by Zoe Sharp
I turned back, to find Olivia Duvall was covering both of us with the little revolver.
Give me strength.
“Olivia,” I said sharply. “Put that down before you hurt yourself—or I have to do it for you.”
“Damn right she’ll hurt you,” Dabrowski told his wife through gritted teeth. “And she’ll keep hurting you until you tell us what you’ve done with my boys.”
“What I’ve done?” Olivia demanded. “It’s you who’s threatening to bury them, you bastard!”
I said calmly, “Olivia, we can sort this out, but now here and not at gunpoint.” And to prove it I slid the SIG away, ignoring Dabrowski’s groan. I held out my hand towards her, palm out.
She wavered for a moment, then I saw the determined glint come into her eyes.
“Not until—”
“Look out!” I yelled, and rushed her.
There was no incoming forklift this time, but the possibility was real enough to make her look. As she did so I rammed my elbow into the fleshy vee just below her ribcage. It knocked the stuffing out of her just as effectively.
By the time she’d recovered enough to curse me, I’d spun the cylinder of the little revolver and dropped the live rounds out into my pocket.
And then another forklift did come whooshing out of the murky darkness. We stepped back quickly.
“Now you’ve temporarily finished trying to kill each other,” I muttered, “can we please get out of here before we all qualify for the Darwin Awards by removing ourselves from the gene pool in the most inventive way possible?”
After the dimness of the warehouse interior, it seemed unnaturally bright outside, sunlight gleaming from the pristine snow around the exterior. I blinked a few times and saw Parker waiting with the security guard, standing by another of the company Lincoln Navigators.
The two boys, Adam and Tanner, slouched between them. They looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.
Their parents both stopped dead. Dabrowski tried to wipe his forehead, suddenly realising his arm didn’t work properly. He stared at it like he couldn’t for the life of him work out when that happened.
His eyes, when they turned to me, were bewildered. “But—?”
“Let me guess, Joe,” I said gently. “You got a message, apparently from your wife, telling you she had the boys and unless you wanted to arrange their funerals, you’d meet her here.”
Dabrowski’s brow furrowed. “How the hell—?”
“Olivia got the same message,” I said. “From you.”
Olivia’s attention finally tore away from her sons and towards me. “What?”
“You were set up—both of you,” I said. “I had a phone call from Parker inside to confirm it. He analysed the messages. Your voices were sampled and digitally manipulated. They could have made it sound like you were saying anything.”
“But…” Olivia stumbled into silence. “How…?”
“The ‘how’ is the easy part,” I said. “It’s the ‘who’ you’re not going to like.”
They had moved instinctively closer to each other, I noticed. Which was possibly a good sign.
“That can’t—” The look Olivia threw me was fast and vicious. “You’ve crossed the line, Charlie.”
“Trust me,” I said. “That line was already broken.”
And despite the fact it was Olivia who’d had the drive and intelligence to start a major business from the ground up, it was Joe who put it together first.
“Adam has one of those electronic synthesisers,” he said slowly. “He was always recording our voices—even made it sound like I could sing.”
“No, no,” Olivia said, shaking her head as if that would make it all go away. “But…someone tried to smother me…” She put a hand to her throat. “No, not Adam! That’s ridiculous! I’m his mother—”
“No offence,” I said, “but if someone the size and weight of your husband wanted to suffocate you, you’d be dead.”
“And the bomb?” Joe asked, sounding hollow.
“Olivia hasn’t the time or the expertise to put have put it together,” I said, “but the average teenager, spending hours on the internet, and with access to your workshop at the house, could have something of that level of sophistication constructed in a couple of hours. Particularly,” I added, “if their father just so happened to have spent time dismantling IEDs after Desert Storm, and told them a few war stories.”
For a moment they both stood there, then Olivia said in little more than a whisper. “Adam was learning to drive your truck, Joe—ever since he got his learner’s permit.”
They both turned, in unison, and looked at their children again. Only this time their gaze was very different.
Adam gave his younger brother a vicious jab in the arm. “I told you,” he complained.
Tanner’s cheeks were burning. “Adam, shut up!”
I began to change my mind about which of them had been the ringleader in this enterprise.
The security guard calmly pulled them apart before they could come to further blows. I handed Parker the weaponry I’d collected from husband and wife.
“Good work, Charlie,” he said.
“Same to you, boss,” I said. “If Bill hadn’t analysed those tapes so fast, we’d be scraping bodies out of there right now.” I thought of my own near-miss with the forklift. “Probably mine included.”
Olivia Duvall was looking almost as shocked as her husband. He put his good arm around his wife and for what I imagined was the first time in months, she didn’t pull away from such a public embrace.
“Why?” she murmured then. She cleared her throat, gave her sons a piercing stare. “Why the hell would either of you want us dead…? I mean, why, for God’s sake?”
Their answer was sullen silence. I glanced back at their parents. They’d been prepared to fight over custody of their ungrateful children in the divorce. Maybe now the fight would be to see who didn’t have to put up with them.
I shrugged. “You gave the reason yourself, Olivia. ‘If anything happens to me,’ you said, ‘every cent goes to the boys.’ Maybe they just wanted Christmas to come early this year.”
