The Running Game (Reachers Book 1)

by L E Fitzpatrick

  Roxy score two.

  34

  A satisfying crack came from Lee Hart's neck.

  John lowered the body to the floor. He was about to leave, but realised he still had the bag. He frowned. It wasn't like Roxy to forget the money. He grabbed it and slipped out of the office like a shadow. The party outside was undisturbed as he headed quickly towards the front of the building. There was no sign of Rachel or Roxy, but he wasn't sure he would be able to see them even if they were there. So he stuck to the plan and left.

  The night air slapped his face and sharpened his senses. He scanned the road, waiting for an ambush. Nothing happened. He heard Charlie start the car and hurried across the road. He pulled open the passenger seat and slipped inside ready to deliver a victorious eyebrow twitch. Only something wasn't right.

  Charlie's eyes were wide. He stared at John for an explanation long before he asked the question, “Where's Rachel and Roxy?”

  John checked the backseat, just in case his brother had totally lost his head. It was empty.

  “They didn't come out?” It didn't make sense. Even if they hit problems on the dance floor they weren't separated for long. John would have seen something.

  “No. Nobody has come out since you guys went it. John, what the hell happened?”

  “Nothing. We got in no problem. A guy caught us just after we got the money, but I took care of him. They were on their way out about three minutes ago.” He paused and suddenly smacked the dashboard. “That son of a…” John opened the bag. He half expected it to be filled with newspaper like the last time Roxy double-crossed them, but the money was still there.

  “Money's still there–that's not like him. Hey, what's that?” Charlie plucked an envelope with his name on it from the bag. He showed it to John before he opened it.

  Dear Charlie,

  Frightfully sorry about this. I'm afraid I have had to take your new recruit and trade her with Pinky for a bit of family vengeance. However, I have full and total confidence that you will be able to retrieve her without much trouble to yourselves. Tell John I'm sorry I had to shoot him, but at least now he knows how much it hurts.

  Your ever predictable,

  Roxy

  “Wait, did he shoot you?”

  John gave him a murderous glare. “No, someone saved him the trouble. He's going to wish he had. I'm going back in there.”

  Charlie grabbed him. “They'll be gone by now, he wouldn't risk hanging around.” It was Charlie's turn to hit the dashboard. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  “You know when I tell you next time not to let him in on the fucking job!” John shouted.

  “I know, I know. I'm sorry.”

  “He crossed the line this time,” John growled, and Charlie didn't blame him for being pissed off; he was pretty furious himself. All of Roxy's betrayals in the past were about money–he'd find a better deal or just need to pay off more debts than his cut would cover. But this was a cross too far.

  Charlie put his hand on his brother's shoulder. “We're going to find her,” he said. “Whatever it takes.”

  John was reverberating with anger, and Charlie knew his brother well enough to know he wasn't going to be able to think straight.

  Charlie's hold tightened. “John, listen to me, we are going to get her back because that is what we do. We'll find her and get her out of S'aven. We've already got the money, that's half the job done. Okay?”

  John's lips were clenched shut.

  “Okay, John?” Charlie tried again.

  Finally he nodded, and a look of determination fixed on his face.

  “What about Roxy?”

  “We'll deal with him.”

  Charlie started the car, trying to clear his head from the initial panic of losing Rachel. He needed to think straight but nothing about the job made any sense. Pinky Morris was going to take Rachel and have him and John killed. After all they knew about her; they were liabilities. Charlie could understand that, but Roxy was as much of a threat as they were. He knew who Rachel was and what she could do. Pinky would have to kill him too. So why would Roxy just hand her over? There was only one logical answer: he wasn't working for Pinky.

  Charlie thought about the cop and the botched attempt he'd made on Rachel. Pinky was smart; he wouldn't have sent a bumbling wannabe after his prize. The cop must have been hired by someone else. There were too many questions. Too many how's and why's. They shouldn't have taken the case, but Father Darcy had been so enthusiastic. It wasn't like him to even find work for the brothers, but he had, and Charlie didn't want to let him down again. If the old man could only see what a mess he had dragged them into.

  Charlie looked up. None of this was right. None of it was ever right. He slammed the car in gear.

  “Where are we going?” John asked.

  “To church.”

  35

  Rachel saw the gun before she saw anything as the boot was flung open.

  It was pointing at her belly; not a good way to go–lots of screaming and agony. She stared down the barrel, seeing only darkness. Riva was in control; the gun was just an extension of her power. The older woman flicked her head, and Rachel realised they weren't alone. Two soldiers reached into the boot. Their dead eyes concentrated on her limbs as they lifted her out of the car.

  The night was black, but around them were dull, orange lights, illuminating a large garden, shadowed by soldiers. Rachel tried to count the men guarding the mansion poised in the centre of the grounds. A dozen soldiers, maybe more, walked a beat through the foliage. Their rifles were poised and ready, ignoring her altogether and focusing on the wrought iron gate blockading the entrance. She dared a look back but nobody was there–she smiled inside, hoping Charlie and John were already out of S'aven by now.

  “The last thing I want to do is kill you, do you understand?” Riva said, and the soldiers moved away.

