As Sean turned away his gaze lingered on the corpse.
“Reynolds?”
“Yes,” I said through stiff lips. “He had Ella.” It sounded plaintive, defensive.
Sean nodded, understanding more than I’d voiced.
“You did what you had to, Charlie,” he said, and right at that moment I probably almost believed him.
He carried me back through the stockroom to the front of the store. Vaughan, no more anxious than anyone else to be alone with two dead men, was right behind us. He’d picked up my fallen crutch and was carrying it with him. The three of us followed the path Matt had taken with Ella. That meant we had to pass the slumped body of the man with the glasses, still sitting propped against one of the gun safes, hands now slack in his lap. He was still staring at nothing but, this time, nothing stared right back. I averted my eyes.
In the store I found the two men who’d grabbed me from outside the White Mountain Hotel-Vaughan’s men-hanging round with guns in their hands and looking nervous. Frances Neagley was crouched next to Ella, helping Matt to mop the blood off his daughter’s face and clothing with wadded-up paper towel. The child had quietened to grizzling until she caught sight of me and then she started to yowl again, an almost knee-jerk response.
Matt threw me a look that was half angry, half apologetic as he swept her up and carried her through into one of the offices behind the counter, closing the door firmly behind the two of them. Out of sight and out of mind.
Neagley’s gaze was coolly assessing as she got to her feet, as though she had pieced together what it was I must have done in front of Ella to cause this kind of a reaction, and had come pretty close to the mark.
Sean put me down next to a chair and I drooped into it, leaning forwards to rest my elbows on my knees, scrubbing wearily at my face. My hands smelt of gunpowder and sweat and blood. The right one reacted slower and more clumsily. I let them drop and looked up to find both Sean and Neagley studying me.
“You OK?” the private investigator asked carefully.
I shrugged. “More or less,” I lied.
“The cops are on their way,” Sean said. “Are you ready for this?”
“Would it make a difference if I said no?” I watched Vaughan lean my crutch against one of the displays and move across to speak with his boys in quiet murmurs. “What are they doing here?”
Sean followed my gaze. “When we got to Vaughan’s place we found that he was expecting us — as you probably know,” he said. “But, fortunately for us, he was prepared to listen to what we had to say before it got to any shooting.” He pulled a rueful face. “Good job, too, or we’d be filling a number of little wooden boxes by now.”
“And he convinced you he hadn’t got Ella.”
He nodded. “And that Rosalind had sold us a pup,” he agreed. “And then when she called him and offered him a trade, it actually convinced him that we were telling the truth-that we’d genuinely believed he’d got Ella. He knew Lucas wasn’t Lucas almost from the start-it was what gave him his hold over the pair of them. The last thing Vaughan wanted was Simone exposing the deception, or he’d lose his leverage. He never wanted to involve her in any of this. That’s why he tried to persuade you to get both Simone and Ella out of line of fire.”
Vaughan finished his conversation and came over, sliding his pistol inside his jacket as he approached. He’d clearly caught Sean’s last words, because he favored me with the ghost of a smile.
“I may be guilty of many things, Charlie, but child kidnapping and murder are not among them,” he said flatly. “Besides, I doubt dear Greg and Rosalind are going to get away with any of this and I found I had nothing to lose by hightailing it down here and helping your boss bring them down.” He waved a hand around him at the store. ‘After all, if that happens, I take over this place.”
“Aren’t you worried the police might look into your own business dealings a little too closely for comfort?” Sean asked, a hint of a challenge in his cool tone.
Vaughan showed his teeth more fully. “I’m a careful man. They can look all they want,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think we’ll leave you to explain things to the cops.” He handed Sean a set of car keys that I recognized as belonging to the Explorer, and nodded to me. “Good-bye, Charlie. And good luck.”
I didn’t respond, waiting until the doors had closed behind Vaughan and his men before I glanced back at Sean.
“What was he up to with the Lucases?”
“He’s been using them as a central distribution point for stolen military gear,” Sean said almost casually. “Mixing it in with genuine surplus stuff. Quite a lot of weaponry, from what Lucas was telling me. You must have noticed how everyone seems to be using U.S. Army-issue Beretta M nines? All from Vaughan’s contacts.”
“And Rosalind wanted out,” I said. “In fact, I got the impression she never wanted in in the first place.”
“Vaughan contacted Lucas when he was looking for an outlet and Lucas was quite keen to strike a deal, but Vaughan spotted him for a fake almost right away,” Sean said. ‘After that, I don’t think Rosalind had much of a choice if she wanted to keep up the pretense.”
Neagley looked round. “Where is she, by the way?”
I flushed as the realization struck. “Oh hell-we left her outside,” I said guiltily. “Gagged and tied to a chair round the side of the building.”
“I’ll go fetch her,” Neagley said, heading for the door.
“She admitted that she used Reynolds to arrange your partner’s accident,” I said to her. “I’m very sorry”
Neagley just paused and nodded, her face shuttered as though this news was no real surprise to her.
After she’d gone, Sean retrieved my crutch from where Vaughan had left it and leaned it against the side of my chair. I was coming round, I recognized, to the point where I might actually be able to use it. I made the effort to keep my mind locked on the present.
“Where’s Lucas?” I asked.
Sean glanced round, frowning. “I don’t know,” he said. “We left him in here while we searched the place.”
“You don’t think-”
The lobby door banged open again and Neagley stood in the gap, looking pale and tense.
“Sean, you’d better come,” she said.
I grabbed the arm of my chair and the crutch and heaved myself upright, every muscle squealing at the effort.
“No, Charlie,” Sean said. “Stay here.”
“That’s what you told me last time,” I said, “and look what happened then.”
His mouth flattened but he helped me struggle back into my jacket, which had still been lying in a heap on the floor from when Matt and I had gone after Ella. Even after a brief respite, walking was a battle. Sean had to lend me some support or it would have taken all night to follow Neagley outside.
The cold instantly highlighted the residual dampness in my coat, arrowing straight into my chest. I started shivering as soon as the door had swung shut behind me. Neagley led the way round the side of the building. As I rounded the corner I wasn’t sure what I was going to see, but the sight of Rosalind-still taped to her swivel chair but with a dreadful familiar stillness about her-wasn’t it.
For a second I thought she’d frozen to death, and then I saw the gunshot wound to the middle of her forehead. I stared at her blankly, aware of two sets of eyes suddenly turned in my direction.
“I didn’t,” I said, swaying as the shock buffeted me. “We’d disarmed her, tied her up. Why the hell would I kill her?”