Second Shot

by Zoe Sharp

  I lurched a full step into the room and fought my flagging muscles to bring the Beretta up. This time, as I brought my other hand up to grab it, I jettisoned the crutch. One chance, and one chance only. After this, it wouldn’t matter much one way or the other.

  I saw him take in my shambling gait, my sweatstained clothing, the fact that I needed both hands to raise the Beretta at all, and the effort it was causing me to do so. I saw the smile start to widen. I could almost hear the thoughts that rushed through his brain. He held all the cards. No way would I risk a shot when he was holding Ella so close, when I could hardly stand and my aim was likely to be all to hell. He might not have to bargain his way out of this, after all. Might not have to leave witnesses behind…

  And he made a snap decision. He took the gun away from Ella’s head and began straightening his arm to aim at me instead, and I knew this was no idle threat. You only bother to threaten someone with a gun if you’re reluctant to actually use it. Reynolds had no such qualms.

  I’d humiliated him at the Lucases’ place, and Matt and I had outmanoeuvred him at the apartment. And now he had the opportunity to kill us both and make his escape with a hostage worth millions. There was no contest. His only disappointment would be that he didn’t get to make me suffer first.

  His mistake.

  The muzzle of my Beretta continued to rise in front of me, slow and ponderous, like the nose of an overladen airliner coming off the runway. It seemed to take forever, but actually it all happened in the blink of an eye. The gun reached cruising altitude and I stared along the barrel at a target so small the sights practically obscured it.

  I’m sorry, Ella. I’m so sorry…

  And I took the shot.

  The noise in the confined space was monstrous. The round hit Reynolds smack in the centre of that smug, self-satisfied smile. It smashed through both his front teeth with hardly a pause, continued its slight upward path grazing across the roof of his mouth, ploughed on through the stem of his brain, and then removed a good chunk of the back of his skull on the way out. It glanced off the bare concrete ceiling of the range at about the ten-metre mark and must have eventually come to rest somewhere in the thick sand berm at the far end of the elongated room, along with thousands of other spent rounds.

  Reynolds’ body jerked as if on a wire. It might have been my imagination, but I could have sworn that he just had time for the shock and the anger to register. I saw it on his face and was triumphant. He fell back, cannoned off the firing point and started to rebound forwards, with Ella still clutched to his body as he went down.

  Matt unfroze and darted past me to grab his daughter before she would have gone crashing into the floor, snatching her from Reynolds’ dying grip.

  Ella, who’d been quietly terrified to this point, broke her silence with a vengeance. She screamed and screamed, on and on so the world didn’t seem a big enough place to contain her anguish. She’d seen too much and it had finally broken her. Matt threw me a single desperate accusing glance and hurried out with his bloodspattered daughter in his arms.

  I could hear Ella still howling as he ran with her through the stockroom and out into the front of the store. The sound faded like a passing train, dropping another level as the outer door from the range swung slowly closed behind them.

  Dazed, with the after-effects of the shots still sending up a muffled buzzing in my ears, I let my hands drop to my sides and stared dumbly at Reynolds’ body in front of me.

  At least he’d fallen half on his side with his face tilted away from me, so I didn’t have to look at it. His heart had ceased to pump fluids round his system, but the damage to his skull was sufficient that gravity ensured they continued to leak out of the entry wound anyway. A dark pool was seeping into the concrete around his head.

  It was suddenly very quiet in there, and very cold. My crutch had fallen too far away for me to reach and I found I couldn’t move in any case. I’d over stressed just about everything to make this last effort for Ella. Now it was done there was nothing left inside. I could almost feel my mind begin to drift. I remembered her screams. We’d saved her life, yes, but at what cost?

  Somewhere in the far distance, I heard voices and shouting, but I didn’t call out. My only action was to relax the fingers of my right hand enough for the Beretta to fall to the floor next to my foot. If it was the police, I didn’t want there to be any more misunderstandings. And if it was anyone else, well, I simply didn’t have it in me to do any more. Not when the only person at risk now was myself.

