Fixed in Fear

by T. E. Woods

  Lydia had already found Allie.

  Lydia knew Allie hadn’t played her last card. Mort had told her Allie wanted access to her family, and she had threatened Mort not to stand in the way. While Mort may be viewing the situation through the eyes of a loving father, hopeful that his daughter’s posturing was nothing more than willful bravado, Lydia didn’t suffer from that particular vision problem. Lydia knew Allie. She’d lived with her for weeks as Mort tried to protect her and convince her to work with authorities to bring down the criminal enterprises in which she’d been entangled.

  And Allie had played them all. She’d used her father as a safe haven until she could dispose of Patrick Duncan and ally herself with Vadim Tokarev. If, as Mort said Allie had told him, Tokarev was indeed dead, Lydia figured Allie would have had a hand in his demise, also.

  Lydia wouldn’t take Allie’s threat lightly. She’d do what she needed to protect Mort and his family. The first step was finding Allie. Then she’d monitor her movements and intervene…before Allie could hurt anyone Mort held dear.

  Lydia had gone straight to her communication center after returning from Mort’s houseboat. She did a cursory scan of area hotels, checking their electronic reservation systems for anyone traveling on a passport or using an alias that might indicate a room had been reserved for Mort’s daughter. As she’d expected, she found nothing. Allie lived a life of limitless wealth—wealth earned through the pain and deaths of others. As a result, she’d developed tastes far beyond what any five-star hotel could deliver.

  Lydia searched destinations catering to the überrich—the most exclusive resorts and inns available. She was looking for somewhere crowned heads would stay. Allie had shown up at the twins’ school. And she’d demanded more and greater access to them. Mort may fear Allie could be anywhere in the world, but Lydia focused her search in a hundred-mile radius of Seattle. Allie would stay near those girls until she got what she came for.

  Lydia felt a sizzle of possibility when she came across a discreet posting for the Larchmont. Its Internet description had only one sentence: A private oasis for those with the most discriminating expectations. Lydia clicked on the Web address provided and learned the Larchmont was a compound composed of five individual residences. Each unit was two thousand square feet of secluded luxury located on a massive seaside bluff outside of Steilacoom, a coastal town about ninety minutes south of Seattle. There was no lobby. No common area. Guests were greeted after a gourmet meal in the private dining room of a restaurant off property and led to what would be their home for as long as they were able to pay the ten-thousand-dollar nightly fee. Each villa sat in the middle of its own landscaped acre. Massive cedar and pine trees formed barriers blocking access to the other villas. Walkways meandered along the ocean-side cliff past groomed lawns and expertly tended flower beds. There were private pools and hot tubs. The interior of each villa had been decorated by award-winning designers. The website promised a three-person staff assigned to each unit. The chef, maid, and concierge operated invisibly, with interaction only upon the guest’s request. Dining options were unlimited. Anything the guest desired need only be typed into a console. The website said the same was true for “entertainment options.”

  Lydia didn’t have to tax herself to imagine what type of entertainment might interest a person willing to spend ten thousand dollars to have it privately provided.

  She perused photographs of cedar-and-glass interiors; wide, tree-shaded outdoor decks; and rolling lush lawns. There were no testimonials. No star assignments from previous guests. That would break the Larchmont’s dedication to absolute privacy. This was the type of place that would thrive on referral. One one-percenter to another. No need for advertising.

  Just the type of place that would appeal to Allison Grant.

  The Larchmont’s electronic reservation system would have been firewalled from most computers, but Lydia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars keeping her equipment superior to most governments’. She’d needed it when The Fixer was active and the fees she’d garnered from that work made it an easily affordable business expense. Lydia secured equipment stronger than local police so she could enter the system of whatever jurisdiction had hosted her last fix and learn what the authorities were thinking. Though The Fixer had been dormant for nearly three years now, Lydia never regretted the under-the-table payments she’d made to the brightest freelancing programmers in the Pacific Northwest. It was an investment she made to keep her computing and communication system generations ahead of what was available to even the most sophisticated private user.

