Critical Space (33 page)

"It's not him," she told me.

I intensified my glare and gestured to her to back off. She shrugged and fell back to the stairs, backing up them and out of sight. There was a knock on the door, heavy and rapid and hard. I made my way to it, Miata at my heels.

There was another pounding at the door, and I thought that if it wasn't Oxford, whoever was outside was either forward, foolish, or insane. Using the wall to cover my back, I edged to the window that looked out to the front porch, taking a quick peek.

She'd been right. It wasn't him.

It was Chris Havel.

And Bridgett was with her, holding a gun, and looking like she meant to use it.

The only thing I could think to say as I opened the door was, "It's not what you think."

She had the gun up to my face before I'd finished the sentence, was starting forward with a snarl.

"Fuck you, where is she, you sack of..." Bridgett said, and then she stopped, the barrel of her SIG perhaps an inch from my nose, and for the first time since I'd known her, she looked like she couldn't think of a thing to say. In my peripheral vision, I could see Miata hesitating, looking up at Bridgett, and then he lowered his head and headed out the open door, brushing past her bare legs.

Bridgett didn't even notice, didn't move at all, the gun still in my face.

"Hi, Chris," I said. I didn't look at her.

"Atticus," Chris said. "What happened to the glasses?"

"Contacts."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Soft lenses, Bausch and Lomb."

"Those are nice. The Vandyke doesn't really suit you, though."

"It's temporary. I'm hoping to shave soon."

"Sure," Havel said. "You going to invite us in?"

"I'd like Bridgett to lower her weapon first."

Havel waited. I waited. Bridgett held the gun on me a moment longer, then lowered it. She left the hammer up. Her expression had frozen, but now it was starting to crack. Bridgett doesn't hide her feelings well, and I was reading a long string of emotions that started with shock, touched on relief, switched to rage, and now was mostly suspicion. After another second's silence she looked past my shoulder, into the house.

"Where is she?" Bridgett demanded.

"Why?"

She tightened her jaw, pushed past me, bringing the gun up again. I gestured for Chris to follow her through, then checked outside. An old Army Jeep, painted a combination of rust and blue, was parked in the drive. I didn't see anyone else. I closed and locked the door.

They had made it into the living room, each of them reacting very differently to the space. Havel had the same leather book-bag hanging from her shoulder as the last time I'd seen her, and was reaching into one of the pockets while taking in her surroundings. She was grinning, and when her hand came out of the bag, she'd produced a pad and a pen. If she'd been a six-year-old about to meet Mickey Mouse, I don't think she could have looked more delighted.

Bridgett, on the other hand, was scanning the room as if searching for someone to shoot, which I suspect was just what she wanted to do. When I came back to join them, she stopped long enough to glare at me, her rage once again naked and in control.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"It's complicated."

"Fuck you, uncomplicate it, uncomplicate it now. You look like an asshole, you look like you've gone fucking diesel on me, here, as well as crazy. Jesus Christ, what have you been doing?"

Havel, who had started taking notes, stopped long enough to glance up at me. "You look really good. Except for the Vandyke. You lose weight?"

"Some," I said.

"Where is she?" Bridgett asked. "Is she here?"

"She's here," I said.

"I'm going to kill her."

"Why?"

She looked at me much as she had just moments earlier over the barrel of the gun. "How about she's a motherfucking professional killer to start with? How about she tried to shoot me through the head? How about she fucking kidnapped you and apparently has turned you into the poster goddamn child for Stockholm fucking Syndrome?"

"It's not Stockholm Syndrome," I said. "I'm here because I want to be."

"You and Patty Hearst."

Chris had moved to the bookshelves, was examining the titles there. "She a Beatles fan?"

"Yeah."

"Let me guess," Bridgett said.
"Revolver."

"Help!"
I said.

Bridgett laughed, and it wasn't amusement. "Oh, is that it? She
needs
somebody?"

I hadn't actually considered that, but I said, "Pretty much."

She stepped closer to me, holding the gun against her thigh, the hammer still up. I'd never noticed the way she carried her weight before, how much of it rested in her lower back and her knees. She poked me in the chest with the index finger of her empty hand.

