0758215630 (R) (21 page)

“Yes.”

“The situation has grown more complicated. There are other people looking for the Worth woman—her daughter and her son.” She stopped. “While I’m happy to continue my surveillance work and assist you in any way you wish— for the appropriate payment, of course—I thought you should know about their, uh, entry into the situation, as it might require you to take a more direct involvement from this point on.”

“Will you hold for me, please?”

“Certainly.”

Q hit the hold button on his phone, set the receiver down, and stood. He went to the window and looked out over his perfectly manicured lawn and sun-drenched gardens. He considered the added number of people now in the equation. Every one of them upping the stakes, increasing the risk. Now, even Mercy knew more than was appropriate. So many loose ends.

His direct involvement
?

That’s what she was suggesting—and exactly what he’d been contemplating since Giselle had walked out on him.

He rubbed at his throat, again turned the idea over in his mind, too aware of the adrenaline now releasing into his bloodstream and the danger it posed to logical thinking.

Yes. It was necessary.

It was illogical to hire an outsider at this point, perhaps another henchman the likes of Castor, whose swath of carnage had done nothing but make a serious situation dire, when he himself was expert in such matters.

With Giselle away for the next few days and only one pressing business matter he could easily deal with tonight, there was no reason for him not to take matters into his own hands—and many reasons why he should.

He’d known it would come to this, the need for him to act on his own behalf—as he had so many years ago. Back then he’d needed a stake, seed money on which to build his fortune. He’d found that stake in drugs and murder, and he’d taken himself from destitute to well beyond solvent in less than five years.

Q closed his eyes, filled his lungs.

Back then he’d lived by his brains, brawn, and gritty perseverance—and he’d never been more alive. Felt more vital. Finding the child Victor wanted and delivering her to him was to be his final piece of business. Two days after its completion, believing the operation successful, he’d left the Seattle streets, laundered his money, and become fully legitimate. Almost. He’d had nothing. Now he had everything.

Again he looked out over his serene gardens, his ideal life—the absolute quietude.

I want more. I want to feel again.

And while he might be in the clutches of misplaced nostalgia, he was sure of one thing: There was no one better able to look after his interests than himself. He could do it. And he would do it. Mercilessly and ruthlessly. That he would enjoy it was an added bonus.

He went back to his desk, picked up the phone. “I’ll be in Las Vegas tonight. We’ll talk more then.”

“Good. But you should know, Mister Braid, that Charity and I
are
experienced in termination work.”

She was smart, this Mercy woman. Considering he hadn’t said a word about “terminations.”

“I know.”

“From Victor?”

“Yes.” Something inside him settled. If the mysterious Mercy, a woman that like her sister Charity he knew only by reputation and a numbered account into which he’d deposited some very sizable amounts, proved to be as interesting as she sounded, he would include her—and perhaps bed her. It would take his mind off Giselle. “As I said, I’ll be in Las Vegas tonight. I’ll call you with the time of my arrival after I’ve talked to my pilot.”

“I’ll be waiting, Mister Braid. I’m looking forward to our meeting.” Her voice, unless he’d imagined it, had deepened, turned intimate. Intriguing—and vaguely familiar.

“While you’re waiting,” he said, “make yourself useful, Mercy, and find out everything you can about the Worth woman and that town you mentioned, Tofino. If she has a connection to it, I’ll want to know who or what it is.”

“Of course. Anything you want, Mister Braid.” Again the voice was smoky, vaguely sexual.

“One more thing.” He put the brief sexual tug aside. Business first. Business always first.

“Yes?”

“The others you mentioned? Her son and daughter. Get their names, please.”

“I already have them, Joe and April Worth.”

Q closed his eyes, the name April tumbling through his mind.
April. . .

For the first time in days, his smile was real. Now he remembered more than her green eyes, now he remembered
her.

April girl.
Her stubborn little face, how she’d screamed, bit his hand, kicked his ankle—before he’d tied her to a chair in Victor’s den. She’d toppled the chair, he remembered, and when he’d set it to rights, she’d spit at him. All the time tears streaming down her grimy little face.

