Pursuit (37 page)

But a love affair gone sour? Oh yeah. People believed anything of a beautiful woman. It was ingrained in human psychology. Beauties lead different lives, inspire greater passions, greater hatreds . . .

He had two cold guns. First shoot the operator, then her. Get their prints on the guns. It would work. Yeah. Charlotte Court, shot to death by her wrathful, jealous lover. Anyone would believe that.

“Hurry it up, Matt,” Charlotte called, making a neat pile of her underwear. They were leaving in a couple of hours. Lenny was going to drive them to Tijuana, where an FBI agent would meet them and take her and Matt across the border. They had tickets for the red-eye to Rochester, and tomorrow she’d be back home.

It would be horrible walking into her home and not having Moira, though. As soon as she was home, Charlotte was going to call Moira’s family to ask about their burial preferences. If the family wanted, Moira could be buried in the Court family crypt. Time was tight, and Matt was showering.

“Don’t worry!” he shouted. “Unlike you, it will take me five minutes to pack.”

Charlotte zipped her bag and placed it on a chair. They wouldn’t have to stay more than a few days in Warrenton, Tom had said. He wanted Matt at work by next week, and had arranged for them to stay in a catered apartment in San Diego at company expense until they could find a house.

Charlotte was leaving most of her belongings here. Matt had promised her they could come down to San Luis his first weekend off. She started covering her paintings when she heard a knock at the door.

“Don’t answer that!” Matt called, his voice muffled by the shower water. Charlotte rolled her eyes. If Matt had his way, whoever was out there would have to wait for Matt to finish showering, dry off, and get dressed. Matt’s paranoia would have to stop at some point. He was going to have to tone it down if he wanted to live with her.

Start as you mean to go on.

She walked to the door and opened it. A thin blond man was standing there, checking her number. He saw her and started. “Oh! I h-hope I g-got the right n-number. Th-thirty-seven, Perry said. Are you Ch-Charlotte Fitzgerald?”

He was blinking in the bright sunlight, hands deep in his pockets. Charlotte smiled. “Yes, I am, but I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“M-May I come in? J-just for a moment? P-Perry Ensler s-sent me.”

With an inward sigh, Charlotte stepped back. “Well, just for a moment.”

“Th-thank you.” He followed her in and looked around, eyes bright with interest. “Oh, mmy. P-Perry was right. Such
talent.
N-name’s Pete. Pete Cornwell. I c-collect s-sketches and bought several of y-yours at P-Perry Ensler’s g-gallery in La P-paz. P-Perry d-didn’t have any more of your s-stuff to sell, and he s-said to c-come directly to you.”

Matt appeared in the doorway, hair wet, in jeans and tee shirt. The tee shirt clung to his wet chest. He hadn’t even taken the time to dry. “You’ll have to come back some other time,” he said coldly.

The man looked alarmed at Matt’s hostile tone. “S-sorry.” He looked at Charlotte, Matt, then Charlotte again. “I g-guess this is a r-really bad t-time. B-but I’m d-driving back up to L-Los Angeles th-this afternoon and I did s-so want to b-buy s-some m-more s-sketches of y-yours b-before I g-go.”

His stammer was getting worse and worse under Matt’s cold stare.

“Okay. I can show you some of my sketches.” She’d give this Pete Cornwell fifteen minutes to go through them, out of courtesy to Perry. It wasn’t usual practice for an art gallery to make it easy for a customer to buy art directly from the artist. It was very gracious of Perry to point this man in her direction. He wasn’t going to make a dime off the sales.

The portfolio with most of her sketches was on the sideboard. That sideboard made a very neat metaphor for her life melding with Matt’s. In the top drawer, he kept two loaded pistols and a big black knife with a razor edge and a
groove
for blood. She’d never even heard of such a thing.
Just in case,
Matt had said when he’d put the weapons in the drawer. Deadly weapons below. Her sketches above. Made for an interesting contrast. Charlotte opened the portfolio, quickly chose twenty sketches. “Here,” she said, “you can—”

Fast as a snake, the man’s arm caught her around the neck and she felt a cold circle of metal against her temple. A gun had magically appeared in his hand. “Freeze!” he shouted.

