by Nora Roberts
“Jocelyn Ambuceau, 1898 to 1916.”
“Unlikely that’s random. It or she means something.”
“Having it run.”
“Tell me more about the unidentified man.”
“White, mid-thirties, brown and brown. Solid build. Accent sounds local. No jewelry, no tats. Arms and legs in shackles, shackles hammered into the ground with posts. He’s in his boxers, barefoot. He’s broken down twice since officers arrived. Just cried like a baby. He’s begging us not to let him die. Begging us to get you here. Get Phoebe.”
“My first name? He calls me by my first name, like he knows me?”
“That’s my take, yeah.”
“Tell him I’m nearly there.” As they roared around a turn, she braced a hand against the dash. “Make sure if anyone is listening, they can hear I’m nearly there.” She looked at her watch. “I know it’s nearly deadline, but we’ll make it. Make sure they know I’m coming in. Ten minutes, Captain.”
“I’m turning in now. I’ll hold things until you get here.”
She clicked off, looked at Duncan.
“You’ll make it.” His eyes stayed on the road as he took the car down the little two-lane road at a hundred and ten. “Have you ever dealt with something like this before?”
“No. Not like this.” She spotted the lights up ahead, got Dave back on the phone. “I see the radio cars. Let them know we’re not stopping at the gate. Have one lead us in.”
The Porsche fishtailed on the turn, grabbed road and lunged forward again. It was a blur of moss-draped trees, ornate statuary that gleamed under the moon. Heat put a shimmer on the air, on the thin spit of ground fog. Then there were lights up ahead, through dripping arches of trees. The Porsche slammed to a halt behind the radio car, and Phoebe jumped out.
“You have to stay back,” she shouted at Duncan as she dashed through gravestones and winged angels.
Dave moved toward her quickly, gripped her arm. “The bomb squad’s marked off the minimum safe distance. Nobody goes beyond it. Not negotiable.”
“All right, okay. Situation changes?”
“I just got here two minutes ago.”
“Let me get started.”
She went forward slowly now. Even with the lights there were pockets of dark. Someone handed her a vest, and she shrugged it on as she studied the weeping man sitting on the grave.
An angel looked out over him, her face serene, her wings spread wide. There was a lute clutched against her breasts.
Below, the man hunched with his face pressed to his updrawn knees, the sound of his weeping raw and harsh against the insect buzz. Pink roses—fresh to her eye—were scattered around him. “I’m Phoebe Mac Namara,” she began, and his head jerked up.
She froze, stopped in her tracks well before reaching the tape strung out by the bomb detail. Everything in her turned to ice, then thawed again in a sudden gush of hot panic.
“Roy.”
“Jesus.” Beside her Dave clamped a hand on her wrist. “I didn’t see his face. I didn’t recognize him.” Wasn’t entirely sure he would have. “Phoebe, you can’t approach,” Dave said over Roy’s wild shouts. “You cannot approach.”
“Understood. Understood.” But panic sweat sprang onto her skin. “Roy, be quiet now. You have to calm down. Take a breath and calm down. I’m here now.” While she spoke, she wrote quickly on her pad.Check on my family! Cop on the door. Carly here. She dashed down Phin’s address. “We’re going to be all right.”
“He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Oh God, I don’t know. Why is this happening?”
“Can he hear us, Roy?”
“He says he can hear. Yes, he can hear. You…you fucking bitch. I have to say what he tells me or he’ll blow it up.”
“It’s all right. If he can hear me, can he tell you what he wants?”
“I…I want you to shove some of this C-4 up your twat, you useless cunt.”
“Do we know each other?”
“You cost me,” Roy said with tears running down his cheeks. “Now I cost you.”
“What did I cost you?”
“You’re going to remember. Phoebe, help me, for God’s sake, help me.”
“All right, Roy. All right. Let me keep talking to him. You must be angry with me. Will you tell me why?”
“Not…not time yet.”
“You called me out here, and I came. There must be something you want from me, something you want to tell me. If you’ll explain to me why—”
“Fuck you,” Roy said on a hitching sob.
