. Him and his twin. Got it? He was the bad guy, not me.”

  Honor stared at him with stark incredulity as she gulped in air. “Fred is a police officer.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “He was—”

  “A murderer. I watched him shoot Marset in the head.”

  “I watched you shoot Fred!”

  “I had no choice. He already had his gun in his hand to—”

  “He didn’t even know you were here!”

  “—to kill you.”

  She sucked in a breath and, after holding it for several seconds, exhaled it in a gust. Her swallow was dry. “That’s impossible.”

  “I saw him headed this way in a boat. I doubled back. If I hadn’t, you’d be dead now, and so would your kid. I’d have been accused of two more murders.”

  “Why would… why would…?”

  “Later. I’ll tell you all of it. But for right now, just believe me when I tell you he would have killed you if I hadn’t killed him first. Okay?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t believe you. You can’t be a cop.”

  “Not a cop.”

  “Federal agent?”

  “FBI.”

  “Even more unlikely.”

  “J. Edgar rolls over in his grave every day, but that’s the way it is.”

  “Show me your ID.”

  “Undercover. Deep cover. No ID. You have to take my word for it.”

  She gazed into his hard, cold eyes for several moments, then stammered tearfully, “You spent the last twenty-four hours terrifying me.”

  “Part of the shakedown. I had to be convincing.”

  “Well, I’m convinced. You’re a criminal.”

  “Think about it,” he said angrily. “If I was a killer on the run, you’d have been dead this time yesterday. Fred would have found your body this morning. Your little girl’s, too. Maybe floating in the creek out there, a fish buffet, if she hadn’t been eaten by gators first.”

  She hiccupped a sob and looked away from him with revulsion. “You’re worse than a criminal.”

  “That’s been said. But for the immediate future, I’m your only chance of staying alive.”

  Tears of confusion and fear blurred her vision. “I don’t understand what I have to do with any of this.”

  “Not you. Your late husband.” He let go of her with one hand and dug into the front pocket of his jeans, producing the folded sheet of paper she had noticed the day before.

  “What is that?”

  “Your husband was somehow linked to that killing in the warehouse.”

  “Impossible.”

  “This might help convince you.” He shook out the folds of the paper, then turned it around so she could read what was written. “Your husband’s name, circled and underlined and with a question mark beside it.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Marset’s office. I sneaked in there one night. Found this entry in an old day planner.”

  “That could mean anything.”

  “Check the date.”

  “Two days before Eddie died,” she murmured. She looked at Coburn with bewilderment, then tried to snatch the paper from him.

  “Un-huh.” He yanked it out of her reach and stuffed it back into his pocket. “I might need that for evidence. Along with anything you can testify to.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, we gotta get you the hell out of here.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” he said with a hard shake of his head for emphasis. “You’re getting the kid and going with me now before Hawkins number two shows up.”

  “Doral?”

  “Whatever the hell his name is. You can bet he’s speeding his way here.”

  “The police are on their way. Fred notified them that you’d been here. I heard him.”

  He released her so suddenly, she nearly slid do
wn the wall. In seconds he was back, a cell phone in each hand. “His official phone,” he said, holding it up for her to see. “Last call, an hour ago.” He tossed that phone to the floor. “This phone. His burner.” His thumb busily worked the keypad. “Last number called three minutes ago. Not the police.”

  He depressed the icon to redial, and she recognized Doral’s voice when he answered. “Everything okay?”

  Coburn disconnected immediately. “So now he knows everything’s not okay.” The phone began ringing almost instantly. Coburn turned it off, crammed it into his jeans pocket, and nodded toward Emily’s bedroom. “Get the kid.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “You wanna die?”

  “No.”

  “You want your little girl to get snuffed? Wouldn’t take too long for him to cut off her air with a pillow over her face.”

  She recoiled from the horrible image. “You would protect us. If what you say is true, why don’t you arrest Doral?”

  “I can’t blow my cover yet. And I can’t turn you over to the police because the whole frigging department is dirty. I couldn’t protect you.”

  “I’ve known the Hawkins twins for years. They were my husband’s best friends. Stan practically raised them. They have no reason to kill me.”

  He placed his hands on his hips. His chest was rapidly rising and falling with agitation. “Did you tell Fred I came here looking for something?”

  She hesitated before giving one bob of her head.

  “That’s why Fred would have killed you. The Bookkeeper would have ordered it.”

  “You mentioned this bookkeeper last night. Who is it?”

  “I wish I knew. But there’s no time to explain that now. You just gotta believe that since Fred can no longer kill you, Doral will.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “It is.”

  He stated it as fact, without mitigation. Two words. It is.

  Still she hesitated.

  “Look,” he said, “you want to stay here and wring your hands over divided loyalties? Fine. But I’m leaving. I’ve got a job to finish. You’d be helpful to me, but not necessary. All I’m trying to do is save your skin. If you stay, you’ll be at Doral’s mercy. Good luck with that.”