by Zoe Sharp
I gritted my teeth for a moment, then forced my face to relax and turned back. “That’s right, Ella,” I said brightly ‘All better now.”
“Really?” Rosalind said and I could see her eyes flicking busily over the high collar of my sweater, but I was damned if I was about to give her a demonstration.
Fortunately, I was saved by the bell—or rather, the timer for the cookies, which bleeped to announce they were ready to come out of the oven. Just as Rosalind retrieved a perfectly browned set of odd-shaped cookies and left them on a wire rack to cool, Lucas and Simone strolled in.
They’d disappeared into Lucas’s den when Rosalind had first suggested baking as a way of keeping Ella occupied without her usual array of toys. It was only now, when they surfaced again, that I realized how long they’d been in there together.
‘Ah, perfect timing,” Lucas said, smiling as he moved to put an arm round his wife’s shoulders and give her a squeeze.
Rosalind glanced sharply at him and stepped away from his embrace. For a moment he looked offended, but he shrugged it off with the air of someone trying just a little too hard to promote his innocence. Simone looked flushed, almost excited. What the hell had they been up to?
“So, what have you been up to?” I said, keeping my tone mild.
She frowned at me in much the same way Rosalind had been doing all morning.
“Oh, you know, just catching up on old times,” she said, making too much of an effort to be casual about it.
Behind Rosalind’s back, Lucas flashed Simone a quick smile, conspiratorial. Simone saw that I’d caught the gesture and that I was about to dig deeper. She glared at me. I raised my eyebrows but said nothing.
Ella filled the awkward gap by insisting they admire her cookies.
“Wow, those look just wonderful,” Simone said. “You have been busy, sweetie. Did you make all these yourself?”
Ella paused, torn between taking the credit and sharing the glory. “Well, Grandma helped,” she admitted at last, her face grave. ‘A little bit,” she added, just in case we got the wrong idea of her own contribution.
Grandma.
I heard an intake of breath, but I couldn’t swear whose. All eyes were suddenly fixed on Rosalind. Her face had frozen and—just for a moment— I thought she might actually break and cry Then the corner of her mouth trembled, fluttered, and gradually curved upwards into a shaky smile.
She reached out, almost tentative, and stroked a hand over Ella’s silky curls. Ella dimpled into a heartbreaking smile and I felt some small relaxation of the muscles across the top of my shoulders, that I hadn’t realised had been tense until then.
If you have to protect a child, I thought, it always helps to have the people closest on your side….
I must admit, I thought I’d got away without having to explain any further about what had happened to my neck. I should have known that Rosalind’s distraction was only temporary.
After lunch we all climbed into the Range Rover and headed into town. Simone had apparently expressed an interest in seeing the military surplus store the Lucases ran, and I must admit I was curious about the place myself.
We piled into the luxury four-by-four, with Ella sitting between Simone and Rosalind in the back, and me up front with Lucas.
“Ella was telling me how she has the gift of healing,” Rosalind said to Simone, and recounted her earlier conversation with Ella. I was aware of Lucas snatching little sideways glances at me as he drove, but I stared rigidly out of the front windscreen and pretended to a bout of deafness.
“Oh, er, yes,” Simone said, and I could hear the tension in her voice. She gave a nervous laugh. “Ella noticed that Charlie had a bit of a scar on her neck and so—”
“It was when those nasty men frightened me,” Ella told Rosalind in a loud whisper.
“What nasty men, honey?” Rosalind said, frowning.
“They came to our house and banged on the windows and shouted and took pictures,” Ella said solemnly.
“And you cut your neck during all this, Charlie?” Rosalind asked, getting hold of the wrong end of the stick—deliberately, I’m sure.
“No,” I said, twisting in my seat so I could answer her directly. “It’s an old scar—from years ago. That just happened to be the first time Ella had seen it.”
“But-”
“How about a milk shake?” Simone interrupted quickly “Would you like that, Ella?”
