The Doll (29 page)

But he was dead from the time he’d arrived in the garage.

Dead from the moment he’d laid hands on Neeva.

Dead from the moment he’d first touched Munroe.

All the rage, all the anger, all the hatred at everything the Doll Maker stood for, the pain over Noah’s death and Logan’s loss, came through on that first and only swing.

The lug socket of the wrench connected with Arben’s temple in the same moment his face turned toward her. The force of the swing and the smack of the metal snapped his head to an unnatural angle, and his body, which had begun to pivot in Munroe’s direction, did a time-lapse pause before he sprawled against his car’s side and slid down.

Whether he was dead or not, she didn’t care and didn’t bother checking. He was out cold, blunt trauma, with not a lot of blood. All that mattered. Wrench to the ground, both hands on Arben’s collar, she pulled him closer to the car and stripped him of his jacket. Found his weapon, retrieved it. Checked the magazine, checked the sound suppressor, which was already attached. Stashed the piece. Found his phone, the Opel keys, and the parking ticket. Pocketed them. Thumbed through his wallet and pulled out seventy euros in cash. Not much, but better than nothing. Found his keys, unlocked the door, and opened.

Released the lever of the driver’s seat so that the back reclined nearly horizontal. In a crouch, she dragged him by the underarms to the driver’s door and propped him up. Tossed the jacket, the rag, and the wrench into the car; climbed in after them; and then, half kneeling, half squatting on the seat, hands cupped beneath his arms again, inched him into the car; stressing over the dead weight of his body and the time it took to drag him inward; stressing over how far Neeva had already gone and how much was still left to do.

Munroe pulled Arben’s torso into the driver’s seat of the Passat, shifted his legs under the steering wheel, closed his door, and positioned him so he reclined with the seat. Leaned his head so that he faced his own window. Weapon to his hand, to the side of the head she’d battered, rag between her fingers and all she touched, Munroe pulled the trigger.

The
pop-spit
spattered bone and blood, and like the snap of a rubber band against skin, provided the shock of release.

She didn’t pause to examine the aftermath. Left behind the weapon and the temporary illusion of suicide that might, if she was lucky, buy her a fragment of time. Was out the passenger door with Arben’s jacket and her two pieces of evidence before she’d fully contemplated the emotional cost of what she’d just done.

Still low to the ground between the cars, Munroe opened the Opel’s unlocked door, wiped the wrench down for prints, shoved it under the seat, and closed the door. If Monaco’s video surveillance had been intended to prevent crime before it could be accomplished, the city had failed miserably, but still open to debate was whether or not the kill had been observed in real time. The answer
would determine how far she could get before this underground world exploded in noise and commotion.

Strategy against strategy in mental triage, Munroe pulled out Arben’s phone. Thumbed through his recently used apps. Mixed in among a handful of games she found what she wanted. Opened. And there was Neeva, a little red beacon crawling along a close-cropped map, depersonalized into the equivalent of an object in a shooter game that might as well have had a detached floating label marked with dollar signs moving along with her.

Bearings set, adrenaline still coursing, Munroe moved in the direction of the exit, slipping between vehicles whenever possible, dodging camera angles to the best of her ability, until finally out on street level, she traced the path Neeva had walked, or at least something close based on the pulsating red light, moved quickly to catch up, but not so fast as to draw the additional attention a young man in slacks and jacket with bruises on his face running down the road without shoes would bring.

Munroe reached the seawall and followed the curve of the ocean in the direction of the port, where, in so small a space, was the world’s most expensive collection of waterborne real estate. Only when she spotted the back of Neeva’s costume and no longer needed digital eyes did she slow.

In this early-morning hour tourist traffic was still thin, and although the roads were full of cars, there were few pedestrians. Not only did Neeva in her costume stand out, so did the man who sat on the seawall fifty meters down: the segment in which Lumani, in his final text, had instructed Munroe to deliver the package.

Neeva had done well in dragging out the distance, and even now strolled casually, taking time to pause and gaze at the ocean as if she was one of those who kept house in a nearby apartment or belonged to one of the yachts ahead. The man on the wall, who’d been slowly turning his head from one end of the walk to the next, caught sight of the costume and stared intently in Neeva’s direction, fixated upon her.

Oblivious, Neeva walked on.

The man was middle-aged. Soft. Insecure. Scared.

Another pawn.

Munroe quickened her pace. Searched out balconies and
approaching cars, moving ever forward, randomly lengthening and shortening the distance between herself and Neeva. Wherever Lumani hid, he had to be west of the ocean, and the sun, still lifting in its arc across the sky, would work against him.

Pulling in detail, counting seconds, Munroe risked falling into the capture zone and into the crosshairs of Lumani’s rifle.

She needed to see the client. Observe him. Memorize him.

He’d be here.

Somewhere.

The type of man who’d set these events in motion wouldn’t be content to have the pieces fall into place without him. He would want to be present, watching, reveling in his own brilliance, gloating over how sure, odds stacked against him, he was to capture his quarry—certain to escape unscathed because he’d positioned others to take the fall.

Neeva kept walking. If Munroe didn’t stop her soon, she would reach the man on the wall and slip into whatever trap awaited. Munroe quickened her pace to close the gap and then, in a heartbeat of recognition, hesitated.

He was here.

The focus of desire, in deck shoes and a sweater, clean-cut and casual, approached the sidewalk from a diverted path, walking a little dog in Neeva’s direction so that he might, if he wanted, draw close enough to intersect her trajectory. The man on the wall half stood in the presence of the newcomer and then, in a jerky movement, almost as if realizing he’d committed a faux pas and might as well have pointed out his master, sat down fully and returned his focus to Neeva.