“I feel as though you don’t want to talk to me yet. Is it all right if I talk to Roy? Can I ask Roy questions?”
“He’s laughing. He’s laughing. He…Go ahead, have a nice chat. I need a beer.”
“Roy, how did you get here?”
“He…drove.” Eyes swollen from weeping and blows darted around the graveyard. “I think. In my car.”
“What kind of car do you have?”
“M-Mercedes. E55. I just got it a few weeks ago. I just…”
“All right.” She scribbled down the make of the car.Find, she wrote. “He drove your car from Hilton Head?”
“I was in the trunk of my car. I couldn’t see. Blindfold, gag. Coming home, driving into the garage. In the garage. Gun to the back of my head.” He pressed his battered face to his knees again. “Came up behind me. Then, I don’t remember. I don’t know until I woke up and I couldn’t see or talk. Hard to breathe. In the trunk, tape over my mouth. Couldn’t find air.”
She took one relieved breath when Dave stepped back and wroteAll safe. Cop on doors. “How long ago?”
“I don’tknow. ”
“Okay, it’s okay. How did you get here, where you are now?”
“Heard the trunk open.” He lifted his head again, shivering. Phoebe could see the insects feasting on him. “Something over my face—got dizzy, tried to fight. Hit me, hit me in the face. I woke up, and I was here, like this. He was talking in my head. In my head. I screamed and I shouted, but nobody came. He talked in my head, told me what to do. My phone, he left me my phone, told me to call nine-one-one, what to say. Only that one call, he said, only say what he told me to say, or he’d push the button.”
“You never saw him,” Phoebe said as she scribbled down Roy’s full name, address, telephone number, and wroteHow long missing? under it, circled it twice before passing it to Dave.
“Roy…”
But he was sobbing now. “I didn’t do anything. Why is this happening?”
“That’s not helping, Roy. Roy!” She sharpened her voice enough to get through. “You need to try to stay calm. The important thing is for us to work together so we can resolve this. I’d like to talk to him again, if he’s ready. I wonder if he could give me a name—it doesn’t have to be his name, just any name he’s comfortable with. So I’d have a way to address him.”
“I feel sick. I feel…No! No! Don’t! Please, don’t!” Roy’s eyes wheeled as he strained against the shackles. “Please, God…Okay…Okay. I…I’m—I’m tired of listening to you whine, you worthless piece of shit. Keep it up and—and I’ll blow you to hell and be done with it.”
“If you do that, I won’t know why you wanted me out here tonight. Why you’re angry. Will you give me a name to call you?”
“He—” Roy’s teeth chattered. “S-sure, Phoebe. You can call me Cooper.”
Though her throat tightened, she wrote the name clearly on the pad, followed it up withHigh Noon. “All right, Cooper. Since I can’t talk to you directly, I can’t hear how you feel. Can you tell me how you feel?”
“Powerful. In fucking charge.”
“Is being in charge important to you?”
“Damn right.”
“Wouldn’t it be more direct, more in charge, if you and I talked face-to-face?”
“Not time.”
She stared into Roy’s flooded eyes, listened to Roy�
�s tortured voice, and fought to get inside the head of a man she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.
“Can you tell me how we know each other, Cooper? Where we know each other from?”
“You tell me something.”
“All right. What do you want me to tell you?”
“Do you care about this…worthless son of a bitch?”
Tricky, she thought. Care too much or care too little, either could incite. “Do you mean Roy?”
“You know I mean fucking Roy asshole Squire.”
“He’s my ex-husband. I don’t want to see him or anyone else hurt. You haven’t really hurt anyone yet, Cooper. We can resolve this without—”
“Tell that to Charles Johnson. You see—you see—God, okay—Did you see how surprised he looked when those bullets hit him?”
“Are you telling me you’re responsible for the death of Charles Johnson?”
“Can’t you fucking understand fucking English, bitch? I put him in the ground. Not the first time you helped somebody into the ground, is it? Is it? Won’t be the last, and that’s a promise. Please,” Roy wheezed. “Please, please, please.” And he shuddered under the spreading wings of the angel.