Charlotte couldn’t move. He held her in a chokehold. But he wasn’t talking to her, he was talking to Matt.

“Weapons, on the floor. Hands up and behind your head.
Now!
Or she gets it right in the head.” He ground the muzzle against her temple. Matt didn’t move.

“Weapons. On. The. Floor. If you make me say it one more time, I’m putting a slug through her elbow.”

The clatter of Matt’s gun hitting the floor was loud in the suddenly quiet room. His eyes glittered almost coal black, his attention focused completely on the man holding her.

“Backup weapon, too.”

“Don’t have one on me,” Matt growled. “I was taking a shower.”

“What—what do you want?” Charlotte wheezed. The pain in her neck was excruciating. He was cutting off her airway. “Did Robert send you?”

“Shut up.” His arm tightened, and she saw spots. It was entirely possible that she was going to die right now, choked to death. She brought her hands up and tried to pry his arm away, but it was like trying to shift a steel bar. She used her nails but couldn’t find a purchase on the hard, ropy muscles of his forearm. He tightened his grip even more and she gasped, light-headed.

“You.” The man addressed Matt. “Against that wall.” His head jerked to the left. Matt didn’t move. “Let up on her first. No sense choking her.”

The arm eased up slightly, and Charlotte gasped, finally able to breathe.

“Get over there,” the man growled. “I need you against the wall. Right in front of me.”

The oxygen infusion woke her up. Adrenaline coursed through her system. Her thoughts raced. She had to find some kind of advantage, some kind of leverage.
Think!
He hadn’t killed her immediately. He could have. He could have shot them down immediately. The fact that he didn’t meant that he had some kind of plan. He wanted this to go down in a specific way.

What did he want?

I need you against the wall
. What a peculiar thing to say. This whole scene was utterly crazy. He was holding her tightly, watching as Matt slowly made his way to the wall. Charlotte now saw that the man’s hands looked odd. They . . . glistened. It took her a second to realize that he was wearing latex gloves. He’d planned this. All of this—it was part of some elaborate plan. And having Matt against the wall was part of it. He was going to kill them both. Charlotte had found the love of her life, she was going to get married, and now this man was going to wipe them off the face of the Earth.
No!
Not while she had a breath left in her. Matt was watching him fiercely but wouldn’t make a move. Not as long as the man held a gun to her head. It was up to her. Matt had reached the wall. The man was moving forward, toward Matt, pushing Charlotte in front of him. Maybe if she tripped or pretended to faint, she could make him lose his balance. All Matt needed was an opening. She’d seen how fast he could move. A second’s opportunity, and he’d make his move.

The man took a step forward, and she could feel his muscles bunching for another step.
Now!

Charlotte cried out, as if she’d stubbed her toe, and twisted, turning herself into a deadweight. It didn’t work. Though he was thin, he was incredibly strong. He simply tightened his hold on her neck and lifted her as he took another step forward. The hold had turned into a stranglehold. Red and black spots swam in front of her eyes. The room was turning gray, a rushing noise filled her ears.

She had to think of something fast before she passed out.

The sideboard! If she could somehow reach inside the drawer and pull out one of the pistols or even the knife. It was so sharp she could slice the tendons of his arm with it. Charlotte stumbled again, heavily, and by the time he yanked her upright, she was so close to the sideboard she could almost touch it. Should she pretend to faint? Maybe—

Oh God! As soon as Matt moved to where he wanted him, the man swung the pistol from her head and aimed it at Matt. Charlotte watched in horror as his finger tightened on the trigger, squeezing gently—

Charlotte shoved at him with all her strength just as his finger pulled the trigger. The gun went off in a roar, and Matt dropped like a stone, the wall behind him stained with bloodspatter.

Rage such as she had never felt before roared inside Charlotte, lighting a wildfire inside her.
He’d killed Matt
. In a move faster than thought, she shoved at the man, pivoted, and opened the drawer in the sideboard, clutching the pistol.

