“Vonda! My Lord, where are you? Are you all right?”
The microphone was good but not that good. We could hear some squawking in the background, but not enough to begin to decipher actual words at the other end of Collingwood’s line. It was just audio scribble.
“Hey, hey, just wait a goddamn minute!” He cut right across the top of whatever she was saying. “I don’t know what the hell you got yourself mixed up in, kiddo, and I don’t want to know … . No, you just listen to me. You come on in and we’ll work this whole thing out. You stay out there, off the grid, and I can’t help you.”
He sounded sad rather than angry. Tired, as though this was a ritual he’d been through many times before, a procedure he had to go through, but he knew it never ended well.
Vondie launched back in at this point—strident, if the cast of what she was saying was anything to go by. Collingwood barely let her get into her stride.
“Believe me when I tell you, you’re in a world of trouble right now, kiddo, but it’ll be worse if you run.” His voice turned almost pleading. “Look, I know you’re hurting. That busted nose needs to be fixed if you’re gonna stay looking beautiful, huh?”
Parker reached out and paused the playback, looking round the assembled faces. “Immediate thoughts?” he asked crisply.
“Well, he doesn’t sound like he knew what she was up to,” Sean ventured. “Unless he was aware you were recording him, of course, and he was playing to his audience? If it’d been me, I’d have assumed you were monitoring.”
Parker shrugged. “It cost a lot of money to have surveillance gear installed in that room,” he said, offering me a wry smile. “We know he didn’t sweep it, so unless he’s had cleaners in that we don’t know about, I doubt he would have spotted anything.”
“He sounds almost … fond of that woman,” my mother said, a dent forming between her eyebrows, as if she couldn’t understand why anyone could possibly want to show affection for one of her erstwhile tormentors.
“Protégée,” I said shortly. “He trained her, that would be my guess. If she’s cocked-up and he can’t fix it, or if he can’t bring her to heel—and quickly—it’s going to reflect as badly on him as it does on her,” I added, echoing Sean’s remarks the day of my abortive fitness test. “If he’s on the level.”
“I think you’re right,” Parker said. He glanced at my father but only received a brief shake of the head in response. My father had never been one to speak just to hear the sound of his own voice unless he had something of value to say. Parker nudged the mouse and Collingwood’s voice re-emerged.
“Come on in, kiddo,” he repeated. “Whatever you got yourself into, you can still make it right … . Hey, hey, I know. I just want to help you, kiddo. I stand by my people.” Coaxing now. “Just come on in. Come home—please?”
There was a long pause but this time we couldn’t hear anything of Vondie’s voice. Either Collingwood had shifted his position, or she was no longer screeching at him. Or she was giving his words long, silent consideration.
Eventually, Collingwood said, “Okay, but call me and let me know which flight. Promise? I’ll meet you … . Yeah, I’ll bring you in myself … . It’ll all work out, you’ll see … . Yeah, take care of yourself, kiddo. Bye.”
We heard a muted bleep as he ended the call, then a long slow exhalation and a single quietly muttered but entirely heartfelt word, just before the recording ended: “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Parker murmured, clicking it off with a thoughtful air. “I’d say that just about sums it up, wouldn’t you?”
“Pretty much,” Sean replied. “The question is, Do you trust him more, or less, after hearing it?”
It had been a general question, but he cocked an eyebrow at my father as he spoke, making it direct and personal.
My father gave an elegant shrug. “I’m not entirely sure that I have much of a choice in the matter,” he said, indifferent. “But I’ve always found that actions speak far louder than words. If he’s to be trusted, I would rather suggest that we’ll know soon enough by what he does.”
“But, Richard, surely if this man isn’t to be trusted, that means they’ll make another attempt on you, doesn’t it?” my mother demanded, her voice taking on distinct overtones of Vondie’s shrill note.
My father gave a grim smile. “In that case, my dear,” he said with utter calm, “we’ll find out just how good Charlotte is at her job.”
CHAPTER 16
We heard nothing from Collingwood for several days, during which time my father’s frustration grew. Parker used the lull to mount a major low-key public-relations campaign within the industry and managed to stem the flow of clients who had suddenly decided to seek the services of other firms.
One or two even came back, slightly sheepish. But there were more who stayed away for no better reason than to save face. Parker seemed to be practically living at the office. Despite his denials that he didn’t hold me—or my family—in any way personally responsible for his current woes, I knew there were others who didn’t feel the same way. Bill Rendelson, for one, could hardly bring himself to speak to me.
Sean and I stuck with my parents, on a rotating shift pattern with a couple of Parker’s other guys, 24/7. By Sunday morning, when we’d heard nothing and seen nothing, all of us were going a little stir-crazy stuck in the hotel, however luxurious.
In particular, my mother’s nerves were strung so tight we could probably have got a recognizable tune out of her. I suppose it was inevitable that it was she, eventually, who demanded we get out and take in some of the sights.
“I haven’t been to New York with your father since before you were born, Charlotte,” she protested when I expressed my doubts about the wisdom of going walkabout. “We went to Greenwich Village, I remember. It was just like something out of a Woody Allen film. And I would very much like to do it again.” It was a royal command rather than a request.
My father, who’d spent much of this voluntary incarceration reading obscure medical textbooks of one type or another, glanced up from his page and frowned over the top of his glasses.
“Are you sure that’s wise, Elizabeth?” He used such a mild dry tone that I knew he didn’t really need to ask.
My mother’s chin came out, mulish—was that where I got it from? “Frankly,” she said with some asperity, “I need some air.”
He paused a moment as if considering the validity of this argument, then inclined his head. “In that case,” he said gravely, “of course we’ll go.” He turned his gaze to Sean, who was sitting at the room’s desk, typing onto one of the office laptops. He had taken off his jacket and his tie, but not the paddle-rig holster for the Glock 21, which he’d carried since we’d returned to the States. Somehow, he didn’t look quite dressed without it.
“I trust you have no objections?” my father said in a steely voice, daring Sean to raise any.
Sean didn’t reply instantly. When he did, it was without looking up from the screen.
“If you’re sensible—no.”
“Of course.” My father rose almost gracefully, tucking his glasses into an inside pocket as he smiled at my mother. “Shall we go?”
McGregor was back on call that day and he obligingly drove us south on Fifth until we hit the huge ornamental white stone archway that makes a grand entrance to Washington Square Park.