“Did you know Charles Johnson?”
“Just another worthless gangbanger. But you got him to come out, didn’t you? Got him to come out without doing any hostages. Nobody inside that place worth crap, but you saved them, didn’t you?”
“Who didn’t I save, Cooper? Are the roses for her? Who is it you cared about I didn’t save?”
“Figure that out, Phoebe, figure it out and beg for forgiveness. Maybe you’ll save yourself.”
“I’ll beg for forgiveness now. If I wasn’t good enough or smart enough to save someone, I’ll beg for forgiveness now. Tell me what you want me to say, and I will.”
“Better get started. Say…what? No, no, no!” Roy tried to stand, could only kneel. “Please. Okay, okay. Say time’s up. Goodbye, Phoebe.”
“Cooper, if you—”
The blast lifted her off her feet, shot her back through a hot burst of air. She landed in a heap, across a stranger’s grave.
She knew what was whizzing overhead, thudding into the ground. Pieces of an angel, pieces of dirt. Pieces of Roy.
Images flashed through her mind, fast, disjointed. The first time she’d met him, at a party, and the big megawatt smile he dazzled her with. Making love with him on the big bed in the hotel suite where he’d surprised her with a weekend, and roses, and champagne. The instant before their lips met the first time as husband and wife. Dancing. Lights.
Then blank dark.
Someone was shouting for her.
Phoebe pushed up to her elbows. She caught a blur of movement as Duncan dove. And he was over her, holding her down. Through a tunnel she heard more shouts, pounding feet, the crackle of radio static.
She didn’t struggle; there was nothing to struggle for.
“What have I done?” she whispered. “Oh my God, what have I done?”
22
She’d told him to go home. It pissed him off. What the hell did she take him for?
Duncan paced the area outside her squad room. He couldn’t sit; he couldn’t settle, and he wished to God he couldn’t think. Unfortunately, he could, and his mind kept sneaking back to that moment, that ohmyjesusgod moment when what had been a man had become…nothing.
Bits and pieces of meat and bone, and something like a horrible red fog.
He couldn’t remember, not exactly, moving. He remembered feeling something—like a quick punch of air, and the sounds, whizzing and shouting, thunks—thunks of statuary and earth and God knew hitting trees and ground, other stones and statuary.
He knew he’d seen a piece of what had been Roy hanging in the lacy webs of Spanish moss. He thought he’d seen the stone angel’s disembodied head fly, her face splattered with red, her smile peaceful and serene. But he might’ve imagined it.
He didn’t remember running, walking, jumping toward Phoebe. Just being there, he remembered just being there on top of her while the chaos boomed around them. He remembered hearing her say:What have I done? She said it over and over until someone—Dave, he thought, the captain—had pushed at him, pulled at them.
Are you hurt? Are you hit? That’s what he’d asked first, Duncan was nearly sure of that. His face had been as white as the flying angel’s.
It blurred some after that. Lots of movement, lots of sound, more sirens.
And she’d told him to go. She’d stood in the middle of that nightmare and told him to go. Fuck that.
She was in with the captain, that’s what they’d told him. In with Captain Mc Vee and some others. So he’d wait. He’d goddamn wait.
He wanted a drink. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to touch her just to assure himself one more time they’d both come through it whole.
But all he could do was wait.
“Dunc.”
He turned, and his stomach did one hard shudder when he saw Phin striding from the elevator. For reasons he couldn’t explain, seeing his friend had his legs going weak enough to have him sinking down onto a bench.
“Jesus. Oh Christ.”
“You’re okay?” Phin took a hard grip on Duncan’s arm as he sat beside him. “You’re bleeding. Are you okay?”
Dully, Duncan looked down at his shirt. “It’s not my blood.” Just a little souvenir from Bonaventure, a little memento of Roy. “But I think I’ve got a ways to go before I get within shouting distance of okay. Jesus, Phin. Fucking Christ Jesus.”
“What the hell happened? Do they know what the hell happened?”
“He blew up. He just…It’s not like the movies. Man, it’s not like that.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Loo? The kids?”
