Desire

by Louise Bagshawe

  If Lisa was feeling the heat from the chase across the world, why wouldn’t he be?

  None of it was real. He had to get through.

  She came out of the bathroom wearing his clothes, and she looked great in them. His T-shirt hung loose around her frame, like a short dress; her legs were toned and went on for ever. Under the T-shirt’s thin cotton he could make out her bra and the outline of his boxers. He felt himself stir.

  ‘I’m gonna take a shower too.’

  ‘I guess we’re sharing the bed,’ she said.

  ‘There’s nowhere else. Not even enough floor. So yeah.’ He tried to smile, ignore his desire. ‘Promise you won’t molest me in the night, huh?’

  She grinned back. Damn, she was pretty, even with wet hair and no make-up. He wanted to take her into his arms and push her back on that bed.

  ‘I left my dagger in Thailand,’ Lisa said. ‘You’re safe for now.’

  He fled to the bathroom, before he stood there and got hard.

  When he returned, she was already curled up, her short hair dark against the pillow; her back was to him, the natural barrier against intimacy. He switched out the light. Lisa looked drained, and he thought she needed sleep.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll be in Liechtenstein,’ he said. ‘You should get some rest.’

  There was silence for a few moments. He could hear her breathing, and knew she wasn’t asleep.

  ‘Why are you helping me?’ she asked in the darkness.

  He didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I just don’t think you killed him.’ He hesitated. ‘And I like you. It’s hard for a man to watch a pretty girl go to jail.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Sam sighed. ‘Lisa, you told me your story, because it’s part of this. I didn’t tell you mine. But I get the feeling I’ve been wasting my life, and a nice pay cheque doesn’t fix that for me any more.’

  ‘So if you solve this, if you help me, that means you haven’t been wasting your life?’

  ‘That depends if you’re innocent. Maybe I’m the biggest sucker in the world.’

  ‘I’m innocent. At least, I’m pretty sure. You know I can’t be totally sure.’

  ‘I know. Now go to sleep.’

  She obeyed him. After a couple of minutes, her breathing slowed, and he felt her body move as her chest settled into a rhythm. She was out, as quickly as that. She must have been as exhausted as he had suspected.

  Sam was flooded with relief. Tomorrow he would call Rich Frank, and get to Liechtenstein, where she’d be a little more secure. The best thing would be to find a safe house and dump her there, then pursue whatever leads he had. She was the suspect, and travelling with her would slow him down.

  Besides, if he had to stay too long in one spot with Lisa Costello, he was very afraid he was going to fall for her.

  The beeper buzzed and Felix looked at it in annoyance. He was in a zone now, a hunting zone, and interaction with customers was forbidden.

  But this was the Steen client. Instantly, he knew what they wanted. Felix smiled, suffused with a subtle pleasure. You worked hard for money in this game; it was great when they wanted to give it to you for nothing.

  He pulled out his cell phone. It was a military encrypted BlackBerry, as used by the US Government and a few less salubrious types the world over.

  ‘This is Felix.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘I hope you’ve been enjoying the show,’ Felix said, smirking because he knew the client had hated it as much as he had. When they paid for a kill, they always panicked afterwards. His clients were a bunch of fucking pussies who lacked the guts and skill to do it themselves. What they wanted was their targets dead and the police’s attention elsewhere.

  ‘Not so much. Look, Felix, I know they’re all after this girl.’

  ‘Just like I promised.’

  ‘You did, you did.’ What a kiss-ass. ‘But maybe she says something, like how she didn’t do it.’

  ‘She can say what she likes. The dagger’s got her prints on it and she’s running from the law.’

  ‘O.J. got acquitted.’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t see the cops out looking for the real killer, do you? Everybody knows she’s guilty. Plus O.J. had lots of fans. Lisa Costello has none of those.’

  ‘Felix, please.’ Here it comes, he thought happily. ‘I need this to go away.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘She needs to go away.’

  They’d never say the words over the phone. Like the conversation this far wouldn’t already incriminate them. But holding hands with the customers, soothing their fears, that was a regrettably important part of this whole thing.

