Kitabı oku: «The Littlest Target»

ONE

Daisy Hayward brushed a kiss over nine-month-old Fitz Pearce’s tender head and gently lowered him into the crib, just as a deafening crash sounded through the darkened country house below. The baby’s eyes shot open. Fitz’s lip quivered. Tears filled his anxious gaze. Instantly, Daisy plucked her tiny charge from the crib and held him to her chest to rock him back to sleep. He nestled against her. The pervasive anxiety that seemed to fill little Fitz’s unhappy home tightened around her heart like a vise.

Lord, I feel so trapped in this miserable place. Sometimes, I don’t know how much I can take.

In the eight and a half months since she’d become Fitz’s nanny, there’d been moments when she’d almost felt like a prisoner in the remote Quebec countryside estate. Endless days of long, uncomfortable tension stretched whenever Gerald Pearce was away on business, only to then erupt into angry shouts and paranoid accusations between him and his young second wife, Anna, whenever he came home.

For Daisy, growing up in a small English village where jobs were scarce, being hired to care for the son of a wealthy Canadian computer developer had felt like a dream come true. It wasn’t until she’d arrived in Canada that she’d discovered the truth. Fitz’s mother, Jane Pearce, had died in childbirth. A hasty wedding to Anna, one of Pearce Enterprises’s lead graphic designers and almost thirty years Gerald’s junior, had followed. But despite being newlyweds, their relationship was fraught with shouted accusations and slamming doors, and even one late night visit from two police officers. None of which was helped by Daisy’s suspicions that Gerald’s paranoid and scattered mind was slipping.

She could hear things breaking now, as if Anna and Gerald had given up on shouting and decided instead to trash their expensive home. Fitz’s pudgy hand grabbed a fistful of her long blond hair and held it tightly. She slid a finger between his gums and felt the telltale bump of a new tooth getting ready to come through. He was teething.

Daisy tightened her arms around him.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. I’m not going anywhere.”

There was nowhere to go and reminding herself of that always helped somehow. The estate was in the middle of nowhere, and they didn’t need gates or fences to keep her there. In fact, Anna often told her with her smug little smile that she was free to leave on her days off and then wouldn’t let her use the car.

Daisy gritted her teeth and refused to let her eyes even consider forming tears. It wasn’t like there was anything good waiting for her back home either. Her stepfather was a drunk and a thief, her mother hadn’t put up much of a fight when Daisy had been first kicked out of the house seven years ago—when she was just sixteen—and now there were four tiny half siblings back home that her mother desperately needed Daisy’s pay to help feed.

Lord, if reminding myself of that is what keeps me here, then please don’t ever let me forget. Fitz needs me. I can’t imagine what would happen to him without me.

Anna screamed and her shrill voice rose above the noise, so clearly it was as if she was standing on the other side of the door. “No! Don’t shoot! Please!”

Then, before she could even blink, a sudden deafening crack seemed to split the air. Anna’s screams died. Fitz howled.

Daisy’s heart smacked inside her slender frame, telling her to move, even as her brain scrambled to think. She crossed the nursery, slid the door open and positioned herself in the doorway so that she could look out, while keeping the child in her arms still sheltered behind her. She glanced over the landing.

Two of Gerry’s business associates were tossing the place. Silent and hulking, with bald heads and cold stares, she’d always imagined that “Mr. Smith” and “Mr. Jones” had been carved from the same block of cement. She’d always wondered if those were their real names and found them almost indistinguishable except for the fact that Smith’s large nose was crooked and Jones had an ugly scar on his throat. Considering Gerry’s creeping paranoia, Daisy had always guessed they were some form of security. Now Smith was knocking over shelves and tossing glass and ceramics to the floor, while Jones took a knife to the furniture.

Then she saw Anna, lying still on the floor of the grand foyer, her long fair hair and dress stained from the dark pool of blood spreading out from what looked like a gunshot wound deep in her chest. For a moment, panic curled like smoke inside Daisy’s throat, choking out her ability to think or even move.

Then Smith grunted and said, “I’ll finish down here. You go do the baby’s room.”