  Rachel nodded. The last thing I want you to do is kill me, she thought to herself.

  “We're going to go inside and wait for my husband. You be a good girl, and this will be the best thing that has ever happened to you.”

  She wanted to be cocky, give the older woman a few snide remarks to show her she wasn't afraid. She didn't. There would be a way out; she just had to wait for it. They had her file, they knew her life, but they didn't know her or what she could do. She intended to keep it that way for as long as she could. Find the right exit, find the right moment, and then run.

  The Morris house was the grandest thing Rachel had ever seen. She stepped into the lounge as Riva switched on the lights. It was like a room she had seen on TV. Sofas, pictures, a piano. It was elegant and tasteful, or at least it was what Rachel assumed was elegant and tasteful. Riva gestured that she sit down on one of the sofas. It beat the boot for comfort. Rachel sat back, keeping her eye on the gun and Riva's composure. The older woman was still in charge and Rachel didn't doubt that. If she had to, Riva would pull the trigger. She just didn't know what kind of shot Riva was. Would she be able to shoot without killing, maybe just hitting a leg or a shoulder, something painful and non-lethal? She'd fought so hard to get Rachel would she let her go without a fight? From the sofa Rachel tried to understand her kidnapper. Riva was clearly a woman who did what needed to be done. That was how she had managed to have Rachel sitting on her sofa when everyone else had failed. But was she a monster like her husband?

  Rachel fiddled with the plastic cutting into her wrists. It was useless, they weren't going to come off. She turned her attention to the room. Find the right exit. There were windows big enough to jump through. That and the main door into the room. Even in the dark she could see how long the run to the garden wall was. And if she managed to break out, to leap eight feet over the wall, she had no idea where she was or where she could go.

  Riva was watching her. Waiting for her to make a move. Daring her to strike. Rachel placed her hands in her lap. She let her eyes roll around the room nonchalantly. Let her think you don't care; maybe she'll let her guard do
wn. Her interest fixed on the photographs in front of her. These were the ones missing from the office. The ones she was looking for.

  “Here,” Riva lifted a picture of herself and passed it to her. “I think I have more of your sister upstairs. Pinky doesn't like them out.”

  In the picture Isobel was smiling, leaning against Frank Morris like he was her own flesh and blood. The little girl who had left her at the church all those years ago grew into a beautiful woman with the saddest, pained eyes. All the luxury Frank Morris could give her would never compensate for the life she was forced to live. Rachel ran her finger over her sister's face. She had never known Isobel like this.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Rachel tried to speak and her voice wavered. She swallowed and tried again. “When I left for the convent.”

  “You were in a convent?” She was suspicious rather than surprised, as though she had been told something different.

  Rachel decided to leave it there. The less they knew about her past the better.

  When Riva realised she wasn't going to answer she tried a different question. “Do you know how she died?”

  “I was told in an explosion.”

  “And do you know who killed her?”

  “A man called Donnie Boom, apparently.”

  Riva sat down, keeping the gun poised in Rachel's direction. “The man who put you in the boot, that was Donnie. Only he claims that he was set up. Says that someone told him to plant the bomb there.”

  “You think I know who it was?”

  “Do you?”

  “No. Are you going to kill me now? Or are you going to make me whore myself out to all of the suspects until I come up with a hit?”

  Riva looked at the picture, a touch of regret gathered in her eyes. “Pinky will ask you. Just tell him exactly what you've just told me. I'll make sure that's the end of the matter. There'll be no whoring you out.”

  Riva went to the drinks cabinet. She turned her back, watching Rachel through the mirror on the far wall instead. She poured two drinks, subtly checking her watch. Rachel knew the night was by no means over for either of them.

  36

  The steps above the church were empty, the soldiers were either in bed or in bars. There were no lights on inside the basement church. Darcy would be there, though; he had nowhere else to go. The door was locked. Charlie thought about picking it and changed his mind. There was no point antagonising the old priest if he didn't have to. Instead he banged on the door until he heard movement inside.

  There was only an oil lamp lit when Darcy let him in. He expected Darcy to rest it on the altar, so they could speak under Christ as normal, only this time he didn't. They sat at the other side of the shadowy room, and Charlie couldn't shake the feeling that the old priest had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

  “We lost Rachel,” Charlie confessed before he said anything else.

  Darcy didn't seem surprised. “You should have taken her out of S'aven,” he said.

  Charlie wasn't in the mood for a conversation with hindsight. “We're going to get her back. But there are things I need to know, things I think you've been hiding from me.”

  “Why would I hide things from you, Charlie?”

  “I don't know, because you like screwing with me. Because you think that everything I do in my life is one goddamn parable I need to take a message from.”

  “Don't blaspheme.”

  Charlie slammed his hand against the wall and the plaster crumbled in his hand. “I don't know where Rachel is. I don't know for certain why they want her. I don't know who else wants her. And I don't know why they hired us. But mostly, Darcy, I don't know why you got us this job in the first place. We were supposed to find a girl for a gangster. What is up with that? Since when do you start doing favours for crooks? You're just lucky she turned out to be a Reacher…”

  Charlie stopped. He felt his gut sink with the realisation. “You knew she was a Reacher, didn't you?”

