Trial Run (33 page)

T
hey stopped at a pharmacy. Though Joss wanted to handle it, Consuela took Charlie's money and went in alone. She returned ten minutes later, carrying two bulging plastic bags. As Trent drove them inland, Joss handed Charlie a bottle of Advil and a liter of water. Then Charlie lay on the truck floorboards and Joss went to work. He did a thorough job of swabbing out the wound, used three bottles of the spray intended for children's sore throat as a local anesthetic, then stitched Charlie shut. “It ain't gonna be the most perfect job. But it's not like you don't already got your share of scars.”

Charlie's back already felt better. The piercing burn was diminished to the constant ache of a healing wound. “You're Ranger?”

“Naw, man, I don't got no time for those fidos. Marines all the way, baby.” Joss padded the area with alcohol and taped a field dressing into place. “You're good to go. But you want some advice, I'd say let somebody else take the next punch.”

Charlie rose to his feet and shrugged. The stitches and field dressing
shifted comfortably. Now if only they could do something for the wound to his heart. “Thanks, Joss.”

“Okay, now it's my turn.” Consuela tried to cover her own distress with a scowl. “Hold still.” She used a bottle of hand disinfectant and cotton swabbing to clean Elene's blood from Charlie's face and arms. Then she handed him the second shopping bag. “It's not what you'd call high fashion. But it's clean and it ought to fit.”

“It's great.” Charlie stripped off his dusty and bloodied clothes and put on the Santa Barbara T-shirt and sweatpants. Then he eased himself down beside the trussed Latino driver. “Consuela, could you give me a hand here?”

“No problem.” She moved back beside him, taking care not to touch the still-wet bloodstain by the rear doors. The other passengers watched them with the slack expressions of bomb victims. Which, Charlie supposed, they were.

Charlie cut the tape away from the driver's wrists and ankles. Then he called through the sliding front window, “Trent!”

“Yes?”

“You still got our money belt?”

“Around my waist.”

“Pass it back, will you?”

When the nylon belt made its way back, Charlie unzipped one compartment and held the cash before the driver's face. Then he pulled the tape from the man's mouth.

The driver said, “Please,
señor
, I want no trouble.”

“I want to apologize for what's happened. And I'm going to make it up to you.” Charlie counted out fifty hundreds. “Here's five thousand dollars.”

“Please, there is no need—”

“Is this your truck?”

“Yes. Is mine. And my brother's.”

“So yours is a family business.”

The driver's T-shirt was bound to his body by fresh sweat. “Yes, is true. Nine of us.”

“They must be worried. Do you have a phone?”

Through the sliding window, the young man in the passenger seat said, “There's one here on the dash. It's rung maybe half a dozen times since we started off.”

Charlie asked the driver, “Will you call them and say you're all right? Tell them you will be coming home a little late, you've had an unexpected job. But you're fine, and you'll be done around midnight. Until then, they shouldn't expect to hear from you.”

“Of course,
señor
.” The driver accepted the phone, but his trembling fingers made a hash of dialing. He gripped the phone with both hands, hung his head, and huffed a fearful moan.

Consuela touched his arm and spoke to him in Spanish. The driver did not look up, but he managed to dial the number and speak to someone. Consuela nodded to Charlie.

When the driver cut the connection, Charlie said, “I'd like to offer you another five thousand. To vanish for the rest of the day.”

The driver lifted his head. “Please?”

Charlie waited while Consuela translated. The driver's gaze shifted back and forth between them. Clearly the man was having difficulty understanding what he was hearing. Charlie went on, “We're going to be getting out in a little while. All I want you to do is hold off contacting anyone else until tonight. Drive somewhere and park. Then at midnight, you go home. Do anything you like. Tell anyone anything. Or not. It's up to you.”

The driver's forehead creased. “
Señor
, excuse me, but the business where you just left. There are security cameras everywhere.”

“They're all out,” Charlie replied. “Nobody saw anything.”

The driver looked from one face to another. “Of this you are certain?”

Trent called back, “They didn't see a thing. Not today.”

“As far as they are concerned, you didn't show up today. If you want to change that, fine.” Charlie stuffed the ten thousand dollars into the driver's pocket. “It's your choice.”

