The Pact (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 17) (21 page)

Ansgar tried to smile. He held out his hand. “Name’s Peter Ford.” They shook hands. Ansgar shrugged. “I don’t know if they wanted to rob me or just beat me up.” He pointed at his nose. “But they did a good job. Spilled my wine, too. I have to be honest when I say that I might try another hotel in the future.”

“I’m so sorry about that. We’ll fix it. I’ll talk to the manager myself in the morning.”

The clerk jerked away and hustled through the doors as they slid open. After he disappeared inside the hotel lobby, Ansgar stared out into the night, looking across the roofs of the cars where the moon reflected back. He breathed in deeply through his mouth. Contemplation over, he turned around and entered the hotel. He needed to overhear the phone call to the police so he could mentally record all the names the clerk had for the hotel room Aaron had been in.

A moment ago he had almost killed the clerk. Now the clerk was an ally after having seen his own version of the incident. Ansgar would have to leave the clerk alive. The police would hear that Aaron was a fugitive. For Ansgar, people were either allies or victims. Those were the only two categories he slotted people into.

Aaron would be found and killed within hours. If not, it wouldn’t be more than a day. Then he would retake Clara Olafson. Or he would kill her. It didn’t matter to him anymore. All that mattered was how this job ended.

It would end on his terms now that he was emotionally invested.

 
After all, anger was an emotion.

He clenched his fists as he listened in on the clerk’s version of the sordid tale to the 911 dispatcher.

Chapter 27

Parkman ran along the path by the edge of the lake in semi-darkness as the sun had dropped behind the horizon. The screaming had only been brief, but the moaning and gasping for breaths led him forward until he came upon the two girls. One of them was rolling in the thick grass, wheezing in and out while she wiped at her face. The other girl was in a foot of water to his right, dumping her face in the lake, then coming back up gasping.

The smell of pepper spray grew in intensity the closer he got to them. Both girls were fully clothed. The one on the ground still had a tiny purse on her. This wasn’t an attempted robbery or a sexual assault. It looked like the guy had just walked up and sprayed the girls in the face for no apparent reason.

“Det gør ondt,” the girl in the grass said.

Parkman knelt down beside her.

“Do you speak English?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. The word came out in a wheeze.

“Was it the man with the thick jacket?”

She nodded.

“Which way did he go?”

“Toward Kvickly,” she said. “I cannot see. I heard him run that way.”

“Did you recognize him?”

The girl shook her head.

More people were coming along the path now.

“Okay, these people will help you. I’m going to find this man. I’ll be right back.”

Parkman got to his feet as two other men came up. He told them he got a good description of the man who did this and that he was going after him. One man pulled out a cell phone and called for help as Parkman left them with the girls.

He followed the path to the back of the Kvickly parking lot, then ran toward the street. Checking both ways, he saw nothing. The man in the thick coat was gone.

He ran back through the parking lot of the Kvickly and jumped down onto the path by the water. To his right, half a dozen people milled around the girls. The one in the lake was being helped out of the water now.

To his left, the path vanished in darkness. He started that way. At the edge of the building where the parking lot lights lost ground and the dark grabbed a foothold, he slowed down and eased up to the building where he waited a few breaths until his eyes adjusted.

This had to have something to do with Sarah. Why else was he in Skanderborg hours before Sarah was meant to arrive? He was directed to be here by Sarah’s sister, no less. This attack had to be attached somehow to the purpose. The man with the thick coat was the connection. But where did he go? He could have gotten anywhere in the time it took Parkman to reach the girls, pause to talk to them, then continue past the grocery store.

He started along the beaten-down path, going slow to avoid tripping over an errant branch and end up sprawled in the lake. The water lapped the shore softly to his right, darkened houses to his left. He steered closer to the water to a get around a thicket of bushes. After passing several houses, he came upon a small dock where a couple of small boats were moored. The building to his left had a sign that was barely legible. The Skanderborg Rowing Club. He left the path and walked around to the front of the building where he stopped and listened. Other than the sound of a distant vehicle, the evening was silent. He waited for a full minute, eyes closed, ears open. A distant rumbling moved closer. The train was entering the station up on the hill. As far as he was concerned, the man in the thick coat could already be at the train station.

Parkman headed back to the path and wended his way by the Kvickly until he returned to where the girls had been attacked. Half a dozen people lingered around the girls using water bottles to flush the remainder of the noxious substance from the girl’s faces. People spoke Danish to one another which kept Parkman out of the conversation.

It was late. The man in the thick coat had gotten away and there was nothing else he could do. He wasn’t here in an official capacity. It was time to leave them to their own law enforcement. He could stay and offer a description of the man, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to find the man before the authorities did. The man in the coat was the connection to Sarah, to why Vivian sent them to Skanderborg. From what he discovered online, Skanderborg is a relatively crime-free city. To be that close to an attack on two teenagers meant he was in the right place at the right time.

He only hoped that he didn’t screw up whatever it was he was here for. If he was supposed to nab the man in the thick coat and didn’t, then he had already screwed up.

Screw ups cost lives.

And Sarah was on the way to Skanderborg.

He walked away from the crowd on the path and headed back toward Kvickly.

Determined to locate the man in the thick coat, Parkman decided to walk the area, street by street, until he found him or until the sun rose in the morning.

Chapter 28

Aaron and Alex slowed as they neared the front of the hotel. Near the corner of the building, before stepping out into the open, Aaron heard men talking, then silence. He stopped and listened.