There was nothing overly distinguishable about the man with the dog: early fifties, perhaps, average height, and fit body, as were many wealthy people; straight blond or silver hair, kept short; skin tanned and freckled. His presence wasn’t the tell pointing to who he was, nor was it that he was one of few along the oceanfront, nor even that he studied Neeva with a curious smirk, as any passerby might, nor his posture or his stride. The tell, subtle and shameless, was his expression, which screamed of recognition.

His image burned inside Munroe’s head: body shape, gait, ratio of limbs to torso, all of it etched onto a mental canvas. She sought out his eyes and he noticed her now, studying him, and averted his
gaze while the narration of his body language turned a page and his lips lifted in a half-snarled grin, as if to say
I know who you are, and I win: game over
.

With his acknowledgment and his taunt, the euphoria that turned killing into a satisfied craving, demons battled and conquered, rose from the dead. Vision fading to gray and casting the target in vivid color, voices chanting, heartbeat quickening into the percussion of war, the urges sent her to the hunt. Lust for blood brought her to the tipping point beyond which there was no backing away from the kill. Panting, breathing against the pressure, Munroe pressed palms to her temples and physically pushed past the urges.

Logic against desire.

Strategy before action.

To release them now under the watchful eye of the city cameras was to seal her fate together with his. The client passed her, gaze locked on hers as he went, smirk still wide, the story continuing in his expression. He knew her. Somehow, he knew her.

Munroe reached Neeva and, still fighting the want, the craving, wrapped an arm protectively around the girl’s waist. Neeva handed Munroe the phone and pointed at it, eyes wide as if to say,
It rang while you were gone
.

Munroe nodded. Let go of the girl, accepted the phone, and with all of the pent-up emotional energy that had gone unused in the client’s wake, threw the phone out toward the ocean.

Munroe lifted the backpack off Neeva’s shoulders and handed her Arben’s jacket. “You did good,” she said. “Put this on, it’ll make your clothes less dramatic.”

Neeva turned her nose up slightly. “Doubt it,” she said, but took the jacket anyway, and while Munroe stepped back into her shoes, Neeva slipped into sleeves that went past her hands. The size added comedy to the getup, but the dull navy blue also covered so much of Neeva’s dress that the vivid color all but vanished.

The man on the wall began to stand, then paused and sat again in apparent bafflement over a course of events that had nothing to do with what he seemed to expect.

Arben’s phone rang.

Munroe ignored the jolt and shifted between Neeva and the wall, positioning herself so that she could observe the mark and gloat
over his reaction when he turned to watch the scheduled approach and discovered plans had changed; she kept her arm around Neeva and readied to cross the street against traffic when the moment arrived.

The client paused and turned back, and the quick flash of surprise that passed across his face phased into hostility. Munroe waited for a break in traffic. Smiled beatifically while the voices and the bloodlust urged her toward him, willed him closer, begged for a viable excuse and the pretense of an accident for the sake of cameras and passing cars so that the floodgates could release and her torment be satisfied.

But the client didn’t move. How could he, when the location, with its cameras and high visibility, all meant to taunt authority and possibly ensnare the Doll Maker’s operation, now had the potential to be his own undoing? Eyes hard and lips pressed together, his hand clenched around the leash so tightly that his knuckles whitened.

Arben’s phone rang again, reminder that Lumani, still out there, was aware that things were askew. For whatever reason, he hadn’t yet taken a shot.

Munroe said, “We need to move; stay close.”

Together they stepped off the sidewalk into the street. Munroe guided the girl, skirting across lanes during intermittent gaps in traffic. For a third time, the phone rang, and once more Munroe ignored it.

From the other side of the road, she smiled at the client again, imprinted his face again. He would die. On Munroe’s life, she would eventually see to it that he died, but for now she had robbed him of his prize.

Munroe turned her back and prodded Neeva toward the tunnel. They used the pedestrian passage beside the road and hurried back in the direction they’d come.

At the garage entryway, Munroe scoped the distance and listened for sirens, searched out Lumani or any other person who would set off the inner warning sensors. The lower level had filled considerably in the minutes they’d been gone. Ignoring attention from passersby, arm still around Neeva’s waist, Munroe pushed the girl forward until they reached the Opel.

Munroe pulled out from the parking spot and wound through
the ramps toward the exit. At street level came the first sound of sirens. They arrived too slowly to have been the result of Arben’s murder being caught on camera and had certainly not come as a result of his body being discovered.

Parking ticket to machine, cash to machine, machine arm to the sky.

Seconds ticked along while the sirens grew louder.

Munroe ignored the itch along her skin that told her to run. Monaco wasn’t more than three miles at its longest stretch, and they were about halfway in from the north. It would take them less than ten minutes to get beyond the judicial boundaries of the city-state. Notice would go out to the French police, but once outside the city proper, where every square foot was utilized and packed, there’d be a chance to hide.

“Are those sirens for us?” Neeva asked.

Munroe nodded.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Michael, stop! Stop the car. They can help us.” When Munroe’s response was to check the mirrors and pull around a slower vehicle, Neeva grabbed Munroe’s forearm and tugged.

The reaction to the physical contact was instant and brutal, and Munroe struck without thought. Pulled back before fully connecting, and Neeva stared wide-eyed at Munroe’s hand frozen in space, angled toward her throat.

“You need to be careful about the grabby thing,” Munroe said. She took her eyes off the road just long enough to glance at Neeva and added, “It’s not personal.”

“Stop the car, please,” Neeva said. “Why won’t you stop?”

“Right now, the police are not our friends.”