Kitabı oxu: «Safe House Under Fire»

ONE

“Astrid, will you please come here this minute. If I have to ask again, you’ll be grounded until Sunday.”

Lilly Olsen rushed around her living room, plumping the cushions, straightening the throws and arranging the magazines into piles. She hated to return from work to a messy home, so she tried to make life easier by keeping on top of things. Juggling her job as bank clerk with parenting a wayward fifteen-year-old daughter was difficult enough already.

“Astrid,” she shouted, feeling her patience wear thinner than ever. “It’s eight fifteen. You’ll be late for school and I’ll be late for work.” She muttered under her breath, “Again.”

“Okay, Mom, you don’t have to yell. Why do you always have to yell?”

Astrid appeared in the hallway of their one-story home, wearing head-to-toe black clothing, topped off with a velvet beret. She was apparently now going through a goth phase. This came on the heels of a skater phase and a Japanese cartoon phase. She was clearly struggling to establish her identity, and Lilly had learned to pick her battles carefully.

“You can take off that black lipstick in the car,” she said, choosing to ignore the rest of the outfit. “I have some wipes in the glove box.”

Astrid flounced past her. “You’re such a killjoy.”

“Yes, I am,” Lilly said, retrieving her keys from a hook on the wall. “And that’s a good use of the word killjoy, by the way. You have a great vocabulary when you choose to use it.”

Her daughter groaned and sighed, picking up her school backpack from the hallway floor and opening the front door. As if the day was set against her, a fine mist of rain was falling. Lilly’s perfectly straightened, fine blond hair would now frizz up in seconds.

“Well, let’s go,” Astrid said with an eye roll. “You were the one desperate to leave.”

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young lady,” Lilly said sharply, sounding horribly like her own mother. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. Did I do something wrong?”

“Um, let me think,” Astrid said. “First of all, you gave me a totally stupid name.”

Lilly was aghast. “Astrid is a beautiful Scandinavian name. You should be proud of your Swedish heritage.”

“Second of all,” her daughter said, beginning to check the numbers off on her hand. “It’s my sixteenth birthday soon and you haven’t organized a thing. You know I want a party.”

Lilly pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know, I know. We’ll talk about it later, okay?” She ushered Astrid through the door and beeped her car to unlock it. “I’ve been so busy dealing with a very important client at work that it slipped my mind.”

“And third of all,” Astrid said, following her mom down the path, clomping in her heavy black shoes. “I wanted Dad to come visit for my birthday, but you drive him away all the time with your snarky attitude.”

Lilly stopped dead, turned around slowly and looked her daughter straight in the eye.

“Is that why you’re acting up?” she asked. “Are you upset because your father never comes to see you?”

Astrid avoided her gaze and rubbed an arm self-consciously. “It’s been two years, Mom. I barely remember what he looks like.”

“And you think I’m the one keeping him away?”

“Yes.”

Lilly tried to keep her anger in check. She was the one who had cared for Astrid since babyhood, the one who had borne all of the financial burden and was the sole parent barely coping with the emotional roller coaster of teenage emotions. Lilly’s ex-boyfriend, Rylan, had been her high school sweetheart and had reacted badly when she became pregnant at the age of eighteen. She’d wanted to do the right thing and get married, but he was adamantly against it. Instead, he’d abandoned her, gradually lessening contact until finally moving away from their small hometown of Oakmont, Pennsylvania, when Astrid was only four years old. He now lived in California, and Astrid was fortunate if she received a Christmas card or a rushed phone call telling her that she had another new baby brother or sister. Astrid had a total of five half siblings, born from three of Rylan’s many girlfriends over the last ten years.

“Your father loves you, honey,” Lilly said. “It’s just that he has a hard time showing it. I promise that I’ll try my very best to get him to come visit. I would never keep him away from you. Never.”

Astrid stomped to the car and sat in the passenger seat, scowling. At five feet nine inches tall, she cut a willowy and elegant figure when dressed nicely, but in this macabre and imposing outfit, she appeared intimidating. Lilly wished they were as close as they used to be, when Astrid would offer to plait her mom’s hair or paint her nails. In the last year, her daughter had grown into a young woman that Lilly mostly didn’t recognize.