Ella nodded vigorously and treated her mother to a dazzling smile, all mention of scars and paparazzi instantly forgotten.
“OK, sweetie. And what flavor would you like?”
Ella gave her a cunning little sideways look.
“Goo’berry” she said.
In the end, in the absence of gooseberry, Ella settled for a strawberry milk shake at the Friendly’s on the main street. It arrived in a huge glass, with at least as much again still in the stainless-steel mixer. I had visions of her being heartily sick, but Simone helped her out, and we carried at least half of it away with us for later. I could see Rosalind eyeing the lidded container with concern for the Range Rover’s immaculate upholstery.
Lucas gave us the guided tour of the town, which was much larger than I’d suspected when we’d driven in the day before. We ended up with a visit to his surplus store in Intervale, about five miles west of North Conway on Route 302. Mind you, sometimes it was hard to tell where one town stopped and another began. New construction was happening all the way along. I think the way buildings were spread out was the most surprising thing to me. There was none of the crammed-in feeling of home. Every business had a huge car park with the snow hunched up at the edges of it. I’d already seen half a dozen pickup trucks with snow-plows attached to the front, and Lucas told us that you weren’t allowed to park overnight on the streets so they could keep them clear.
The surplus business was housed in a long blockwork building, timbered along the front with a covered veranda and a railing for tying up your horse. A World War II military Jeep was parked on the snow-covered pitched roof at a jaunty angle, just in case you missed the signs. By the double entrance doors was an ashtray made out of a hollowed-out artillery shell and a full-size mannequin dressed as a World War II paratrooper.
Lucas drove round to the side of the building, past great piles of dirty snow, where I assumed the staff normally parked. There were a couple of hulking full-size pickups there, but they were dwarfed by a Hummer Hi, the civilian version of the U.S. military vehicle, in metallic sand like it had just been transported there from the deserts of the Middle East. Loaded with extras, the Hi must have cost at least a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I didn’t need to hear the hiss of Lucas’s indrawn breath to guess who the vehicle belonged to.
“Damn,” he muttered, braking to a halt in the middle of the cracked concrete. “I didn’t think Felix would be here today” He glanced at Si-mone’s white face in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, honey I know you and he didn’t hit it off yesterday. We can come back another time or—”
“No, no, I’m fine,” Simone said quickly ‘And I’d like to see the store.”
I twisted in my seat. “Are you sure about this?”
She nodded. “I can’t keep running away from the guy, can I?” she said. “Not while he’s a sort of partner. We’ve got to see him again sometime.”
Lucas stretched a hand out behind him and Simone reached for it, giving his fingers a quick squeeze. I checked Rosalind’s face, but she was determinedly fussing with the collar of Ella’s coat.
“OK,” I said, “but if he makes any threatening moves towards you, or Ella, we’re leaving. OK?” I stared at Rosalind until she shifted uncomfortably and was forced to meet my eyes. “I know he’s involved in your business, and I don’t want to interfere with that. Don’t put me in a position where I might have to.”
“Felix isn’t a bad guy once you get to know him,” Lucas said.
“Yes, I was telling Charlie earlier that he can be a little abrupt
,” Rosalind said quickly, “but we owe him because he helped us out by making such an investment in the store.”
For a moment Lucas was silent before he smiled to Simone’s reflection in the rearview mirror again and nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “But hopefully not for much longer.”
Despite the Lucases’ attempts at reassurance, I went through the little entrance lobby and into the store as though it was a semihostile environment, keeping close to Simone, who was carrying Ella.
Inside, the building—like North Conway itself—was far bigger than the exterior suggested. It was laid out like a small department store, with equipment round the outside edges and clothing on long racks in the center. I’ve spent some time around army kit, at one time or another, and even I had to admit Lucas’s stock looked good-quality gear, the whole place smart and well organized.
He introduced Simone to the two staff members, Jay and Kevin, who were behind the long counter. They both had the air of college kids — alert and respectful—and they called everybody sir and ma’am like their lives depended on it.