“Fine. Kids are sleeping. We got cops around the house. This was Carly’s father?”
“Roy. Roy Squire. Had him chained to the ground on a grave, strapped with explosives. Poor son of a bitch. Something about being grabbed out of his own garage, beaten up some, maybe drugged. Phoebe was talking to the guy who did it through Roy—the ex. He had, ah…” Duncan made a helpless gesture at his ear.
“Okay, I get it.” Studying his friend’s face, Phin pulled a flask out of his hip pocket. “Take a slug, brother.”
“I’d kiss you for this, but I’m not feeling romantic.” Grateful, Duncan took the flask and swallowed straight whiskey. “He was—Roy—he was crying, begging. The guy…Cooper,” Duncan remembered. “He told Phoebe to call him Cooper. He wouldn’t say what he wanted, he wouldn’t say why. Then he must’ve told Roy to say goodbye. And he pushed the button, he set off the bomb. He blew apart, Phin. Fuck, he just blew apart.”
“Duncan, did you set the security before you left your house?”
“What? No.” Had he? No. “We were out of there too fast.”
“Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make some calls, get some people over there to do a sweep and to secure the place.”
Duncan let his head fall back. “Because he went after Phoebe’s ex, he may come after me.”
“No point in being sloppy, is there?”
“No, no point.”
In the office, Phoebe sat ramrod straight. Her family was safe, and their homes under guard. She could put that worry out of her mind. Roy was dead; she couldn’t change that. She had to block that guilt out of her mind, her heart, her belly.
“Hilton Head PD is investigating. They’ve got a crime-scene unit going over the house and garage. We’re looking for the victim’s car.”
“The grave has to be symbolic of something or someone.”
“We’re getting the information.”
“I need my family protected, not just for tonight—”
“Phoebe.” Dave spoke quietly. “They will be.”
“All right. He was engaged. I only know her first name—Mizzy. I don’t know if they were living together or—”
“It’ll be taken care of.”
Of cours
e, yes, of course it would. “A personal attack of this nature has to stem from a personal grudge. Who have I pissed off, hurt, threatened?”
“We’ll need to speak to Arnold Meeks.”
“Yes.” She drew a deep breath. “He needs to be interviewed and his whereabouts confirmed. But this wasn’t his doing. He was a bad cop, he’s no doubt a violent man, and a complete asshole. But he’s not a killer. If what this Cooper told me tonight is fact, he’s killed at least twice now. In cold blood. Meeks acts in rage, short-term planning, without factoring in the consequences.”
“Someone acting on his behest. With or without his knowledge.”
“Maybe. But I think it’s more personal yet. You hurt me, I’ll hurt you, and a whole lot worse. Something I did or didn’t do. Someone I didn’t save.”
When she closed her eyes, pressed her fingers against her lids, all she could see was Roy. She dropped her hands into her lap. “A failure, a professional failure that was personal to him. Who did I lose, Dave? When? How? I need to go back over my case files, all the way back. Any hostage or hostage-takers, any cop or bystander, anyone who was injured or killed during an incident where I was negotiator.
“I think it’s going to be a woman,” she added.
“Why?”
“Because he’s Gary Cooper. Because Roy was chained to a woman’s grave. We can’t discount anyone, but I think it’s going to be a woman. He knows, or he’s learned how to handle, weapons and explosives. Maybe he was trained in the military or law enforcement. Or maybe he trained himself. Because he planned this. Roy wasn’t impulse, not spur of the moment.”
She pounded her fisted hand on her thigh. “I couldn’thear. How could I listen and know how to respond, know how to bring him down when I couldn’t hear his voice, the inflection, the emotion?”
“Phoebe, you’re not responsible for this.”
“Then why did he set it off? Did I ask the wrong question, choose the wrong tack? All the time, trouble, the risk he took to get Roy where he wanted him, to get me there, then he ends it? I have to listen to the tape, I have to figure out what I said—or didn’t say—what pushed him to end it.”
He swiveled his chair until they were knee-to-knee, face-to-face. “You know better than that.”