“Hi, Mr. Peters,” she said, noticing her elderly neighbor walk past with his dog on a leash. “I’m sorry for the Wednesday Addams vibe you must be feeling from Astrid this morning. She’s having some trouble finding her place in the world.”

Mr. Peters smiled. “She’s a beautiful soul, Lilly. And she shines brightly just like her mom.”

“You’re too kind,” she said, walking to her car, the compliment lightening her step. “Thank you.”

Astrid was peering intently through the windshield when Lilly settled herself behind the wheel of her compact car. “The guy in that van has been watching our house all morning,” Astrid said. “Do you know him?”

Lilly looked at the dark gray van parked across the street, the kind of vehicle often used by utility companies. The man in the driver’s seat was immobile, staring straight ahead, wearing sunglasses despite the overcast day.

“I’m sure he’s not watching the house,” Lilly said, fixing her cell phone into its holder on the dash. “He’s probably repairing some damage to power lines or something. There was quite a wind last night.”

“I’m telling you,” Astrid insisted, as Lilly pulled from the driveway onto their leafy suburban street. “He’s been there since six thirty. I thought he was waiting to give someone a ride, but he’s been watching us like a hawk. It’s creepy.”

“How can you get up at six thirty and not be ready by eight fifteen?”

Astrid clicked her tongue. “It takes a long time to look this fabulous.”

“That reminds me,” Lilly said, leaning across to open the glove box. “Take off that lipstick.”

Astrid huffed and pulled out the pack of wipes from inside. “Look!” she said, turning around. “The creepy guy is following us.”

Lilly glanced into the rearview mirror. The van was on their tail, driving too close for comfort.

“It’s just a coincidence,” she said, quashing her fears. “He’s probably just going in the same direction.”

Astrid dragged a wipe across her mouth. “I don’t like it. It’s making me nervous.”

Lilly’s phone began to buzz in its holder and the name flashing on the display was Kevin Lovell, her boss at the bank where she worked in Oakmont.

“I gotta take this,” she said to Astrid. “But don’t worry about the van, okay?”

Eyeing the clock, she punched the answer button and put her cell on speakerphone.

“Hi, Kevin,” she said. “I might be a little late this morning.” She avoided looking at Astrid. “My usual routine didn’t go to plan.”

Kevin’s voice was bright and breezy, totally out of character for her usually grumpy boss.

“Don’t worry about it, Lilly. If you’re still at home, then stay there and don’t come into work today. And lock your doors.”

“What? Why? I’m on the road already.”

“Mom!” Astrid’s voice was high-pitched. “That van has gotten even closer. I’m scared.”

Lilly touched her daughter’s knee. “Hold on, honey. Just give me a minute.”

“We have a serious situation here at the bank today,” Kevin continued. “A couple of agents from the FBI visited a few minutes ago, expecting you to have started work already. They’re on their way to your house, so turn around and go home to wait for them. They should be with you soon.”

“I have to drop Astrid at school,” she said. “Why do I have to go home? What’s going on?”

Kevin was silent for a moment. “The agents said you’re in danger.”

Lilly exchanged a worried glance with Astrid as her daughter grabbed for her hand. She approached a junction and turned left, intending to double back and return home. She didn’t know what was going on, but Kevin’s words were chilling.

“Mom, the van is following us,” Astrid said, beginning to cry. “He’s definitely following us.”

A different man’s voice was now on the speakerphone, a deeper one.

“Ma’am, this is Agent David McQueen from the FBI. I’m patched into this call in my vehicle. Did I hear someone say you’re being followed?”

“You’re from the FBI?” Why would the FBI be patched into her call? “We think a van is on our tail. What’s happening?”

“There’s no time to explain the situation right now,” the agent continued. “I’m already in the vicinity, en route to your home. Where are you exactly?”

“I’m on Harewood Avenue, approaching the junction to Filton Road. I’m going back home.”

“No!” Agent McQueen’s raised tone caused them both to jump. “Stay in your vehicle, keep driving in that general area, don’t stop and don’t panic. I’ll be there in five minutes. I’ll find you.”