  She was into the Larchmont’s system in less than ten seconds, able to verify all five villas were currently occupied. Lydia glanced down the list of reservations, well aware they’d likely all be aliases. The name assigned to Villa Four leapt out at her.

  Edith Roberts. Bingo. Allie had used her mother and brother’s first names to reserve her sanctuary.

  Lydia entered into the computer file for “Ms. Roberts” and learned the woman had checked in two days earlier—ample time to get settled before the twins’ soccer game. She’d ordered a king crab omelet for her first breakfast. Two cases of Adelsheim Cabernet had been delivered. She’d called for a masseuse one afternoon and arranged to have a hairstylist arrive at her villa each morning at seven. No one was staying with her, but she’d booked accommodations for her driver at a hotel a half mile away. She’d requested he have full access to her villa twenty-four hours a day. The Larchmont had provided an E-Class Mercedes sedan, Washington license plate LR 7.

  Edith Roberts had paid in advance for seven days’ stay.

  Allie would be within forty-five minutes of Mort’s granddaughters until next Tuesday. Lydia considered what that might mean to Mort’s family as she clicked through the rest of Allie’s requests. Her search stopped on the screen at the special request Allie had made for her day of departure.

  A private jet was to be waiting for her at an airstrip south of Seattle. Edith Robert’s reservation showed the jet needed cabin room for four and have the capability of long-range flight. She’d inform the pilot of their destination two hours prior to takeoff.

  Lydia gathered all that information. Now, as she backed her car out of the parking lot of the building housing her private practice, she was thoughtful. How much should she tell Mort? He’d asked her to find his daughter. He knew she could do it. Lydia wouldn’t be able to lie to him about that. But did she want to tell Mort all she knew about Allie’s whereabouts and the terrifying indications of her future plans? Anything Lydia shared with Mort would limit her. He’d want to follow up on his own, in a way that conformed to both the law and Mort’s own code of ethics.

  Allie had her own code. She played in her own arena with her own set of rules, and cared nothing about the law. Lydia would need to meet her as an equal in that arena if she was to protect Mort and his family. Fortunately it was a playing field The Fixer knew well.

  Lydia wrestled with what to tell Mort as she drove north on Capitol Boulevard toward downtown Olympia and the cutoff that would take her out to Dana Passage and home. Traffic was heavy as she inched her Volvo from one block to the next, stymied by state workers released from dozens of buildings on the capital campus, eager to start their evening. A light rain fell, slowing progress even more. Lydia listened to the syncopated rhythm of the wiper blades and hoped the rain didn’t signal the beginning of a long, wet season. It was still September. She wasn’t ready for the gloom that was sure to come with the advent of fall and winter.

  Bane & Friends was a block ahead on her right. She wished traffic would lighten enough to allow her to drive past without lingering long enough to tempt her to look inside the coffee shop with its wide windows fronting Capitol Boulevard. She missed the place. There was a time when the hardwood floors, mismatched furniture, and tin ceiling was a much-enjoyed part of her daily ritual. Her morning latte with honey had been the perfect start to her going-to-work routine.

  She didn’t go t
o Bane & Friends anymore. Not since the shop’s owner, the shaggy-haired, brilliant, wry, former deputy state’s attorney Oliver Bane, had fallen in love with her. She’d cared for him. Oliver had been the first person Lydia had dared to allow to get close. Their time together made her wonder if she could actually be happy someday. But wondering is all it could ever be for someone with her past.

  Oliver was a rare breed. A good-to-the-bone, well-educated, upright guy who truly believed he could make a change in the world. When he realized operating within the state’s attorney’s office meant perpetuating the same system that provided one level of justice for the rich and quite another for those unable to pay, he stepped away from a path that would have surely led him to the attorney general’s chair. Oliver never allowed cynicism to rot his gut. He quit his job and bought the coffee shop and promised he’d still be caring for people, just in a more direct and honest way.

  “Never underestimate the healing magic of a perfect cup of coffee,” Lydia remembered him saying.

