DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) (7 page)

It was only then I glanced at the man who was clearly Jimmy O’Day’s bodyguard. The man with the north London accent who’d been too slow on the uptake to prevent his principal putting himself in harm’s way. Up ’til then, I’d dismissed him for that reason alone. Now I finally gave him my attention.

And as soon as I looked at him full on, I realised he wasn’t a stranger to me.

But I wished to hell that he was.

The last time I saw Vic Morton I’d wanted to kill the bastard. If I’d had the means, the opportunity, and the faintest chance of getting away with it, he would be an integral part of a concrete motorway bridge support by now.

Even years later I still felt my fingers contract in a reflexive grip, desperate for the feel of his windpipe beneath them.

There was a buzzing in my ears, a flash of adrenaline-fuelled rage coursing through my system. The SIG was suddenly an almost irresistible weight at my back. If the Beretta hadn’t been still in his hand, held loosely at his side, maybe I would have considered it.

As it was, I saw him eyeing me with some apprehension and realised that he hadn’t kept his gun out by accident. He knew me all right, and was wary—maybe even scared—of my reaction.

So you bloody well should be.

At least he had the sense to hand off cover for Jimmy O’Day to another of the O’Days’ team. They shifted their young principal just out of my reach. He was still protesting about the treatment he’d received at my hands.

“The kid’s hot-headed, what can I say?” Morton said with a smile. “Sometimes it’s easier to let him make a few easy mistakes and save him from the really stupid ones rather than nursemaid him all the time.”

“He was heading straight for us,” I said. “I could have hurt him. Where the hell were you?”

Morton gave a shrug. “Oh, I didn’t think you were going to do him any serious harm.”

It was Sean who stepped forwards, brows down like a big dog coming in for the kill. Unutterably heartened, I put out a hand, almost said his name. I didn’t get the chance.

“I know you, don’t I?” Sean said, and for the first time since we’d landed in New Orleans, there was some animation in his face, his voice. “I recognise you.”

Morton braced. “That’s right,” he said, clipped. “Been a long time, Sergeant.”

“Vic . . . Vic”—he clicked his fingers—“Morton, yeah?”

For a moment, Morton didn’t answer, but I could hear his brain turning over, even from a metre or more away. He must have heard all about Sean’s head injury—everyone in the industry had by now. The rumours I’d come across ran the whole gamut from having him walking round with the bullet still lodged inside his skull to being a drooling vegetable on life support in some private asylum. Another reason why Parker had been so keen to have him back out in the field. Especially on such a visible assignment.

“That’s right,” Morton said again now. “We trained together, you might say.”

“Right,” Sean said. “Right. Good to see you again, Vic.” I knew that the warmth in his voice was not for the man, but the memory—for the fact that he remembered him at all. But even so it was a bitter blow that Sean should show such apparent pleasure to be faced with one of the men directly responsible for my ruin.

One of the men who had raped me.

Donalson, Hackett, Morton and Clay.

I didn’t think I’d ever forget them. I’d tried my damnedest but now fate had conspired against me.

“You weren’t on the original staff list for this job,” I said, aware of the brusque note in my voice, the taste of acid in my mouth. “What happened?”

Morton, buoyed by the lack of aggression in Sean’s welcome, looked almost jubilant. “Last-minute replacement,” he said. “I’m normally assigned to another member of the O’Day family, but one of Jimmy’s regular team fell ill—must have been something he ate. So they called me in.”

He made it sound like they’d sent a private jet. Instead, I suspected he’d been the only one standing around with his hands in his pockets when the extra duty came up.

“Relax, Charlie,” Sean said, a little too sharp for my taste. His eyes went to the baseball star, Gabe Baptiste. Now the initial adulation had died away, Baptiste was moodily swigging champagne with the look of a man waiting for his first chance to leave. “It’s not like it’s the first substitution, is it?”

“Gotta expect the unexpected in this job, Charlie,” Morton said with a quick insincere grin that didn’t go anywhere near his eyes. “First thing you learn, eh, Sean?”

Any number of vicious retorts hovered on my tongue. I swallowed them back down. He was treating me like a first-time rookie but I wouldn’t—couldn’t—let him see he’d got to me. To anyone who mattered, the fact I’d just taken down his woefully under-protected principal one-handed should speak for itself.

Wasn’t much consolation for not twisting his head off his shoulders, though.

“You’re looking good, Sean,” Morton said now, injecting a matey note into his voice. “I heard about . . . what happened. Musta been tough. Still, here you are, eh? Good as new.” His eyes swapped between the pair of us, caught on the tension we couldn’t hide. “And still with a soft spot for the lumpy jumpers, I see.”

As a sideways swipe at the fairer sex, being referred to as a “lumpy jumper” was not the worst I’d had by any means. But having it said by a man I’d happily watch die, to another I’d killed for, was as much as I could bear.

I turned away, stepped in closer to Blake Dyer, who was still standing next to Tom O’Day and his son. From the look of it, whatever had been eating at O’Day junior was still very much on his mind now.

“Apologies for the interruption, sir,” I said.

Dyer waved a dismissive hand. “Always a pleasure to see you in action, Charlie.”

I turned to Jimmy O’Day. “I’m sorry if I overreacted, sir,” I said. One thing I’d learned early on in the army was that it never does any harm to call everyone “sir” until told otherwise. “You were looking somewhat dangerous.”

From the look on his face, nobody had told Jimmy O’Day he looked anything close to dangerous for a long time—if ever. He actually forgot to scowl for several seconds before his face closed up again. “Yeah, well, damn near broke my arm,” he muttered.

“Kid was all bent out of shape because Autumn came in with young Gabe,” Tom O’Day said, making it sound like a bad case of playground scuffle.

