Lethal

by Sandra Brown

  He blinked wildly, trying to restore his vision, even as he realized what Coburn’s strategy had been. Blind him, rattle him, deafen him, and then attack from behind. He spun around in time to catch the full brunt of Coburn’s impetus as he launched himself over the hood of Doral’s car, landing on him like a sack of cement and forcing him down onto the pavement on his back.

  “Federal agent!” he shouted.

  Coburn’s impact had knocked the wind out of Doral, but he’d been fighting all his life. Instinct kicked in along with a surge of adrenaline. He whipped his gun hand up.

  A gunshot rang out.

  Coburn backed off Doral.

  There wasn’t much blood, actually, because Coburn had fired point-blank into the man’s chest. In death, he didn’t look all that sinister, only bewildered, as though wondering how someone as clever as he could have been done in by a soccer ball. Doral had stalked prey. His target was always in front of him. He hadn’t thought to check his back.

  “You should have learned from your brother. I don’t negotiate,” Coburn whispered.

  He patted down the body and found Doral’s cell phone. He feared it would conveniently disappear when the police investigated, so he slipped it into his pocket before standing up and walking quickly to the car where Honor was sitting in the driver’s seat, clutching Emily to her, rocking back and forth, crooning to her.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Limp as a dishrag and already asleep again. He must’ve given her something. Is he…”

  “In hell.”

  “He refused to surrender?”

  “Something like that.” He paused, then said, “You did good.”

  She smiled shakily. “I was scared.”

  “So was I.”

  “I don’t believe that. You aren’t afraid of anything.”

  “First time for everything.” His words telegraphed a much more meaningful message than he would allow himself to say. But Honor seemed to understand both the message and why he wouldn’t say anything more. They shared a long look, then he said briskly, “You get Emily to a doctor and have her checked out.”

  He lifted Emily from her and gently placed her in the backseat.

  “What are you going to do?” Honor asked.

  “Call this in to Hamilton. He’ll want the skinny. He’ll want me to wait here till agents arrive. Then—”

  “Lee Coburn?”

  The quiet voice, coming from behind him, surprised them both. Honor looked beyond him and registered puzzlement. Coburn turned.

  The woman was completely expressionless when she pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 45

  Coburn grabbed his middle and sank to the pavement.

  Honor screamed.

  Coburn heard Emily react to the commotion, asking groggily where Elmo was.

  But the sounds seemed to come to him from the pinpoint of light at the end of a very long tunnel. He struggled to remain conscious, but it was a hell of a fight.

  He’d been shot twice before. Once in the shoulder and once in the calf. This was different. This was bad. He’d seen allies and foes alike get gut-shot, and most of them died. A small-caliber bullet could make you just as dead as a big one.

  He worked his way into a half sitting position but kept his palm clamped over the pumping hole in his belly. He braced his back against the side of the car and tried to bring into focus the ordinary-looking woman who had shot him.

  She was ordering Honor at gunpoint to stay put inside the car. Already she had disarmed him. He could see his pistol lying on the pavement a short distance away, but it might just as well have been a mile. Fred’s .357 was under the driver’s seat of the car, but Honor couldn’t get to it without getting shot, too.

  She was sobbing, asking the woman, “Why, why?”

  “Because of Tom,” she replied.

  So. Tom VanAllen’s wife. Widow. At least he wouldn’t die without knowing why. But for a woman who’d just committed a crime of vengeance, she seemed remarkably cold-blooded. She didn’t even appear angry, and Coburn wondered why not.

  “If Tom hadn’t gone to those train tracks to meet Coburn,” she said, “he would still be alive.”

  She blamed him for her husband’s death tonight. Last night, Coburn corrected himself. The eastern sky had taken on the blush of predawn. He wondered if he would live to see the sun break the horizon. Watching one more sunrise would be nice.

  He just hated that he would bleed out with Honor watching. And what if Emily woke up and saw blood gushing out of him? She would be afraid, when up to this point he’d done everything within his power to protect her and guard her against fear.

