Run, Girl, Run: A Thriller

by Alex C. Franklin

  The man disappeared through the door and returned with a clunky device and a power cord. He faced Parker, ignoring me.

  “Here,” he said. “Make sure you return it when you check out, otherwise you’ll have to pay for it.”

  In the room, I sat at the tiny, rickety table beside what we’d agreed would be Parker’s bed. The dinosaur of a laptop took forever to show the websites for the Trinidad newspapers. All I wanted to do was check whether there was anything about Dromel, before letting my exhausted, jet-lagged body collapse in my bed for the night.

  Parker had disappeared into the bathroom to shave, much to my relief. The room was so small, two people could hardly move an inch without bumping into each other.

  When the pages finally loaded, my eyes caught the headlines and my heart slammed against my ribs. My jaw dropped, and, in reflex, my hand flew up and covered my mouth.

  Parker entered the room. “I’m thinking we can leave around four, maybe four-thirty.”

  I turned and saw him standing just outside the bathroom, shirtless, holding a razor in one hand and lathering his cheeks with the other hand.

  Rage swelled within me. I had no control over myself. My hand grabbed the nearest pillow and flung it, missing Parker by an inch.

  “Put your clothes on,” I yelled.

  Parker reeled back with wide eyes. “What’s up with you?”

  I stood up, and the chair tumbled over. I said nothing, but began pacing the tiny space between the bed and the wall, my arms folded as I bit my lip.

  Parker disappeared into the bathroom, then re-emerged, buttoning up his shirt.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I stared at the dingy carpet. My face was wet and I could see the drops of tears forming a dark spot at my feet. My entire body trembled.

  “Ben’s dead.”

  I buried my face in my hands. The noise that rose from my throat was like the wail of a wounded animal.

  Parker was suddenly at my side. His arm curled around my back. I let myself collapse into his chest as I sobbed.

  We stood like that for some time, Parker saying nothing, just keeping his hand lightly on my back and bearing my weight.

  Eventually, I found my legs again and eased away.

  “You okay?” Parker held me by the shoulders.

  I nodded.

  He took my hands and led me to the foot of my bed and sat me down. He sat on his bed, with my hands in his.

  “Look,” he said softly, “I’m sorry he’s dead. I realize he meant a lot to you.”

  I exhaled and chewed back a new flood of tears.

  Parker held my hands more firmly. “You have to understand, though, that Dromel’s death makes the situation more dangerous. This has turned into a homicide and the stakes are higher now for those behind it. They’ll probably stop at nothing to get any evidence that would incriminate them.”

  I nodded.

  Parker got up and peeled back the cover of my bed. “You need to get some rest. We’ll leave as early as possible in the morning.”

  I felt numb, dead inside. I didn’t resist as Parker slipped off my shoes, led me by the hand, and tucked me in bed.

  Chapter 91

  It was still dark when Parker loaded up the car with our belongings and checked out while I waited in the passenger seat.

  Between tortured memories of my last moments with Benoit Dromel and a rock hard, musty mattress, I’d hardly got any sleep.

  After hours of tossing and turning, and shifting my face to avoid the damp spots on the pillow formed by my tears, I’d actually been relieved when I’d felt Parker’s warm hand cup my shoulder and shake me gently.

  I got out of bed in a rage. Those scum had killed Dromel. They had done so to keep a company’s misdeeds in Syron Lake secret. I was determined to get the evidence that would bury them.

  Every time the image of Dromel’s ashen face flashed across my mind, I felt as if I would collapse. But we had a job to do. I needed to pull myself together; I didn’t need Parker to tell me that. I breathed deeply, slowly, and pursed my lips to keep my emotions sealed inside. By the time he settled into the driver’s seat, I would have everything under control, I told myself.

  Silhouetted by the rectangular glow of the office door, Parker walked briskly toward the car, scanning the car park.

  He rested the motel bill and some papers between the driver and passenger seats and inserted the key. He turned to face me. I turned away and stared out the window. The corners of my mouth were tense and contorted.

  “You alright?” he said as the engine rumbled to life.

  I nodded slightly.

  Out on the flat, empty highway, Parker floored the brakes and we drove in silence for about ten minutes.

  “So when are we going to talk about the recording?” I managed to say, finally.

  I wanted to make up for letting myself down a few minutes earlier, by letting him see how much I was still affected by news of Dromel’s death. How could I not be? Despite the anger that burned inside me at his betrayal in not recusing himself from the Syron Lake file as he’d promised, he was still the man who, up until the events of the previous morning, I’d hoped I would grow old with.

  Parker kept his eyes fixed on the road as he sped along at almost double the limit.

  “Did you hear me?” I said.

  “What?”

  “The recording that you found at Ben’s place. When were you planning to tell me what’s on it?”

