Second Shot (15 page)

“Yes,” Lucas said bluntly

There was a long pause. The man, Felix, raised his eyebrows slightly and craned his neck forwards, as if straining to hear. Eventually, he asked softly, “So, aren’t you going to introduce me to these lovely ladies?”

Lucas flushed as his lack of manners was rammed down his throat. I saw his eyes flick to Simone and realized she was the one whose good opinion he wanted to maintain.

“Of course,” he said. “This is, er, my daughter, Simone, and her friend Charlie Fox.”

The stranger’s eyebrows, if anything, climbed a little higher at this news. He directed a piercing stare first in Simone’s direction, then in mine. And finally he looked at Ella, who was gazing at him without apparent concern and chewing artlessly with her mouth open. “Well, well,” he murmured. “Is it really?”

“And this is Felix Vaughan,” Lucas said, with obvious reluctance. “A business colleague of mine.”

“Oh, but surely we know each other better than that, Lucas?” Felix Vaughan said in that soft deep voice of his. “Charmed, my dear,” he added, shaking Simone’s reluctantly proffered hand, although his eyes still seemed fixed on Ella. He held on to Simone for just a little too long. I saw the way Simone’s shoulder flexed as she tried to withdraw and was unable to, and rose from my seat.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Vaughan,” I said, offering him my hand instead.

Vaughan’s eyes glittered as they flickered over me very deliberately, insulting in their calculation. Eventually, he released Simone’s hand in such a way that he managed to make it look like she’d been the one who’d been prolonging the contact. Simone winced and massaged her crushed fingers.

Vaughan liked that. He was smiling as he reached for me, but as our hands came together I jammed mine forwards, so the fleshy vee between my thumb and forefinger was hard up against Vaughan’s before he had the chance to close his fingers around my knuckles. I’d dealt with too many macho squaddies whose first instinct was to prove how weak and feeble female soldiers really were. The bone-crushing handshake was usually their opening salvo, in my experience, and I’d learned a long time ago how to counteract it.

As it was, I saw Vaughan’s eyes widen slightly, then narrow as he tried to apply pressure and found himself outmaneuvered. I offered him a bland smile and said nothing. After a few moments he got bored with the game and let my hand drop.

“So, what’s your story, Miss Fox?” he asked, casually taking Lucas’s chair at the head of the table. Lucas, I noticed, had moved to stand behind his wife and was gripping the back of her chair with both hands.

“I look after Ella,” I said, level, letting Vaughan know that if he was determined to cause trouble for her, he’d have to go through me.

“She’s the nanny, Felix,” Rosalind put in quickly.

“Ah yes, of course —the child,” Vaughan said, turning his attention back to Ella. The way he said it made all the hairs come up on the back of my neck. “So you’re Ella, are you, my dear?”

Ella, completely unafraid, shoveled in another mouthful of mashed potato and said, through it, “Yes, and I’m four.”

“Are you really? And is this your mommy, Ella?” Vaughan asked, inclining his head towards Simone. He moved with a kind of controlled violence, as if his instinct was to lash out and he had to make a conscious effort to keep himself in check at all times.

Ella chewed thoughtfully for a long moment, then nodded vigorously, and I could have sworn I heard the hiss of collected breath escaping from Lucas. Simone edged her chair closer to her daughter’s and glared at Vaughan. I saw her flick a reproachful little glance in Lucas’s direction, as though she couldn’t understand why her father was letting this man torment her. Come to that, I couldn’t understand it, either, but I was prepared to let it ride a little longer, just to find out.

“It’s strange that you’ve never mentioned having children before,” Vaughan said directly to Rosalind, and a faint edge of color crept along her pale cheekbones.

“We made the decision not to have any children,” she said stiffly. “Si-mone is Greg’s daughter from his first marriage. This is the first time I’ve met her.”

“Ah, I see,” Vaughan said carefully, his pale eyes ranging over Rosalind and Lucas. “How fortuitous that she should decide to reacquaint herself with her father now, don’t you think?”

“I live in England,” Simone put in, her voice puzzled but growing more defensive by the minute.

“Really?” The raised eyebrow and the faintly sardonic tone sent a flush across her cheeks. “He’s never mentioned you.”

“We lost touch after my parents divorced,” Simone snapped. “I’ve been looking for him for years.”