Jones turned toward the stairs, knife in hand. Daisy ducked back into the nursery, closed the door and locked it. Then shifting Fitz to her hip, she wedged a chair under the door. She doubted it would hold long. Her eyes scanned the nursery, piled high with stuffed animals, model trucks, electronic gizmos and plastic toys, all meant for a child much older than Fitz. Gerry seemed to think that every weekend he came home required giving his son a gift.

She slid on the chest carrier and buckled Fitz in, then zipped her raincoat over them both, so that his head poked out the top. His cries faded to whimpers. She dashed into the walk-in closet that served as her room, grabbed the rucksack she’d brought from England and tossed in a change of clothes for herself, more clothes for Fitz, his blanket, diapers and bottles.

Unfortunately, her cracked cell phone hadn’t worked in days; not since it had died at the hands of Fitz’s obsession with pushing buttons and grabbing anything shiny and electronic he could get his hands on.

Footsteps sounded on the landing. Jones was on his way. Daisy yanked the nursery window open, swung her leg over the ledge, reached for the trellis and climbed down, praying with each step that it would hold their weight. She heard the crash of the nursery door burst open, then the sound of Jones cursing.

She hit the ground. Her feet pounded around the side of the house. A pair of headlights raced toward her. Her hands rose to block the glare. Then she heard an engine stop and Gerry’s befuddled voice. “Daisy? What are you doing out here?”

She stumbled toward the sound. “We need to call 911. Anna’s been shot.”

“What? Who?” He grabbed her arm.

She prayed his reaction was from shock. His memory gaps had been getting more frequent, even though she’d always assumed a man in his fifties was too young for dementia.

“Your new wife, Anna.” She blinked and her vision cleared. His gray hair and beard were an odd, sickly yellow in the glare of his sports car headlights. “Anna was shot, in your house, just now. Smith and Jones shot her. We need to call an ambulance and the police.”

“No, not Smith and Jones. They wouldn’t hurt Anna. They’re loyal to me.” His hand tightened its grip until she could almost feel bruises forming, then he dropped her arm as suddenly as he’d grabbed it. “I will call the police. I know which ones I can trust. But you—you have to stay away from the police, okay? There are some corrupt cops who are out to steal my work and they will hurt Fitz to do it. Two of them came to the house. They threatened me and tried to blackmail me. You have to promise me you won’t let them hurt Fitz.”

“Of course.” Panic crawled up her throat. She remembered those cops. There’d been two of them, one man and one woman. But could she really believe any of his ranting? “I promise, I won’t let anyone hurt Fitz.”

“Good.” Gerry blinked and she saw clarity return to his eyes. “Everything is going to be all right. I have an apartment in Sault Sainte Marie. Take Fitz there. Don’t stop. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll call a cop I know I can trust and get them to meet you there. I have very powerful enemies who are trying to steal my work and they will use Fitz to do that. But you and Fitz will be safe at my apartment, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

He reached into the sports car and programmed an address into the GPS. There was a car seat buckled into the back seat and next to it a large wooden sailboat with a bright red bow.

Gerry pushed a cell phone into her hand. “Text me when you get there. I’ll take care of Anna. If I can find a police contact who I know isn’t corrupted, I’ll text you and send you to them. I can’t promise this line is secure, though, so be careful who you call. Trust me, Daisy, do what I say and everything will be okay.”

She didn’t trust him. Not fully. But Gerry was her boss. If she refused, then what? It wasn’t like running back into the house was an option.

Fitz whimpered. Gerry reached out, brushed a gentle touch over his head and leaned in toward his son. “You’re the best thing I ever made. We’ll play with your toys again soon.”

A shout came from behind them. Jones was running toward them, weapon drawn. Gerry yanked a gun from his belt.

“Daisy!” he shouted. “Go! I’ll hold him off!”

She yanked the back door open and buckled Fitz inside, then she climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The car purred beneath her. She glanced at the GPS. It told her she was facing a ten-and-a-half-hour drive to Sault Sainte Marie across northern Ontario.

A hail of bullets sounded in the darkness. She put the car in Reverse and glanced in the rearview mirror. Her eyes fell on Fitz’s startled face through his tiny car seat mirror. One hand clutched the yellow sail of his new toy boat. “Don’t worry, Fitz. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

Just as soon as she figured out how to do that.

