Kill Plan (Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thrillers -) (21 page)

The final flights seemed to go on forever, but she finally made it to the apartment door, fumbled a little with the keys, and practically fell into the hallway.

The apartment was way too hot. It felt like a tropical plant house in there. Or maybe she had overheated because of the eight-story climb. Immediately, her head pounded a little harder. The heating had to be on. The realtor had promised her all the appliances would be checked before she moved in. Presumably, whoever checked the gas heater had forgotten to turn it off. She dumped her bags in the hall and headed for the bathroom, where she remembered seeing the heater on her earlier visit.

Sure enough, the heater was busy distributing heat to all the chunky white radiators in every room. She searched for an off switch, but couldn’t find anything that looked right. She did find a red dial, which she gave a good hard yank counter-clockwise. Half the dial came off in her hand, the plastic fracturing in a jagged diagonal line.

Her head throbbed a little harder. Her breathing quickened. She needed to get some cool evening air into the apartment. As she turned toward the window, she noticed something shiny lying in the bath. She bent down and reached out a hand. In an instant her head started to spin. She straightened up and leaned against the wall, wondering if the dizziness was a result of her head injury or the lack of air. She took a couple of deep, steadying breaths and turned again toward the window. She unscrewed the latch and tried to push the top sash upward. It wouldn’t budge. It looked painted shut.

Goddammit
.

Maybe she could open the door onto the roof terrace. She spun around and started to head for the hall, but the sudden movement made her dizziness worse. She grabbed onto the doorframe with both hands, but her head started to buzz. She took a deep breath and stepped out into the hall.

Her sense of balance abandoned her completely. Her legs buckled and she sprawled across the floor. She tried to get up again, but her limbs felt so weak. Her eyes started to close and there was nothing she could do to keep them open. She laid her head on the floor—her flushed cheek found some relief against the cold floorboards—and drifted into unconsciousness.

34

An intense pressure squeezed Ingrid’s arms. Her head lolled from side to side. She couldn’t seem to stop it. There was more pressure across her chest, as if something were pressing down on her. She tried to open her eyes.

She saw her dad, his arms open wide, just waiting for her to run into them. But how could she run when she couldn’t move her legs? In the distance she heard a voice she recognized. A woman’s voice, far, far away.

Natasha? What was Natasha McKittrick doing here in Minnesota? Was she on vacation?

“Ingrid! Wake up!”

Ingrid’s head lolled again, faster than before. She was shaking. No—being shaken. Why couldn’t Natasha just let her sleep? She was so tired. The pressure on her arms subsided. It started up again around her wrists. Then the floorboards started to slide beneath her. Who was moving the floor? She heard a door slam behind her. The floor felt wonderfully cold. Colder than it had before.

She didn’t know this place. Where did her dad go? This wasn’t Minnesota.

Cold liquid splashed across her face. What was that smell? Tequila? She heard Natasha’s voice again, urgent and loud. What was she saying? Ingrid opened her eyes. Even though she could have sworn they were already open.

This time she didn’t see her dad. Where was she? “Natasha?”

“Oh thank God. Stay with me, Ingrid.”

Ingrid managed to prop herself up on an elbow. She had seen this place before, but couldn’t recall when.

“The ambulance is on its way.”

“I’m so hot.”

McKittrick helped Ingrid to her feet and they limped out through a set of doors and into a stairwell. They sank down onto the first step. “That’s it,” McKittrick said, “big deep breaths.”

Moment by moment, Ingrid’s head cleared a fraction more. Her apartment.
That’s
where she was. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure. How’re you feeling?”

“Like crap.” She tried to swallow. “Thirsty.”

McKittrick fished around in her purse and pulled out a half full bottle of mineral water. Ingrid gulped down the lot. Then threw it all back up again two seconds later. All over her friend’s shoes.

“I’m sorry.”

“In the circumstances, I don’t think that really matters.”

Ingrid grabbed the banister rail and managed to haul herself up to her feet. She blinked hard a few times and dragged a sleeve across her mouth. She swayed left then right.

“Sit down, for God’s sake.” McKittrick put a hand under Ingrid’s elbow to support her.

“I don’t understand. What happened?”

“Let’s not worry about that for now, shall we?”

A siren sounded in the distance. “You called the police?”