  He’d dragged Honor and her through enough shit already. Strangely enough, he thought both of them liked him. A little bit, anyway. And now he was going to put them through one more trauma, and he wouldn’t even be around to apologize for it.

  He’d always thought that when his number came up, it would be way overdue, and that he would be okay with it. But, Jesus, this sucked.

  Lousy timing. He’d just learned what it was like to make love to a woman. Not just satisfy a hard-on, but really soak up the person that belonged to the body. Fat lot of good it would do him to know the difference, now that he had gone and got shot.

  Yeah, this sucked really, really bad.

  These were silly thoughts to be entertaining when he should be trying to figure out something. Something just beyond his grasp. Dammit, what was it? Something important, but teasingly elusive. Something winking at him like that last holdout star that he could see in the lightening sky just beyond Janice VanAllen’s head. Something he should’ve caught before now. Something—

  “How’d you know?” Not until he gasped the question did he realize what that something was.

  Janice VanAllen looked down at him. “What?”

  His breath soughed through his lips. He blinked against the collecting darkness of unconsciousness. Or death. “How’d you know I was at the tracks?”

  “Tom told me.”

  That was a lie. If Tom had told her anything before leaving for that meeting, he’d have told her that he was to meet Honor, because that’s who Tom had expected to be there. Tom hadn’t been around later to tell her differently.

  She’d learned it from somebody else. Who? Not the agents who would have been sent to notify her of her husband’s death. They wouldn’t have known. Even Hamilton hadn’t known until about a half hour ago when Coburn himself had told him what had transpired at the railroad tracks.

  The only people who could have told her were the ones he’d spotted near the tracks, the ones who’d planted the bomb and who’d been there to make sure it did what it was supposed to—obliterate Tom VanAllen and Honor.

  Honor was begging her to call for help. “He’s going to die,” she sobbed.

  “That’s the point,” Janice VanAllen said coldly.

  “I don’t understand how you can blame Coburn. He’s a federal agent like your husband was. Tom was only doing his job, and so was Coburn. Think of your son. If Coburn dies, you’ll go to prison. What will happen to your boy then?”

  Suddenly Coburn sagged forward and groaned through clenched teeth.

  “Please, let me help him,” Honor implored.

  “He’s beyond help. He’s dying.”

  “And then what? Are you going to shoot me, too? Emily?”

  “I won’t harm the child. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “No better than me.” Saying that, Coburn cut a vicious swath with Stan Gillette’s knife, which he’d slid from his cowboy boot while hunched over. It connected with Janice VanAllen’s ankle and, he thought, probably had sliced through her Achilles’ tendon. She screamed. Her leg buckled, and when it did, he found enough strength to topple her with a push from both his feet.

  “Honor!” He tried to shout, but it came out barely a rasp.

  She practically fell out of the car, seized the pistol that Janice had dropped while falling, and aimed it dow
n at her, ordering her not to move.

  “Coburn?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Keep the gun on her. Cavalry’s here.”

  Honor realized that squad cars were speeding toward them from a dozen different directions. The first to reach them bore the sheriff’s office insignia. Stopping the vehicle, the driver laid rubber on the pavement. He and his passenger, Stan, were out of the car in a flash. The uniformed man had his pistol drawn. Stan was carrying a deer rifle.

  “Honor, thank God you’re all right,” Stan said as he ran up to her.

  “Mrs. Gillette, I’m Deputy Crawford. What happened?”

  “She shot Coburn.”

  Crawford and two fellow deputies took over guarding Janice, who was writhing on the pavement, clutching her ankle and alternately groaning in pain and cursing Coburn. Others who were now out of their cars ran over to Doral’s corpse.

  Stan reached for Honor and hugged her. “I forced Crawford at gunpoint into bringing me along.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Stan. See to Emily, please. She’s in the backseat.” Honor pushed herself free of his hold and shouted for the EMTs scrambling out of the ambulance to hurry, then dropped to her knees beside Coburn.