The cold metal felt good in her hand, familiar. It gave her the power.

“Son of a bitch!”
the man screamed, rounding on her, but by that time she had Matt’s pistol pointed toward him, toward the man who had killed Matt.

She pulled the trigger—
bang bang bang bang bang bang
—aiming straight at his chest, walking toward him in a frenzy of fury so great, she kept pulling the trigger even after she’d finished the bullets, not hearing the click of the pistol on empty. Charlotte stood over him, panting, pistol still aimed at him. He wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t breathing.

She stood over him, teeth grinding, panting, waiting for the next move. If the miserable bastard so much as twitched a finger, she was going to club him upside the head with the pistol and crack his skull.

And then take the knife to him.

She hauled back and kicked him, so hard his body bounced. There was a small lake of blood spreading out from his back.

His eyes were open, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. She kicked him again.

“Charlotte. Honey. He’s dead.” Matt’s voice. God! He was alive! His voice woke her out of her trance, and she ran to him, sliding a little in the blood spreading out in a pool from where he lay.

“Matt!” she sobbed, kneeling in his blood. The bullet had gone through his shoulder. She didn’t know whether it had nicked some important artery. There seemed to be so much blood! “Oh, God, Matt, don’t die!”

He reached up and touched her cheek, smiling faintly. “Did . . . a number on that guy,” he gasped. “Charlotte. My warrior princess.”

And he fainted.

San Diego, California

A year late
r

My wife will be here shortly,” Matt said through a clenched jaw for the bazillionth time. He looked yearningly out the big plate-glass windows of San Diego’s trendiest art gallery, where Charlotte was having the opening of a one-woman show, hoping to catch a glimpse of her finally walking up the street.

It was the opening of her first show. A
vernissage
is what you were supposed to call it.
Torture
was what Matt called it.

Matt was being bombarded by questions he had no answer to, and the gallery owner wasn’t being any help. He was too busy racking up sales. The little red dots that marked a sale had been sprouting on Charlotte’s paintings like a rash of measles. Where the hell
was
she? It wasn’t like her to be late, certainly not for her own show. She’d been in a fever of excitement for months over it, painting up a storm, which had suited him because he was kept enormously busy working for Tom. They were both happily settled in San Diego, in a big house in Coronado Shores filled to the rafters with Charlotte’s work. A tall, excruciatingly thin, very elegant lady drifted up to him in a cloud of perfume. She had a narrow face and lots and lots of teeth. She tapped him on his arm with a closed fan.

“Excuse me,” she said, her leathery face totally expressionless. He’d seen that a lot in women lately and had asked Charlotte about it. It shocked him when she said that women injected
botulism
in their faces for the wrinkles.

Botulism. The idea horrified him. He’d once risked his life to recover a strain of botulism in a canister headed for New York. Charlotte had laughed at his expression. This lady might have injected the entire canister into herself because she could barely move her mouth.

“Does your wife work in gouache? I’d be very interested if she did.”

“Nope,” Matt responded. “She paints, she doesn’t cook. No goulash.” And made his escape outside.

It was a beautiful day, as most days were in San Diego. He took a deep breath, savoring the fresh air, away from the perfume, eau de cologne, hair gel, and hair spray inside. For the millionth time, Matt thanked the gods that Charlotte was willing to live here with him. The month they’d spent in Warrenton testifying against Robert Haine and Martin Conklin had been miserable—cold and windy and rainy. If he never went back to Warrenton, it would be too soon.

The month had been worth it, though. It had taken all of Matt’s willpower not to take a knife to Robert Haine. Even if he hadn’t been able to slice him to bits, it had given him enormous pleasure to see him sentenced to twenty years hard time with no parole. The killer Haine had sent had recorded every word. Haine on film ordering Charlotte Court’s death had sealed his fate.

Another good thing that had come out of that month had been the sale of Charlotte’s shares to a consortium of young engineers. It had netted Charlotte an amazing amount of money, most of which she’d donated to a charity that gave art scholarships to poor students.