“No—I’m hoping that’s the ambulance.”

Ingrid pulled her arm away from McKittrick’s. “I don’t need an ambulance. I feel better already.” She lurched to one side and reached out a hand for the banister rail.

“Tough. You’re going to hospital even if I have to arrest you first.” McKittrick punched a number in her phone. “This is Detective Inspector Natasha McKittrick, HSCC, area team four. I’m going to need police and fire brigade. I think there might be a gas leak.” She pulled the phone from her ear. “Ingrid—could you smell gas when you arrived?”

“What? No—there’s no leak. What are you saying?”

“Did you hear that?” McKittrick said into the phone. “I’d hazard a guess at carbon monoxide.” She listened for a moment to the person on the phone. “I might not be here when they arrive, I’ve got to take my friend to the hospital. But if anyone needs to speak to me, you can give them this mobile number.” She hung up.

“Carbon monoxide?” Ingrid’s words continued to slur, no matter how hard she tried to speak normally.

A loud bang echoed up the stairwell. Then a door slammed. A minute or so later the door into the stairwell opened and an EMT ran through. He took one look at Ingrid and called out to his colleague, who was still in the lobby. A gurney appeared in the doorway.

“I’m not getting on that thing. I can walk.” Ingrid stumbled forward a couple of steps and her legs gave way.

The next thing she was aware of was a torch shining in her eyes. “You’re going to be just fine,” a soothing female voice told her. Then sleep overcame her again.

*

When she woke up Ingrid could feel something digging into her nostrils. She raised her hand to her nose, but another hand stopped her before she reached it.

“Leave that just where it is.”

Ingrid fought to focus on the face that the voice was coming from. Natasha McKittrick. She blinked and took in her surroundings. A hospital room. The blanket felt heavy against her legs. Light was coming in from a large window to her left. She had a gray plastic clip on one of her fingers and a tube of clear liquid feeding into her left arm.

“What day is it?” She struggled to get the words out, her mouth was so dry.

“Here.” McKittrick lifted a plastic beaker to her lips and Ingrid took a sip of water. “It’s Tuesday, you’ve been in overnight.”

Ingrid tried to sit up. “My apartment.” Memories of the night before were drifting in and out of her mind in a muddled mess.

McKittrick helped raise the pillows behind her and Ingrid pulled herself up. “Do you need the nurse or anything?”

“Not right now. Tell me what happened.” She was having trouble focusing, so she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the chair McKittrick had been sitting in was empty. She glanced toward the door. Through the porthole window she saw the detective speaking to a uniformed cop. A moment later the door opened and McKittrick came back in carrying a Pret A Manger plastic bag.

“Hey—you’re with us again.” She dumped the bag on a tall bedside cabinet and pulled out a cardboard cup. “I went for decaf—hope you don’t mind. I didn’t want your heart rate setting off any alarms. There’s a pot of muesli and yogurt there for you when you’re ready.”

Ingrid smiled up at her. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I fell asleep earlier. I didn’t mean to.”

“Go right ahead and drift off again, if you need to.”

Ingrid blinked a few times and wriggled upwards in the bed. She puffed out a breath.

“The color’s come back into your face. You look a bloody sight better than you did earlier.”

“What time is it?”

“Two in the afternoon.”

“Why is there a cop outside the room?”

“Protection.”

“What?”

“You really don’t remember what happened?”

“It’s a little hazy.” She gave her friend a weak smile.

McKittrick sat down on the edge of the bed. “You may want to get comfortable. It could take a while.” She handed Ingrid the coffee. “The fire brigade have done some analysis, and it was definitely carbon monoxide poisoning. The flue leading out of the boiler in your bathroom had come loose, and instead of the waste gases going straight outside, they all leaked into the flat.”

“That doesn’t explain the cop.”

“I’ll make allowances for your slowness, given you’ve only just come round. But I’m warning you now, my patience might wear a bit thin—I’ve been up most of the night.” She pulled another cup from the Pret bag and took a sip. “The friendly neighborhood bobby is outside because three of the four screws that were meant to fix the flue in place had been removed.” She stared into Ingrid’s eyes. “Not come loose with general wear and tear, not rusted away… removed deliberately.”

