Lethal

He hadn’t elaborated, but she reasoned that he had mapped out several escape routes, planning against the time when he would need one. Like tonight.

They had waited in the stifling garage for more than an hour before he began giving her instructions. “Stay here,” he’d said. “Either I’ll come back within a few minutes after ten o’clock, or I won’t. If I don’t, drive away. Collect Emily and-”

“And what?” she’d asked when he stopped talking.

“Depends on you. You either call your father-in-law or Doral. You tell them where you are, and you get welcomed back into the fold. For a while anyway.”

“Or?”

“Or you keep driving and get as far away from here as this car will take you. Then you call Hamilton. You tell him you won’t come in to anybody except him. He’ll come pick you up.”

“Why does it have to be one way or the other?”

“Because I came to your house on Monday morning. I wish now that I hadn’t. But I did. So thanks to me, The Bookkeeper and everyone on his payroll will assume you know something. The good guys will assume the same. You’ve got to decide which team you’re on.”

She looked at him meaningfully. “I already have, haven’t I?”

He’d held her gaze, then said, “Okay, good. Listen up.” He gave her his cell phone, recited a telephone number, and told her to memorize it.

“Hamilton’s? Won’t it be on the phone?”

He shook his head. “I clear the log after each call. You should, too. Got the number?”

She had repeated it back to him.

Then he’d gone through it all again, stressing to her that she couldn’t trust anyone, except possibly Tori. “I got a good vibe from her. I don’t think she would betray you, but she might give you up unintentionally.”

“How?”

“These aren’t imbeciles we’re dealing with. Tori pegged it this morning. They’re gonna get suspicious when they discover she’s split. They’ll try to pick up her trail in the hope of it leading to you.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because that’s what I would do.”

She smiled faintly, but her mind was busy trying to assimilate everything he was telling her. “How do you think VanAllen will react when you show up in my place?”

“I have no idea. But I’ll find out soon enough. Remember, if I don’t come back within a reasonable period of time, that means things went to shit. Get away from here.”

When he’d said all he had to say, he got out of the car, rubbed his fingers over a spot in the garage floor where dirt had collected in a pool of motor oil, and then spread the gritty residue over his face and arms.

Then he’d gotten back into the car, checked the clip of his pistol to make certain there was a bullet in the chamber, and tucked it back into his waistband. He passed her Fred’s revolver. It was huge and heavy and sinister.

Coburn must have sensed her repugnance. “It sounds like a cannon and spits flames when it fires. You may not hit your target, but you’ll scare him. Don’t talk yourself out of pulling the trigger, or you’ll be dead. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Honor.”

She shifted her gaze from the pistol to him.

“You’ll be dead,” he repeated, emphasizing it.

She nodded.

“Don’t let your guard down for a second, for a nanosecond. Remember me telling you this. When you feel the safest, you’ll be the most vulnerable.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Good.” He took a deep breath, let it out in a gust, then said the words that Honor had dreaded to hear. “Time to go.”

“It’s not even nine o’clock yet.”

“If there are snipers in place-”

“Snipers?”

“-I need to know where they are.”

“You made it clear to Hamilton that VanAllen must come alone.”

“I wish VanAllen was the only one I had to worry about.”

He’d put his left foot on the garage floor and was about to step out of the car when he stopped. For several seconds he stayed like that, then he turned his head and looked over his shoulder at her.

“As kids go, yours is okay.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but found she couldn’t, and wound up merely nodding.

“And the football? It was a rotten thing to do. I’m sorry.”

Then he was gone, his shadow moving swiftly across the littered garage floor and slipping through a narrow opening in the corrugated tin door. The wheels squeaked on the rusty track as he rolled the door shut behind himself. She’d been left alone in the darkness.

And here she had remained for more than an hour now, sitting in a stolen car in an abandoned cavern of a building, her only company the mice she occasionally heard scratching through trash, her thoughts in turmoil.

She was worried about Emily and Tori. Coburn had allowed her to call the house. After she let the phone ring once and dialed again, Tori had answered, assured her that they had safely arrived and that all was well. But that had been hours ago. Something could have happened since then and she wouldn’t know about it.

She thought of Stan, and how worried for them he must be, and how bad she felt about turning his home inside out. For all his sternness, his affection for her and Emily was genuine. She didn’t doubt that for an instant.