“Is that so?” Vaughan said, his voice entirely neutral. “And can you be quite sure that you’ve found him now?”

I heard a gasp that might have come from Rosalind, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off Vaughan long enough to make sure. Simone’s flush went into instant decline, leaving her pale. Her lips thinned. “We’ll be having DNA tests to confirm it,” she said, “if it’s any business of yours.”

For a moment Vaughan said nothing. Then he nodded once, almost to himself, and smiled. “Excellent,” he said. “And—always assuming the tests turn out to everyone’s satisfaction, of course—how long do you plan to stay?”

I’d had enough of this interrogation. “We haven’t made any definite plans,” I put in before she had time to answer.

Simone frowned. “Is it any surprise that, having found him again, I want to spend a little time and get to know him?” she said, smiling hesitantly in Lucas’s direction. Lucas returned the smile, little more than a twitch of his lips.

“Of course not,” Vaughan said. He rose, started to button his jacket and then stilled, adding weight to his words even though they were delivered in a chillingly pleasant tone. “But you’ve come at a busy time for your father, my dear. Perhaps it might be best if you didn’t plan to stay long.”

OK, that’s enough.

I got to my feet, much the same way Vaughan had done. Slowly, deliberately Vaughan had the best part of a foot on me and he utilized all of it now, craning his neck, making a big thing out of just how far he had to look down to meet my eyes.

“With respect, Mr. Vaughan,” I said, always a nice phrase to use when you intend to speak without any, “the decision on just how long Simone remains a guest here is down to Mr. and Mrs. Lucas, not you. And her own choice, of course.” I kept my voice light and my face carefully blank. “I would hate to think she feels under any kind of pressure to leave before she’s ready.”

Vaughan blinked, just once, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. The silence stretched one second into another.

“Yes,” he murmured at last, inclining his head. “Yes, I guess you would.”

He nodded to Simone, more of a bow. “Ladies,” he said, coldly polite. His eyes slid across to mine. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other.” He turned to the couple stationed tensely at the other end of the table and his face tightened almost imperceptibly. “Don’t trouble yourselves,” he said. “I can see myself out.”

Nevertheless, despite his words both Rosalind and Lucas followed Vaughan to the door, as if to make sure he really was leaving. While they were out of earshot Simone leaned across to me, her face fearful.

“Who
was
that guy?” she asked. “He gave me the creeps.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, grim. “He did the same to me.”

Simone raised her eyebrows. “You think?” she said quietly. “I’d say it was the other way around.”

I glanced at her in surprise, but before I could question her last remark the couple returned. Lucas suddenly looked his age. He sank into his chair with a brief smile to Simone that was supposed to be reassuring but didn’t quite make it far enough. “I’m sorry about that,” he said, running a restless hand through his short beard. “I guess Felix’s manner can be a little abrasive if you aren’t used to the way of him.”

“Abrasive’ is putting it mildly,” I agreed, not inclined to let either of them off the hook too easily. It was the way they’d stood by and let Simone and her daughter be intimidated that I took issue with, more than anything Vaughan himself had done.

“He didn’t seem to faze you, though, Charlie,” Rosalind said, and I realized she’d been giving me a coolly appraising stare from the other end of the table.

“Maybe I just don’t like being bullied,” I said, matching my tone to hers.

“Well, Felix certainly didn’t manage that with you,” Lucas said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him back down quite like that before. You must have a knack with people, huh?”

“Oh, Greg, for heaven’s sake!” Rosalind bit out. “Can’t you tell that Charlie isn’t simply Ella’s nanny?”

Lucas stared between the two of us, taking in Simone’s shocked and ever so slightly guilty expression on the way “She isn’t?”

“Of course not,” Rosalind snapped. Her eyes swung to me and there was a strange mixture of anger and something else that could even have been desperation there. “Isn’t it obvious? She’s Simone’s bodyguard.”

Lucas’s gaze rounded on me. ‘A bodyguard?” he repeated blankly. He made a noise that might have been intended as a laugh, strangled at birth when his wife showed no signs of matching his amusement. “I mean, she’s just… are you sure?”

“Oh yes, quite sure,” Rosalind said, more quietly now, her voice almost silky. “Let me guess —are you an ex-cop? Or army?” She must have seen something in my face. “Army then,” she said, with a certain satisfaction at her own accuracy. Her eyes narrowed. “Not an easy job for a woman to get into. You must be pretty good, to have picked up that kinda work.”