  He raised his eyebrows, as if surprised at the sudden harshness in my voice.

  “Under your seat,” he said.

  I switched on the overhead light, then felt under my seat and pulled out a cigar box. Inside, a slim pen and a small tape recorder sat on a pile of papers.

  “The pen is what he used to make the recording,” Parker said. “Didn’t know how to operate it until I searched online at a kiosk at the airport. I bought a microcassette recorder and transferred the conversation onto it so we wouldn’t have to fiddle too much with the pen.”

  Holding the recorder to my ear, I cranked up the volume.

  “There’s airport noise in the background,” Parker said. “Couldn’t avoid that. But the conversation’s clear enough.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on the voices on the recording.

  “Wow!” I hit the rewind button. “Doesn’t sound good for the prime minister.”

  “It’s pure BS.”

  “What?”

  “Sure, Peabody made a complete ass of himself,” Parker said, “and that could do serious damage to him if it gets out. But Dromel was just blowing hot air.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It was all just an act on Dromel’s part, Stella. This business about resisting Peabody’s request on behalf of the company was just for show.”

  “You don’t understand what you’re talking about, Detective. Ben was prepared to stand up against that company. He spoke out publicly at the hearing about how they mishandled the spill.”

  “Listen, the name’s ‘Paul,’ okay? Believe me, it looks to me like both Peabody and Dromel were batting for this Syron Lake company. Except Dromel wouldn’t let on, even when confronted by the prime minister.”

  “You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Have a look at that bankbook and those papers.”

  The small, brown bankbook had one entry — a deposit with lots of zeros. The papers revealed the account belonged to an offshore company registered in Belize.

  “I checked the dates while I was at the a
irport,” Parker said. “The company was formed and the money deposited shortly after the spill in Syron Lake. Shortly after Dromel would have been appointed to head up this panel to decide on the company’s fate.”

  “Could be pure coincidence.”

  “Don’t be blind, Stella. This is how things are done. What other plausible explanation would there be for a commissioner of a nuclear regulatory body in Ottawa to suddenly establish an offshore company and be paid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars by someone or some company that provides only an account number and no name on the wire transfer?”

  “International consultancy work. For which he didn’t want to pay tax.”

  “You’re clutching at straws. Benoit Dromel was not the knight in shinning armor that you thought him to be. No wonder he went to lengths to hide that little cigar box. It’s a testament to his total lack of integrity.”

  Parker shook his head.

  “See those pills?” he said.

  I fished out the small, clear plastic packet.

  “OxyContin,” he said. “Very addictive. If he got it with a legit prescription, there’d be no need to stuff it under a fridge would there?”

  I couldn’t say a word.

  I took a photo out of the box. It was one of Dromel and me, cheek to cheek. He’d snapped it himself in his living room by setting the timer on his digital camera shortly after I’d arrived for the weekend. He’d printed it out and stuck it to his fridge with a magnet, telling me it would allow him to have me with him on Valentine’s Day, even if I had to return home a day early.

  “Know where I found that?” Parker said.

  “On the fridge at his place. He took this picture of us when–”

  “Sorry, Stella. Your picture was in that box, under the fridge.”

  My jaw dropped.

  Parker shook his head.“A different photo was on the fridge, held there by a magnet. I put it in the box. It’s the one with Dromel and the woman with long, auburn hair. Not the other one, mind you, of him with the older woman sporting the blonde bob.”

  I lifted some papers and stared at the two photos lying face up at the bottom of the box. I could feel anger rising as blood rushed to my brain.

  “Look,” Parker said, “I pass no judgment on your involvement with Dromel, but he was a bad character.”

  He picked up printed sheets that he’d placed between our seats earlier. “I’m sorry, but you need to read the latest updates from the Trinidad newspapers. I got the manager to print them off for me this morning.”

  Rage rattled around inside me, but I managed to keep my hand steady as I took the pages from him.

  Parker spoke as my eyes ran across the sheets. “One paper describes the woman who flew in from Paris to collect the body as his wife. The other calls her his common-law partner. Either way, same thing. This guy didn’t seem to have one drop of morality in his body.”

  I tossed the pages over my shoulder.

  “Will you just shut up,” I shouted.

  “Huh?”

  “Have you no decency?”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t your mother teach you not to speak ill of the dead?”

  I dumped the bankbook, papers, and the recording equipment back into the cigar box and snapped the lid shut. I bent forward and shoved the box back under my seat.

  Parker looked down at me with confusion written all over his face. “I was simply trying to show that the scumbag was not worth your tears, and that makes me a louse?”

  I sat back up, folded my arms and tuned my head away from him.

  Under his breath, he mumbled, “How irrational can a woman be?”