Lilly struggled to keep up with the changing pace of the day. Just a few moments ago, she was arguing with her daughter about lipstick. Now an FBI agent was coming to save them from a danger that she had had no idea existed until now.

“Who is in the van?” she asked.

“I’ll be there soon. Remain calm.”

“How can I remain calm?” Astrid was squeezing her hand so tight that both their knuckles were white. “I have my daughter with me and she’s scared out of her mind.” She kissed Astrid’s fingers and briefly looked over at her. “I’ll keep you safe, honey. I promise.”

But then the van on their tail revved its engine hard and lurched forward, touching Lilly’s bumper. The car skipped, Astrid screamed and Lilly gripped the wheel with both hands to steady their path.

“Mom! Please do something,” Astrid yelled. “Make him stop.”

Lilly floored the accelerator and tore around the corner of Filton Road, the car’s back end skidding away slightly on the wet asphalt.

“What’s going on there?” the agent said, still on speakerphone.

“We’re being rammed off the road.”

“Take evasive maneuvers,” he said. “Do whatever it takes.”

“I’m trying,” she shouted as the van hurtled toward them once again. Thinking fast, she swerved onto the wrong side of the road. Fortunately, this residential street was always quiet, and she faced no oncoming traffic.

The van was now alongside them and she noticed the driver’s gloved hand sharply yank the wheel. He was intending to ram them from the side.

“Hold on, Astrid!” Lilly yelled.

The crunch of metal seemed to sound forever as the van sideswiped her car, pushing it onto the sidewalk, toward the thick trees that grew there.

“Mom,” Astrid cried, now beside herself with fear. “I don’t want to die.”

“Nobody’s gonna die, sweetheart. Not today.”

She slowed right down to let her assailant pass and then attempted a hand brake turn. But she messed it up and the car ended up sitting awkwardly in the road, straddling both lanes. Meanwhile, the guy in the van was clearly a much more accomplished driver and spun easily on the asphalt, tires squealing and billowing smoke.

Lilly’s hand shook as she put the stick in reverse, desperately trying to turn the car around before the van would reach them. But she messed that up too and couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the strike. The driver’s side of her car bore the brunt of the impact from the hurtling van. Lilly was jolted sideways with huge force, her head banging on Astrid’s shoulder. All she could think about was protecting her daughter. This man was crazy. He wanted them dead.

When the car finally stopped shaking, Lilly leaned across her daughter and opened the passenger door.

“Run, Astrid,” she yelled. “Run.”

Astrid could barely speak through her hyperventilating. “Mom, no, no, I can’t leave you.”

“Please, honey,” Lilly pleaded, seeing the man exit his vehicle and walk toward them. “You gotta go now. Run to Mr. Peter’s house and don’t look back.”

Yet Astrid seemed frozen, unable to move, unable to do anything except cry out in anguish. Lilly turned to see her assailant move calmly and steadily toward them, gun in hand. The hood on his sweatshirt was pulled up and, with his head slightly bowed, his appearance reminded her of the grim reaper.

“Please don’t hurt my daughter,” she shouted through the shattered window. “I’ll give you whatever you want.” She grabbed her expensive cell from the dash, a gift from her parents. “You can take this. It’s worth over a thousand dollars.” As his hand reached up and removed his sunglasses, she forced herself to look him in the eye. “Please.”

That’s when she recognized him. “Mr. Berger?” she said, confused. “Why are you doing this?”

This man was her important client at the bank. He had visited in person the previous day, wishing to transfer his bank accounts overseas before returning to his native country of France. She had handled the paperwork, shaken his hand, chatted to him about his family. Why did he now want to kill her?

Mr. Berger pointed his gun at her window, and with the sound of Astrid’s screams resounding in the car, a bullet cracked the air.

Agent David McQueen heard the unmistakable bang of a gun being discharged as he raced to the intersection of Harewood and Filton. The car was being driven by his FBI partner, Goldie Simmons, and she had wasted no time in rushing them to the scene with the siren blaring. Through his phone’s speaker he had been listening to the screams and cries, but they had abruptly stopped. He prayed they weren’t too late.

