Lethal (49 page)

Coburn asked, “Does he have a framed picture of the team? A roster? Trophy? Uniform?”

“Nothing like that. It was a ragtag league and soon disbanded. What they mostly did was get together on Saturday afternoons and drink beer after the games. They played in shorts and T-shirts. Nothing fancy. No team photos.”

“Keep an eye on him,” Coburn said to Honor, then left them and went into Eddie’s bedroom, where he remembered finding a pair of soccer cleats in the closet. He had examined each shoe, but perhaps he’d missed something.

He took the cleats from the closet, dug his fingers into the right shoe, then ripped out the innersole. Nothing. He turned the shoe over, studied the sole, and realized he’d need a tool in order to pry it off. He searched the left shoe in a similar manner, but when he ripped out the innersole, a minuscule piece of paper dropped into his lap.

It had been folded once so that it would lie flat inside the innersole without causing a wrinkle. He unfolded the note and read the single printed word: BALL.

On his dash from the room, he rounded the corner of the door so fast, he grazed his shoulder, which jarred his injured arm and sent a bolt of pain straight to his brain. It hurt so bad it made his eyes water, but he kept running.

“What is it?” Honor asked as he raced through the living room.

On his way past her, he slapped the small note into her hand. “His soccer ball.”

“I put it back in the box in the loft,” Gillette called after him.

Coburn made it through the kitchen and into the garage within seconds. He flipped on the light, then
rounded Gillette’s car and hastily climbed the ladder to the loft. He ripped open the box and upended it, catching the soccer ball before it bounced off the loft and down to the garage floor. He shook it, but heard nothing moving inside.

Cradling the ball in his elbow, he retraced his path back into the living room. With Honor and Gillette watching expectantly, he pressed the ball as one would test a melon’s ripeness. Noticing that one of the seams was crudely sewn, not at all like the factory stitching on the rest of the ball, he picked up Gillette’s knife from off the floor and used it to rip the seam. He pulled back the leather flap he’d created.

A USB key fell into his palm.

He locked eyes with Honor. The contents of the key would either exonerate or indict her late husband, but Coburn couldn’t let himself consider what impact this find might have on her. He’d spent a year of his life working Marset’s freight dock waiting for this payoff, and now he had it.

Gillette was demanding an explanation for the key and its significance. Coburn ignored him and walked quickly to the master bedroom, activated the computer, which was in sleep mode, and inserted the key into the port. Eddie hadn’t bothered with a password. There was only one file on the key, and when Coburn clicked on it, it opened immediately.

He scanned the contents, and when Honor joined him, he couldn’t contain his excitement. “He’s got the names of key people and companies all along the I-10 corridor between here and Phoenix where most of the stuff from Mexico is dispersed. But better than that, he’s also got the names of corrupt officials.

“And I know the information is solid because I recognize some of the names. Marset had dealings with them.”
He pointed to one of the names on the list. “He’s a weigh station guy who’s on the take. Here’s a used car dealer in Houston, who supplies vans. Two cops in Biloxi. Jesus, look at all this.”

“It must’ve taken Eddie a long time to compile the information. How did he get access to it?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know if his motive was noble or criminal, but he’s left us with the goods. Some are nicknames—Pudge, Rickshaw, Shamu. Diego has an asterisk beside his name. He must be real important to the organization.”

“Does it identify The Bookkeeper?”

“Not that I see, but it’s a hell of a start. Hamilton’s gonna piss his pants.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and tried to turn it on but immediately saw that the battery was dead. “Shit!” Quickly he took Fred’s phone from his pocket and snapped in the battery. When it came on and he saw the readout, he frowned.

“What?” Honor asked.

“Doral has called three times. And all in the last hour.”

“Doesn’t make sense. Why would he be calling Fred?”

“He wouldn’t,” Coburn said thoughtfully. “He’s calling me.” Suddenly overcome by a foreboding that squelched the elation he’d felt only moments earlier, he depressed the call icon.

Doral answered on the first ring. In a jolly voice, he said, “Hello, Coburn. Good of you to finally call me back.”

Coburn said nothing.

“Someone here wants to say hi to you.”

Coburn waited, his heart in his throat.

Elmo’s song came through loud and clear.

W
hen Honor heard the song, she clapped both hands over her mouth, but started screaming behind them.

Coburn didn’t silently scream, but he felt like it. Fear, a foreign emotion to him, struck him to his core, and the mightiness of it stunned him. Suddenly it was clear to him why fear was such an effective motivator, why it reduced hardened men to mewling children, why, in the face of fear, individuals were willing to barter their god, country,
anything
for the threat to be removed.

His mind became a slide show of horrific images that he’d seen in war zones, the bodies of children burned, beaten, hacked at, until they no longer retained human form. Their youth and innocence hadn’t protected them from a violent, unconscionable egomaniac demanding absolute surrender. Such as The Bookkeeper.

And The Bookkeeper had Emily.

“Okay, Doral, you’ve got my attention.”

“I thought I might.”

His smug chuckle rankled. “Or are you bluffing?” Coburn asked.

“You wish.”

“Singing Elmos are easy to come by. How do I know it’s Emily’s?”

“Nice place Tori has got there on the lake.”

Coburn’s hand formed a fist. Through gnashed teeth, he said, “You hurt that little girl and—”

“Her fate is up to you, not me.”

