Life or Death (43 page)

‘You can’t just drive away. You’re under arrest.’

‘Guess you’ll have to shoot me.’

Desiree runs her fingers through her hair, gingerly touching the bump on her head. Every fibre of her training tells her to arrest Moss Webster, but her gut is saying something different. In the previous twenty-four hours, somebody has broken into her place, knocked her unconscious and stolen her files. Her boss has lied to her and done nothing but try to bench her from the beginning or given her pointless errands to keep her out of the way. If she’s wrong about Audie Palmer it will be the end of her career. If she’s right she won’t be thanked. Every which way she loses.

Getting into the car, she buckles her seatbelt and rests her .45 on her lap, pointing at Moss’s crotch. ‘You so much as run a stop sign and I’ll blow your balls off.’

64

The two Ford Explorers pull onto the shoulder of a dirt road and stop beneath a copse of low scrubby trees a hundred yards from the house. The sky is the colour of dishwater and the ocean dark grey topped with strips of froth. Rain coming. Sun disappearing. Time pressing.

Senogles gets out of the vehicle and rests a rifle over the hood, pressing his cheek to the wooden stock, feeling the cold hard smoothness against his skin. Steadying his pulse, he runs the scope along the walls of the house, paying special attention to the windows and doors. The place looks shuttered. Empty.

‘You sure this is it?’

Valdez nods and raises his binoculars. The coastline looks deserted. The only lights he can see are perched on the mast of a dredging barge moored in the canal and a couple of ships moving across the Gulf.

‘How are we going to do this?’ he asks.

‘First we need to make sure they’re still here.’

Senogles walks to the other car and talks to Jake and Stav, telling them to scout ahead to the far side of the house. They check their two-way radios and move off along the edge of the canal, soon disappearing in the gloom. Valdez and Senogles stay in the open where beads of rain cling to their hair and bulletproof vests. Pilkington hasn’t left the car. He’s acting like he’s in charge, but Senogles is running the operation.

Valdez peers through the binoculars again. The pulse in his throat is beating slowly. He remembers what it was like on the night of the robbery; how they waited for the truck to arrive, his sphincter tight, hands damp on the wheel. His uncle had spent four years setting up the opportunity, putting someone inside the security company and waiting for them to reach a senior position. It was Pilkington who discovered the delivery route and the timetable, but Valdez had recruited Vernon and Billy Caine, dumb and dumber. That’s one of the advantages of being in law enforcement – the people it brings you into contact with: the shysters, second-story creeps, money launderers, safecrackers, gunrunners, carjackers and thieves.

When the Caine brothers hijacked the armoured truck and parked on the shoulder of an isolated road, they expected to meet a getaway car. Instead it was an ambush. The execution was clumsier than anyone planned, but the outcome the same. Audie Palmer was the joker in the pack – the wildcard that no one allowed for. Wrong place. Wrong time. Almost silenced. Not quite.

The others blamed Valdez. Fenway the drunk, Lewis the gambler, both dead now because they were foolish and splashed cash around. They were supposed to launder the money through Pilkington’s land deals, but couldn’t wait to show off. Unexpected wealth draws attention. Cover stories are necessary. Care.

‘Someone is coming out.’

Senogles looks through the scope of the rifle, one eye closed. ‘That’s Palmer.’

‘I can’t see Max.’

‘He must still be inside.’

Palmer is walking down the stairs and across the lawn toward a Dodge pickup with a boat trailer attached. He opens the door and throws a bag inside before arranging a blanket on the passenger seat.

‘Looks like he’s fixin’ to leave,’ says Senogles, whose finger is poised on the trigger, eyes dilated. ‘We should take him out now.’

‘Wait till he gets closer.’

Palmer moves around the boat, uncoupling the trailer. He wipes his hands on his jeans. The shot is easier to take. Senogles eases off the safety and places the crosshairs between Palmer’s eyes before lowering the sight to his chest, trying to make sure he doesn’t miss. He breathes, taking air into his lungs deeply and letting it out slowly. Then he takes a second breath, shallower this time, and lets it out halfway, judging the distance and the wind and the roll of Palmer’s gait. He blinks, resets his mind. Blinks again. Pulls the trigger.