Lord, I don’t know where this place is that I’m going or what it is I’m doing. I wish for once, there was someone, somewhere, I could count on not to throw my entire life into chaos. All I know right now is that I need to run.

More bullets sounded, mixed with shattering glass. She gunned the car backward, spun on the driveway and drove off into darkness. She followed the tiny blue line on the GPS, as the Pearce country estate exploded in a ball of fire and flames behind her.

* * *

“At least one body has been recovered from the remains of an apparent gas explosion around six thirty last night at the home of computer developer Gerald Pearce, outside Montreal. Fire crews remain on the scene hours after the explosion, battling to keep flames from spreading to the surrounding trees. Despite the rain being forecast, skies remain clear as a column of smoke and flame—”

Max Henry leaned across the cab of the rapid-response emergency vehicle and switched the radio off. His eyes darted to the clock. Was it after midnight already?

It had been three hours since he’d left University of Ottawa, where he’d given a talk to students on why they should consider careers as rural community and wilderness paramedics. He’d stuck around for an extra couple of hours to listen in on a talk from the air-ambulance pilots. They’d teased him about the fact that although he’d learned to fly, he’d never got around to getting his license, which meant he was always stuck in the back of the helicopters.

Now the night fell deep and heavy around him as he drove through the narrow, winding rural roads that would lead him through the Ontario woodlands back home to Huntsville.

The story about the Pearce mansion fire had been at the top of the news ever since he’d got in the vehicle. He’d heard of the Pearces of course. Probably most people had. Not that he knew much about them beyond seeing the pictures of their small but lavish wedding splashed all over news a few months back. Newly wealthy, reportedly brilliant and quite conventionally attractive, Anna Pearce had made quite a few glossy magazine covers since then. But Max didn’t care about the gossip. Instead, every time the news story played, he couldn’t help but map the emergency-response scenario out in his mind. A rapid-response unit like his would’ve got there first, he guessed. Followed almost immediately by police, who would secure the scene. Then ambulances and fire trucks and eventually news crews.

Silence filled the truck, punctuated only by the drone of the engine beneath him. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and tried to figure out how long it would be until a good radio music station would be in range. The temptation to turn the emergency scanners on niggled at him like an itch he couldn’t reach between his shoulder blades.

He ran his hand over the back of his neck, feeling the telltale curl that told him that his dark shaggy hair was overdue for another haircut. He chuckled. He might technically be off shift, but when he left the conference, he hadn’t even bothered to change out of his uniform into civvies.

There’s supposed to be more to life than work, Max. A voice floated in the back of his mind. It sounded suspiciously like his dad’s new favorite topic. You don’t want to look up from work one day and realize you haven’t actually lived.

But why not? He argued back against the voice. And what qualified as living? Time off? A family? A white picket fence? A beautiful wife? A life spent speeding to accident scenes and leaping out of helicopters to save countless lives was hardly a waste.

Besides, it was all Trent’s fault for putting these thoughts in their folks’ heads. For as long as he could remember, the four Henry brothers had an unspoken pact to remain bachelors for life. Jacob, Nick and Max had all stuck to the deal.

Then his detective brother had the audacity to bring fellow detective Chloe home at Christmas. The next thing they knew, the couple’s engagement cover story was the real deal—sweet romance and all.

Something rumbled behind him. His green eyes narrowed as he looked in the rearview mirror. The sports car behind him was gaining on him too quickly.

His lips set in a grim line and for a moment, he felt tempted to switch on his emergency lights just to slow them down. There was nothing worse than a reckless driver. Usually just the sight of an emergency vehicle on the road would be enough to make even the worst driver reduce speed. But either the sports car driver hadn’t seen him or was in too big of a hurry to care. He nudged his truck over to the side of the road.

The sports car passed. Max turned and his eyes met the driver’s for barely an instant. Then she sped away and was gone, leaving the afterimage of the brief glimpse he’d got of her in the glow of the dashboard lights seared on his mind.

It had been a woman. She’d been in her early twenties, he guessed, with long blond hair, huge eyes, a slender frame and a tight grip on the steering wheel. Questions as to what her story was filled his mind as he watched her taillights speed away ahead of him. She had looked terrified and determined, and there’d been something captivating about her that he couldn’t put into words.