Honor still had her fingers clamped over her lips. Above them, her eyes were watery, wide, and stark with anguish. Entering into a pissing contest with Doral wouldn’t get Emily returned to her unharmed. Although it galled him, he dispensed with the threats and asked what the terms were for getting Emily back.

“Simple, Coburn. You disappear. She lives.”

“By disappear, you mean die.”

“You’re nothing if not smart.”

“Smart enough to survive the car bomb.”

Doral didn’t address that. “Those are the terms.”

“Your terms suck.”

“Nonnegotiable.”

Mindful of the time he’d been on a phone that might possibly be traced, Coburn asked, “Where and when?”

Doral told him where to go, what time to be there, and what to do when he arrived. “You follow these instructions, Honor drives away with Emily. Then it’s you and me, pal.”

“I can hardly wait,” Coburn said. “But one last thing.”

“What?”

“Since you’ve botched everything so bad, why are you still breathing? The Bookkeeper must have a reason for keeping you alive. Think about it.”

Doral disconnected, muttering a stream of vile language.

Coburn was playing him. He was well aware of that. But Coburn was good at it.

Because he had tapped into Doral’s worst fear: He was nothing more than a flunky, and after everything that had gone wrong over the past seventy-two hours, an expendable one.

He looked over his shoulder into the backseat where Emily was sleeping, dosed with the Benadryl that he had given her so she wouldn’t be afraid or put up a fuss when it became clear to her that Uncle Doral had fibbed about why he’d taken her in the middle of the night from Tori’s lake house.

Just as he’d pulled the trigger to end Tori’s life, a piping voice came from behind him. “Hi, Uncle Doral.”

He spun around and there had stood Emily in the doorway of Tori’s bedroom, wearing a nightie, holding her Elmo and bankie, and, most disconcerting of all, happy to see him.

“Aunt Tori and I made mud pies. And guess what? Tomorrow she’s going to let me play in her makeup. How come you’ve got gloves on? It’s not cold outside. Why’s Aunt Tori on the floor?”

It had taken him several seconds to process her unexpected appearance. She started coming farther into the room, and with only seconds to spare, he had a burst of inspiration.

“She’s hiding her eyes and counting because we’re going to play hide-and-seek.”

With complete trust, Emily had played along.
Sneaking
downstairs with him, and out to the car that he’d borrowed from his cousin for the night, and into his backseat, Emily
had stifled her conspiratorial giggles. They were several miles from the house before those gave way to wariness.

“I don’t think Aunt Tori can find us if we hide this far away.” And then, “Are you taking me to Mommy? Where’s Coburn? He’s gonna buy me an ice cream. I want to see them.”

The questions had become numerous and unnerving, and he was glad that one of his sisters had once remarked on the effectiveness of the liquid antihistamine for sedating kids. He’d stopped at a 7-Eleven, bought a cherry Slurpee and a bottle of the medication, and soon after drinking the laced slush, Emily was sleeping soundly.

That’s when he’d called The Bookkeeper to report his success. He wasn’t praised for a job well done, but he actually thought he heard a sigh of relief. “See if you can get Coburn to answer your brother’s phone. Set it up.”

Now things were in place and all he had to do was wait for the appointed time. He faced forward, unable to look into Emily’s angelic face and acknowledge what a creep he was for exploiting her affection for him. This was Emily, for crissake. Eddie’s kid. He’d killed her father. He would have to kill her mother, too. Sourly he thought that making an orphan of a sweet little girl like Emily was some fucking career, wasn’t it?

He wondered how he’d come to sink this low without his noticing. He was in so deep he couldn’t even see the surface anymore.

He’d chosen this path and there was no going back. Initially he’d thought that closing all his escape hatches was a good thing. He’d thrown off his old life the way a snake shed its skin. Having had his fill of kowtowing to his fishing charter clientele, and his usurious creditor, he had turned his back on that business and had exchanged customer
service for adventure and violence. He’d relished being licensed to bully and intimidate and, if necessary, kill.

Looking back now, however, he remembered those days on his charter boat as being much less complicated than his days were now. The work had been backbreaking and the income dependent on factors beyond his control, yet he remembered that time with a nostalgia that bordered on yearning.

But when he’d signed on with The Bookkeeper he’d made a covenant with the devil, and it was a commitment for life. There was no do-over. He couldn’t throw his life into reverse.

As for his grandiose idea of eliminating The Bookkeeper and assuming control of the operation, who was he kidding? It would never happen. Even if he had the courage to attempt it, he would blunder and wind up dead anyway.

No, he would stick to the path he’d chosen until he came to a dead end.

But before he cashed out, whether it was twenty years or twenty minutes from now, he was going to kill Lee Coburn for killing Fred.

Immediately after Coburn disconnected from Doral, he punched in the number of Tori’s lake house and got an automated voice mail message.

“What’s Tori’s cell number?” he asked Honor, hoping that Tori had defied him and restored her phone’s battery.

She lowered her hands from her mouth. Her lips were white from the pressure her fingers had applied to them. They barely moved as she dully recited the number.

That call also went straight to voice mail. “Dammit!”

Tremulously she asked, “Coburn? Is Emily alive?”

“If they had killed her, they wouldn’t have anything to bargain with.”

He could tell she wanted to believe it.
He
wanted to believe it.