“You’re certain these two people are following Worth to this place, this Tofino?” He’d quickly considered his options. Now that he knew precisely who to look for, he may not need Mercy and her sister. Perhaps he could do the job alone. Although it had been a long time—and if there were several people in the way . . .

“They seem to be working on the same information we have. So yes, I’d say it’s a strong possibility that if they’re not there already, they’re on their way.”

“Find out exactly where they are, and keep me apprised of their whereabouts. I’ll see you in a few hours.” He hung up the phone.

He picked up a Montblanc pen, tapped it on the desk, and mentally reviewed the latest data: The three of them, Worth, her son, and the April girl together. Yes, that would work. Work rather well. All of the targets gathered in one acceptably remote location—in another country. Tidy. And very doable with a limited chance of witnesses—except Mercy and her sister, of course. He’d have to take care of them in due time. But for now, things looked positive. The precision of it—the exactitude—very nearly warmed his heart.

What was that expression? As easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Quinlan Braid smiled again.

It was the second time today.

Chapter 20

Phylly, after a winding drive through mountains, on a road bordered by streams, rocky cliffs, and friggin’ trees—glowering trees, tall enough to intimidate the nastiest choreographer she’d ever worked with—finally came to a crossroad. Simple enough—to the left, the last gas station attendant had told her, was a place with the unlikely name of Ucluelet and to the right was Tofino.

Right, it was.

More trees, endless trees. Only now, this close to the ocean, the winds off the Pacific mauled them, making them bend and thrash their branches around like boneless arms—as if they were pissed off at being disturbed. Even though the sun was still fairly high, the tall trees were a wall of dark on the western side, their shadows sprawling across the road ahead of her.

It creeped her out. God, when the sun really went to bed for the night, this place would be black as a coal mine. More and more she felt, not as though she’d driven a car to another part of North America, but that she’d boarded a spaceship to another planet. That was homesickness, no doubt about it, making her feel so weird and dislocated. And she missed Cornie something awful.

Shaking off her sad and useless thoughts, she sped up, knowing she had another half hour of driving at best. Which meant she was almost at Noah’s place, a realization that put her brain into meltdown and made her stomach a bag of thumbtacks—all of them electrified.

It was going to take every last vestige of her confidence to face Noah again, plus whatever acting talent she had—not much—to even look as though she were in her right mind. Taking a drink of water from the bottle in the cup holder, she reminded herself she had it all figured out. If Noah was married, she’d do the old-friend-passing-through routine. She looked out the window at the unfamiliar landscape, the darkening trees, heard the low howl of the wind. Jesus, she’d have to be Meryl Streep to carry that one off.

God, please don’t be married, Noah. I just need a soft place to fall—just for a while. I’ll figure out how to fix things, then it’s back to Vegas where I belong. A Vegas without Rusty . . .

She took another drink of water, refused to cry. Rusty would hate the idea of her wasting that fresh makeup job she’d done in the restaurant ladies’ room a while back— and she’d really hate the tears.
I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, baby.

She sniffled and forced herself back to thinking about Noah, what she’d do if he
wasn’t
married which, while it might be the best-case scenario, also set her nerves on high-speed jangle. No matter how many lotions and potions she’d used against Mother Time—the bitch—it had been over fifteen years. She was definitely frayed around the jaw-line. Not that she’d come planning a seduction. No way. All she wanted from Noah was a safe hidey-hole until she could figure out what to do about Henry Castor. She and Noah had parted friends, and it was a friend she needed. And you didn’t mess with friends. You were straight with them—as straight as you could be.

Twenty minutes later, she stopped in Tofino and peered out the car window. Christ, this wasn’t a small town, it was a village. She spotted a gas station which she hoped would provide the quickest route to his address. If she could’ve done that Google thing Cornie was so good at before heading out on this insane safari, she’d already have it. But even if she could commune with a computer—which she couldn’t—she hadn’t laid eyes on one since scurrying out of her apartment like a rat given advance notice of pest control.