  The dark forms of trees and bushes rushed by in a blur as we continued on like this for several minutes. Apparently irritated by the icy silence, Parker noisily turned a knob on the radio. He settled on a rock station, catching the tail end of screeching electric guitars. An announcer’s deep-bass voice warned of inclement weather later in the day, and then segued into a stream of commercials.

  Parker grumbled and attacked the radio again. He switched through several channels, then stopped when a familiar refrain came through the speakers. Jan Arden’s unmistakable voice cried out, “Could I be your girl?”

  My heart flipped.

  The man at the wheel beside me knew only that I liked Arden’s music. He had no idea what that particular song meant in relation to the man about whom we’d just fought.

  This was our song.

  Or, at least, it was the soundtrack to which I’d fallen completely under Benoit Dromel’s spell.

  My mind traveled back to late autumn. The air had grown chilly and the trees outside my window had turned into barren trunks and branches. Yet, inside, with the volume of the computer turned up, I’d danced to this song, warmed by the hope of love that blossomed in my heart.

  Those eyes. Hazel and sparkling. The intensity of the desire they had communicated. That smile. His quiet, yet unquestionable control of the hearing. He had come to my town and had taken charge to such an extent that even Mayor Demetriou had to shut up and pay attention when Dromel banged his gavel. The hero that he had been, taking down company lawyers and speaking up for us, the community — speaking up for me.

  And then there were those long walks I’d taken through the woods, bundled up against the approaching winter, remembering his wink, and wondering if it would ever be possible to be with him….

  It all came rushing back, flooding my heart and my eyes.

  When we’d finally gotten together at his place, he had abandoned all urbanity, and surrendered himself totally to the sensuous journey on which his eyes had beckoned me, long before, in the Syron Lake community center. He’d been sensuous yet gentle, and as I had lain in his arms, sweaty and exhausted, our heads sharing the same pillow, I had dreamed that it could all last forever.

  Hot tears poured down my cheeks, and I shifted my body away from Parker, as far as the seatbelt allowed.

  It could not be possible that the man from these memories was the scoundrel Parker had described.

  It could not.

  And those other women whose pictures were in the cigar box…. Surely they were from his past. He could not have been with them at the same time that he had been with me.

  The thought that it was otherwise made my blood curdle — then boil. I was thankful that concerns about pregnancy had led to us being triply cautious, which would have protected me in this scenario. But, yuck!

  I could have strangled Benoit T. Dromel if he had appeared in front of me just then.

  But he was gone.

  I would never, ever see him again. That realization, the finality of it all, felt like a stab to the heart.

  A jingle for a furniture store broke in even before the last strains of Arden’s song played. It jolted me out of my thoughts. And it irritated Parker, apparently.

  He switched off the radio with a loud click.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter 92

  It was four in the morning and nothing stirred in this stretch of Daytona Beach. It was on the mangy side of town where weeds were more common than front lawns, and termites staked their claim as the true owners of almost all man-made structures.

  Williams sat in the stolen black sedan parked at the edge of the gravel road with the engine idling quietly. He kept a tight grip on the steering wheel, ready for any orders to make a quick getaway.

  The lights were off in the closest house, which was set back deep in the overgrown yard. A nearer building, a small garage converted into a studio apartment, was also in darkness.

 
Williams squinted and tried to follow Quinn’s and Young’s movements as they walked briskly to the garage. He smiled at the thought that the little twerp who had given him a hard stare when he’d trailed him along the river path in Ottawa would soon get a rude awakening.

  At the garage, Quinn clasped the knob of the steel door as Young stood erect, holding his Colt pointed skyward. The handle didn’t budge.

  There was no window at the front of the structure. Quinn motioned Young to follow, and they crouched around to the side, and then to the back.

  They mashed down wild shrubs, and Young cursed under his breath when he stumbled on a pile of discarded cans.

  They came upon a wooden door at the back, which gave a little as Quinn pulled on it. He motioned Young to return to the front to guard the entrance. Then he whipped out his Glock.

  With one powerful blow of his shoulder, he broke the door open.

  He pelted into the room, and steadied himself into a squat. Swinging left, then right, he trained the muzzle on all corners of the dark room as his eyes searched for a stirring figure.

  All he could make out was a rumpled bed, a bedside table with a lamp and another table with a microwave, surrounded by chairs. At the side of his eye, he caught sight of a curtain. He ripped it aside and pointed his gun at nothing more than a toilet bowl, a sink, and a shower stall.

  He strode to the front door, where he heard Young’s feet shuffle on the gravel outside.

  “He ain’t here,” Quinn said, as he swung open the door and tucked the gun into the holster under his arm.

  Young entered, cursing under his breath. “So what’s the call now?”

  He had just closed his mouth when a burst of light blinded him. He held up his hand to his eyes, but it could not shield him from the blow that crashed down on his nose.

  He cried out and fell to his knees.

  Quinn spun around and lunged forward, easily taking down the assailant.