Audie has unhitched the boat trailer, checked the tyres and pondered how much gas Tony has in the tank. He doesn’t want to have to fill up until he’s well away from the coast. It doesn’t seem right to run off after going to so much trouble to find Max and tell him the truth, but he’ll be safe when Moss gets here, safer than he is now.

Special Agent Furness will have the file by now. She’ll know what to do. Unless he’s misjudged her, of course, in which case there’s little that Audie can do except to keep running until they hunt him down. It wouldn’t matter so much if it were just him they wanted, but Max knows the secret now. Valdez raised him as a son. Will he protect him like one?

A small bright flash registers in Audie’s peripheral vision. In the same instant a bullet tears through his left shoulder, blowing his clavicle apart like a sledgehammer hitting a watermelon. He hears only the percussion as it exits, thwanging into the metal boat and detonating like a firework next to his ear. He falls to the ground and clutches his left arm. Sticky. Wet.

The shooter has changed his line of fire and gone to work on the boat, punching holes through the metal. Audie crawls under the trailer and forward until he’s below the driver’s door of the Dodge.

Another round comes in from a different direction, closer to the beach. They’re not going to keep missing. His left arm is useless. Opening the door, he reaches up and turns the key in the ignition. The engine sparks and rumbles. Two rounds blow out the glass in the driver’s door. Audie puts the car into ‘drive’ and takes off the handbrake. It begins to roll forward. Running and crouching, he keeps his head below windshield level. The right front tyre makes a popping sound, then the rear one. The car slows. Audie breaks cover and heads for the stairs, taking them three at a time.

Wood splinters near his right hand. He’s on the deck, sprinting for the door. If they lock him out he’s dead. It opens. Collapsing inside, he pulls Max down with him and slides across the floor, cutting the tape on Tony’s legs, telling him to lie flat. The old man is yelling, wanting to know who’s shooting.

‘Did they hit my rig? What about the boat? I’m gonna lose my job if they mess up that boat.’

Audie crawls to the living room and presses his back to the far wall. He lifts his head and peers through the slatted shutter. A hundred yards away he can see the box-like silhouettes of two vehicles. There are no lights except for a dredger further along the canal. Straight lines of drizzle form a nimbus around the glowing filament.

‘Your arm,’ cries Max.

Audie is trying to keep pressure on the wound. It exited clean, but he’s going to bleed out if he doesn’t staunch the flow.

‘Find me a sheet,’ he says. Max obeys, hunching over to pull open the linen cupboard. ‘Tear it into strips. There’s a first-aid box in the bathroom with gauze bandages.’

Audie bunches the gauze in his fist, packing the entry wound, telling Max to do the same with the exit hole. Then he wraps multiple strips of sheeting beneath his arm and over his shoulder while others are bound around his chest. Already the blood is soaking through.

‘It’s my fault,’ sobs Max. Pale. Tearful.

Audie stares at him.

‘I sent my dad a message. I told him where I was.’

‘How?’

‘Tony had a cell phone in his bag.’ Max reaches down the front of his trousers and retrieves the phone. ‘I’ll talk to him. I’ll tell them not to shoot.’

‘It’s too late now.’

‘He’ll listen to me.’

Max punches the number but Audie takes the phone. Valdez answers.

‘Max?’

‘No, it’s me.’

‘You fuck, I want to speak to Max.’

‘He can hear you.’

‘Max. Are you OK?’

‘You have to tell them not to shoot, Dad. It’s all been a big mistake.’

‘Shut up! Has he hurt you?’

‘No. You got to stop shooting.’

‘I want you to listen. Don’t believe a word he says. He’s lying to you.’

‘Did you adopt me?’

‘Shut up and listen!’

Valdez is yelling. There are muffled voices in the background, people arguing. Audie turns off the speaker and raises the phone to his ear. ‘You don’t have to yell at the boy.’

The comment lights a fire under Valdez.
‘He’s my goddamn son and I’ll tell him what I please.’

‘You’ll tell him lies.’

‘You’re a fool! You’re gonna get him killed. Why couldn’t you just keep your mouth shut?’

‘You mean like last time?’

Valdez has walked away from the car. Audie can see the brightness of the cell phone pressed against the sheriff’s ear.