Goldie tore around the corner of Filton and instantly slammed on the brakes to avoid colliding with a blue compact car blocking the street, a gray van stopped behind it.

“That’s our guy,” David said, seeing a hooded man in the road, weapon in hand. “That’s gotta be Henderson.”

He jumped from the car, identifying himself as an FBI agent and ordering the man to lie on the ground. As expected, the suspect turned and fled back to his van without allowing David the chance to get a good look at his face. This guy had been successfully evading arrest for more than ten years and David had a very old score to settle.

“You’re not getting away this time,” he muttered, pulling out his gun and aiming at the van’s tires.

“Help! Help! I think my mom’s been shot.”

A young girl of no more than sixteen suddenly flung herself from the blue compact and ran toward him, arms flailing, her long black trench coat flapping in the wind. She reminded him a little of his own daughter, Chloe.

David couldn’t risk shooting now. He reholstered his weapon and called out to Goldie in the car.

“Stay on Henderson’s tail,” he said, watching the vehicle race toward the busy road out of town. “You’ll have to get to the freeway via Harewood but do what it takes to find the van again. Don’t lose him.”

“You got it.”

As Goldie turned the car and screeched away, David put his hand on the girl’s shoulder to comfort her. “Is your mom Lilly Olsen?”

“Yes.”

He approached the car and bent to survey the scene inside, bracing for the sight of blood, but instead he saw an apparently uninjured blond woman with a flat palm on her forehead, breathing heavily in the driver’s seat. In the other hand she clutched a cell phone, her fingers trembling around the black casing.

“Are you hurt, ma’am? Your daughter said you’d been shot.”

She held up the cell phone, her face etched with an expression of pained shock.

“It saved me,” she said. “I was holding it in front of my face.”

The cell was all smashed up, a bullet lodged in the metal, creating a small hollow as though a tiny volcano had erupted in the center.

Then she seemed to gather her thoughts and remember what was important. “Astrid! Is she all right?”

“She’s fine, ma’am. She’s right here.”

“Please tell me what’s going on.”

David unclipped the radio from his belt. “I’ll request a police car to take us to your home. There’s a lot of explaining to do.”

David stood and watched Lilly Olsen comfort her daughter in the living room of their home, stroking her hair and holding her hand. The teenager had understandably reacted with shock and distress after their terrifying ordeal, but after twenty minutes of soothing, David was beginning to lose patience. As a father of two grown girls, he had plenty of experience as a parent, and he felt that Lilly was treating Astrid with too much mollycoddling. If anyone knew where that would lead, it was David.

“Miss Olsen,” he said. “I appreciate the fact that your daughter needs you, but we have important matters to discuss here.”

She ignored him for a few seconds, continuing to stroke her daughter’s hair while sitting on the couch. Then she turned to him. “I realize that you’re here to help us, but my daughter always comes first, so give me a minute or two, okay?”

David gritted his teeth and glanced exasperatedly at Goldie, who had returned from her chase empty-handed. The van had gotten away, and that meant Lilly remained in grave danger.

“You’re safe here, honey,” Lilly repeated to Astrid. “And nothing bad will happen now.”

David stopped himself from interrupting and contradicting her. It was dangerous to tell teenagers that nothing bad happens in life. It was better to tell them that the world was a cruel place and to give them strong boundaries to mitigate the risk.

Astrid rose from the couch. “I’m going to call Noah and tell him why I’m not in school today.”

“No phone calls,” David said. “Not until I say so.”

Lilly rose also and smoothed down her shirt. “She just wants to make a quick call. There’s no harm in that, surely?”

“I said no phone calls.”

“You can’t stop me calling whoever I like,” Astrid challenged. “I’m not in jail.”

“No, you’re not in jail,” David said slowly, reminded of the arguments he used to have with Chloe, the big bust-ups that would result in her storming from the house and spending the evening with her totally unsuitable boyfriend. “But I need you to listen to me and do what I say.”

“Who put you in charge of me?” the teenager said, sliding her eyes from David’s to her mother’s, correctly identifying the weakest link in this scenario. “Mom, can I call Noah?” Her bottom lip wobbled, and she rubbed one eye like a tired toddler. “I just want to tell him I’m all right.”

