Pursuit (21 page)

One: Though a secondhand Tahoe bought for eighteen thousand dollars seven months before was registered in Moira’s name, she had bought a new Escape on the first of March. Why would a single woman need two vehicles? Then a week later, she reported the Tahoe as stolen.

Two: Eighteen thousand dollars had showed up in Moira’s personal account on February 26 and two days after that, Moira received a telephone call from a public phone in San Diego, California.

Moira Fitzgerald was not a chatty woman. She received a phone call every two weeks from a number in Ireland, she received about four phone calls a week from a number that corresponded to a certain Maureen Dougherty, a twenty-seven-year-old shop assistant from Ireland in the US on a green card. The other phone calls were traceable to phone vendors, a plumber, and a clothing store. Except for one phone call from San Diego, Barrett could trace the origin of every call she’d had since the beginning of the year. Three: Moira Fitzgerald had recently reported her passport as stolen. Someone who looked a little like Moira was traveling on the stolen passport. Moira had light blonde hair, blue eyes, even features. She was about twenty pounds heavier than Charlotte Court and not anywhere near as beautiful, but the ID could pass with an inattentive cop. It was all pretty clear what he had to do next. But first he had to get Moira to stop sniveling and start talking. He put command in his voice. “Listen, Moira, Miss Charlotte needs your help. She needs it now.”

The tears dried up and Moira sat, wet-cheeked and patient, placid as a cow.

“Charlotte sent you the money to repay you for the Tahoe she took that night. She called you from California to make sure you received the money. She said to wait for a few days to report it stolen.”

They were statements, not questions, and Moira nodded. “’T’was so
good
to hear from Miss Charlotte. The Garda was saying such terrible things about her. Miss Charlotte wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“That’s right,” Barrett said, making his voice soft and soothing. “Miss Charlotte is innocent. She’s hurt and she’s alone. We have to help her.”

Moira nodded tearfully.

“What did she say when she called from California, Moira? Was she okay?”

She nodded again.

“Tell me,” Barrett invited. “Tell me how she was. What did she say? Where was she going?

We need to know where she is. How can we help her if we don’t know where she is?”

She didn’t answer, breathing with her mouth open in the deep, slow cadence of the drugged.

“Miss Charlotte needs help,” Barrett said sharply. “Only you can help her. Only you can save her.”

Tears rolled down her face and dripped down to her breasts, sliding off the duct tape.

“You want to help Miss Charlotte, don’t you?” Barrett made his voice low and sorrowful. “I know you do. Of course you do. Let’s help her together. Let’s bring her home.”

“Home,” she whispered, tears and snot running down her face. “Miss Charlotte home.”

“What did she say when she called you from California, Moira?” Barrett wasn’t an impatient man. If necessary, he could have stayed here for days, squatting on cold concrete, patiently interrogating. But he had time constraints, he knew most of what she was going to tell him, and this had an end point. He glanced at his watch: 0200. He’d give it another hour, then he had some work to do on Moira’s dead body, he had to clean up here, dump the body in Morrison Park, and head out to San Diego, the subject’s LKA—

last-known address.

He started in again, patiently. “What did Miss Charlotte say to you when she called? Was she well? Was she recovering from her wound?”

Moira stopped sniveling for a moment and looked blank. “Was she
wounded,
then, me miss?”

Barrett changed tack. “Did she say where she was going?”

She shook her head, eyes unfocused. Direct questions weren’t working well. It was impossible to tell whether she meant—
Miss Charlotte didn’t say where she was going
or
I
can’t remember.

“What did she say?” Patience was the hallmark of a professional, but Barrett couldn’t help checking his watch again. This was tedious work.

“Say?” Her eyes were unfocused, mouth open. At least the tears had dried up.

“In the phone call. From Miss Charlotte. From California.” He kept his breathing low and even. She would be hearing no human sound beyond that of his voice in the darkness.

“You spoke for ten minutes. What did she say?”