  ‘The job is very high-profile. Right now she’s a bigger game than the last one. To persuade her to leave,’ there, he’d offer them a nice verbal get-out, ‘I want two million, in cash, up front, plus a hundred thou for expenses, up front.’

  This time there was no argument. ‘The wire is on its way.’

  ‘I’ll send a beeper message when it’s landed. Then you know I’m going to go meet her. Oh, and by the way, you’ll know you have results when you see it on the news.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Do not contact me again. There is a limit as to how many contacts can safely be made. There will be no status updates or progress reports. There will only be results. Got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ his client said, and didn’t sound choked at their parting. ‘Goodbye.’

  Chapter Seven

  Sam woke early. It wasn’t yet light outside; the glowing dial of his watch told him it was five thirty local. He slipped into the bathroom quietly, careful not to wake her. Some things needed to be done while she wasn’t listening.

  A brief two-minute shower, not enough to enjoy it, just time to get clean. He pulled on his clothes, grabbed his wallet and headed out the door, taking the key from his jacket.

  Hotel reception was packing up for the day shift. The clerk from last night was still there. He nodded at Sam. ‘Com’è stato con lei?’ How was she?

  ‘Era attraente. E stata brava. Grazie,’ Sam said, returning the leer. She was hot. She was good. Would she have been, with him? If you believed Lisa, she was a little uptight with Josh Steen. A woman who never asked her man for sex didn’t enjoy it when he put in for her.

  Lisa was not fulfilled, not just with men. He thought he could make her leap. It was killing him not to have the chance to try.

  He went into the outer corridor, and out the front door. The parking lot was cold, but he didn’t want to be listened to. He punched in Craig’s number in LA. Answer machine.

  ‘Hey, Craig. It’s Sam. I found her and I spoke to her and the deal is, I don’t think she did it . . .’

  ‘Sam?’

  There was a long beep, and Craig’s voice on the phone. ‘I heard what you just said.’

  In the background, Sam could hear Craig’s wife swearing. It was night-time there. ‘Sorry,’ he said lamely.

  ‘It’s OK. I want to speak to you bad. Hold on, I’ll call this number in one minute.’

  Sam snapped his cell shut and wondered briefly if Craig was calling him back with a trace. They could do that - but from his home, late at night? Unlikely. Unless the Fibbies had determined that Sam was wanted, in which case they’d have set it up all ready to go and have three tech goons waiting in a van outside his house, ready to flip a switch.

  His cell buzzed.

  ‘You’re not seriously giving me the butler did it, are you?’

  ‘Craig, I spoke to her.’

  ‘I saw the pictures. She’s pretty and she’s got an accent. You were always crazy for that shit. Don’t be an idiot.’

  ‘She had no signs of bruising. There was no fight. How could a drunk girl have killed him without a fight? He was sober, I saw him.’

  ‘Yeah? How long before he was killed? You should know you can only be sure what happens when they’re in your sights. After that they might burn down Paris, you wouldn’t know.’
Craig grunted, and Sam heard him drinking, probably a carton of milk from the fridge. It’d be nice to go home. His own fridge was probably stinking out the joint by now. ‘And, Sam, seriously, how the fuck do you know she wasn’t bruised? She strip for you?’

  ‘No, she did not.’

  ‘Tell me you’re not banging this girl.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘So where is she now?’

  Sam was going to be careful. Nothing he said could be a lie, technically. He trusted Craig, but Craig would do his duty, including testifying in court against Sam if he thought that was what the law required.

  ‘She was in Rome when I met her, at St Peter’s. We talked, then she left. That was the deal I had with her.’

  ‘We got lots of good prints from Hong Kong; that was smart work, Sam. The guys had everything sent back here, air freight. With the stuff from Thailand they got an excellent case. Ms Kennedy did a video deposition. She’ll be a witness.’

  ‘I want you to keep this possibility in mind, Craig. Lisa Costello had to attack Alice Kennedy because she needed a passport, and she had to tie her up because the flight to Rome is eighteen hours and she needed to get through customs the other end. After she landed, she called the Chinese police and Mr Watson’s airline. You can check all that with them.’