I was half-surprised that Vaughan didn’t appear as soon as we arrived, but no doubt he was lurking somewhere in the background. Out of habit, I noted the location and the number of security cameras and guessed that he was probably well aware of our arrival. And if he was watching us, there was no point in giving him the satisfaction of looking on edge.
Rosalind murmured her excuses and disappeared into one of the offices behind the counter, leaving her husband to show Simone their inventory with a bullish pride. They certainly seemed to be doing well out of army boots, tents, camping equipment, camouflage sleeping bags, flying suits and mess tins. I strolled in their wake, casually running my fingers over the occasional item, some more familiar than others. It all even had its own distinctive smell that stirred a lot of memories—not many of them good.
The display area only took up part of the footprint of the building, and it was no surprise when Lucas led us through a doorway marked “Staff Only: No Unauthorized Entry” at the back and into a large racked-out stockroom.
The room was lit by fluorescent tubes strung across the steel rafters above, which left darkened alleyways between the high racks. Ella, not at her bravest in the dark, gave a little whimper and buried her face in Simone’s chest.
Lined up along one wall were rows of heavy-duty gun safes. Simone eyed them with distrust as we walked through, and I noticed she kept Ella’s head turned the other way.
What had they talked about this morning, I wondered, that had changed Simone’s mind about bringing Ella into contact with firearms? True, you couldn’t see any, but they were practically close enough to touch. I could smell the gun oil, a sharp, pervasive odor. And there was something more. Cordite and gunpowder.
“You have a range here?” I said, making a question of it, even though I hardly needed an answer.
Lucas paused and nodded. “Just two-lane—twenty-five yards,” he said. “Handguns only. If we want to fire anything bigger, we have to go elsewhere.”
“I thought you said you didn’t deal in guns,” I said.
“It’s not the main thrust of my business,” Lucas said, sidestepping.
“But it is a part of it,” said a new voice —in a deep cold tone that I recognized instantly. “Didn’t you tell the ladies that, Lucas?”
Vaughan stepped into view from between two of the racks just ahead of us, making an entrance. He smiled at Simone’s shocked face. I checked no one was coming up on our rear, then moved alongside her. Vaughan watched me do it and nodded, as though he’d been expecting that.
Lucas hadn’t replied to Vaughan’s taunt. He seemed to have coiled back in on himself, like he’d done the day before when Vaughan had sat in his house and made his not-so-veiled threats towards Simone. Now, in the gloom of the stockroom, I thought I saw Lucas’s hands clench just briefly by his sides and realized that maybe his feelings towards the other man weren’t quite as ambivalent as first impressions had suggested.
Lucas cleared his throat. “I didn’t expect to see you here today, Felix,” he said at last, and there was nothing more than polite inquiry in his voice.
Vaughan eyed him for a moment, as if making sure. “No, I thought I’d come and put in some practice on the range. Care to join me?” he said lightly “The British SAS versus the U.S. Marines. We could put a little money on it—make things more interesting.”
Lucas looked uncomfortable now. Sean had told me the man had been a first-class shot, but that was twenty-five years ago. Was he still up to the same standard? I supposed that he wouldn’t have let himself slide too far. Not if he was part owner of a business that dealt in firearms regularly enough to have its own range —despite his denials to Simone. Vanity alone would have kept him sharp. So why the hesitation?
Then I glanced at Simone and found her gaze fixed on him, her mouth a thin flattened line. She didn’t like guns—had made that fact pretty plain to Lucas. Maybe Vaughan knew that, too, or maybe he was guessing. Maybe he’d decided there were ways other than subtle threats of getting Simone to pack up and go home.
Vaughan’s washed-out gaze drifted in my direction.
“What about you, Miss Fox?” he said, his voice a slow taunt. “Ever held a weapon?”
I gave him a vague smile and didn’t answer. There wasn’t one he couldn’t distort with innuendo.