Silence. It wasn’t resistance, he knew. She was having problems marshaling her thoughts, recalling something that had happened over two months ago.

“Moira, me lass,” he said softly, in perfect imitation of an Irish-born SAS member he’d cross-trained with in Cheltenham, “we can’t be after helpin’ Miss Charlotte if we don’t know where she is, now, can we?”

She shook her head slowly, dilated eyes moving with the head.

“Now what did she say when she called?”

“She said—” Moira’s eyes screwed shut with concentration. “She said that she was all right, that she would come home as soon as she could. She said not to pay attention to what I was reading in the newspapers.” Tears started flowing again. “As if I would. As if I could believe she’d kill her da
.
As if I could believe Miss Charlotte could kill
anyone
. . .”

This wasn’t going anywhere. Barrett put more Ireland into his voice. “What else? Think, me girl. What else did she say? We have to help her now, don’t we?” Time to go. He was going to have to end this—and her—in another five minutes. “Don’t you want to help Miss Charlotte?”

Moira nodded solemnly, cheeks wet. “She said to stay on at the Court Mansion, to use the housekeeping money from the account. She said the account would keep for a long time. There’s a standing order from the account to pay my salary. She said that the money she sent would cover the loss of the Tahoe but that I could report it as stolen and collect on the insurance. She said that would be my yearly bonus if—if she couldn’t make it back by Christmas. Miss Charlotte always gives me a yearly bonus come Christmastime, bless her soul. And she said to report my passport as stolen, too.”

The tingling sensation he always got when he crossed the prey’s trail coursed through Barrett’s lean body. People were always true to themselves,
especially
on the run. Charlotte Court saw herself as Lady of the Manor, kind to the lower orders, good to the servants. She’d taken the extra time in Chicago to send her maid money for the SUV she’d disappeared with. Then from California she called the maid to say that she could report the van as stolen and collect on the insurance money. That was insane. She’d put herself unnecessarily at risk to do right by her maid.

Allowing the vehicle she was traveling in to be reported as stolen meant one of two things—either she was going to buy or steal another vehicle, or she was going to travel out of the country with it, where it wouldn’t be in a stolen vehicles database. Barrett ruled out stealing another car. Charlotte Court wouldn’t know how to do it, and she wouldn’t know how to find the kind of person who could. And as for buying another one—

she wouldn’t know how to get around the paperwork involved.

No. She hadn’t acquired another vehicle. Every instinct he had, honed from years of tracking people, said that Charlotte Court had headed out of the country. The woman who loved France and Italy, who had trekked across the States to San Diego, had headed south, into Mexico. He’d bet his rifle on it.

San Luis

April 27

The bullet sliced the top off the cactus, which would have been good if Charlotte had been aiming at it. The Corona bottle on the boulder was, however, unfortunately still intact. They were five miles out of San Luis, on a long flat stretch of desert both Matt and Lenny used for target practice. The ground in a ten-yard radius was littered with shell casings. Charlotte was holding her weapon as if it were a rattlesnake and while pulling the trigger, she’d definitely closed both eyes. Matt was really grateful the weapon was pointed away from him. “Have to keep your eyes open to hit anything, honey,” Matt said mildly. “Let’s try it again, okay?”

So far, she’d hit air, a couple of rocks, air, a cactus, and air, but no bottle. They’d been shooting for an hour.

She shot him a haughty look and lifted once more the Tomcat Matt had borrowed from Lenny.

“Remember what I said about sighting. Now, take a deep breath and pull the trigger halfway through exhaling.” Matt had talked shooting theory all through breakfast, and on the way out, even though he knew he was boring her. No matter, something would stick.

“Sounds like you’re correcting my golf swing,” she grumbled.