Lilly nodded. “Sure, but don’t give him any details about what happened today. Tell him you’re not in school because you’re sick. Okay?”

Astrid glared at David with a hint of triumph before strutting from the room, and his hackles rose. Disobedience was something he could no longer abide in young adults. As a widowed single dad raising two girls, he’d made the mistake of believing that you could reason with teenagers, that you could give them some freedom and be prepared to compromise. But that was before Chloe ended up in a car wreck with her drunk boyfriend and suffered irreversible brain damage as a result. Prior to the accident, she had gone off the rails, become totally unmanageable, and David blamed himself for her downfall. If only he had set stronger rules when she was younger. If only he’d come down harder. And now Lilly Olsen was making the same mistake.

“Teenagers need a firm hand, ma’am,” he said. “Trust me, I know. You shouldn’t let your daughter get away with manipulating you.”

Lilly’s brows crinkled beneath her sleek blond fringe. “Manipulating me? Is that what you think she’s doing?”

“Yes, I do. She’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”

She held up a palm. “Excuse me, Agent... What was your name again?”

“Agent McQueen, but you can call me David.”

“Okay, David,” she said with a false smile. “You literally just met me, and you know nothing about me, or my daughter, so can I suggest that you mind your own business and focus on the man who just tried to kill me.”

David rubbed a hand down his face as Lilly’s clear blue eyes bored into his. With her arms crossed and her head slightly tilted, her previously soft features now took on a harder tinge. Her criticism was undoubtedly fair. He had lost concentration, thinking back to times when his own daughter had emotionally manipulated him, just like Astrid had with her mom. At that moment, there was a bigger issue to tackle.

“I apologize,” he said, sitting on the couch. “You’re right. Let’s get to work.” He pulled a photograph from a file that he had placed on the coffee table. “Was this the man who attacked you?”

She responded instantly. “Yes, his name is François Berger. He’s a wealthy art collector, originally from France but living in Pittsburgh for the last twenty-five years. I’ve been speaking regularly with him on the phone for the past couple weeks and he finally came into the bank yesterday to transfer his money to a European account. He’s moving back to Paris next week.” She touched the photo. “He seemed so nice when I spoke with him. Why would he try to kill me?”

David placed the photo back into the file. “His real name is Gilbert Henderson and he’s a con man, born and raised right here in Pennsylvania.”

“No, that’s not possible. This guy has a French accent.”

“It’s fake. Everything about Gilbert Henderson is fake. We’ve been trying to catch him for more than ten years, but I gotta give him respect where respect is due. He’s cunning, he’s smart and he’s always one step ahead of us.”

“So where is the real François Berger?”

“Dead.”

Lilly gasped. “How?”

“We found him in his chest freezer, probably been there a while. We’re doing an autopsy to establish the cause of death, but it looks like a bullet to the head.”

Lilly clearly struggled to make sense of this. “But... What... Why?”

“Gilbert Henderson targets wealthy individuals with little or no family,” he explained. “He chooses somebody with the same age and characteristics as himself. He then murders them and assumes their identity, before setting out to empty their bank accounts and strip their assets. He does this so quickly and professionally that by the time we’re alerted to the crime, he’s long gone. And so is the money.”

“But I transferred Mr. Berger’s money to a legitimate bank in France. They’ll have procedures to deal with fraud so you can recover it.”

David smiled at her naïveté. “Once the money reached the French account, it was moved again and again via very complex channels. It’s now been funneled into countries where we have no financial jurisdiction.”

“Everything was in order,” she said, her eyes scanning the carpet, perhaps wondering how she could have prevented this crime. “He gave me all the right identification documents and said all the right things. I didn’t suspect a thing.”

“Don’t blame yourself. This is probably the fifth time Henderson has gotten away with this type of fraud. We almost caught him this time when a cleaner reported finding Mr. Berger’s body in the freezer yesterday and we suspected Henderson was the culprit. But we were just a few hours too late. The apartment has been stripped of the expensive artwork and all of Mr. Berger’s accounts are empty.”