  He wanted more from her than she could give. A real relationship. One with a future. She had to end things. After she’d been shot, when Mort knew she was The Fixer and the protective walls she’d built came crashing down, she’d been forced to see herself for who she was. An assassin. A killer. She may have deluded herself into thinking she’d been an agent of justice, but months in rehab recovering from a bullet to her skull brought everything into sharp focus.

  She was an outlaw. An outcast. A woman with too much blood on her hands to ever lace fingers with a man like Oliver Bane.

  He didn’t understand. Lydia couldn’t tell him the truth. Mort was the only one who knew her as she was. The rest of the world saw only whom she wanted them to see. Some saw a talented psychologist. Others saw a civil but distant colleague.

  She struggled every day not to show anyone The Fixer side of herself. Not even to anyone who’d used their money, influence, or sheer guile to slip away from what was due them.

  In the end she’d needed to be cruel to Oliver. He’d have to hate her. She needed to ensure he would never come near the woman she’d been. The woman who—despite all of Mort’s kind words of promise and hope—she always would be.

  Lydia’s car was now a half block from Oliver’s shop. She lied to herself and vowed not to look in. Not to warm her eyes and break her heart by seeing him smile in that comforting way at the next person stepping up to the counter. But like an addict passing a dealer, she knew she’d torture herself with one long glance inside the shop. She shifted her gaze from the rainy, congested road and glanced toward Bane & Friends.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  She saw it. There. The second car from the corner. A bronze-colored Mercedes E-Class sedan. Washington license plate LR 7.

  Lydia glanced up Capitol Boulevard. Dozens of people walked along the sidewalk, some quickly, holding newspapers or purses over their heads, others with faces hidden beneath umbrellas. She craned her neck to look behind her and saw a similar collection of people hurrying in and out of shops, trying to avoid the rain.

  None had the regal bearing of Allie Grant.

  She could be anywhere. But in a heartbeat she knew where Allie was. While the stores and restaurants along Olympia’s main thoroughfare were charming, none of them held the merchandise or culinary enticements that would interest a woman like Allie.

  Traffic jerked forward and Lydia was alongside the bronze Mercedes. A giant man, broad-shouldered and blond, sat behind the wheel. He was staring straight ahead. Lydia recalled that Allie had arranged for a driver to have full access to her Larchmont villa.

  Lydia inched ahead another two car lengths. She was directly in front of Bane & Friends now. The passenger side window of her Volvo was covered with drops. She pressed a button to lower it and peered through the rain.

  Allie was inside the coffee shop. Her sandy hair was pulled back into a sophisticated ponytail. She wore a trench coat. She seemed to be reading the tall chalkboards mounted behind the counter, as if trying to decide what type of treat would chase away the dinginess of a rainy afternoon.

  Lydia watched as Oliver turned toward Allie. He ran a hand through his unruly hair, a habit Lydia had always found endearing. She saw his lips move. Then she saw him laugh and turn to point toward the chalkboards. Allie stepped closer to him. She extended her hand in greeting. Oliver took it, and smiled. Even from that distance, Lydia could read his lips.

  I’m Oliver. Lydia watched him open his arms wide. This is my place.

  A surge of heat flooded her. An urge to protect the man she’d hurt so badly. She glanced to her right and left. She was blocked by cars crawling forward. For an absurd moment she considered abandoning her vehicle and running into the coffee shop. She glanced back to the driver in Allie’s Mercedes. He hadn’t moved.

  A horn behind her blared.

  Lydia had just enough time to glance back before moving forward. Oliver was escorting the smiling Allie to a table near the front of the shop.

  Lydia banged her hand against the steering wheel and pulled ahead. She wound her way through traffic, and eleven minutes later turned into her driveway. She turned off her ignition. The engine died, yet Lydia felt no easing in the rumbling inside her. She grabbed her phone and sent Mort a one-line text.

  I’m on it.

