Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  Besides, I didn’t think spending further time with Marcus—or seeking out Hope—was a good idea.

  So I spent several hours working with a forensic odontologist from the UK, who was carefully sorting through a scattering of teeth and allocating them to individuals. He was currently gluing them onto strips of card that resembled a dental X-ray. From this, he told me, it might be possible to identify victims too badly damaged to otherwise put a name to.

  “There’s always DNA, but that’s expensive and often there’s nothing to match it to,” he told me, inspecting another tooth. “Superglue and cardboard is the more cost-effective option.”

  I snapped each completed mouthful with the URN giving the team who’d found the victim, the area they were found in, and the unique number. Only when the body was finally identified and reconciled to their family would that number finally be put aside.

  I was so absorbed in the work that the buzz of my cellphone made me start. I checked the incoming number and gave an apologetic smile to the Brit odontologist.

  “This could be important. I better take it, if that’s OK?”

  He waved me away cheerfully enough, his glasses perched on the end of a long nose.

  “I’ll shout when this one’s complete,” he mumbled, distracted. “Now then, upper left second bicuspid … Ah, there you are!”

  I took the call, moving away into the far corner as I did so.

  “Hi boss, what do you have for me?” I asked, careful not to use his name just in case.

  “You first,” Parker said. “How’s it going out there?”

  I suppressed a sigh and gave him a brief rundown of earlier events. He listened in loud silence. When I was done he expressed a desire, again, to recall me. Again I refused.

  I stood with my back to the wall watching the other teams at work while I talked. The military had laid down a temporary floor that could be scrubbed clean every night but the faint tang of disinfectant overlaying old blood still lingered. It did little for my appetite.

  “You have information for me?” I said at last, trying to distract him.

  Parker’s own sigh was clearly audible across the international phone line. He knew exactly what I was doing and was prepared to go along with it, if under protest.

  “Enzo Lefévre and Gabrielle Dubois are aliases,” he said flatly. “At the moment we’re still trying to uncover their real names but Interpol lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as we started a search.”

  “What’s their interest?”

  “Jewel thieves. Lots of skill and finesse—no smash and grab for this pair. I’m told Lefévre means ‘craftsman’. Maybe that’s why he chose it. From what I could squeeze out of my Interpol liaison, they’ve pulled off some major heists along the French Riviera, Monaco, Madrid and that one at the Cannes Film Festival last year. This is the first time they’ve operated so far from Europe, though.”

  “So how does that square with what Santiago Rojas told us about the robbery and this supposed third man?” I said, frowning. “The one who shot Lefévre and got away. If this pair were jewel thieves, how likely is it that they just so happened to be in a jewellery store—on the very day it was supposed to have a big delivery—at the precise moment it was turned over by someone else who was totally unconnected?”

  “Honest appraisal? About the same odds as getting struck twice by lightning,” Parker said dryly. “It happens, but you’d have to be pretty damn unlucky.”

  I thought of the man in the hospital bed who’d told such a heartfelt story about the woman with the ruby engagement ring.

  “I suppose they could have simply been taking a holiday and decided to buy a ring like normal people. Would it mean more to a pair of thieves if they paid for something rather than just stole it?”

  Parker made a “maybe” noise in his throat. “Might explain why Lefévre tried to intervene and got himself shot for it.”

  “A sense of professional outrage you mean?” I suggested. “That somebody had the gall to attempt a half-arsed job in front of him?”

  “Something like that, yeah—if that’s what happened.”

  I considered that one for a moment. Across from me, the fingerprint expert, also from the UK, was hunched over her workstation. She had just made a match between a palm-print taken from the kitchen counter at the home of a missing person and one of our victims. There was no sense of triumph or satisfaction, though, only sorrow. It was her first time with a DVI team. I wondered if she’d stay the course or volunteer again.

  “I think I need to go back and talk to Rojas again,” I said to Parker. “It sounds like he may not have been entirely forthcoming.”

  “He may not,” Parker agreed solemnly. “But from what you’ve said he did suffer a nasty head injury, which we should take into account. After all, we both know the kind of effects something like that can have.”

  “We do.” I scraped a hand through my hair, unwilling to venture much further along that line of thought. Instead I asked, “Is there, um, any news on the girl?”

  “I’m still waiting for the London end to get back to me,” he said. “They hit a few obstructions. Washington bureaucrats could learn a lot from the British Civil Service, huh? I’ll call you as soon as I have something.”

  “Thanks.” Let’s just hope it’s soon. I paused. “I don’t suppose there’s been any word …?”

  I didn’t have to elaborate. Parker knew exactly who I was talking about. He cleared his throat and I knew immediately it wasn’t going to be good news.

  “We tracked Sean to Germany. A couple of days ago he flew from Frankfurt to Kuwait City.”

  “Kuwait?” I repeated. “What the hell is he doing there?”

  “We believe he may have crossed the border into Iraq,” Parker said carefully, “heading for Basra.”

