Dance With the Enemy (31 page)

Logan stepped out of his car, almost unable to believe what he was seeing.

‘Angela …’

She hadn’t spotted him and she jumped at his voice, looking as shocked as he was.

Logan’s phone rang again. He took it out of his pocket and, without looking at the caller display, turned it off.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, incredulity in her voice.

He walked up to her. Neither of them was smiling.

‘No, what are
you
doing here?’ Logan said. ‘You said you were in Paris still.’

‘Er, actually I said I was in my hotel room.’

‘You said it was late at night! Either way, you had me
believe
you were in Paris. Why would you do that?’

‘I’m sorry, Carl. I really wanted to tell you. But you weren’t exactly being straight with me, were you?’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘You knew far more than you let on,’ she said, looking hurt. ‘Otherwise why would you be
here
?’

‘No, Angela. The question is why are
you
here? We both know I’m on this case still.
You
should be suspended.’

‘Do we have to do this in the street? You’re making a scene.’

‘Fine, let’s get into my car,’ Logan said, looking around him. He couldn’t see anyone milling about, but still she had a point.

He stomped back to his car and got in. Grainger followed timidly and got into the front passenger seat.

‘So?’ he said, not wanting to replay the same question another time.

‘I’m back on the case. Given that the investigation was ongoing, they fast-tracked my review. I think they realised we’d actually got much further because of how we did things. I still got a pretty severe reprimand, but the main thing is, I’m back.’

It sounded believable enough, so why did he not buy it?

‘Why didn’t you just tell me? Why lie?’

‘Because you were the reason they reprimanded me in the first place! I’ve been warned about my future conduct. I can’t mess up again. There really wouldn’t be any way back if I did.’

Without any sympathy in his voice, Logan said, ‘That still doesn’t explain why you’re here. How did you find this place?’

‘Because this house is the registered address for some of the bank accounts to which money related to the Modena kidnapping was transferred.’

He nodded at her response. The FBI had certainly been doing their homework. Or had Mackie let on more to them than he had led Logan to believe? Mackie had already told Logan that the Americans were in the loop now. But he had assured him that he would give Logan four hours on Dennis. Had he lied? Or just changed his mind? Maybe that was what Mackie had just been calling about.

‘You already knew about Carlucci, didn’t you?’ Logan said. ‘I could tell Modena’s words meant something to you.’

Grainger was looking down, avoiding his gaze. She didn’t say anything.

‘Why are you keeping things from me?’ he said.

She began to cry. ‘I’m sorry, Carl,’ she said. ‘Don’t hate me. I just … I just didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell you.’

‘You knew about Carlucci. What else do you know?’

She sobbed but didn’t offer up anything else.

Despite his instincts screaming at him, Logan started to feel bad for her. Whatever was going on, he couldn’t hide his feelings for her.

‘We’ve connected this house to a Greg Dennis,’ Logan said, trying to move back onto an even keel. ‘Any ideas on who he is?’

‘He owns the place, apparently,’ Grainger said, looking up at him. Her eyes were red and puffy but she stopped crying. ‘I got
here half an hour ago, but there was no-one home. I broke in, but the place is empty. There’s nothing in there. Doesn’t look like there has been for a while.’

‘Perhaps there never was. It may have been a dead-end lead in the first place.’

‘Possibly. So how did
you
wind up here?’

‘I’m guessing the same way you did. The paper trail.’

‘Yeah.’ She turned her body to face him, a look of hurt in her eyes. ‘Why did you lie to me earlier?’

‘I don’t know,’ Logan said, gazing down, unable to look her in the eye.

‘It’s good to see you,’ she said. ‘I really mean that.’

He stared back up at her and she gave him a smile, which sent a tingle all the way through him. But the smile was gone again in a flash. The lingering awkwardness between them was obvious. The level of trust can never be quite the same once you’ve been lied to. And
both
of them had lied. Unfortunately the two negatives didn’t cancel each other out. If anything, they made the situation that little bit worse.

‘So what do you know about this Greg Dennis?’ asked Logan. ‘Does he even exist?’

‘Yeah, he does. Not much known about him, though. Pretty much a clean record.’