  ‘So she felt guilty. Doesn’t change what she did.’

  ‘China’s got the death penalty. She had to get to Europe. Someplace they wouldn’t ship her back to Bangkok for execution.’

  ‘Jesus, listen to you. You should be this girl’s lawyer.’

  ‘Craig, what motivation did she have? When she married Josh Steen she stepped into millions. Even with a divorce, she’d get a settlement. Enough to keep her for life. Why the hell kill the guy in a country where they hang you just for possessing a couple ounces of pot?’

  ‘Because she was drunk. Drunks do stupid shit. I’m sure you can remember. Look, maybe her lawyer will argue temporary insanity.’

  Sam looked up at the stars sinking in the east, towards dawn. He was frustrated. Craig was his friend, of sorts. But he wasn’t buying this.

  ‘So ask yourself more basic questions. Why does a chick who’s a bit tipsy have an alcoholic blackout? How does a hundred-thirty-pound woman kill a two-hundred-pound man when he’s sober and she’s drunk? Your theory is that her motivation was to get Steen to the altar, and after that he was fair game - as the widow she steps into money - but he was fucking around, he was a big-money player, lots of other people wanted him dead. She admitted to me the blackout, but she says she was drugged. Steen hated drunk women; hell, she was trying to embarrass him anyway. There was no minibar in that room, Craig. Lisa says he would not have let her order more booze.’

  ‘Drunk enough when she got there to have a blackout. Easy.’

  ‘And so if she’s that drunk, how does she manage to stab this guy who’s twice her size, who’s sober, and kill him but not get a mark on her? And here’s one more question, Craig. If Josh Steen was stabbed to death in a frenzied attack, how come nobody heard it? His family were staying in junior suites in the same corridor.’

  There was silence. That was good; that meant Craig was thinking.

  ‘I’m going to find Lisa Costello,’ Sam added.

  ‘Maybe not. We got Interpol pictures, changed for her new hair and all that shit. I got cops all over Europe looking for this girl.’

  ‘None of them are going to catch her. She’s too quick.’

  ‘You’re sounding to me like you’re a little in love with her, Sam.’

  ‘I hardly know her.’ That was true; maybe he should remember it. ‘Look, Craig, so far you guys have come up with jack-all apart from the stuff I’ve handed you.’

  ‘Not so, hotshot. We got forensics at the scene, we got hair evidence, DNA from this girl on the body, in the bathroom, on the knife. I have enough for ten convictions.’

  ‘Yeah? Maybe. And if they’re ten convictions of the wrong person? Jesus, Craig, you can hear there’s at least a possibility. Doesn’t the FBI cover all bases?’

  He heard the silence on the end of the phone as that shot went home. ‘Yes, Sam, yes we do. OK. What do you want?’

  ‘Is the hotel still a crime scene?’

  ‘They pack up tonight. It reopens tomorrow.’

  ‘Then you need to get the fuck on the phone and tell the team to wake up from sleeping, go through it again and this time check stranger DNA. If he was planning to pin it on her, maybe he wasn’t careful.’

  ‘You gotta be fucking kidding me, Sam.’

  Dawn was breaking in the east now; he could see the first red streaks parting the blackness of the night sky.

  ‘There could have been sixty, maybe more people in that room since then. Wait staff. Local cops. FBI. You, you prick.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself, Craig. Get the samples. You can eliminate every one of those sources. All hotel staff got to give a sample. FBI and police are already in the database. Take the Thai guys’ stuff for co-operation, they’ll go for it.’

  ‘You really think somebody else did it?’

  ‘I spoke to her. For a while. She’s innocent. She’s been set up and you can’t let her go down because it’s the goddamned easy option. Or hell, Craig, if you do that, guess what. You don’t get to lord it over me any more.’

  ‘That what you think I been doing?’

  Silence hung heavy between them.

  ‘Fuck it, I’ll test for strangers. And Sam Murray, if I find you’re helping this chick, I will throw your ass in jail for thirty years.’

  Sam felt the weirdest mix of relief, fear and pride.