“Yes,” I said, returning her stare with icy calm. “I am.”

I
‘m beginning to have some serious doubts about Greg Lucas,” I said. It was the morning after Vaughan’s visit and I was sitting in my room, on the bed, watching the icicles hanging from the guttering outside the window, melting gently like they were weeping. Simone and Ella were downstairs and, much as I didn’t like to leave them unaccompanied with Rosalind and Lucas, I felt I needed to bring Sean up to speed.

“Why?” Sean’s question was put in that calm, neutral voice of his.

I gave it a moment’s further consideration. “He just doesn’t give off the right vibes,” I said at last, knowing he wouldn’t dismiss my answer out of hand. “The training he had, the amount of time he spent in the Regiment …” I let my voice trail off, shook my head even though I knew he couldn’t see me do it. “I don’t know. He just doesn’t move right, doesn’t have the right instincts. I know he’s been out for a long time, but I don’t think you ever really lose that.”

“You could be right,” Sean said. “And I don’t think the Lucas we’ve been finding out about would stand there and let this guy Vaughan walk all over him, like you said.”

“No,” I agreed. I twisted away from the window, back towards the room’s interior, which was almost gloomy by comparison. Hannibal the psycho teddy bear watched me with a glassy stare from the chair across the other side of the room. I switched my gaze back to the window again.

“Funny, isn’t it?” I said. “From the information that Neagley gave me, and what you’ve found out since, Felix Vaughan fits the role of Simone’s missing father much better than Lucas does.”

“Now there’s a thought.”

“I know, but Vaughan’s certainly got that nasty streak in him, and I should imagine there’s quite a temper lurking beneath the surface. And although he didn’t say anything, he made me for what I was, almost as soon as we met.”

“Whereas Lucas didn’t.”

“No,” I said. “And I’m not that good an actress. He should have cottoned on. Maybe not in Boston, but when he nearly left me behind on the way up here I thought I gave myself away big-time then.”

“He could just have been playing with you,” Sean said. ‘Apparently he was noted for playing mind games with trainees, and they pulled him out of any involvement with Selection after he blindfolded and handcuffed two guys and pushed them out of a helicopter during a Resistance-to-interrogation exercise.”

“Hedidwto?”

“Yeah, well, they’d stopped us doing that by the time you were on the course,” Sean said with a hint of a smile in his voice. “And in Lucas’s case they were only about six feet off the ground, but one of them landed badly and broke his collarbone. Even back then, when there was less of a stink about training methods than there is these days, there was hell to pay.”

“So,” I said, my voice tinged with sourness, “should the opportunity arise to get into a helicopter with him, remind me not to sit next to the door.”

“The other things that came up were that he was very good at hand-to-hand, and an excellent shot with a pistol.”

“Oh great,” I said. “What am I supposed to do to find out for definite if he is who he says he is, then—pick a fight with him?”

Sean laughed softly. “I know who I’d put my money on,” he said.

W
hen I walked down the staircase I heard the quiet murmur of voices behind the door to the study. Simone and Lucas. I thought briefly about knocking but couldn’t think of a good excuse to do so other than nosiness. For a moment I was tempted to use that one anyway, but I didn’t.

So far, Lucas and his wife had been somewhat nonplussed by the news of my real role in Simone’s life. Simone had explained my presence by telling them about her problems with an ex-boyfriend—being careful not to name Matt, or admit he was Ella’s father. She also left out all mention of the fact that most of her problems had started the moment she became a millionairess.

Even I have to admit the way she put it, it sounded reasonably convincing. She’d been stalked, she’d said, and Ella had been scared by the whole thing. The promising reports from the private eye, O’Halloran, had convinced Simone to fly out to Boston and I’d come along to make sure the boyfriend didn’t follow her over here and cause more trouble.

Yes, there were holes in the story if you looked closely enough, but fortunately neither of them seemed inclined to do that. Interestingly, they
had
asked if she had any hopes for a reconciliation with her ex. When she said a categorical no—even going so far as to hint he was into drugs —they’d lost a lot of the stiffness in their attitude, become friendly again. I thought I’d even caught a hint of relief in them, but I could have been wrong about that.