A
s Trent took the highway into the Central Valley, Charlie reached out to contacts he had developed over the years. They arrived at the Bakersfield airstrip just after two. The plane was waiting for them. As they crossed the lot, the man leaning against the stairs called over, “One of you named Hazard?”

“That's me.”

“A buddy said you needed a lift to Albuquerque.”

“That's an affirm.”

“I'm your man. I didn't hear how many of you there'd be.”

“We are . . .”

“Eleven,” Joss said, joining them.

The pilot was about what Charlie had expected, an overweight vet with solid arms, a few faded tattoos, and a moustache he took great pride in cultivating. His pale blue eyes twinkled in the fierce inland sun but showed no humor. Only steel.

Joss turned and surveyed the perimeter. “Is it always this quiet?”

“Pretty much.” The pilot surveyed the group straggling toward his plane. “Looks to me like your crew's seen enough action for one day.”

“Joss, why don't you go help them load up.” The plane was a twin-engine King turboprop, a common workhorse among independent pilots. “Maybe you and I should talk business.”

“Sure thing.” But the pilot hung back far enough to survey Charlie's wound and announce, “You're leaking.”

“I'm okay.” Actually, his back had started protesting against the jouncing ride an hour earlier. Charlie's head swam from the Advils he had swallowed. But the wound hurt enough to shout through. He wanted to get the business done now in case he fogged out later. “Our mutual friend told me a price, but I want to make sure he got it right.”

“Eleven passengers to Albuquerque, you got any luggage?”

“No.”

“Call it fifteen. That sound right to you?”

Charlie continued to walk away from the plane and the group. “How does fifty sound?”

The man's grin held no more humor than his eyes. “Sounds like serious trouble.”

“I want you to fly us to a commercial strip near Nogales.”

“As in south of the border.”

“That's right.”

“And you don't got no ID's.”

“No. But I have a friend who runs a hotel. You get us down, he'll get us in.”

The pilot kicked at a pebble. “Trip like that, I'm thinking seventy-five would sound a whole lot better.”

Charlie knew he should argue the man down. But he just didn't have the strength. “Twenty now, the rest when we land.”

The pilot started to slap Charlie's back, then thought better of it. “Mister, you just bought yourself a taxi.”

S
hane awoke late to brilliant sunshine and the sound of her ringing phone. When she answered, Trent's words were, “We don't ever need to visit Nogales.”

When she came downstairs, Shane still floated from the joy of reconnecting with Trent. She entered the dining area to find Elizabeth and Gabriella seated together by the window. They stared out over the sunlit sea, talking with the quiet ease of old friends.

Shane said, “I just spoke to Trent.”

“And we have talked with Charlie. They will join us here in a few days, as soon as he manages to find everyone papers.” Gabriella smiled at her. “From the look on your face, I must assume your young man had something nice to tell you.”

She blushed her way into a seat. “I'm starving.”

“Please eat fast. The realtor meets us in half an hour to take us to our new home.”

Sea froth from the passing storm blanketed the beach and clung to the cliffs. They left the Guernsey harbor on a boat built to resemble an Edwardian launch, a broad-beamed wooden craft whose wheelhouse was a glass-sided affair lined with embroidered settees. An empty brass champagne bucket was fastened to the underside of the center table. A metal vase held six blooming roses. Shane felt as though she should be dressed in crinoline and bows.

The sea was a crystal blanket that lied in its promise of endless calm. Gulls sang a discordant shanty overhead as they sliced through the eight miles that separated Starn Island from Guernsey.

Their guide was a local realtor named Edith, a blowsy woman who accented her bulk with a pleated ankle-length dress and matching navy jacket. Once they were under way, she unpacked a wicker hamper and offered them cheese and grapes and biscuits and wine. “Starn Island is a place for growing myths. It's not much good for anything else. Even the sheep tend to bed down hungry. I probably shouldn't be telling you such things. But you'll find out soon enough.”

The front of the wheelhouse was made of doors that folded back in accordion style. The air was spiced with sunlight and seaweed and the water's biting chill.

The woman continued, “My granddad fished these waters since he was a nub. The island has known many names over the years. A number of the locals still call it Realta. My granddad prefers Reannig. Realta, Reannig, Starn, they're all old Gaelic, don't you know. They all mean heaven. Or star. The Gauls used the same word for both. The three words come from three different strands of Gaelic, or Celtic as it's known in these parts. The Celts once had kingdoms that ringed these waters.”