  He was expecting Darcy to be smug. He expected some spiel about God working in mysterious, vicarious ways. But Darcy wasn't pleased with himself. He cowered back in his creaking wooden chair, avoiding the icon in the darkness.

  “How did you know?”

  Darcy licked at his cracked lips. He looked like a child, not a man who had stopped an army convoy from storming an Iranian village with one good book and a total disregard for his own safety.

  “When Jesus told me to protect you I believed–I still believe–that Reachers are the most important beings God has in this world. Angels on this earth, that is what God told me. I gave everything I could to see your kind safe.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We needed funds, Charlie. The army was clamping down on us and I had people stuck abroad, trying to get Reachers into this country. There were wars, here, there. It was impossible to save you all.”

  “Damnit, what did you do?”

  “I gave Isobel, Rachel's sister, to Frank Morris.”

  There was only one rule: protect the Reachers. Darcy had instilled that in Charlie and John from the moment he found them. And they had followed it, closer than they followed any deity. For Darcy to have broken it–Darcy who lived by the good book, under Jesus's constant supervision–it was too much.

  Charlie leaned forward in disbelief. “You sold her?”

  “Frank Morris funded so many operations…”

  “You sold her! A Reacher!” Charlie put his head in his hands. “A little girl.”

  “When I sent the other Reachers out to safety I severed touch with them for their own safety, but I always kept an eye on Isobel. She visited me all the time. She was happy.”

  “She was being whored out!”

  There was no way Darcy had gone through all those years not knowing. Charlie was about to argue. For years he'd listened to Darcy's lectures, watching the old priest ride the moral high ground while he wallowed in a ditch. Now he was looking down on Darcy and the height was giving him vertigo. They didn't have time for blame, or time to recognise that this was the end of their long relationship.

  “What is going on, Darcy? Who has Rachel?”

  “I don't know who has her now, but she will end up with Pinky Morris one way or another.”

  “You're sure?”

  “Pinky wants to use her like Frank did. The other guy who was after her, Donnie, he's looking for Frank's killer. I'm certain Pinky killed Frank. You go to Pinky and you'll find her. Eventually, they will both meet before this is over.”

  Charlie stood up, towering over Darcy. Only he didn't feel like he was above the old man, instead he felt like he'd dragged another sorry soul down to his level. He'd introduced Darcy to criminals, he set the righteous man on the wrong path and he left him there to find his own way.

  “I convinced them to hire you and John because I knew you would protect her. You are good men, God's chosen ones, both of you. Can you redeem me for what I have done, Charlie?”

  The silhouetted Christ was watching Charlie, staring past the bravado, past the disguise.

  “I think we're all beyond redemption now, Father.”

  He left the church.

  37

  “You know I took Izzy shopping once, in London, just one time in secret,” Riva told her. “Frank didn't like letting her out of his sight, but we stole away anyway. It was such a nice day. We got her hair fixed up, some new clothes, had coffee. We could do that, you and I.”

  “Is that the payment I get for being your whore?” Rachel sipped gingerly at her drink. She had to keep a level head.

  “That's not how it's going to work.” Riva paused, whirling the brandy around in her glass. “That should have never have happened with Izzy; it was Frank's doing, not ours.”

  Headlights lit up the curtains. Riva's head lashed around. She took their glasses, returning them to the bar as the front door opened. It was slammed shut. Both women jumped.

  “Pinky,” Riva called. Her confidence was w
avering. She looked to the doorway in uncertainty.

  She clearly wasn't a woman who was accustomed to fear. It made Rachel nervous.

  Pinky imposed himself on the room. It was the first time Rachel had seen him and for a second she thought he was the man from the photograph. There was the same madness in his eyes, the same fury curling at his lips. He stormed the room, and Rachel was sure he was going to kill them both. He grabbed the gun from Riva's hand and stood in front of her, vibrating with tension.

  “I got her for you,” Riva said. Her voice was calm and soothing; the rest of her was anything but.

  “You went behind my back.”

  “I put some insurance on the plan, that's all. And look, we have her.”

  “Who'd you hire?”

  Riva hesitated, but caved quickly, “Roxy.”

  It was the worst answer she could have given him. “Did you kill him?”

  “This won't stay a big secret, Pinky. People are going to figure it out. Do you want to be like Frank, going behind the guys' backs? Do you want that to start again?” She gestured to the sofa and placed a daring hand on his chest. “She's here, just like you wanted. Be happy.”

  He stalked the sofa, inspecting Rachel from a distance. She was too afraid to move. She didn't like this man. Her vision was flashing red, her heart having palpitations. He was bad. He would hurt her. He wanted to hurt her.

  “So you're Isobel's little sister.” His words felt toxic and hateful.

  She didn't say anything. All she wanted was to see Charlie and John again and she felt so guilty for doing so.

  “Yes, she is,” Riva said for her.

  “Your sister was murdered,” Pinky told her, almost as though he was taunting her.

  “We don't have to do this now. It's late, we're all tired…” Riva began.