  ‘OK.’

  Pause.

  ‘You’re doing good so far, Sam. I’ve told you that before.’

  ‘Yeah. You did.’

  ‘This is what you were meant to do.’

  The words hit him like a knife to the chest, in this anonymous parking lot in northern Italy, with the suspect the FBI were chasing waiting back in his bed.

  ‘Don’t get too close to the target, Sam. Be a professional. The Bureau would appreciate the assistance. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘I won’t.’ He hoped it was true. ‘Check for someone else, keep an open eye. Josh Steen had lots of enemies.’

  ‘That much I can promise. Now I’m gonna call Phuket before the cleaners move in with the Lysol, and then I’m going back to sleep.’

  Sam glanced back at the motel, lit up still against the pale morning sky. ‘And I’m going to find Lisa Costello,’ he said with perfect truth. ‘Later, Craig. Say sorry to Maria for me.’

  Felix spoke into his skyphone. The connection was crackly, and it was costing him about ten bucks a minute, but it was worth it. Nobody ever checked these things.

  ‘Come on, baby,’ he said. He’d flown up to Detroit last week, where they had a call centre, and he’d picked up one of the supervisors at a bar in town where they all liked to get drunk after hours and forget their shitty jobs. He had worked her over good. Gave her some sob story about his bastard Californian landlord stealing his money and how he just wished he could get back at him, just a little, if he only knew where the sucker was.

  She’d shaken her head, and oohed and aaahed in sympathy, and then she offered, by herself, to get the asshole’s credit history.

  Perfect. And he’d told her, never mind about him, baby girl, let’s just get down, and then he’d shown the fat bitch the time of her life, and the next morning she was insisting, even begging, to be his partner in crime and hunt this fuck around the globe.

  A little more sex, a regretful glance at his watch - he had to be in Milwaukee, because he was a travelling sales manager for a gun show, and if folks like him didn’t work then they didn’t eat . . . but he’d call her.

  Felix watched the shutters come down over those heavily hooded eyes. Guys had promised to call this one before, and never come through with it. He didn’t comfort her right there and then. Let her sweat it. So when he did ring, halfway to the airp
ort, she was practically gushing with joy. He meant it, you see. He’d be away a few weeks, but he’d check in regular. He made plans for the middle of the following month, and she was eager to join in. They shot the breeze, phone conversations lasting quarter of an hour to over a half, and only very occasionally did he bring up the topic of his scumbag landlord Sam Murray. Karen was forced to make most of the running her own sweet self.

  There was no torturing this one, no blowing out her kneecaps for the combo to the safe. Karen’s luckiest break was that Felix needed to track Sam on an ongoing basis, and that meant calling her from various global hotspots, which in turn kind of meant he needed her alive and happy to co-operate.

  He blubbed some endearments into the skyphone and chattered about how good it would be to see her the next month. And in return, she told him that Sam Murray had hired a car just outside the centre of Rome, Italy.

  ‘That freaking scumbag,’ Felix said. ‘Running round Europe on our money. Mine and the other guys in the building. Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s had it for two days.’

  ‘Where’s he taking it?’ Felix asked casually. Her answers to this set of questions would be crucial. ‘I guess you can’t tell, honey, can you?’

  ‘Well, nothing yet. He seems to be paying for his gas with cash. Either that or he isn’t driving it much.’

  Oh, he’s driving, Felix thought. He’s driving and he’s got some smarts. He’s close to the chick, at the very least, doesn’t want to be caught. There’s money in this for him. ‘Any other purchases? I’d like to know where he is.’

  ‘There was six euros eighty-five cents on a garage outside of Rome. I can’t see what the breakdown is.’

  Bottled water, candy bars. The usual.

  ‘Then nothing, honey.’ A slight hesitation in her voice. ‘You know, he’s not worth it, we probably shouldn’t be tracking him like this.’

  ‘Hey.’ Felix knew better than to sound guarded; he put on his best hurt voice. ‘This guy ripped me off real bad and I’d like to find him, that’s all. I understand you’re uncomfortable, Karen . . .’