  She touched his hair, touched his face. “Don’t die. Don’t you dare die.”

  “Hamilton,” he said.

  “What?”

  He nodded and she turned. Two black Suburbans were disgorging officers wearing assault gear, along with a man who looked even more intimidating than they, although he was dressed in a suit and tie.

  He made a beeline for her and Coburn, although his eyes darted about, taking in the various elements of the grisly scene. “Mrs. Gillette?” he said as he approached her.

  She nodded up at him. “Coburn is badly wounded.”

  Hamilton nodded grimly.

  “Why aren’t you in Washington?” Coburn growled up at him.

  “Because I’ve got a pain-in-the-ass agent working for me who won’t follow orders.”

  “I have it under control.”

  “I beg to differ.” His tone was querulous, but Honor could tell that the seriousness of Coburn’s wound was obvious to him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here in time to stop this. We were at her house,” he said, nodding toward Janice, who was being attended by other paramedics.

  “We found evidence that she was going to skip out. Even leave the country. We found notes, texts on various cell phones, indicating that she had a vendetta against Coburn over what had happened to Tom. I contacted Crawford, who had just received word of gunshots in this area. I left one man behind to stay with her son and got here as quickly as I could.”

  “Let go,” Coburn snarled up at the paramedic who was trying to get an IV into his arm. He wrestled with the EMT and won, managing to slip his hand inside his pants pocket—the khakis that had formerly belonged to Honor’s father, now soaked with blood.

  He took out a cell phone and held it up where Hamilton could see. “Doral’s. Moments before he got out of his car, he made a call.”

  While speaking in starts and stops, his voice growing increasingly weak, Coburn had used his bloodstained thumb to work the phone. He depressed a highlighted number and said, “He called The Bookkeeper.”

  Seconds later, all heads turned toward the sound of a ringing cell phone coming from the pocket of Janice VanAllen’s windbreaker.

  For Honor the next hour and a half passed in a blur. After making the startling revelation that Janice VanAllen was The Bookkeeper, Coburn lost consciousness, which made it far easier for the EMTs to see to his immediate needs and get him into the CareFlight helicopter that had been summoned.

  Honor considered it a miracle that Emily had slept through the entire traumatic event. On the other hand, a sleep that deep was worrisome. She was transported to the ER via ambulance.

  Honor was allowed to ride to the hospital with her, but once there, her insistence on remaining with Emily was overruled.

  While she was being examined by a pediatric team, Honor and Stan waited anxiously with cups of tepid coffee he bought from a vending machine. There was an awkwardness between them that had never been present before.

  Finally he said, “Honor, I owe you an apology.”

  “Hardly. After what I did to your house? After leaving you bound to a chair? After letting Coburn take your ‘magic knife’?”

  He gave her a quick grin, but apparently he had something he wanted to say. “You tried to explain your motivations. I didn’t listen. I dismissed them out of hand.”

  “It was a lot to take in.”

  “Yes, but my apology goes beyond what’s happened over the last couple of days. Ever since Eddie died,” he said uneasily, “I’ve held you in strict control. No, don’t try to deny it when we both know it’s true. I’ve been afraid that you would meet a man, fall in love, marry, and I’d be ousted from your lives. Yours and Emily’s.”

  “That would never have happened, Stan,” she said gently. “You’re our family. Emily loves you. So do I.”

  “Thanks for that,” he said huskily.

  “I’m not just saying it. Honestly I don’t know what I would have done without your support these past two years. You’ve been there, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us.”

  “I tend to come on a little heavy-handed.”

  She smiled and said softly, “Sometimes.”

  “I made some ugly remarks earlier about your personal life. I’m sorry.”

  “I know it offended you to think of Coburn and me together.”

