Border Lines (Reachers Book 2) Page 13

  Adams retrieved his pictures and thanked her for her time.

  There had never been a single trace of evidence since Adams had been investigating the Smith Brothers. He knew better than to waste time looking for clues. They knew they were being hunted now, that would make them all the more cautious.

  “How could they afford to pay for a place like that?” Mark spat distastefully when they got outside.

  “Well they couldn't, as far as we know. All they paid for was the deposit.” Adams lit a cigarette and started humming. “Get yourself over to the station and take a look at the footage.”

  “At the station?” Mark's stomach sank.

  “Yeah, we've got to move quickly. They've got a few hours on us now and they're going to be watching for us too. I'm going to go back to the border lines and talk to the girls down there, show these pictures around, see if they can't pinpoint which Smith we're looking for.”

  “I thought we were looking for them both.” He still couldn't bring himself to say 'all'.

  “The more I think about it the more I think not. This a weakness of one of them, maybe the others don't even know about it. What's Rachel's stance on prostitutes?”

  “I don't think she has one.”

  “Women?”

  “I don't know. She wouldn't do something like this though.”

  Adams shrugged. “Are you sure? Maybe she treated one too many venereal diseases and just snapped. We've found our Reachers but we still need to profile them. Go look at the footage, we'll meet back in the office.”

  It was harder entering the station alone but he did it. Mark ignored the front desk. He knew where he had to go and the quicker he got in the quicker he would get out. He knocked on the door of Ruth and Hatfield's office and went in.

  They both sat watching a screen, idly capturing shots from the view for their file. This was where the real police work was – insurance claims. Cops got paid a lot from businesses wanting their insurance payouts quickly. A proper review of the evidence had to be signed off by an officer before any claim could be made. It was the police's job to make sure a crime had been committed – not solve it.

  When Hatfield looked up she snarled. “Well look who's here. Watch your back Ruth, he might have a knife.”

  “Is that the security footage from The Grange?” Mark said, trying to hold his nerve.

  “What's it to you?” Hatfield snapped.

  “Yeah I don't see any hocus pocus paranormal activities here,” Ruth sneered.

  Mark shifted from one foot to the other. He had to stand his ground or he'd never get anywhere.

  “I need to see the footage. You can show me it or I'll have to request it from the judge and tell her you obstructed a serious investigation.”

  They didn't look intimidated but they did turn the screen around so he could see.

  A few stolen seconds captured Rachel and her new companions entering the hotel. She was happy, laughing with them as though they weren't dangerous killers. Mark knew the younger brother but this was the first time he had seen the elder out of a photograph.

  Charlie Smith was supposed to be the one in charge. He was wanted for every charge imaginable. The murder of his wife was one that particularly stood out on in his file. He butchered the woman he loved, strangling a few hookers probably wouldn't even dent his conscience. There were enough robberies and suspicious deaths Charlie Smith had a hand in. It was more than likely he and his brother were there when the infamous Pinky Morris took a bullet to the head.

  The younger Smith was easily the more dangerous of the two, more so in person. Mark still remembered the feeling of terror John Smith gave him as they stood together in that S'aven warehouse. The man was most definitely a killer. It was easy to believe that this man had killed those women too. Maybe they did it together. Two brothers working as a team.

  But where did Rachel fit in? She was a doctor. She helped people. But if the cops were right she killed his partner, stabbed him in the neck and then dumped his body in the river. If she was capable of one murder, why not two? Why not three? He realised then—as he watched the three of them laugh their way back to their apartment—that he didn't know Rachel at all and only a fool would think otherwise.

  He flicked through the footage, stopping to view each isolated blurred face before moving on to the final images of the trio, fleeing the corridor with their luggage. As he looked at their faces his blood went cold. There were three sets of eyes and they were all fixed and focused. Rachel was one of them – there was no doubt – she was the enemy.

  “So who are they?” Ruth asked, snapping Mark back to reality.

  “It's classified. I'll need to take this.”

  “Go for it. We've signed off on the insurance anyway,” Hatfield replied, which meant they'd cashed in on the case and they were no longer interested.

  They tossed Mark the file and the disc with the footage as though it was nothing. Suddenly Mark was angry.

  “Any more cases you want to hand over?”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that we've taken two cases off you this week. Are you actually working on anything at all?” Mark was surprised at himself. He was never antagonistic, even when he was hauling in prisoners.

  Hatfield rose, ready to challenge him. “How about half a dozen medical trucks being looted before they reach the border. Some things are a bit more important than your magical fairy kingdom.”

  He clasped the file tightly in his hand. Nothing was more important than getting the Smith brothers.