The closer they drew to the island, the punier it became. The sea looked immense, capable of swallowing it whole with one decent blow. Starn Island was dominated by a single peak that rose in emerald splendor from an atoll that scarcely seemed large enough to support its weight.

The island was rimmed by a beautiful beach. A few pleasure boats
were anchored along its length, visitors taking advantage of the calm day. Shane counted eleven parasols sprouting like seafront blossoms. Sheep dotted the hill's lower reaches. Stone cottages and one larger manor adorned the single expanse of flatland.

The realtor expertly maneuvered their vessel into the rock-walled harbor and docked by a barnacle-encrusted mooring. Otherwise the port was empty. Fishing nets dried from a collection of lobster cases. They alighted to the welcome of bleating sheep. Shane saw a few people emerge from the cottages to stare their way.

“Nowadays the only legends these residents care to speak of relate to the most recent occupants of Starn Manor.” The realtor waved carelessly at the locals, who replied by shrinking back inside their homes and shutting the doors. “The latest owner, one Horace Talburt, was rather fierce by all accounts. He renamed the island the Royal Seat of Talburtistan. After one particularly bad meal in La Rochelle, he officially declared war on France. Quite mad, of course. But a gentleman to his friends. The islanders adored him.”

The manor appeared genuinely decrepit. Its stone walls were liberally dosed with lichen. Several windows were cracked and patched with tape and wood. Three shutters hung like flags of defeat. The front steps were cracked and pitted. The door did its best to resist the realtor's efforts to unlock it, then shuddered and moaned as it opened. The interior was dim and dusty and smelled of mildew and cats.

The realtor led them from one massive room to another, her voice echoing off the high ceilings. “The island's history is really quite unique. In 1828, a sea captain and merchant prince performed a great service for King George the Fourth. In return, the king granted the captain the title Magistrate of Starn, along with sovereignty for two hundred years. The title passes with ownership. As does the royal charter, which has another seventeen years to run.”

The kitchen was in horrid condition. A stone Victorian sink was topped by a hand pump. A wood-burning stove dominated one wall. Opposite this rose a massive fireplace whose interior was shaped such
that two stone benches hugged the side walls. The benches were worn smooth with use.

The realtor led them back to the broad central staircase. “Upstairs you'll find twenty-six bedrooms and three baths, one for each floor. I suppose you want to inspect the lot?”

“Not really,” Gabriella replied. “Elizabeth?”

“I've seen enough.”

The realtor sighed with relief. “That suits me, I don't mind telling you. When I heard you were coming, I brought over the finest builder in the Channel Islands, Murphy's his name. He didn't like trusting those stairs any more than I did. Talburt didn't spend a quid on this place in thirty years.” She walked over and rapped her knuckles on the oak-paneled wall. “Still, the place is sound as a bell. But you don't need me telling you that everything needs redoing. Murphy's still busy preparing his quote, but he doubts you'll see a penny back from two million pounds.”

Gabriella walked over and took Elizabeth's hand. “What do you think?”

Elizabeth stared down at their intertwined fingers. “You're asking me?”

“Of course. It's your money.”

“No it's not.”

“Elizabeth. You brought us here. I need your wisdom.”

In the interior shadows, her white-blonde hair looked as ethereal as sea foam. “Everything so far has been totally on target. I say we go for it.”

Gabriella turned to Shane. “You agree?”

“We have a million dollars sitting in the bank,” Shane replied. “I need to get Trent's take on all this. But I think he'd say the money came to us for a reason.”

Gabriella turned to the woman and said, “We agree to the asking price. On one condition. We will make a down payment of five million dollars. We will make no further payment for five years. At which time the entire remaining sum will be due.”

The agent opened her mouth and shut it several times. “You have clearly given this some considerable thought.”

Gabriella glanced at Elizabeth. “You have no idea.”

“You received word?” Elizabeth asked.

Gabriella nodded. “I think the word you used was
image
.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“After Charlie rescued you?”

“Yes. It was waiting for me.”

The agent clearly was flummoxed by the exchange. She cleared her throat and asked, “You are saying the current owners must carry the note?”

“Yes. This is a firm offer and not open to negotiation.”

“Well, it's not my place to say, really. But if you want my opinion, given the current state of the market, they would be utter fools not to accept.”

“In that case, we'll take it.”