Deadly Expectations (26 page)

“She doesn’t hide her number … I bet its Damian with a health check.”

“You don’t have to take it.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” I said.
 
And I wasn’t.
 
Andre didn’t fear him so I wouldn’t either.

“Keep him on the line as long as you can,” he was already running to the common room.
 
“I’m going to call in for a trace.”

I took a deep breath and popped the phone open.

“Allan Creed Photography,” I sang into it.
 
The fake name I worked under.
 
I could hear breathing but nobody spoke.

“Allan Creed Photography,” I repeated.
 
The Colonel listened closely.

“Put in your quarter love,” I said sweetly.

“Anna,” Damian’s voice said.
 
He wasn’t fooled.

“This is Rachel with the answering service sir.”

I tried to speak somewhat slowly to drag the call out, but not too slowly.

“Damn it,” Damian said.
 
“Stop the bullshit.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.
 
“This is Anna, who am I speaking with?”

I heard him breathing into the phone.
 
He was angry.
 
Paul came in and gave the Colonel
a thumbs
up and quietly stuck a microphone to the back of my phone.

“Hello?” I asked again.

“It’s Damian,” he said.

“Damian …” I paused then replied brightly.
 
“Alina’s friend?”

The microphone connected to a small tape recorder.
 
Paul had plugged an earpiece into it and put it in his ear.
 
He had given the cordless from the common room to Ross.

“Yes,” he hissed into the phone.

“Did you give her my message?” I asked.

“No … I called to talk about your friend,” he said.

“Who?”
I sounded bewildered.

“Richards …” he hissed into the phone again.
 
I looked over at Paul and tapped my wrist.
 
He motioned for me to keep going.

“You mean Paul?” I asked.

“Bitch,” he muttered.
 
“I think he’s had a problem.”
 
Damian laughed coldly.

I let Andre’s insubordinate tone seep into my voice.
 
“Yeah … no … he didn’t mention anything this morning …”

“Bitch,” he said again.
 
Then there was just angry breathing on the phone again.

“Did you lose something?” I asked.
 
I looked at Paul again.
 
Keep going.

“Or someone?” I finished.

“Maybe that little fellow you sent by to borrow a cup of sugar?” I would pretend for now that we didn’t know about the others.
 
Damian knew nothing about his men.
 
He was starving for information.

“He hit one of the men … right in the vest.” I put on my best nine-hundred number
voice
hoping to hold his interest.

“Then he just sat there.
 
I’d gone up the hill before he shot … he hadn’t seen me.
 
I got up behind him.” I said, my voice getting huskier.
 
“Idiot had his headphones on.
 
Blasting out some techno dance shit.
 
I had a knife.

“I got so close,” I breathed into the phone.
 
“I stood over him and wrapped both my hands around it.”

“Mmm,” I almost moaned into the phone.
 
“He shot a tree when I drove it in hard up to the hilt.
 
He was weak.
 
His hands tried to pull on it but they were so slippery with his own blood he couldn’t hold on.”

I laughed.

“I put one foot on his head to hold him still … to see if I could secure his weapons before he bled out.
 
He wasn’t a gentleman,” I breathed into the phone again.
 
“He finished before I did.”

Damian went off swearing at the top of his lungs; raw fury blasting me over the phone.
 
Paul winced and I held the phone as far from my ear as I could.

“Ross,” I mouthed.

“It’s traced into
Canada
.
 
They’re getting started,” Ross whispered.

 
“Keep going,” Paul whispered.
 
“Try and get control of him.”

I had an idea, or Andre did.

“Lieutenant Nielsen!” I bellowed into the phone.

Damian shut up.
 
Paul and the Colonel looked confused.

“Listen … Rex,” I took the insubordinate tone back on.
 
“I don’t think that’s all you lost yesterday.”

“Bitch,” Damian hollered again and went back to panting into the phone.

“That may be … but I’m not your bitch,” I said coldly.
 

Ross was talking quietly into the phone.
 

“Twenty seconds to complete trace,” he whispered.

I can do that.
 
I thought.

“It’s a sad story … there’s a small pond … just south frozen over this time of year.
 
But it’s been mild, too mild to go on the ice.

“Mmm, are you listening Damian?
 
Watch found a big hole in the ice late last night.
 
At first we thought one of ours fell in … so we panicked.
 