“Alex,” he whispered. “Head around the other side?” He gestured behind Alex. “We’ll meet at the front.”

Alex nodded and took off sprinting.

Aaron waited a few moments, thoughts of Benjamin’s wound fueling his anger. Ansgar would end up in the hospital when they were through with him. Aaron’s teachers had saved his life once before. Years ago a man had kidnapped him and flew him to Greece where he shot Aaron. If it wasn’t for his three teachers, Aaron would be dead. He owed them his life, yet every time he turned around, they were risking their lives for him and Sarah.

After a couple of deep breaths, he stepped out of hiding and made his way to the front of the hotel. He surveyed the cars in the parking lot for any sign of movement. The chances Ansgar was still out there ready to shoot him were slim. Once the airport van pulled away, Ansgar would’ve come out of hiding, hence the reason for doubling back.

He stopped at the edge of the window and glanced inside the lobby. The clerk was behind the counter, a phone to his ear. Ansgar was walking away from the counter toward the elevators.

Was he going to his room?

Movement drew Aaron’s eye to the other side of the lobby windows about twenty feet away. Alex had made it around the building and was seeing what he was seeing.

When he looked back inside, Ansgar slipped onto an elevator.

Aaron pushed away from the wall and ran for the front door. Alex got there first, prompting the front door to slide open. They stomped inside and headed for the elevator. Aaron needed to see the floor it stopped on.

The clerk saw him and jumped back.

“He’s here,” the clerk shouted into the phone. Then he ducked below the counter. “The man I was telling you about is here, in my lobby. He returned. Tell them to hurry.”

Aaron exchanged a glance with Alex, then they were past the main desk and standing at the elevators as the one Ansgar took stopped on the tenth floor.

“Got a plan?” Aaron asked.

“Enlist the clerk’s help. Empty room above or below Ansgar’s. I’ll get in from the balcony while you knock on the door.”

“Why do I have to knock?” Aaron asked, pretending to be offended. “He could open the door and shoot me while you’re playing with the lock on the balcony’s sliding door.”

“You’re more afraid of heights than I am.”

Alex walked away, headed back to the clerk. Aaron followed. He was off the phone now, but had broken out in a sweat, his face glistening. A nervous smile seemed pasted on his face as he stepped back to the wall behind the main desk, bumping it.

“Is room 1134 or 934 available?” Alex asked.

The clerk nodded, but didn’t move.

“Did you hear the gunfire outside ten minutes ago?” Aaron asked, taking on a serious tone. They couldn’t afford to waste time and have Ansgar walk off the elevators behind them while they were dicking around with the clerk.

The man nodded. “Yes,” he said, firm and steady even though he appeared quite nervous.

“Then answer his question,” Aaron added. “Is room 1134 or 934 empty?”

The clerk leaned forward and touched the keyboard of the closest computer, then looked up.

“1134 is empty.”

Aaron set his hand on the counter, palm up, then gestured with his fingers.

“Give me a key to 1134. I’ll return it within fifteen minutes.”

The clerk looked from Alex to Aaron, then back to Alex.

“C’mon, man,” he said, adding irritation and anger to his voice. “Key.”

The clerk jolted and pushed away from the wall, grabbed a keycard, typed something in on a small keyboard, and ran the card through a reader.

“This gonna work when we get up there?” Aaron asked, holding the card up in the air.

The clerk nodded profusely. “Yes, yes sir.”

He tapped Alex’s shoulder and they ran for the elevator. Once inside and ascending to the eleventh floor, he handed the keycard to Alex.

“What was his problem? He seemed extra nervous. We were the ones being shot at, not him. He should’ve been nervous when the shooter was standing in the lobby with him, for fuck sakes.”

Alex nodded once in reply.

The doors opened on the eleventh floor where Alex disembarked without a word.

The doors closed and Aaron rode it down one floor. Hands up, standing in a defensive posture, he stood to the side as the door opened on the tenth floor.

The hall in front of the door was empty. He held the door open and peeked out toward Ansgar’s door.

Empty.

Both ways.

Aaron got off the elevator and let the door close.

This was stupid. At any point Ansgar could open his room door, raise his weapon and empty it into Aaron. There was no defense to a bullet. He wasn’t wearing Kevlar and had no weapon except his hands.

He did have Alex, though.

Whether it was rage that brought him to this volatile place or not, he had to move forward because Alex would be in Ansgar’s room in minutes and Aaron was still standing by the elevators.

Hoping they both would make it out alive, he started toward Ansgar’s room, fists clenched.

Chapter 29

Sarah enjoyed the uneventful flight to Copenhagen. Regardless of what was happening to her and Aaron and everyone else involved, she had been able to catch up on much-needed sleep during the flight. In Copenhagen for a long layover, she had a few drinks in the bar, then boarded her flight to Billund.

Just under an hour later, she landed in Billund and deplaned, walking right by the luggage carousel as she traveled so light she didn’t even have a bag. Passport, small wallet with ID, bank cards, a little cash, and her cell phone was all she needed for the few days she’d be in Denmark. Sarah was used to buying a new piece of underwear or socks, discarding the old, and boarding the next flight home. Carrying luggage, even small carry-on bags, weighed her down. Unless she was going on a vacation, this was her preferred way to travel.

She bought a small flask of whiskey from inside the terminal to drink on the way to Skanderborg. Once there she would sleep like a baby in whatever hotel was the closest. The booze helped her deal with the loss of Vivian and the ache that missing Aaron had created in her core.