  I opened my mouth to ask again what the hell Sean was doing but then closed it again, aware of a leaden weight settling in my chest. I had a horrible feeling I knew exactly why Sean might be going alone into bandit country and I hoped to hell I was wrong.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The night I got back from Mexico City—the night things came to a head between Sean and me—I made what I realised later was a grave error of judgement. It wasn’t my first and I daresay it won’t be my last either.

  Not by goading Sean into respond to me physically. That had been a long time coming—in every sense. Even though he’d left the army with the mistaken belief I was instrumental in ruining his career as I’d ruined my own, he still wanted me. Throughout our brief but clandestine relationship back then, the constraints of behaving with rigid formality towards each other while we were on duty led to break-the-furniture and wake-the-neighbours kind of sex when we were finally let loose.

  That night my only thought had been to let it loose again.

  So I held him down on the sofa in the living room of the New York apartment and released all those months of pent-up emotion. It was almost impossible not to ravage what had once been mine to take freely. His initial freeze almost made me weep but then his lips relaxed under mine and he began to kiss me back in anger.

  I counted on the fact that it’s very hard for a man to be raped by a woman he honestly does not desire without some kind of chemical inducement. By the time the shower water had all-but evaporated from our naked skin Sean needed no artificial stimulation.

  When I relaxed the lock on his wrist he dived both hands into my short wet hair, dragging my head back to bare my scarred throat like a goat for sacrifice. With a groan that sounded close to torture he feasted on the line of my jaw, my neck, my breasts.

  And when his hands slid down over my shoulders to trace my spine and grasp my hips, I cupped his face in trembling fingers and kissed him with aching tenderness, feeling his body rise to mine in the old way, guided by instinct and muscle memory.

  I forced myself not to rush even though the need was clawing through me. I knew I had to tip him over the edge of frustration until he could do nothing b
ut give in to blind lust and take what had once been given freely too.

  I couldn’t contain a harsh cry as we came together. Sean’s face was a whitened mask, his eyes closed.

  I jammed a hand under his jaw and muttered, “Look at me, dammit. I need you to know it’s me.”

  His eyes snapped open. “Christ. Jesus,” he managed. “How could it be anyone else?”

  When he bucked under me with a growl I almost grabbed for his throat again before I realised he wasn’t trying to dislodge me, far from it. I felt the slide of muscle packed under slick skin as he powered to his feet, lifting me, taking me with him. We made it as far as the wall by the bedroom, knocking aside a small table.

  My back hit the door frame and my limbs wrapped tight around him as he thrust upward with his face buried in my neck, his teeth on my skin and my name on his lips.

  That alone was enough to undo me. I came apart in his arms. If the neighbours had been sleeping, I would surely have woken them.

  Almost at once Sean tried to pull back. I tightened my grip.

  “Charlie!” His voice was raw. “I can’t hold on much longer, and I’m not using—”

  “Had a coil fitted,” I gasped against his ear. “Not taking chances after last time …”

  If I could have taken the words back I would have done. I knew he’d registered the importance of them by the way he stiffened, then my body spasmed afresh and he was barging into the bedroom itself, tumbling onto the bed with me wedged beneath him.

  I landed hard on the mattress still clenched greedily around him.

  Afterwards we lay together, separated only by the width of our thoughts. We sprawled on our backs while the sweat cooled on our bodies and the only sound was the slowing beat of our hearts as we came back to ourselves.

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t trite.

  Sean shifted, his short hair rasping against the pillow as he turned towards me. I tensed involuntarily. I couldn’t help it. Those dark unfathomable eyes probed mine. I knew I needed to say something but nothing came.

  “I take it back,” Sean said then and I couldn’t get a lock on his tone. “If you’d been fucking Parker all the time you were away you wouldn’t have been so …”

  “Desperate?” I supplied.

  He almost smiled. “I was going to say ‘ardent’ but I suppose boils down to the same thing.”

  I stared up at the high ceiling and felt my heart splintering into shards like a bullet through glass.

  “I’ve never been unfaithful to you Sean.”

  “It was mine, wasn’t it—the child you lost?” And when shock kept me mute he recounted with deadly accuracy, “You said you’d had a coil fitted, because you weren’t taking any chances ‘after last time’. Was it … before we left the UK?”

  I rolled away from him slowly onto my side and curled my knees up toward my chest, resisting the urge to cry. “Was getting myself pregnant the only reason I got to tag along with you to New York you mean?” I asked with brittle dignity. “No, it wasn’t.”

  I heard the gush of his outward breath, felt the mattress sway as he propped himself up on one elbow. His hand smoothed across my hip and gently tugged me over onto my back again so he could see my face.

  “I’m sorry, Charlie,” he said then, his voice low. “I know how hard this is—for both of us. We’re neither of us the people we remember.”

  I recognised the olive branch for what it was, but still couldn’t prevent a hurt question. “Was I ever the kind of person who would have tried to trap you with an unwanted child?”

  He rubbed his fingers across the scar at his temple and shook his head as much to clear it as in denial. “I just … don’t know,” he said helplessly. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I know, I still can’t shake the feeling we’re bad for each other—a disaster waiting to happen.”

  “Maybe we are,” I agreed as images of earlier times and places cartwheeled through my mind. I stared into his eyes. “But I’ve risked my life for you, and I’d do it again tomorrow without hesitation.”