  26

  S'aven was a playground for old men with small boy complexes. They ran around, making friends and making enemies, swapping them like trading cards. It was serious and ridiculous, and to them there was nothing more important in the world. But when things went wrong, when knees were scraped or heads caved in, each man-child would turn to the side of the playground and look for their woman supervising on the outskirts. The women let their men loose in S'aven. They let them burn off all that pent up energy that would have destroyed their lovely homes and, when things got bad, they stepped in, dusted off the blood and sorted out the mess. They were omnipotent, impartial, but mostly they were loyal. It didn't matter if their man was the bully, dragging his fists along the sand, it didn't matter if their man was lying on the floor at the mercy of those bigger than him. They loved their boys and they understood more than anyone the rules of the playground.

  Riva had been on the sidelines her entire life. She had built an empire on those borders while her husband triumphed and then failed. She didn't have a player to support anymore but she still looked on, perhaps with even more omnipotence than the other women. All those boys, firing their guns, dealing their drugs, managing their whores. None of them even bothered to check who owned the roads, the buildings, the air – the town. Riva liked it that way, she was the most important woman in S'aven and there wasn't a single rival snapping at her heels.

  She sat with her nearest competitor, although Lulu Roxton could barely be described as competition. Lulu ran the whores and did a damn good job of it too. S'aven's sex industry was growing and this time in the right way. Other pimps treated their women as cargo, or worse. They beat on their girls to groom their own egos and in turn they brought in less money. Lulu had been one of those girls, taking punches from Riva's husband no less, and she had been inspired. Lulu realised that the high paying punters liked their women clean and free from track marks. They wanted to dip themselves into forbidden fruit – not a bowl of acid – and Lulu found a way to offer all that. She kept her girls happy and her girls kept the customers happy. It may not have been ethical but it worked.

  As well as competition, Lulu was the closest thing Riva had to a friend. They were two of the few still alive from the old days and, even though bad blood had passed between their families, sometimes even bad history is better than no history. Riva was supplying security for Lulu's, like she provided security for everyone and for the first t
ime Lulu's girls had been truly safe. At least until that madman started roaming the streets, and as they sat together in Lulu's club, both agreed that this was becoming a problem.

  “My girl,” Lulu told her. “He took one of my girls. I know there were others, but not my girls.”

  “They've been taken off the streets, Lulu. Yours on her way home. I don't have the man-power to escort all your girls home and you don't have the money.”

  Lulu sighed and rubbed at her face where the faintest sign of her masculinity was starting to show. Not that Lulu made a hugely convincing woman, at least not in appearance, but in her attitude she was all female and Riva often found herself surprised when she noticed the bobbing Adam's apple or the razor burn on Lulu's face.

  “I'll see if the police have any more to go on. What about your Roxy, isn't he usually good at keeping his ear to the ground?”

  “He's in hospital. He was shot.”

  “What happened? Is he going to be alright?”

  “He'll pull through. The Smith Brothers are back – John Smith shot him.”

  Riva kept her face stony. Normally Lulu was trustworthy – she knew what would happen to her if she wasn't – but taking over the border control was sensitive and the less people that knew the better.

  “John Smith shot him?” was all she said.

  “He's working a job with them. Apparently the shooting was all planned. I know you've got history with those boys Riva but they could help out here. If anyone could find a killer, it's Charlie, and if anyone could take him on it would be John.”

  Riva stood up. “They'll do well to stay out of my way.”

  “You know those robberies aren't making it easier either. We're getting cops sniffing around here every time one of those trucks goes missing.”

  “Why here?”

  “Because this is where they want to come, but it's bad for business. Cops recognise people and then those people don't come back. And all the cops expect freebies, like my girls are just desperate to be mounted by Cockney scumbags with police badges.”

  Riva understood – this was why she wanted the border. If that thin line was under her control S'aven's affairs would be S'aven's business. There wouldn't be London cops storming the place every time they lost their wallets, taking whatever they wanted because to them S'aven was little better than the help. S'aven was growing larger than London. Soon it would spread far enough back that it would be the same size. It already held twice as many people.

  She shook Lulu's hand. “My men are watching out for the trucks as best they can, but even if they caught the thieves, the same bastard cops would be in here on the weekend celebrating.”

  Lulu conceded. “If you ran the borders…”

  This was what a lot of them said – those business owners struggling to make a living. If Riva ran the borders their businesses would be safe from metropolitan freeloaders slumming it for the day. If Riva ran the borders their imports would cross over checked and verified – there would be no short changing and blaming it on border corruption. If Riva ran the borders she'd be in charge of everything. And with bombs going off, riots raging, and a heat wave about to hit, every single person in the shanty town was just looking for a leader who could make it all better.

  She returned home with her usual entourage; four armed guards on perpetual alert. It wasn't that she needed protection, Riva had been around long enough to hold her own, but they were good advertising. When people saw her moving around with her own personal army, they were a little more convinced they needed a piece of that protection as well. But she was on home turf and the soldiers knew better than to intrude on Riva's personal time. They left her to patrol the grounds and do whatever it was they did when she wasn't around. Alone she kicked her shoes off in the hall, fixed herself a soda and headed up to check on the priest.