  “As you said, it’s none of my—”

  “No, let me finish. It’s occurred to me that Eddie knew my tattoo would be discovered only by a lover. Who else would have seen it? He trusted me to choose wisely who that man would be. Eddie knew he would have to be a man of integrity or I wouldn’t be intimate with him.”

  She paused before continuing. “I loved Eddie. You know that, Stan. He’ll be enshrined in my heart until I draw my last breath. But…” She reached for his hand and squeezed it as she added, “But he can’t be enshrined in my life. I’ve got to let go and move on. So do you.”

  He nodded, but possibly didn’t trust himself to speak. His eyes were suspiciously moist. Honor was grateful for his stalwart presence. She was still clasping his hand when Deputy Crawford joined them.

  “Your friend, Ms. Shirah? N.O.P.D. responded to your 911. They arrived to find her alone in the house. She had a gunshot wound to the head.”

  “What! Oh my God!”

  He patted the air. “She underwent surgery to have the bullet removed. I spoke with a friend of hers, a man named Bonnell Wallace, who’s there with her. She’s in fair but stable condition. The surgeon told Mr. Wallace that it appeared the bullet hadn’t done any permanent damage. He was guarded, naturally, but predicted she’ll make a full recovery.”

  Weak with relief, Honor leaned her head against Stan’s shoulder. “Thank God.”

  “Mr. Wallace gave me his cell phone number. Said for you to call him when you’re up to it. There’s a lot he has to tell you and a lot he wants to hear. But he wanted you to know that Ms. Shirah has recognized him and that they’ve exchanged a few words. Her first concern was for you and Emily. He told her that you’d been rescued and were safe.”

  “I’ll call him soon. Have you heard anything about Mrs. VanAllen?”

  “She’s receiving treatment under close guard.”

  “And Coburn?” she asked huskily. “Do you know anything?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Crawford replied. “I’m sure Hamilton will be in touch when there’s something to report.”

  The waiting seemed interminable, but not long after that, the pediatrician who’d examined Emily arrived with good news. He confirmed that she’d ingested an excessive amount of antihistamine. “I’ll put her in a room and let her sleep it off. She’ll be closely monitored. But she shouldn’t have any lasting effects.” He touched Honor’s arm reassuringly. �
��I saw nothing to indicate that she was harmed in any other way.”

  She and Stan were allowed to go along as the staff transferred Emily to a private room. She looked small and helpless lying in the hospital bed, but measured against what could have been, Honor was grateful to have her there.

  She was bending over her, stroking her hair, loving the feel of her, when Stan quietly spoke her name. She rose up and turned.

  Hamilton was standing just inside the door of the room. Holding her gaze, he walked slowly toward her. “I thought I should tell you in person.”

  “No,” she whimpered. “No. No.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Coburn didn’t make it.”

  Epilogue

  Six weeks later

  “You sound surprised, Mr. Hamilton. Didn’t Tom ever mention to you that I’m brilliant? No? Well, I am. Most people don’t know that before Lanny was born and I became a virtual prisoner in my own house, I had a bright future as a business consultant and financial planner. All my career plans had to be abandoned. Then, a few years ago, when I’d had my fill of living a shadow life, I decided to apply my know-how to another, uh, field of endeavor.

  “And I was in a perfect position to do so. Who would suspect poor Janice VanAllen, mother of a severely disabled child and wife to a man totally lacking in self-confidence and ambition, to initiate and orchestrate an organization as successful as mine?”

  Here she laughed.

  “Ironically, it was Tom who actually planted the idea. He talked a lot about illegal trafficking, the unlimited profits to be made, the government’s futile attempts to stop the ongoing tide. Mostly he talked about the ‘middleman,’ whose risk of capture is limited because usually he’s hidden behind a screen of respectability. That sounded very smart and attractive to me.

  “Tom was an unchecked and guileless source of information. I asked questions, he gave me answers. He explained to me how criminals got caught. All I had to do was get to the men who caught them and, through men like Doral and Fred Hawkins, offer them a handsome bonus for slacking.