  His hand dropped away from his face, a sudden intensity about him.

  “Those two spent rounds you carry everywhere with you like a talisman,” he said at last, frowning as if until the words were out there he hadn’t known what he’d been about to say.

  I nodded. “We were facing a gunman with a hostage,” I said, matter-of-fact. “I was wearing body armour. You weren’t. So, I … put myself between the two of you.”

  Sean’s gaze flicked over my body as though searching for the extra scars. “Supposing he’d gone for a head shot?” he asked quietly.

  “He might have done, but he didn’t,” I said. “I didn’t think he was good enough—and he wanted to be sure. Two in the chest will usually get the job done.”

  His mouth twisted. “Is that something else I taught you?”

  “Yes.”

  I could have said more—there was so much more to be said—but I lapsed into silence, for all the good it did me. Sean always had been able to read me like an open book.

  “What else is there, Charlie?” And when I would have rolled away again he caught my wrist, held it fast and demanded roughly, “Tell me.”

  So I told him. It was only when I got that phone call from Parker I realised what a mistake it was but at the time it was a relief to finally get it out in the open.

  About how being prepared to die for him was only part of the story. About how I discovered while he was in his coma that I was also prepared to kill for him. Not in the midst of a fire fight where saving one life gave you no choice but to take another. But later, with icy calculation. To stalk a target like prey.

  “You told me once you thought I had all the makings of a cold-blooded killer. Someone who didn’t just have the ability to aim—someone who had what it took to pull the trigger for real,” I said. “Turns out you were right.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  On my fourth morning with R&R I found myself slated to work a new sector alongside Hope and Lemon again.

  Hope was clearly uncomfortable about this. She was very subdued in the mess hall when I saw her first thing. Her anxiety communicated itself to Lemon, who remained glued to her side throughout breakfast. The dog even refused to be tempted by the offer of bacon strips from the squaddies manning the grill. Unsure of my welcome I didn’t sit at the same table, and as soon as Hope had shovelled down her usual healthy serving she scurried away without making eye contact.

  I would have gone after her then but Joe Marcus stopped me with an ominous, “Charlie—a word.”

  I followed him outside, noting that he pointedly turned away from the direction Hope had taken. I watched the yellow Lab trotting along at her heels, the dog’s face upturned to fix her with those unwavering green eyes. I schooled my expression into one of polite enquiry.

  “What can I do for you, Joe?”

  He stared at me for a moment in an attempt to flatten out any sign of flippancy, then said, “Hope’s acting kinda upset this morning.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said. “She’s—”

  He chopped off my words with an abrupt slice of his hand. “I don’t need to know why. I just need her focused on the job. You hearing me?”

  I nodded. I was hearing him all right.

  “Without Hope—and Lemon—doing their jobs to the best of their abilities, everybody else on this team is just spinning their wheels. Your job is to let her work without distractions, not to be the cause of them.” He paused. “Lives depend on it, Charlie. Got that?”

  “Loud and clear,” I murmured.

  He gave a final sharp shake of his head as if he couldn’t believe my density and spun on his heel. I watched him stride away toward the morgue where Dr Bertrand stood waiting for him. They spoke briefly and she glanced in my direction before they went inside. I don’t know what they said and gathered from her bleak expression that I didn’t want to know either.

  I went out of my w
ay to be pleasantly chatty with Hope on the ride over the city but she remained hunched and withdrawn, only replying to Riley’s teasing banter in monosyllables. By the time we reached our designated sector even the laidback Aussie was handing me reproachful glances.

  Great. She can’t keep her hands in her own pockets and suddenly it’s my fault.

  Riley dropped us off with the usual comms check, to which Hope responded with a morose, “OK.” He lifted off again with a frown that was visible even from the ground.

  “Look, are you going to lighten up, Hope?” I asked once we were alone. “Or are we all going to have a miserable day?”

  She threw me a look of almost teenage disdain.

  “What’s the point?” she demanded. “You’re going to get me sent home anyway, aren’t you?”

  Joe Marcus’s warning at breakfast was still looming large in my mind—that he valued Hope and Lemon’s contribution to the team above almost all others. How far would he go to protect the girl, and why? I remembered the way she didn’t flinch that time he touched her arm and I couldn’t prevent a shiver of distaste. I hoped I was way off base with my suspicion—he was old enough to be her father for heaven’s sake. In terms of maturity, more like grandfather.

  Is that what Kyle Stephens did—discovered Hope was the thief he was sent to root out? Is that why she reacted with such force to the mention of his name?

  If Marcus attributed so much of R&R’s success to Hope, it wasn’t just the girl’s interests he’d be looking out for. I could just imagine what the other three might do if accusations were made towards the girl.

  And what might they have done once already …

  “Hope—”

  But she whirled away with a gesture that clearly meant ‘leave me alone’ and stomped off across another section of cracked paving towards what had once been an apartment block.

  I knew if we didn’t get things straight between us now, it would fester for days—or as long as I’d got left. Without thinking, I jogged after her and tagged her arm.