  The old man was still unconscious but the medicom blinked away happily, ever positive that he was going to pull through. She had lied to Charlie about her friendship with Darcy. She didn't dislike the priest but they had never been particularly close in the old days. The reason, even when she didn't realise it, was that the borders had always been at the back of her mind. Every step she had ever taken had led her towards this final week, this final goal of owning the border line and S'aven. Her family being connected with Darcy and Reachers was a black mark she had done her best to cover up in the past ten months and she was taking a huge risk delving back into that history.

  Darcy murmured something incoherent. It was the first time he'd stirred in front of her. She touched his withered, old hand and he settled back down.

  “Don't worry, he won't wake up.”

  Riva leapt back. The glass of soda fell from her hand and shattered on the floor. Three people stood behind her, pressed against the far wall. The window was locked. The house had been locked. And even if it hadn't there was a whole goddamn platoon of trained men swarming the grounds. There was no way anyone could break in. The only people who had ever gotten past her men were John and Charlie Smith and that was only because they were… It dawned on her – Reachers.

  There was a young man and an even younger woman, both of them no more than children by the looks in their eyes. Both fixed with hatred on the unconscious priest. But the man they were with, who could have been as old as Darcy, had his full attention fixed on her. He was grinning at her viciously beneath his thick grey beard. His eyes glimmering with malice.

  “Who the hell are you and what the fuck do you think you are doing in my house?” she said, trying to keep her nerve.

  “Riva Morris.” He spoke like a narrator, talking over the scene, as though she wasn't there at all. “What a big name in this mediocre little town. But it means nothing when she has something that belongs to us.”

  “And what would that be?”

  He advanced towards her. “Your beloved priest.”

  She was between them and Darcy. And she was damned if she was going to let them intimidate her. This was her home, her town.

  “When I want something I take it,” she told them coolly. “You break into my home, you get past my security, but you hang around here to ask for him. What do you really want?”

  She wanted to step forward. Gaining territory in the room seemed suddenly so important. She raised her leg and couldn't put it down. Her limbs were frozen, locked in the air. She tried to fight as the panic took over. Then he had his hands around her throat and he squeezed, just tight enough to make her dizzy.

  “You are forgiven for not knowing what we are and what we are capable of. You are ignorant after all. Pathetically absorbed in your meaningless existence. Riva Morris, you think you are special, important – you are worthless – a pawn in my game. Now get on your knees.”

  She was pressed to the floor, the invisible weight pushing her and contorting her body. She cried out as she fought against it fruitlessly.

  The old man laughed, the sound was unpleasant and frightening.

  “Where is the Reacher girl? Where is Rachel?”

  “I don't know,” she said honestly.

  “Victor here can take your thoughts from you. There is no point in lying to me.”

  “Then there is no point in asking me the question,” she spat. “I have no idea where she is, or the others.”

  “So after you brought them here they didn't tell you where they were heading?”

  She pressed her lips together tightly. “They're in London, that's all I know. They won't contact me until they're finished.”

  “When?”

  “Three days.”

  “In three days you will bring her here. We'll be taking the priest now.”

  He nodded to the girl. She touched Riva's forehead and Riva blacked out.

  Sol took the passenger seat of the car. He didn't drive – he didn't have to. Victor had the steering wheel. He liked Victor, he didn't ask questions, he just did what he was told.

  “I'm going across the border,” Sol told him. “Take the priest home and keep him
alive, we're going to need him. Then come back for me.”

  27

  The plan for the colonel was already mapped out. All they had to do was break in, kill the son of a bitch, and make sure the cameras caught a good enough look at Charlie's face. A Reacher killing an ex–Institute soldier would be covered up before Colonel Moore's body had time to get cold, but the authorities would know what happened and they'd never link it to Riva Morris. Charlie would make sure they got a new mug shot – especially now he was looking better – and by the time the cops circulated it he'd be already crossing the border on his way to collect their fee.

  The editor was more of a gamble, but Charlie had a feeling the guy had already left London. If they had to they would track him, but if they were lucky his computer would spill out enough secrets to keep him in the shadows for good.

  That just left the doctor – that was why Charlie and John were parked two streets down from the hospital waiting for Rachel.

  They'd driven to the hospital straight from the colonel's place after making a strategic stop for pizza, and both men were still running through the plan in their minds. The prospect of killing the colonel making them both hungrier than the melted cheese smell coming from the back ever could.

  “How are you going to break the news to Rachel?” John asked. They weren't worried about the plan, but the potential fallout afterwards was making them both uneasy.

  It wasn't that they wanted to lie to her, or even go behind her back. She was a part of their team, a part of their family. And that was why they were both desperate to protect her. Sending her in after the doctor was part of her job and they would worry about her, just like she'd worry about them, but it was all in the line of duty. But messing with the Institute was different. Once those bastards got the scent of a Reacher they were relentless. Sure Rachel was running – every Reacher was running – but she wasn't being hunted yet. If her face showed up beside Charlie's that would be her sentence passed. She could protest as much as she wanted, there was no way Charlie and John were ever going to let her get so close to an organisation intent on dissecting her.