  The door to the range crashed open behind me, but everything had taken on a surreal, oneiric quality, nothing was quite true any more. I didn’t jump, couldn’t turn my head as a figure moved round in front of me from the right. I wasn’t even surprised when I saw who it was.

  Felix Vaughan was carrying his favourite .45 H&K pistol in a double-handed grip and this time he had the suppressor attached to the end of the barrel. He approached Reynolds with soft-footed caution until he saw the gaping head wound. He paused a moment, staring at the body without expression. Then he straightened, shrugged out of his soldier’s skin and let some pretence of civility cloak him again.

  ‘You?’ he asked calmly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said in a remote voice. Staying upright was becoming an effort now. My right leg had begun to shake from the strain of taking all my weight. My vision was tunnelling down, prickling at the edges. For the first time since I’d entered the range, I realised that every breath burnt a dark molten hole in the bottom of my lung.

  ‘I assume the one in the stockroom is yours, also?’

  Ah. Too late to call that doctor now, then…

  I didn’t answer, but he nodded as though I had. He looked at me for a moment longer, a hard penetrating stare that stripped away the outer layers and laid me bare. I slid my gaze away, ashamed, and he crouched to better inspect Reynolds’ face.

  ‘Good shot,’ he said at last, with quiet intensity. ‘Well done.’

  And getting praise from him brought the whole of my revulsion for the actions I’d just taken bubbling to the surface. My stomach heaved. I whirled away from him and put too much weight through my injured leg. It collapsed under me.

  Vaughan caught me with surprising speed before I hit the floor. I should have been grateful but instead I fought against him, ineffectually and without technique, until I was utterly exhausted. It didn’t cause him much difficulty, nor did it take long.

  I leant against the rough fabric of his coat and shut my eyes. He smelt of wood smoke and wintergreen. Anything was better than the dull coppery odour of Reynolds’ blood.

  In the periphery of my awareness, I heard more footsteps, running this time. Vaughan leant back from me and called out to whoever was approaching. A second later the door crashed open again and then it was Sean who was in front of me, lifting me out of Vaughan’s arms and up into his own as though I weighed nothing. I let him do it. The fight had gone out of me now and I doubt I could have made it out under my own steam.

  As Sean turned away his gaze lingered on the corpse.

  ‘Reynolds?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said through stiff lips. ‘He had Ella.’ It sounded plaintive, defensive.

  Sean nodded, understanding more than I’d voiced.

  ‘You did what you had to, Charlie,’ he said, and right at that moment I probably almost believed him.

  He carried me back through the stockroom to the front of the store. Vaughan, no more anxious than anyone else to be alone with two dead men, was right behind us. He’d picked up my fallen crutch and was carrying it with him. The three of us followed the path Matt had taken with Ella. That meant we had to pass the slumped body of the man with the glasses, still sitting propped against one of the gun safes, hands now slack in his lap. He was still staring at nothing but, this time, nothing stared right back. I averted my eyes.

  In the store I found the two men who’d grabbed me from outside the White Mountain Hotel – Vaughan’s men – hanging around wit
h guns in their hands and looking nervous. Frances Neagley was crouched next to Ella, helping Matt to mop the blood off his daughter’s face and clothing with wadded-up paper hand towel. The child had quietened to grizzling until she caught sight of me and then she started to yowl again, an almost knee-jerk response.

  Matt threw me a look that was half angry, half apologetic as he swept her up and carried her through into one of the offices behind the counter, closing the door firmly behind the two of them. Out of sight and out of mind.

  Neagley’s gaze was coolly assessing as she got to her feet, as though she had pieced together what it was I must have done in front of Ella to cause this kind of a reaction, and had come pretty close to the mark.

  Sean put me down next to a chair and I drooped into it, leaning forwards to rest my elbows on my knees, scrubbing wearily at my face. My hands smelt of gunpowder and sweat and blood. The right one reacted slower and more clumsily. I let them drop and looked up to find both Sean and Neagley studying me.

  ‘You OK?’ the private investigator asked carefully.

  I shrugged. ‘More or less,’ I lied.