More to Read!
If you liked this, then you may also like the later Charlie Fox novels, where she is in full-blown professional bodyguard mode. Why not take a look at Charlie Fox: Bodyguard eBoxset of books 4, 5, and 6? And please check out the rest of the series here, including Third Strike, where Charlie has to face the nightmare of protecting her own parents. (Much as, some of the time, she’d be first in line to shoot them…)
7
Kill Me Again Slowly
This Charlie Fox short story was written especially for Murder Under The Oaks, an anthology of short stories edited by Art Taylor, which was published to coincide with the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention 2015 in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I was privileged to be one of the two International Guests of Honour.
I wanted to write something that had a strong link to North Carolina, and at the same time put Charlie in a situation she had never before experienced.
This idea was one that had been hanging around in the back of my mind as a possible full-blown futuristic science-fiction novel for some time, but I suddenly realised it could work for her. And it was one of the few ways I could involve Charlie in events that would otherwise be impossible.
But if you want to know how, you’ll just have to read on!
I am proud to report that Murder Under The Oaks won the Anthony Award 2016 for the Best Anthology/Short Story Collection.
I knew something was wrong when the waiter arrived before the punch-line. Up till that point, things had been going well.
Bizarrely, it has to be said, but well.
I was sitting at a table for six in Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca. The dry southeasterly wind, the Chergui, pushed gently across Morocco from the Sahara, adding a warm lilt to the evening.
On the café stage, Glenn Miller led the jazz band with Wynton Ma
rsalis giving it his all in a trumpet solo. I had to look twice to recognise a down-dressed Elton John at the piano.
The place was packed with beautiful people in immaculate clothes, a mix of uniforms and evening dress. All of them were having the time of their lives. Nobody was raucously drunk, nobody sent back their plate to the kitchen, and for once the haze of smoke that hung beneath the vaulted ceiling did not get right up my nose.
Best of all, nobody was paying too much attention to the other people at my table.
To my left, Oscar Wilde lounged elegantly in his chair. Next to him was Marilyn Monroe, while further round sat Groucho Marx and Dorothy Parker. And directly on my right, next to Mrs Parker, the final player in our little sextet was my host, Asher Campbell Cooper III.
He was dressed in a white tuxedo jacket, snowy white shirt, black pants and a bow tie that was just imperfect enough to be perfect. He looked about thirty, wide of shoulder and narrow of hip, with startling blue eyes and long tanned fingers that toyed with the stem of his champagne flute as he launched almost diffidently into the joke he never got to finish.
At that point, his audience was listening with absolute attention. I caught the curve of Dorothy Parker’s lips in what appeared to be genuine amusement. Even Oscar Wilde’s languid pose had stilled, his brow creasing with the effort of searching fruitlessly for a witty retort to follow.
“So the three nuns, the Russian drug dealer and the clown are being pursued through the food hall of Harrods by the Japanese ABBA tribute band, when the clown’s cellphone rings—”
The waiter, Emile, materialised at Asher’s shoulder and cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, bowing slightly, “but there is a telephone call for you. The party pressed upon me to convey that it was most urgent.”
Asher shut his open mouth, sighed heavily and flicked me a glance.
“See?” he demanded, buttoning his jacket as he rose. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen? I’ll be back to finish my story momentarily.”
“This suspense is terrible,” Oscar Wilde drawled. “I hope it will last.”
Groucho Marx waved his cigar expansively, reached around the beaded lamp in the centre of the table for the champagne bottle and offered to top up Dorothy Parker’s glass. She shook her head.
“One more drink and I’ll be under the host.”
I stood also, fell into step alongside Asher as Emile shepherded us through the crowded tables towards the bar. On it, I could see an old-fashioned black telephone with the receiver off the hook.
“Is this how it usually starts?” I asked.
Asher nodded. “Or something similar. Damn shame. That’s my best joke.”
“There’ll be another time.”
Next to the bar was a narrow curtained doorway. As we passed I flicked the curtain aside. Nobody lurked behind it.
Asher grinned at me over his shoulder as he reached for the receiver. “You packing?”
I spread my arms to indicate my strapless, backless, practically arseless dress—his choice, not mine. “And where, exactly, did you expect me to hide a piece in this outfit?” I shot up a splayed hand before he could respond. “No, don’t answer that.”
He was still smiling as he picked up the phone. It didn’t last.
“Yeah, thanks Brant but I’d kinda guessed as much,” he said and slammed the receiver back onto its cradle.
“Trouble?”
“Uh-huh. Brant’s rounding up the usual suspects.”
As we weaved back towards our table, I murmured into his ear, “If it all goes bad, you know what to do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I let my gaze wash across the patrons, the staff, and the musicians. Nobody was watching us too closely, or trying too hard to avoid doing so. Nobody’s attitude had changed. But I was only too aware that I was in a situation where nothing could be trusted.
“If you want to know what God thinks of money,” Dorothy Parker was saying to the table at large as Asher politely handed me into my seat, “just look at the people he gave it to.”