Then the telltale flicker of blue and white lights flashed in his rearview mirror. A sedan sped up behind him now—dark, plain and unmarked except for the LED flights flashing through the windshield. Well, whoever she was, she wouldn’t get far with that unmarked police car on her tail.

He slowed his rapid-response vehicle to let the police car pass. It didn’t even signal. Instead, it whipped around so close it would’ve clipped him if Max hadn’t swerved.

A prayer for God’s mercy thudded in Max’s rib cage. A police officer should know better than to drive like that. Yet he watched, helpless and almost incredulous, as the unmarked car sped toward the blonde in the sports car. It nudged closer and closer to her, until it was tailgating dangerously. Cop or not, anyone driving that dangerously at speeds like that was flirting with disaster.

Then it happened, with a crunch of metal and a screech of tires. The unmarked police vehicle clipped the sports car. Max’s heart lurched as he watched the blonde’s vehicle spin. She was going to crash, right there in front of him, and all he could do was pray and try to steer his way clear.

He yanked the wheel hard to the right, pressing down on the brake as much as he dared without risking locking the brakes. Gravel sprayed beneath his tires. Trees spun past the windshield. From somewhere beyond him, he heard an agonizing screech of metal reverberating through the morning air. The sports car had smashed into something.

God, keep me from crashing into her!

The rapid-response truck slammed to a stop and he felt the back corner hit a rock with the kind of crunch that had him guessing he’d be looking at a new bumper and a little bit of bodywork when he got back home.

He looked up through the windshield. The sports car wasn’t as well-off. The front end was embedded in a thick pine tree and the airbag had deployed. He just hoped the driver was all right.

No signal on his cell phone. He grabbed his CB radio and clipped it to his shoulder, ready to call in backup the second he assessed the scene and coordinated with the lead officer. As first on the scene, it was the cop’s job to make the call.

Max grabbed the bright red jump bag that held all his basic medical necessities, slung it over his shoulder and ran toward the accident. The police car had stopped. In the dim headlights, he watched as a large man with a bald head ran toward the sports car, reached it first and yanked the driver’s door open.

“My name is Max Henry, and I’m an Ontario paramedic!” Max shouted. “Stay back and let me assess injuries!”

The man didn’t even turn. Instead he reached into the car, grabbed the driver and pulled her out. She screamed. The man threw her to the ground and forced her down onto her knees. A baby’s wail filled the air. Max’s heart stopped. There was an infant in the car!

“Get back in your truck and let me handle this!” the bald man thundered at him. “This woman is a dangerous criminal and I’m taking her into custody for murder and kidnapping!”

“He’s lying!” the blonde yelled. Her accent was British, the kind that made him think of royalty and the Tower of London. She was kneeling down on the ground with one palm pressed into the pavement. Strength battled the vulnerability in her face. But it was the defiance in her eyes that made his breath catch.

The wail of the baby grew louder. Max listened carefully. It was the strong and hearty yell of an infant who was several months old, and definitely a howl of anger, rather than a whimper of pain or distress. Thankfully.

Max raised his hands and took a step forward. “Please, Officer, I’m not trying to get in your way, just let me make sure the baby and driver are both okay.”

“Max, listen to me!” The sound of his name on the young woman’s lips seemed to shake something inside his chest. “I’m not kidnapping this baby, and I didn’t kill anyone. I promise. I’m his nanny. This man’s name is Smith. He’s not a cop. He’s a killer. He murdered the baby’s stepmother—”

Her words were swallowed up in a cry as Smith cuffed her hard on the back of her head. Max’s jaw set. This stopped here and now.

“Step away from her with your hands up!” Max shouted. “If you really are a cop, I demand you show me your badge, although I’m pretty sure that despite the pretty flashing police lights on the car, which I now presume you’ve stolen, you don’t have one.” He grabbed the CB radio from his shoulder. “I’m calling this in.”

Smith reached around his back. A Glock flashed in his hands so quickly Max barely had time to process what had happened. But there it was, with its barrel focused on Max’s face.

“Drop the radio and get down on the ground now,” Smith ordered. “Hands behind your head. Or I will shoot you where you stand.”