“It’s a little more serious than that.” Matt looked down at her, into that beautiful face, and felt it all over again—rage that someone would want to harm her and fear that he could lose her. What would motivate her to do better? “Listen, honey. I want you to imagine that you’re back wherever you came from. And when this guy comes after you, you’ve got this gun in your hand. He knows he’s going to win because he’s armed, and you’re not. However unfair it is, he can do what he wants and get away with it. What he wants is to kill you. He’s moving toward you, he’s raising his gun, and so you—”

Matt didn’t finish the sentence. He was interrupted by the sharp report of the Tomcat, immediately followed by the high
ping!
of a bullet smashing a long-neck. “Take that, you son of a bitch,” Charlotte whispered.

Well,
that
worked. Matt touched her lightly on the shoulder. Her muscles were tense.

“Great shot, honey. Now remember the feel of that in your hands. Remember it carefully, because right then, you shot what you were aiming at. Your hand and your eyes were working together, and that’s the only way you’re going to learn how to shoot.”

Inside, he was exulting. It might have been a fluke, and it might not. Charlotte was an artist, a good one. She had superb hand-eye coordination, and if she wanted to, she could probably become a good shooter.

He’d found the key to motivating Charlotte, and it was an important part of a warrior’s emotional arsenal, too. The thirst for revenge.

Couldn’t beat it.

Warrenton

April 27

It was time—0300.

Barrett uncoiled from his crouch and went to collect his tools. Moira was still babbling, but she was saying the same things, over and over. She’d told him everything she could. Now it was time for her body to tell another story.

Wherever she was, Barrett was betting that Charlotte Court was keeping in touch with events in Warrenton, either from a connection in her new home or via an Internet café. The
Warrenton Courier
was published daily online. Court would be following what was going on back home.

Since nothing was going on, she was starting to feel safe, wherever she was. Charlotte Court and the murder of Philip Court and Imelda Delgado was old news, seventy news cycles ago. He’d Googled it, and there’d been no mention of Charlotte Court in the press for two weeks, and then only in an article on the historic homes of upstate New York. She’d be feeling complacent and secure, the heat off.

Barrett needed the heat back on. He wanted Charlotte rattled and scared, jolted out of her complacency. He knew exactly what would make her panic.

Each job needed a different tool kit. This one consisted of a preloaded syringe, a brandnew ball-peen hammer, a brand-new ka-bar, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. Except for the syringe, it was exactly what he imagined some brutal thug in a Soviet prison using. Barrett was no brutal thug, and he took no enjoyment from what he was about to do. It was simply necessary, and that was that.

He walked slowly out of the darkness and into the spotlight. Moira stared up at him numbly, finally able to see his face. It didn’t matter. She’d never be able to talk again. Barrett held up the syringe, pushing the plunger until a drop of clear liquid gleamed at the tip of the needle. There were things he had to do to her body that would have given a sadistic man pleasure. Moira’s body had to show signs of torture. Barrett was fully capable of inflicting wounds efficiently and emotionlessly, but he didn’t get his rocks off on it, as others did. For this job, he preferred for Moira to be out. A conscious woman feeling brutal pain would flinch and wriggle and make annoying sounds under torture. He’d waste time trying to get her to hold still.

Barrett had contemplated killing her and inflicting damage on the body, but the body would definitely be autopsied and postmortem wounds are easy to detect.

“Open your mouth and say ah, Moira,” he commanded softly.

She blinked and obeyed, opening her mouth wide. Gripping her jaw tightly at the hinges so she couldn’t close her mouth, he lifted her tongue with his left index finger and plunged the needle full of anesthetic into the lingual vein, one of the few places a pathologist wouldn’t think to look for a needle mark. She struggled ineffectually, making shocked, mewling noises, eyes wide open and fixed on his face. He easily held her jaw open until the syringe emptied, then stepped back and waited.

She was crying again, in great gulping sobs, tears streaming down her face. The tears would leave a salt residue on her cheeks, which the pathologist would pick up on. Great. Barrett watched as her breathing slowed, the sobs dying down, right on schedule. In ten minutes, she was breathing deeply, head lolling forward, blonde hair falling over her face. She was unconscious.