“You’re practically pimping her out, Dad—” Jimmy protested, and although he spoke through his teeth, it was still loud enough to turn a ripple of nearby heads.

Tom O’Day looked around before responding. His manner was calm, apparently relaxed, but when he’d finished none of those who’d been staring before were still staring afterwards. Some people can do that with just a look.

“I asked her to escort our star guest while he’s in town, keep him happy—nothing else. I have absolute respect for that lady, Jimmy, and by God you better show her the same courtesy, or you’ll be on the next flight out of here—hold baggage—d’you hear me?”

For a moment Jimmy dug his heels in. He wasn’t a bad-looking kid when he had on a determined face. It gave him a little much-needed fire and colour. But he caved before his father’s stern disapproval, of course he did.

From what I’d read of Jimmy O’Day, he still lived at home—albeit in a spacious apartment within the family ranch—and held an Executive Vice President post in some obscure department of his father’s company. It sounded like a sinecure.

Hard to be brave when one false move could find you homeless, jobless, and disinherited.

“Oh, I hear you, Dad,” he muttered. “Don’t worry, I hear you.” And with a disgruntled twitch of his shoulders, like a cat with ruffled fur, he stalked away. Morton shot me a forefinger salute and sauntered after him.

“I’m sorry you felt you needed to make a move on the boy,” Tom O’Day said. “Jimmy tends to shoot from the lip. Not a bad trait, I guess . . . if only he knew when to use it.”

“Oh come now, Tom, he was just being a little over-protective,” said the blonde, Autumn. Her voice was more breathy than a short walk across the room should have warranted, even in the pair of perilous heels she was wearing. I couldn’t have gone more than a couple of metres in them without a tightrope balance pole and a safety net.

“I guess you’re right,” O’Day said, beaming at her. In that voice she could have just told him the moon was made of cheese and would likely have received the same reply. Some women just have that effect on men.

Now, she turned to bestow a beautiful smile on Blake Dyer and I watched him glow in its reflection.

“Tom’s told me so much about you,” she said.

“None of it good, I’m sure,” Dyer said modestly.

She laughed, breathy again, like a lover’s gasp and put her hand on his arm. “On the contrary.”

Dyer smiled at her with more warmth than he’d shown when Ysabeau van Zant had tried the same move earlier.

“Well, in that case, I feel it’s my duty to share some scandal about my old friend,” Dyer said. His eyes flicked across the rest of us, amused. “Would you care to dance?”

He and Autumn took to the floor as the string quartet launched into something that required coordinated dignity to master. I moved in closer to Sean, who was watching the pair of them intently—well, maybe he was watching her just a little more than him.

I glanced around as I did so. Jimmy was across the other side of the room. He was trying to engage in casual conversation with an elderly, smartly dressed couple—all of whom were trying to pretend his earlier scuffle with me had not happened. It wasn’t working out well for them.

Vic Morton was by his shoulder, but his eyes were on Sean and on me.

“Sean,” I murmured, urgent, “that guy Morton—he’s trouble—”

Sean turned abruptly. “Oh?”

I took a breath. “Back in the army, he . . .”

My voice trailed away, the words sticking in my throat. How could I begin to go into any of it here? Besides, Morton’s story that I’d led them on was backed by the official verdicts. My word against his—my word against the four of them—had not been good enough.

What could I say now that wasn’t going to make things worse?

I caught a glimpse of Sean’s expression, hard and tight, and realised that just by saying anything at all, I probably already
had
made things worse. Still, I had to try.

“He might tell you—”

“Tell me what?” Sean demanded, his voice low. “What is it you think he might tell me about you, Charlie, that you don’t want me to know?”

Our principal did not have the stomach for making a late night of it, which was a good thing. To be honest, neither did I.

It was barely after midnight when Blake Dyer indicated we should bring the car round to the front entrance. I was the one sent out to retrieve the Yukon, while Sean stayed with Dyer in the ornate mausoleum of a front hallway. The more I thought about it, the more that enormous vase of flowers on the marble table resembled something you’d see on a grave.

Maybe it was just the way I was feeling.

As I pulled the Yukon up at the front steps, I could see the two of them standing in the lit hallway. I gritted my teeth about the security breach such a move represented, then saw they were not alone.

I recognised the slouched figure of Jimmy O’Day standing close by Blake Dyer’s elbow. The older man was talking to him intently, using his hands for emphasis. Whatever he was saying didn’t look like something Jimmy particularly wanted to hear. Not if the way he was staring at the floor was anything to go by.

Jimmy had managed not to disgrace himself again during the remainder of the evening. He’d chatted with apparent calm while Gabe Baptiste danced a slow one with Autumn. Or rather, Autumn danced and Baptiste held her close and shuffled awkwardly. For a man with such physical dexterity on the playing field, away from it he was not adept at the social niceties. It didn’t surprise me that he made his excuses and left before we did.

Autumn had danced with Jimmy, too, and with his father. For all the expression of enjoyment she showed for either of them, she might as well have been playing chess against a computer.

I allowed the Yukon to creep forwards a little further, covering the brake. Sean came into view. At least he was watching for my arrival. I saw his head come up and he caught Dyer’s attention to move him out. But just before he left, Sean turned to shake hands with another man who’d been standing outside my immediate field of view.
Deliberately?

Vic Morton.

The thought of what Morton might have been saying to Sean during that brief exchange made my stomach bunch up tight under my ribcage as if expecting a sudden blow.

The urge to punch something—hard, and keep punching—was difficult to resist.

Sean had a memory of our time in the military and it was a true one—but only as far as it went. A lot had happened since then, for both of us. For one thing, Sean discovered about the rape that was the reason for my ignominious ejection from the British Army.