"You know what we've been through the last few months?" she hissed. "You know what Erika's been through? Not to mention Scott and Dale and Corry? Not to mention your family, who saw in the paper that you had disappeared?"

"I've an idea."

"You've an idea. That's good. Does that mean your incredible selfishness has some sort of justification?"

"I'm a bodyguard," I said.

"What is that, is that an answer?"

"She's my principal."

Havel stopped thumbing through the titles on the shelf to look at me. If I'd introduced her to Mickey before, now I'd presented her with a lifetime pass to the Magic Kingdom.

"Brilliant," she said.

Bridgett didn't think so. For a moment I thought she was going to pistol-whip me. "I want to see her, I want to talk to this bitch."

"Give me the gun," I said.

"Fuck off."

"I can take it from you."

"You can try."

The P7 was in my right hand, so I used my left, grabbing the SIG and twisting it from her grip in one motion. I had it before she could resist. Before she could find words I'd turned the pistol in my hand and lowered the hammer, then tossed it onto one of the empty chairs.

"You son of a bitch," Bridgett said, and she tried to punch me in the face, but I moved out of it and she bruised only air, and that just made her angrier. "You son of a bitch."

"You need to calm down."

She turned, moving to the chair where I'd sent her pistol.

"Don't," I said.

Havel was watching us, her delight long gone. She wasn't even taking notes any longer.

Bridgett stopped but didn't turn. Her voice was tight, coming from high in her chest.

"You going to shoot me, Atticus?" she asked. "Has she got you so wound up you'd shoot me in the back?"

"It's complicated," I said. "And if you go at her with a gun, one of you will end up dead."

"God dammit, Atticus. I've been looking for you for three months. I thought you needed help, I thought you might be dead." Her shoulders dropped, and she turned to look at me again, and she even managed a crooked smile. "Sound familiar?"

"It does," I said. "Look, you're here, both of you are here, now's not the time to hash this out. You want to meet her?"

"Yeah, I do."

"As long as you don't try to kill her, that'll be fine," I said. "Wait here."

Bridgett nodded, and Havel resumed scribbling madly in her pad. I went around the corner, out of the living room, to the foot of the stairs, thinking it would be better for me to head up and talk to Alena first rather than to just call her name and ask her to come on down. I doubted getting her to relinquish the shotgun would be as difficult as it had been getting Bridgett to give up the SIG, but I was sure some talk was going to be required, whatever the case.

I never got the chance to find out.

She was lying at the foot of the stairs, in a heap, and the shock stopped me cold, and before I could think to look away from her body, I felt the metal chill of a barrel pressing against my neck.

"Gun," a man said in a friendly whisper. He sounded very calm. "Unload it quietly. Then set it on the ground. Do it right or your head comes off."

I did it right, emptying the gun and leaving the breech open so he could see that the chamber was empty. The shotgun Alena had been carrying was gone, and I realized it was the Neostead that was now pressed into my skin. I didn't dare turn my head, couldn't see him to my side. From the living room, I heard Havel saying that she hadn't dreamt they would get this lucky.

"Hands behind your head, lace the fingers," he whispered.

I laced my fingers behind my head. I couldn't see any blood on the ground, and it looked like she was breathing, and I decided that was at least something.

"Back it up."

I backed it up, and he stepped out from where he'd been pressed against the wall. He was almost entirely bald, but for a thin film of short brown hair running from the sides to the back of his head. His face was a long oval, his eyes very blue. He had crow's-feet, like he enjoyed laughing. I put him somewhere in his late thirties or perhaps early forties.

Havel was still talking to Bridgett as I backed up into the living room, and then her sentence faltered. I heard one of them start to move, probably Bridgett going for her gun in the chair, or perhaps she'd already picked it up and was trying to find a shot, but it was useless. He was walking directly in front of me, using the Neostead as a prod, and there was no way she'd get a shot past me.

As if to prove me right, he said, "Toss the gun over here, Ms. Logan, or I'll open him."