A sudden memory of the shiny objects she had seen in the bathtub popped into Ingrid’s head. “Someone tried to…”

“Kill you… bump you off… do you in… yes.” McKittrick put her coffee on the bedside cabinet. “Second attempt on your life in as many days. Even the Met aren’t going to ignore that.”

“Contact Sol Franklin—he can send someone from the embassy.”

“You saying our boys can’t handle it?”

“Only thinking of your budgets.”

“Sod that! Besides, I’ve already spoken to Sol, he was in earlier with a huge bunch of inappropriate flowers. The nurses weren’t at all happy with him.”

Ingrid drank a little of her caffeine-free, and frankly, pointless black coffee while she considered who the hell might want to kill her. “I’ve got to get out of here.” Pulling the blanket from her legs she noticed the tube that had been anchoring her to a drip was gone. All that remained was a cannula leading into a vein in her arm with transparent adhesive tape. She wondered how bad the bleeding would be if she just yanked it out.

“Stay exactly where you are.”

“I need to find out who did this.” She sat very still for a moment, the sudden movement had made her head spin. “How did they know about the apartment? Or the paintballing thing on Sunday? I didn’t even know where I was going until we arrived.”

“As it happens, I’ve been giving it some thought. I’ve had a bit of time on my hands, sitting here, listening to you snore.”

“I don’t snore.”

“Well all last night you did. Thank God you’re in a private room.”

“And what did you come up with?”

“He must have followed you. To the paintballing place on Sunday and to your apartment yesterday evening.”

Ingrid screwed up her face as a wave of nausea swept over her then gradually subsided.

“Jesus—should I fetch someone?”

“Oh God—I just remembered—I threw up on your shoes last night.”

“It’s OK—I wasn’t that fond of them anyway.”

“Sorry.” Ingrid sniffed. “Whoever sabotaged the boiler would have needed to reach the apartment way ahead of me, just to have enough time to do what they did. They couldn’t have followed me.”

“Glad to see the gray cells have started firing. I suppose he must have already known about the flat.”

“He?”

McKittrick raised her eyebrows. “You said it was a bloke who fired arrows at you.”

“You should speak to the real estate agent.”

“Tried that. He didn’t show up for work today.”

“He didn’t?”

McKittrick shrugged. “Gone AWOL. I don’t think he’s our man, though.”

“I really do need to get out of here.”

“The registrar’s doing his rounds later this afternoon. If he says you’re good to go, fine. Otherwise you’re here for another night.”

“Better make sure I pass the test. I’ll have that yogurt now.”

“I should warn you, you might get a call from Marshall at some point.” McKittrick couldn’t look her in the eye.

“You told him?”

“I didn’t—but someone at the embassy must have. I called your colleagues to find out who your next of kin was—I guessed, as he’s only your fiancé, it wouldn’t be Marshall. The hospital insisted on having a name.”

Ingrid shuddered slightly.

“You cold? Want another blanket?”

“It’s my mom.”

“I know that now. Svetlana Skyberg. Now that’s got a good old American ring to it.”

“It’s a Russian name.”

“I would never have guessed.”

“Should I expect a call from her too?” Ingrid shuddered again.

McKittrick shrugged back at her. “Judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing you don’t want to speak to her?”

Ingrid shook her head.

“If she calls,” McKittrick said, “I’ll take it.”

*

A half hour later Detective Constable Ralph Mills arrived with a bunch of magazines shoved under one arm. He hesitated at the door, too awkward to come straight in.

In a rush, Ingrid remembered the way she’d recoiled from the kiss he’d planted on the top of her head on Sunday. Thinking about it now, the kiss was as chaste as a grandson pecking his grandmother’s cheek. She had completely overreacted. She needed somehow to make amends.

“I was expecting the doctor,” she told him as he closed the door. The words came out like a criticism, not as she’d intended at all.

“Sorry to disappoint.” He handed her the magazines. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I bought a range.” He offered her the merest hint of a smile.

“That was very thoughtful of you. Thank you.”

Ingrid fanned the glossy monthlies out across the bedclothes.
Parkour and Free Running
,
Motorcycle Monthly
, and
Rolling Stone
. Not a bad selection. She wasn’t even sure she’d have chosen as well for herself. His insight into her personality unnerved her.