  ‘The cops are on their way,’ Sean said. ‘Are you ready for this?’

  ‘Would it make a difference if I said no?’ I watched Vaughan lean my crutch against one of the displays and move across to speak with his boys in quiet murmurs. ‘What are they doing here?’

  Sean followed my gaze. ‘When we got to Vaughan’s place we found that he was expecting us – as you probably know,’ he said. ‘But, fortunately for us, he was prepared to listen to what we had to say before it got to any shooting.’ He pulled a rueful face. ‘Good job, too, or we’d be filling a number of little wooden boxes by now.’

  ‘And he convinced you he hadn’t got Ella.’

  He nodded. ‘And that Rosalind had sold us a pup,’ he agreed. ‘And then when she called him and offered him a trade, it actually convinced him that we were telling the truth – that we’d genuinely believed he’d got Ella. He knew Lucas wasn’t Lucas almost from the start – it was what gave him his hold over the pair of them. The last thing Vaughan wanted was Simone exposing the deception, or he’d lose his leverage. He never wanted to involve her in any of this. That’s why he tried to persuade you to get both Simone and Ella out of the line of fire.’

  Vaughan finished his conversation and came over, sliding his pistol inside his jacket as he approached. He’d clearly caught Sean’s last words, because he favoured me with the ghost of a smile.

  ‘I may be guilty of many things, Charlie, but child kidnapping and murder are not among them,’ he said flatly. ‘Besides, I doubt dear Greg and Rosalind are going to get away with any of this and I found I had nothing to lose by hightailing it down here and helping your boss bring them down.’ He waved a hand around him at the store. ‘After all, if that happens, I take over this place.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried the police might look into your own business dealings a little too closely for comfort?’ Sean asked, a hint of a challenge in his cool tone.

  Vaughan showed his teeth more fully. ‘I’m a careful man. They can look all they want,’ he said. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I think we’ll leave you to explain things to the cops.’ He handed Sean a set of car keys that I recognised as belonging to the Explorer, and nodded to me. ‘Goodbye, Charlie. And good luck.’

  I didn’t respond, waiting until the doors had closed behind Vaughan and his men before I glanced back at Sean.

  ‘What was he up to with the Lucases?’

  ‘He’s been using them as a central distribution point for stolen military gear,’ Sean said, almost casually. ‘Mixing it in with genuine surplus stuff. Quite a lot of weaponry, from what Lucas was telling me. You must have noticed how everyone seems to be using US Army-issue Beretta M9s? All from Vaughan’s contacts.’

  ‘And Rosalind wanted out,’ I said. ‘In fact, I got the impression she never wanted in in the first place.’

  ‘Vaughan contacted Lucas when he was looking for an outlet and Lucas was quite keen to strike a deal, but Vaughan spotted him for a fake almost right away,’ Sean said. ‘After that, I don’t think Rosalind had much of a choice if she wanted to keep up the pretence.’

  Neagley looked round. ‘Where is she, by the way?’

  I flushed as the realisation struck. ‘Oh hell – we left her outside,’ I said guiltily. ‘Gagged and tied to a chair round the side of the building.’

  ‘I’ll go fetch her,’ Neagley said, heading for the door.

  ‘She admitted that she used Reynolds to arrange your partner’s accident,’ I said to her. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  Neagley just paused and nodded, her face shuttered as though this news was no real surprise to her.

  After she’d gone, Sean retrieved my crutch from where Vaughan had left it and leant it against the side of my chair. I was coming round, I recognised, to the point where I might actually be able to use it. I made the effort to keep my mind locked on the present.

  ‘Where’s Lucas?’ I asked.

  Sean glanced round, frowning. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We left him in here while we searched the place.’

  ‘You don’t think—’

  The lobby door banged open again and Neagley stood in the gap, looking pale and tense.

  ‘Sean, you’d better come,’ she said.

  I grabbed the arm of my chair and the crutch and heaved myself upright, every muscle squealing at the effort.

  ‘No, Charlie,’ Sean said. ‘Stay here.’