There was the clatter of the SIG hitting the tile, rattling to a stop by my feet. He didn't spare it a look, kept his eyes on me. He was wearing surgical gloves, and had a black fanny pack strapped around his waist.

"You're not Drama," Chris said.

"Is it that obvious, Ms. Havel?" he asked. "Kodiak, if you'd turn around and join the ladies in the center of the room, please. Once you're there you may lower your arms."

I hesitated and he gave me the barest shake of his head, a warning. I turned, saw that Chris was still standing by the bookshelves. She had lost her color, the pad and pen held limply in one hand, the book-bag now in danger of sliding from her shoulder. Bridgett was a few feet to her left, her eyes moving from him to me. There was nothing in her posture or face to suggest she was happy with this development. I brought my arms down and turned slowly and when he didn't tell me to stop, kept going until I could face him.

He had moved the Neostead to his shoulder, sighting it properly, keeping the barrel on me. His clothes were entirely ordinary, long tan pants and a lightweight short-sleeved shirt, dark blue, and he looked as if he'd just come off one of the yachts in Port Elizabeth. There was a watch on his left wrist, visible beneath the thin latex of the gloves, but no other jewelry was apparent.

"Who the hell are you?" Bridgett asked.

"No one important." Everything he was saying came out in the same conversational tone. "Took you two long enough to get here. I've been waiting almost six weeks."

"The fuck are you talking about?"

"He's called Oxford," I said. "He's another assassin, he's been hired to kill Drama."

"Partial credit for the answer," Oxford said. He moved a couple of steps closer, surveying the space briefly before settling his gaze back on us. "It's a bit more complicated than that, actually."

"Complicated how?" Bridgett asked.

"In a second," he said. "Ms. Havel?"

It took Chris a moment to find her voice, and she coughed before she could say, "Yes?"

"Come over here, please. Just up the step." When she didn't move, he added, "I could start shooting at any time."

I heard her move past me on the right, stepping up out of the living room, into the hallway that led from the front door. As she did, Oxford sidestepped his way around, as if to block her from making a break for it. Bridgett risked a glance at me, but I didn't move and I didn't speak. There was nothing to do and nothing to say.

"You can stop there," Oxford instructed, and he glanced quickly over his shoulder, as if to assure himself that the door was directly behind him.

Chris stopped moving. Her hands were visibly trembling. The book-bag looked like it would fall any second.

"This'll work," Oxford said, more to himself than to us.

Then he shot her in the chest.

The shotgun had been loaded with buckshot rather than slugs, and the close-range blast punched through Havel in a mist of blood and gore that fell on the tile like paint spattered from a shaken brush. Bridgett choked back a cry, took a step forward, then stopped as Oxford moved the barrel level to her chest. I didn't move, feeling my own hands shake, my whole inside turning wild and cold.

Havel staggered, then fell on her back, her neck craned and her eyes open, staring at us, already dead.

"I'm having to improvise," Oxford told us. "But this'll do."

"Holy Mother of God," Bridgett whispered. "Why.?.."

"The problem has always been how to discredit the whole thing, you see, not just her or Kodiak or, uh, 'Drama' back there." He began inching back to where the SIG lay on the floor, used his head to gesture to where Alena lay, out of sight. "Initially I was planning to stage the two women together, then use Mr. Kodiak as the jealous lover. But this is really much better, because it's closer to the truth."

He had reached the discarded pistol, perhaps twelve feet away, and now crouched, keeping his eyes on us. I thought maybe he was about to give me an opening, but he wedged the stock of the shotgun against his hip before reaching for the gun, still keeping his finger on the trigger. If I tried anything, either Bridgett or I would end up dead. When he had the gun, he reached around behind his back and stowed it in his belt. Then he rose again and gave us a smile.

"I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about," Bridgett said.

"That's okay," he said. "Kodiak does, don't you?"

"Who hired you?" I asked.

"This isn't James Bond, Kodiak. This is the real deal. If you know, you know, that's fine, you'll die with the knowledge. Otherwise, you die curious."

"He's been hired to do more than just kill Drama." I kept my eyes on him while I spoke. "He's a... character assassin, I guess is the best description."