The lone gas attendant was reading some kind of fancy comic book. “Excuse me,” she said.

He looked up—and up. His eyes widened, and if he had a tongue, he was having a hard time working it.

Maybe she was overdressed for this tree garden. But, damn it, she’d tried to dress down: Jeans with a single line of studs down the sides, gold mesh belt, a leather jacket with faux leopard skin lapels. But other than her diamond studs—which she
never
removed—she wore zero jewelry and a plain beige Tee. Pretty simple really. But her height and platinum hair she couldn’t do anything about. Although maybe the hair—her trademark—would have to go. She didn’t want to think about that.

She glanced at his name patch. “You do have a functioning voice box, don’t you?” She said with a smile. Didn’t want to insult the natives.

“Yeah . . . sure, uh, I’m Mike, what can I do for you?” He coughed, came around the counter, where his eyes immediately dropped to her feet and stayed there. Barely a three-inch gold heel, and he was acting as if he’d never seen feet before.

“I need some directions—but I’m not sure of the address.”

He pulled his gaze from her feet and looked up at her. “Who are you looking for? This is a pretty small place, I might know them.”

“Noah Bristol?”

“Oh, sure, I know Noah.” He summoned up a shy kind of smile. “Nice guy. Writes books and stuff.”

That was news to Phylly. She smiled back. “Really, and what’s his wife doing these days. God . . . I’ve forgotten her name.” She feigned a frown.

“I don’t remember. She’s been gone maybe five years now.”

“Gone,” she repeated. “Not as in dead, I hope.” Her heart tripped.
Oh, Noah . . .

“No, as in divorced. She didn’t much like it here, I guess.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Yes!
She set aside her shaft of guilt over her gleeful reaction, and asked, “But I’d appreciate that address—and maybe some directions?”

He went back behind the counter, reached under it, and pulled out a map. “Sure, but . . .” He still held the map.

“Uh-huh?”

“You’ve got to hear this all the time”—he turned a flamingo pink—“but you really are beautiful.”

God, she pinked right along with him. She had her share of compliments in her time, but for some reason this one broadsided her. Hell, maybe when a woman was staring into the jaws of serious middle-age, she got a little desperate—had to be when a compliment from a twenty-something gas jockey in Road’s End, Canada, made a woman feel like she was fresh from an Extreme Makeover. “Thanks,” she finally mumbled, waiting for the directions he’d promised. But it seemed he’d used his current supply of words on the compliment. All he did was look at her. “Uh . . . Mike, that address and directions?”

“Oh, yeah.” His blush did an encore as he flattened the map over the countertop. It was one of those with cartoons and ads they used as placemats in small-town diners.

Phyllis listened attentively—the last thing she wanted to do was get lost—and from what the boy was telling her, Noah was quite a way off the diner map grid.

A half hour and one wrong turn later, she found Noah’s property. There was no gate, just a lamp sitting on top of a stone pillar, its neck curving to light one word: Bristol. Thirty acres, Mike had said, five of them facing the ocean. The road in, too long to be called a driveway, was gravel and ran a close parallel to the shoreline.

It was, of course, lined on both sides by trees. She took a deep breath, then another. Neither stopped her from shaking.

This was it.

Phylly drove the twisting length of the driveway, and concentrated on the uneven road. The shafts of brilliance from the sun on her left turned the road into a light show. Blinding when it pierced through open slots between the trees, black where a tough grove of them banded together to block its way.

The road started to climb. Not long after that, she saw it.

Noah’s house perched like a glass nest on a cliff overlooking the ocean. You could see into it, and you could see through it. Its deck was massive, prow-shaped with a point that jutted from the land the house sat on and over the cliff’s edge like a stubborn jaw. One side of the house, where the sun reflected itself on walls of glass, was drenched in gold; the other side, all beams and angles, rested in shadow. Behind the house was a wall of forest. If there were any lights on, she couldn’t make them out. But then, any kind of man-made light would wash out under the glare coming from the full sun, descending now to meet a glowing, sun-scorched ocean. A set of wide stairs led up to the house level.