‘A clean record?’ Logan said. ‘That doesn’t really make sense, does it? You’d expect whoever was behind this to be someone kind of obvious. Someone with a beef against Modena or Kennedy. Or both.’

‘That’s what you think? It’s about a beef with one of those two?’

‘What else could it be?’

‘No, I don’t know. Nothing.’

‘You
do
know something, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, what I just told you.’

‘No, Angela,’ he snapped, raising his voice. ‘What is it that you’re not telling me?’

‘There’s nothing, Carl!’ she protested. ‘Why are you speaking to me like this? It’s really not how I imagined seeing you again would be.’

Even though a large part of him didn’t trust what she was saying, for the first time in the conversation Logan felt like a bit
of an idiot. She was right. After all the things he’d said to her yesterday, back in Paris, he should have been delighted to see her. He should have been swinging her around in his arms.

But he knew why that wasn’t the case. Her story just didn’t add up. As much as he wanted it to, it just didn’t.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, trying hard to sound sincere, though he wasn’t feeling it one hundred per cent. ‘And you’re right. It is good to see you. It’s just unexpected. My mind is so focused on getting Dennis or whoever the hell else it might be that’s still out there.’

‘Mine too,’ she said, still looking a little hurt. Then she smiled and said, ‘But don’t you at least want to say hello to me properly?’

She leaned over to him and closed her eyes. Feeling somewhat awkward with the proposition, Logan leaned in nonetheless, closed his eyes too and felt the electricity as their lips touched. It was a gentle kiss at first but they soon began to move into it more. Grainger parted her lips and Logan followed. They kissed more passionately, their hands dancing over each other’s faces and bodies. Grainger let out a murmur.

Logan was finally relaxing into the kiss when he felt something cold touch his wrist. He jumped a little out of shock, his brain not processing what was happening. Only when he heard the metallic clicking sound did he get it.

Grainger stopped kissing him and moved back.

‘What the …’ He looked down at his hands. ‘What the fuck!’

She’d handcuffed him to the steering wheel.

‘I’m so sorry, Carl. I really am. I never thought you’d get here so quickly. I just hope you can forgive me.’

‘Angela, don’t do this!’

She opened the passenger door and got out.

‘
Angela!
Just what the
fuck
do you think you’re doing!’

Logan was incensed. What was she playing at? He shook his hands back and forth against the cuffs, getting more and more angry with each thrust.

Grainger rushed over to her car, parked further down the street in front of Logan’s, not once looking back towards him. She got in and sped off into the distance.

‘
Fuck!
’ Logan bellowed.

Amidst all of the thrashing, his confused mind tried to make sense of what had happened. Had Grainger found Dennis? Did she know where he was? Was all of the lying and conniving so that she could take the credit for finding the bad guys before he did? Perhaps it was
him
who had just been a good fuck, while she was only intent on furthering her career. Would she really do that to him?

But then, from all the turmoil in his mind, the answer came to him. Something she had said to him. Something that had meant so much to her. Something that he had been able to relate to equally: ‘
Every day I think about what it would be like to find him, to come face to face with him
.’

For Logan, it had all been about Selim. For her, it was the man who killed her father.

Kennedy. It was all about Kennedy.

He had to find her. He had to stop her.

Logan changed tack. Rather than struggling against the cuffs, he gripped the steering wheel and began to yank on it. His whole body moved up and down with the effort as he tried desperately to lever the wheel. It began to give, but the discomfort in his injured shoulder was becoming extreme. He closed his eyes tightly and screwed up his face in a fruitless attempt to take away the agony. He could feel his head going into a spin; he was almost delirious with pain. But he battled through, yanking and shoving the wheel with all of his strength, fuelled by his pent-up anger.

Something snapped. He felt the wheel give way.

He opened his eyes and gave one more tug. There was a crunching sound as the wheel snapped off the steering column. He lifted the wheel away. But he was going nowhere with the steering wheel dangling between a chain attached to his hands. He dropped his hands down to his waist and awkwardly pulled the gun from his pocket. But he dropped it almost straight away, and it landed in the foot well. With the wheel giving him little space and leverage, he struggled feebly, trying to pick the gun back up again. Eventually he managed it.