  ‘That’s what you told me last time,’ I said, ‘and look what happened then.’

  His mouth flattened but he helped me struggle back into my jacket, which had been still lying in a heap on the floor from when Matt and I had gone after Ella. Even after a brief respite, walking was a battle. Sean had to lend me some support or it would have taken all night to follow Neagley outside.

  The cold instantly highlighted the residual dampness in my coat, arrowing straight into my chest. I started shivering as soon as the door had swung shut behind me. Neagley led the way round the side of the building. As I rounded the corner I wasn’t sure what I was going to see, but the sight of Rosalind – still taped to her swivel chair but with a dreadful familiar stillness about her – wasn’t it.

  For a second I thought she’d frozen to death, and then I saw the gunshot wound to the middle of her forehead. I stared at her blankly, aware of two sets of eyes suddenly turned in my direction.

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said, swaying as the shock buffeted me. ‘We’d disarmed her, tied her up. Why the hell would I kill her?’

  ‘Because she’s the one who shot you?’ Neagley said calmly. Sean’s head snapped towards her and she shrugged. ‘Matt told me.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said again, like sheer repetition was going to make them believe me. I had to swallow back the tears. ‘I—’

  ‘Wait!’ Sean said. He spoke quietly but it was still enough to cut me off. I followed his gaze and saw nothing but the Lucases’ Range Rover, parked where Rosalind had left it. It took a moment for me to realise that the interior light was on.

  Sean nodded to Neagley, who pulled the short-barrelled little Smith & Wesson out of her jacket pocket. The two of them circled round behind the vehicle, leaving me to flounder along behind them, moving dreadfully slowly over the frozen ruts of snow underfoot.

  By the time I reached the Range Rover they had both front doors open and Neagley was pointing her gun firmly at the figure of Lucas, who was sitting slumped in the passenger seat with his head in his hands. Sean had used a discarded glove to lift Lucas’s S&W revolver out of his hands by the barrel, being very careful not to disturb any prints.

  ‘What happened?’ Sean said, his voice gentle.

  Lucas lifted his head blindly, tears streaming from his eyes. ‘I loved her,’ he said. ‘It broke my heart to leave her behind.’

  For a moment I couldn’t work out who he meant. Then it clicked in that he was talking about Simone, rather than his oh
-so-recently-dead wife. Simone as a child after she’d watched him kill the man she’d believed was her father.

  ‘I gave up everything,’ Lucas went on, sobbing now. ‘Everything I had, everything I was, to become him.’ For the first time the disgust and the self-loathing tore through the veneer of the life he’d created for himself. In the distance came the first yelp of sirens thrashing through the night air towards us, but he didn’t seem to hear them.

  I glanced at Sean. He shook his head.

  ‘And it was never enough,’ Lucas went on bitterly, staring out through the dirty windscreen at his wife’s body. ‘She took everything I had to give and wanted more. I tried so hard to be what she wanted. But it was never enough…’

  It had started to snow again, big fat flakes that floated down and laid themselves almost graciously on whatever they touched. They had already covered Rosalind’s head and shoulders like a white lace shroud.

  ‘Lucas—’ Sean began, but the other man shook his head vigorously.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t call me that anymore. I spent God knows how many years trying to be Greg Lucas, trying to be the kind of husband Rosalind wanted. And then she took away the last thing that meant anything to me and tonight I realised, she never really wanted me at all, did she?’

  He pulled back his focus and looked at me directly. ‘I found her out here and took that tape off her mouth and do you know what her first words to me were?’

  I didn’t answer and his gaze swept me up and down. ‘She said that you were half-dead and a woman, and you were still twice the man I’d ever be.’ His face crumpled, consumed by bitterness and anger and regret. ‘So I finally decided to become exactly the kind of cold hard ruthless bastard she wanted me to be,’ he said, ‘and I shot her.’

  EPILOGUE

  Three months after I was shot, Sean and I walked through an unfurnished apartment on the Upper East Side in New York City, listening to the echo of our own footsteps on the polished plank floors.