“Personally,” he went on, “I never approved of women in the military being given firearms training. Waste of time and money” He stared at me again. “Oh, I suppose they have their place in the modern military machine—medics, drivers, cooks, even mechanics—but why waste time giving them a gun and teaching them how to use it when they just don’t have the guts for it.”
“You’re not a fan of Kipling, Mr. Vaughan?” I said quietly. “That the female of the species is more deadly than the male?”
He laughed. “That has not been my experience,” he said flatly. ‘And trust me, Miss Fox, I’ve had plenty of experience. Women are too flighty, too easily distracted, and generally just not disciplined enough to make good troops under battlefield conditions.”
“Is that so?”
“That is so,” he said softly, eyes locked on mine. ‘And besides anything else—if you’ll excuse my language—they can’t shoot for shit.”
“I’d be careful what you say to Charlie,” Lucas broke in. “She happens to be ex-army herself.”
Vaughan eyed me for a moment, as if working out how much of that he believed, even though I knew he’d already worked out exactly what I was. He laughed again, a short exhalation of amusement, quickly past, that had my teeth grinding, nevertheless.
“Is she really?” he murmured. “Well, my comments still stand.”
“Perhaps, in that case, you might like to give her the opportunity to prove you wrong?” Lucas said, a little defiance creeping in now. “Not quite the Marine Corps against the Special Air Service, but how about the Women’s Royal Army Corps? We could even put a little money on it, make things interesting.”
I thought I caught the faintest trace of a flush across Vaughan’s cheekbones. “That’s hardly fair,” he said.
“I know,” I said gravely, “but I could give you a head start if you like.”
Simone’s laugh was quickly smothered, but it earned her a searing glance from Vaughan. Even Ella, picking up on her mother’s amusement, was smiling, and that seemed to irritate Vaughan all the more. He took a step forwards. Simone stopped laughing and I moved in front of her. Something of the glint disappeared from his eye.
“Very well,” he said. “I’m sure Lucas will find you something you can handle.” And he turned on his heel and stalked away.
Lucas watched him go and I saw him roll his shoulders like a cat with its fur up, dying to get its claws into something. He turned to me, speculation in his eyes. “What can you handle?” he said.
I shrugged. “A SIG P226 would be my preference,” I said, “but any 9mm automatic will pr
obably do. I don’t have to beat him, do I? I just have to not disgrace myself.”
“Oh no,” Simone said, and the bitter note in her voice surprised me. “I think you have to beat him.”
The range itself ran along the back of the building, a long narrow tunnel of a room with a sand berm at the far end and pockmarked blockwork walls. Lucas switched on the lights and I heard the whirr of the extraction fans kicking in at the same time. It was cold back there, away from the heated interior of the store, and there was the faint smell of mildew in the air.
Simone was torn between wanting to watch, and wanting to keep Ella out of the way In the end Simone stayed just outside the range, behind the thick glass panel that separated it from the stockroom. I slipped out of my bulky jacket and gave that to her for safekeeping.
Lucas quickly gathered up targets and ear defenders for all of us — especially for Ella, even though the range was soundproofed inside. He unlocked one of the gun safes and pulled out a small canvas holster containing the familiar shape of the SIG. I slid the gun out and automatically dropped the magazine and racked back the slide to check the chamber was empty It seemed in reasonable condition, well-oiled and free-moving.
“So, are you any sort of a shot, Charlie?” he asked.
“I’m reasonable,” I said.
He nodded. “If you are, take his money,” he said quickly “I don’t get the opportunity.”
I would have asked him more about that, but Vaughan strode back in, an aluminium gun case in his hand. He set it down on the workbench under the window and opened it up.
Inside was a beautifully kept .45-caliber Heckler & Koch Mark 23, the civilian version of the SOCOM military pistol. An expensive piece, designed for covert work, to take out sentries. The end of the barrel was threaded to take a suppressor and the weapon had the option to prevent the slide coming back to eject the spent shell after each shot, to maintain the silence of the kill. The sight of that gun made me more wary of Vaughan than almost anything else about him.