The angle was tight, but there was just enough slack for him to manoeuvre his right hand so that the Glock’s barrel was pointing towards the chain that connected the two cuffs. He couldn’t do this in the car, though. It was too confined a space. He could end up with shards of metal and plastic flying into him. He hunched his body over, opened the door with his left hand and clambered out. Out of the car, he stood upright, put his hands in position, held out as far as he could, and turned his head away. Eyes closed, he fired.

The blast from the gun rang out, echoing around the buildings in the more or less deserted street. The noise would surely alarm the residents of the nearby houses and apartments. He had to expect that within minutes the local police would turn up.

He looked at his hands. Either he’d missed, or the chain was too tough and hadn’t broken on impact. But it didn’t look to be that thick, so it must be the former. He lined up again and fired. This time he felt the weight released from his arms as the steering wheel fell to the ground.

Rubbing his wrists, each of which still had a cuff on it, he picked up the wheel and returned to the car. Would the steering
wheel work again? Could he just push it back on? He’d never broken one before so he really didn’t know how complex the system would be. But when he turned the wheel over and saw the damage he had done to the back of it, he realised that there was no chance.

He shouted at the top of his voice – frustration more than anything else.

Grainger would be miles away from here already. And he didn’t even know where she was going.

No, that wasn’t strictly true. He had a good idea of where she would go. He just didn’t know how to get there.

He knew he had to call Mackie. He needed his boss’s help. But he had to get moving first. Grabbing the GPS and stepping out of the Saturn, he ran back towards the high street. There had to be more chance of finding people there. Some semblance of life. A car he could commandeer.

But when he reached it, except for a handful of pedestrians, it was empty. Everything was shut for the night.

He began to look around for a vehicle to hotwire. Then he heard a car coming up from behind him. He turned and ran out into the road in front of it. The driver slammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a stop, only inches short of Logan, who was standing with his gun pointed at the windscreen.

‘Police! I need your vehicle,’ he said, rushing to the driver’s door. ‘I’m really sorry!’ he added.

The wide-eyed man behind the wheel looked like he might have just wet himself. Logan felt truly sorry for having put an innocent bystander in this position.

But as Logan put his hand to the door, the driver stepped on the accelerator and hurried off into the distance.

‘Shit!’ Logan shouted.

With every second counting, he cursed his back luck. But not long after, a second vehicle turned up – a battered old pick-up. He felt incredibly bad for what he did, though: left an elderly man by the side of the road who had looked like he might have a heart attack from the shock of being carjacked at gunpoint. But it was the only option he could think of.

Now that he was on the move, it was time to focus again. He had to catch up with Grainger before it was too late. He was still in disbelief about what had just happened. But finally everything
was starting to make sense. And all of the unanswered questions in his mind were being resolved.

Every day I think about what it would be like to find him, to come face to face with him.

Then I guess we really are the same.

But he and Grainger weren’t the same. Not at all. That was clear to Logan now.

Revenge had driven both of them. But to very different outcomes. Kennedy was the man that had killed Grainger’s father. And a whole sorry scheme had been concocted to achieve her vengeance. Carlucci, himself wanting Kennedy dead, had provided the funds to recruit the crooks – Blakemore and Graham – who would snatch Modena and obtain Kennedy’s new identity. It almost sounded simple. But from there, Selim had become involved and it must have seemed to Grainger like the plan was going astray. Which would explain her desire to team up with Logan and ensure Modena was rescued from Selim. She had probably never intended for Modena to fall into the hands of a sadistic terrorist. Not that it made what she had done any more palatable.

Logan took his phone out and switched it back on. There were ten missed calls from Mackie.

Shit. Had Mackie been trying to warn him that there was no Greg Dennis, at least not anymore?

Logan pressed redial and Mackie picked up on the first ring.

‘Logan! Where have you been?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Look, we’ve found out about Dennis … You’re not going to like this –’

‘Mackie, I already know. Greg Dennis was Angela Dennis’s father. Angela Grainger.’

‘Shit. How did you know?’

‘Because she was just with me. At Dennis’s address. She cuffed me to my car.’

‘What! Where are you now?’

‘That’s the thing. I don’t know where I’m going. Not exactly. I think Grainger’s still got Kennedy. I’m pretty sure he’s still alive.’