‘This is
how it’s going to go down. You’re going to walk outside with your hands in the air.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Sure it is.’

‘There’s someone with us. He’s a local. He looks after places when folks lock ’em up for the winter. You just shot up his rig.’

Valdez doesn’t answer.

‘He’s got a heart condition, and he’s not doing so good. If you come storming in here, you’re going to kill him.’

‘His death will be on your hands.’

‘You mean like Cassie and Scarlett’s?’

Audie hears an intake of breath. He shouldn’t be goading this man, but he’s angry that innocent people are dying around him. He glances out the kitchen window toward the beach and sees two heads, stooping but not stooping low enough, as they run between the dunes. Moving closer. They’re dressed in black, wearing balaclavas with only their eyes showing.
Night-fighting shit.

‘Send him out,’
says Valdez.
‘I’ll make sure he gets to the hospital.’

Audie looks at Tony, who is sitting with his back to the kitchen bench.

‘I don’t trust you.’

‘You want to help the guy or not? You got thirty seconds.’

He hangs up. Audie watches Valdez walk back to the cars, where he discusses something with the others. Audie drags himself across the floor next to Tony.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine. You heard him, they’re not going to shoot me.’

‘He’s lying.’

‘They’re the police!’

‘No, they’re not.’

‘My dad is a county sheriff,’ protests Max.

Audie wants to argue but knows that Tony is no safer inside the house than outside. Any moment they’re going to come in with guns blazing, shooting anything with a pulse.

Tony shakes two pills into his hand and swallows them dry. ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to take my chances with them than with you. The odds are better.’

65

Seated beside Moss in the pickup, Desiree thinks of every law that she’s breaking. She has ignored protocols, disobeyed orders and jeopardised her career, yet everything about this case has altered her perception of normal. The man next to her should still be in jail or in handcuffs. He swears blind he didn’t escape. Whoever set him free had influence, connections. They didn’t want the money, according to Moss, they wanted Palmer dead.

‘Did you steal this pickup?’ she asks, speaking for the first time since they left the outskirts of Houston.

‘No, ma’am.’ Moss looks hurt by the accusation. ‘They gave it to me.’

Desiree opens her cell phone and calls Virginia, asking for a status update on Moss Webster and asking them to run a motor-vehicle check on the Chevy.

She looks at Moss. ‘You lied to me. It was stolen from a garage near the Dairy Queen after you escaped.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sitting in a stolen pickup.’

‘Give me some credit. You think I’d steal a shitbox like this? Makes me look like a redneck. And I didn’t escape – they let me go!’

‘According to you.’

‘I wouldn’t be seen dead driving a Chevy.’

She waves her gun. ‘Well, I could test that theory.’

They fall into a sullen silence until Desiree changes the subject and asks about the old man who found the boy.

‘Theo McAllister’s place is set back from the road,’ explains Moss, ‘but it was near enough for him to hear the shooting and see the burning car. He found the boy the next day.’

Moss taps his hands loosely on the steering wheel. Desiree likes men with big hands.

‘That’s when I got to thinking: what if the boy belonged to that woman, the one who was never identified?’

‘How do you know about her?’

‘I read about it in the papers.’

‘She has a name now.’

Moss glances at her.

‘Belita Ciera Vega.’

His eyebrows arch.

‘You’ve heard it before?’

Moss looks back at the road. ‘Audie used to have these nightmares. Not all the time, but often enough. He’d wake up screaming, crying out a name. That was the one: Belita. I used to ask him about her but he said it was just a dream.’ He glances at Desiree. ‘You think he’s that boy’s real father?’

‘Not according to the birth certificate.’

Desiree falls silent and begins adding more details to the picture forming in her mind. Audie and Belita were married in a chapel in Las Vegas. Five days later they were in Texas. If Audie took part in the robbery, why bring his wife and the boy along? More likely, they were bystanders – caught up in the outcome. Perhaps Audie and the boy were thrown clear by the impact, or they’d stopped by the side of the road and weren’t in the car. Nobody came forward to claim Belita’s body. Audie was in a coma. The boy was too young to help.

Moss breaks the silence. ‘Why didn’t Audie tell someone about the boy?’

‘Maybe they threatened him. Maybe they threatened the boy.’