  —

  She’d spoken to Mort. He’d been at Robbie and Claire’s for dinner, trying to calm them after what had happened at the twins’ school that morning. His son and daughter-in-law were trying to find a delicate balance with the girls. They wanted them to appreciate the need to steer clear of Allie, but they didn’t want to inspire any fear or anxiety.

  “Hayden seems to get it,” Mort told Lydia. “At least as far as obeying the rules. She still has a lot of questions about why we don’t want them near their aunt. Hadley’s another story, though. She sees Allie as a fairy tale come to life. Eager to get to know her glamorous new family member.”

  Lydia had promised she’d do what she could. She told him she was certain Allie was still in the United States, making up a story about checking with Homeland Security and passport tracking. She didn’t tell him she already knew where Allie was staying, how long she’d planned to be there, or that she’d ordered a plane with room to carry four people when she checked out.

  And she certainly didn’t mention she had seen her in Oliver Bane’s coffee shop earlier that evening.

  By nine thirty Lydia was settled in her living room with a glass of merlot. There was nothing more she could do. No more information to gather. She’d monitor Allie’s movements and plan her actions accordingly.

  Then the living room lights dimmed, just for an instant.

  To anyone in the room or viewing from outside Lydia’s house, it would have looked like an everyday energy dip. But Lydia had wired her home to be totally self-contained for electric power. Her system ran parallel generators with instant backup. Her computer and communication systems demanded it.

  So did her safety.

  When she’d worked with the electrical contractors, she’d arranged the subtle dimming of the lights as a signal that someone was approaching down her drive. She’d told the team of electricians she planned to entertain often and wanted a way to know when guests were arriving without disturbing whoever might already be in attendance. They chalked it up, she was certain, to the quirkiness of their client. But as long as she was paying top dollar, they’d indulged her.

  They’d never need to know that Lydia would be warned someone was coming. She could have arranged for an alarm to sound, but then whoever was approaching would know she’d been alerted.

  Lydia much preferred the element of surprise.

  She rose from the sofa, leaving her glass of wine on the coffee table, and walked to the front entry. She stopped at the credenza there and pulled a Beretta from the drawer. Lydia didn’t need to look at the gun. Her weekly checks of all the weapons scattered in hiding places throughout her home assured her the pistol
was clean and loaded. She clicked off the safety as she stepped toward her locked front door and peered out of the small side window. The earlier rain had stopped, giving her a clear view.

  The bronze Mercedes had stopped in front of her house. The massive size of the driver was evident as the giant man unfolded himself from the front seat, stepped around to open the rear door, then held out his hand to guide a slender woman out of the sedan.

  Allie Grant was exquisite. The ponytail Lydia had seen earlier was gone. Instead, Allie’s golden hair, styled in a blunt-cut cascade, fell unbound to just below her shoulders. Her unbuttoned trench coat covered a camel pencil skirt and white silk blouse. Brown leather heels and handbag completed her ensemble. Mort’s daughter had mirrored Grace Kelly’s elegance.

  No one would imagine she’d been the lover of two of the most deadly men on the planet.

  Lydia reengaged the Beretta’s safety and tucked the gun in the back of her yoga pants. She fluffed her T-shirt to cover any bulge the revolver made and opened the door before Allie had the chance to knock. For a moment, the two women stared at each other. It was Allie who smiled first.

  “It’s good to see you, Lydia.” Allie looked to her left and right. “I’m glad you haven’t moved. I’d hate to have been this close to the woman who saved my life and not been able to stop by to offer my gratitude. I apologize for the late hour. I was actually going to stop by earlier, but I got to Olympia during work hours. I figured you’d still be doing whatever it is you do in your therapy office, so I stopped instead for a cup of coffee.” She paused, lowering her eyes. “I met a very nice man and, well, you could just say one thing led to another.” She looked up at Lydia, as though expecting some words of welcome. “May I come in?”

  Lydia looked beyond her to the tall, powerful man standing next to Allie’s car. Though the rain had stopped, the damp night air hinted it may resume at any time. “Is your friend coming, too?”