‘Why would he still be alive? She probably killed him the first chance she got.’

‘No, I don’t think she did. This is all about her father. Getting
her own back. She’s taking Kennedy to somewhere that was special to her and her dad.’

‘Did you actually go into Dennis’s place?’

‘No.’

‘No?! For all we know Kennedy may still be in there! Get yourself back there and check it out!’

‘I’m telling you, he’s not there. I just know it.’

Mackie sighed but Logan knew he had his attention.

‘Look, we need to do this urgently,’ Logan said. ‘Send a team or whatever you want over to that property, but I’m going after Grainger. I need you to pull up any property owned by Greg Dennis or Angela Dennis or Angela Grainger near the Appalachian mountains.’

‘That’s a pretty big area, Logan! It covers multiple states, for Christ’s sake!’

‘I know, but that’s where she’s going. Just trust me. Try Virginia first, given that she lives there. Then work out away from there.’

The short period of silence that followed told Logan that Mackie wasn’t sure, but also told that his boss was coming around to the idea. Otherwise he would have blown it away without even thinking.

‘Okay. I’ll get someone onto it right away. You do realise you’re lucky she didn’t kill you? Anyone else in that position and she would have put them down.’

Could Grainger have done that? To him? He really didn’t know right now.

‘I’m heading in the right direction, more or less. And I have a GPS. I just need the final address.’

Logan heard rustling on the other end. He assumed Mackie was relaying instructions to someone else. Eventually he came back on the line.

‘Okay, just give us a few minutes. Land records are pretty easy to trace. Hopefully it won’t take long.’

‘How did
you
find out about Dennis?’ Logan asked.

‘Two different people found it at pretty much the same time. We had some people looking into Greg Dennis, like you said, and we found that there was a Greg Dennis who had been an FBI agent killed by Kennedy. Or executed, I should say. Dennis was investigating the mafia at the time, but hadn’t banked on meeting
one of their hit-men. We also found out the same thing through looking into Kennedy’s past. Dennis’s murder was one of the key crimes that the Feds had on Kennedy. They had enough to put him away for life, but in the end they gave it all away for some dirt on Carlucci. It didn’t take long to spot the link between Greg Dennis and Angela. Grainger is her married name.’

‘I know. I figured that.’

Logan heard his phone bleeping. He looked at it. Low battery.

‘Shit. I need to ring off – my battery is almost flat. Call me when you have the location. Do it soon. I don’t want to go off course. It’s a big place out there.’

Logan hung up. Should he turn the phone off altogether? Doing so might save a bit more battery. But then he’d have to keep powering it back on to check if Mackie had called. Better just to leave it on for now and hope that Mackie got back to him soon.

If they didn’t find an address for him, he really would be out of luck.

With nothing but the road ahead of him, he started to go over everything he knew, or thought he knew, about Grainger.

Was it possible for things to be any more messed up than this?

She was the first person he’d really opened up to in his life. And what was she? A murderer? Some sort of psychotic? Did she actually keep the likes of Blakemore as company? Or had the scheme just spiralled far out of her control? Even if that was the case, her actions were still beyond reckless. How many people had died? And all so she could get to Kennedy.

Logan just couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen it. Had never even imagined it. Not one sodding bit.

As he replayed his time with Grainger, everything started flooding back to him. All of the little hints as to what was really going on. When he thought about it, there had been plenty. Her leaving him stranded while on the way to Blakemore’s. How Blakemore had been fatally shot while Logan had run after Selim. How Grainger had miraculously found the address where Selim had taken Modena. The look of recognition at Modena’s words about being lucky. And how she had been so cagey and awkward about when they would see each other again. Because she knew that once her scheme was out in the open, they had no future together.

And now he was feeling like the biggest fool who’d ever walked the earth.

His attraction to her had been real. But what had she seen him as? Just another cog in her wretched plot? Or had some part of her really felt for him like he had for her?

Despite everything, he really hoped it was the latter. Because he couldn’t ignore the feelings he had for her. They were still there. And he knew that the biggest concern right now was how this was going to end. If it came down to it, could he take her down? This woman he had cared about so much?

He didn’t even want to think about that.