Marilyn Monroe gave a breathy giggle and said, “Oh, I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.”
Dorothy Parker rolled her eyes.
Airily sipping his champagne, Oscar Wilde said, “Who, being loved, is poor?”
Groucho Marx rested his elbow on the table, his chin on his cupped palm, and gazed at Marilyn Monroe. “Marry me and I’ll never look at another horse.”
“Oh!” Marilyn Monroe glared at him, threw down her serviette and leaped to her feet. “Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?”
She leaned down for her purse, but when she straightened there was a bolo machete with an eighteen-inch blade in her right hand and she held it like it wasn’t her first time. With an inarticulate war cry, she used her chair as a springboard to launch herself across the table aiming straight for Asher’s head.
What the…?
Hurling myself sideways I sent him, chair and all, sprawling backwards. The slashing arc of what should have been a deadly blow sizzled the air where Asher’s throat had been only moments before. I pivoted with my hands on the front edge of his seat, scissored my legs and kicked one of the world’s most beautiful women full in the face. In slow motion, I saw her nose fracture and the blood spray out.
She screamed, letting go of the machete. It bounced away under one of the neighbouring tables. Landing in a crouch, I grabbed the legs of Asher’s chair and wrenched it out from under him. Then I swung it through a hundred and eighty degrees like a hammer thrower going for Olympic gold. It connected with the side of Marilyn Monroe’s head and she crashed off the side of the table, taking the beaded lamp with her, and showed the room exactly what she was wearing under that famous white dress.
The place was in uproar by then. Dorothy Parker had leaped to her feet while Groucho Marx dived under the table. Oscar Wilde was fumbling inside his tailcoat.
Some premonition just gave me the time to mutter, “Oh shit…” from between clenched teeth before he pulled out an Uzi machine pistol on a shoulder-strap and grabbed at the trigger.
Dorothy Parker went down flailing in the first burst. I dived on top of Asher, taking one round in the left arm and a second just above my left hip in the process. Both stung like a bastard.
Cursing, I rolled with him under the overhanging cloth of the next table, discovering—painfully—where Marilyn Monroe’s discarded machete had come to rest. I hefted it in my right hand, which was the only one still functioning. Above us, the panic was full scream ahead, accompanied by the sounds of a mortally wounded piano and a symphony of breaking glass.
Asher saw the blood and paled. “Charlie—!”
I growled, “Stay down,” gripped the machete and low-crawled out into a lethal forest of running feet.
A woman’s stiletto heel stamped into the back of my right hand, momentarily skewering it to the floor. I let out an unheard roar of pain. Oscar Wilde was still spraying the room with 9mm rounds at a rate of nine-hundred-and-fifty a minute. Somewhere under that coat, he must have had a stack of spare magazines.
I flexed my injured hand. I could still just about make a fist, but trying to wield the machete with any force or accuracy was a non-starter. Instead, I reared up from behind the table and flung it awkwardly at the gunman like a boomerang I prayed wasn’t going to come back.
At the last moment, Oscar Wilde caught sight of the weapon flashing towards him.
He ducked and spun.
It was the wrong move.
The blade was honed like a razor. It sliced straight through the carotid artery at the side of his exposed neck. He lost his grasp of the Uzi and dropped to his knees, already starting to fade.
“Alas,” he muttered, “I am dying beyond my means…”
Staying low—OK, sagging—I checked the room. As far as I could tell everybody was
running away rather than charging towards us.
“OK, Asher,” I called. “Show’s over.”
No response.
Oh shit…
Clumsily, I dropped to one knee and lifted the edge of the tablecloth. All I could see of Asher was a pair of black-clad legs ending in leather-soled shoes without a hint of wear. I jerked the tablecloth off completely and saw the rest of him on the far side. He had ignored my warning and followed me out into the line of fire. Blood oozed from the bullet holes in his jacket. Those blue eyes stared right through me.
I slumped to the floor and found myself at eye level with Groucho Marx who was lying under the next table, still clutching his cigar.
“Well, I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening,” he said. “But this wasn’t it.”
I surfaced through a glutinous morass with a tube down my throat, fighting the overwhelming urge to vomit.
“Take it easy, Charlie,” said a calm voice somewhere above me. “Just gotta unhook the main sensor umbilical… OK, you’re all clear. Welcome back.”
I sat up, dripping the pale green slime that was, so I’d been told, some kind of conductive fluid ‘to enhance the full-body experience’. I ripped the tube out of my mouth with a hiccupping heave like a cat bringing up a fur-ball.
As I did so I realised I’d used both hands. I spread them out in front of me. No holes, no blood, and only a distant twinge.
The technician, Sherwin, grinned at me expectantly.
“So, what did you make of your first virtual reality trip? Pretty awesome, huh?”
I rubbed reflectively at my hip. “Are things supposed to hurt that much?”
“Ah, the boss had me ramp up the pain replication inputs so if you take a hit you can really imagine what the real thing feels like.”
“It would have been nice if he’d mentioned that going in.” I half-climbed, half-slithered out of the immersion tank. “Because some of us don’t need to use our imagination, thanks.”