Got all hands down there … we pulled them out.”

“Bitch, bitch,” Damian was muttering into the phone.

I kept going with a random question in a ditzy voice.
 
“That stuff you sent them with … was it … like … expensive?”

“What?”

“Some of it was shiny so I bet it was expensive.”

Ross gave the thumbs up.
 
They had a location.

“You’re an idiot Damian.
 
Weighing them down like that and sending them out on thin ice.
 
Incompetent.
 
They didn’t stand a chance.
 
You just give me a call anytime you need a reality check.
 
Cheers.”
 
I finished sweetly and hung up.

“Sorry about anything I said,” I told them.
 
“He didn’t believe a word of it but I got him so mad he couldn’t stop listening … I’m really starting to dislike him.”

Paul put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head.

“We’ve never completed a domestic trace on him, much less an international one.
 
Good job.”

“How do you get away with an international trace?” I asked.

Paul shrugged.
 
“Can’t say.”

“Fair enough,” I answered.
 
“Why do I feel like I just put an even bigger target on myself?”

“Who is Lieutenant Rex Nielsen?” the Colonel asked.

Andre’s Lieutenant, I thought.

“No idea, Colonel,” I said.
 
“Damian is so arrogant.
 
Getting his name wrong was a good way to get his attention back.”

I got up and put my plate in the microwave to warm up my cold food.

Denis whispered to Ray.
 
“Sure glad she’s on our side.”

“Amen,” the Colonel whispered back.
 
Then to me, “Mrs. Richards, you were able get close enough from behind to attack him?”

“No sir,” I said, “I had taken the Captain’s knife.
 
I’d have my own but a belt is getting a little awkward these days.
 
I had a clean throw from about fifty feet.
 
It had to hit hard.”
 
Andre could throw further and I had no doubt I could pull it off.

The Colonel blinked.
 
“Fifty feet … through the trees?”

“Yes sir,” then I dropped my eyes and let my voice go cold.
 
“I don’t miss.”

“With what Paul says about your shooting I don’t doubt that’s true.”

I put my plate on the table and sat back down to finish my breakfast.

“So, where did you learn these skills Mrs. Richards?” the Colonel asked.
 
“From what I’ve learned about you, you don’t have any military training, yet you are quite comfortable with the lifestyle that my men have chosen here and if you were one of my men it’s arguable that you would be one of my best.”

Paul kept his eyes down on his empty plate.
 
I leaned back in my chair and thought for a moment.

“Respectfully, perhaps the Colonel is concerned that Mrs. Richards might not appreciate how important it could be to be able to sincerely share another version of what happened here yesterday … should the need arise.”

“Perhaps,” the Colonel said.
 
“Why don’t you tell me something about yourself that I wouldn’t find in my security check on you?
 
Then perhaps I can be satisfied to give you enough of a security clearance to allow you to know what you did yesterday.”

Okay, I thought.
 
I guess this is where he wants to hear me lie.

“I have a pretty good idea what you found on me.
 
I own my house and I’m well enough off to be able to swing a modest retirement at twenty-four.
 
That I left home at sixteen and for the past eight years I’ve made a lot of undocumented border crossings.
 
Returning to the
US
when I haven’t left.
 
That sort of thing.
 
Bet you unsealed my criminal record.”

Paul’s eyes widened.
 
He didn’t know.

“That was for my last job.
 
I was released to my father in exchange for a guilty plea because the Crown thought the older boys I hung with put me up to it, but the truth was we had been stealing one or two very nice vehicles a week for a year and a half.
 
They were shipped overseas.
 
I was fifteen.
 
The record stuck, but it was sealed because of my age.”

I sunk back in my chair and frowned.

“I spent a lot of time with a shrink after my mother died.
 
I was anti-social, acting out.
 
He diagnosed me with some odd personality problems.
 
Including an inability to empathize or feel remorse if I hurt someone.
 
These men,” I gestured around the table, “are far more troubled that I killed someone yesterday than I will ever be.
 
I believe whatever comes out of my mouth.
 
Most … medical truth aids don’t work on me.
 
I’m very intelligent … I finished high school at sixteen in spite of the nights I was out stealing cars.
 
I’m extremely manipulative.
 
But you heard that when I talked to Damian.
 
I have very little regard for my personal safety.
 
The Captain can tell you that.