Poisonfeather (Gibson Vaughn #2)(110)

One time too many as it turned out.

A second thought occurred to him, and this one was terrible. That his daughter was better off without him. Because, even now, he didn’t think he’d do it differently if he had it to do over. He’d put the judge ahead of her, then Lea, and now Jenn Charles. Each of those choices felt right to him, even now. Maybe he didn’t possess the bravery to live the quiet life that his daughter deserved. So how would he ever be the stable presence that she needed? He’d been fading from her life for years; better to pull the plug now than this slow dissolution. The fisherman saw it on Gibson’s face—not the details but the awareness—and smiled at him.

“You can have it all,” Gibson said.

“I know.”

The fisherman wasn’t taking the bait, but the same couldn’t be said for Charles Merrick. It saved Gibson’s life, at least in the short term. A crash came from the next room, followed by the sound of breaking glass. The windows in the cabin were narrow; a grown man wouldn’t fit through without smashing out the upper frame. It sounded as if Charles Merrick was having second thoughts about their partnership.

The fisherman rose with a stark warning. “Move and I will shoot you.”

At the bedroom door, he glanced back to make sure Gibson had stayed on the couch. His divided focus might have accounted for how much he underestimated Charles Merrick. The fisherman unlocked the bedroom door and hurried across the room toward the broken window. Charles Merrick stepped out from behind the door. He had something large in his hands. It was like watching a movie through a peephole. Gibson saw a red blur. The fisherman cried out and crashed to the floor.

Gibson scrambled across the room to his bag, unzipped it, and dug through it for his gun. He grabbed something metallic and yanked it out from among his unfolded laundry. Wrong end. He cursed. Two steps to reverse the gun in his hand. At one, a gunshot splintered the wall above his head. Gibson froze. Charles Merrick stood in the doorway with the fisherman’s gun.

“So you’re the one who stole my money.”





CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR


In a predictable turn of events, the cabin didn’t get the best cell service. Gibson’s phone showed only one bar. He thought how funny it would be to die now because he couldn’t reach Washburn. Merrick held the gun to Gibson’s ribs and watched over his shoulder to make sure it wasn’t a trick.

Sending . . . sending . . . sending.

Miracle of miracles, the text went through. After a short interval, a reply came back:

Confirmed. Plane inbound one hour. Thank you for your business, Mr. Vaughn.



A nice touch. Just the thing to convince Merrick that Gibson’s flight out of the country was real. They took the fisherman’s Sentra, Gibson driving while Merrick kept the Chinese agent’s gun trained on him from the passenger seat. Gibson kept his hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. The way Merrick tapped the trigger restlessly made him wince every time the car hit a bump. At least with the fisherman, if he had been shot, it would’ve been on purpose.

“I transfer the money back to you and you let me go?” said Gibson, projecting nervousness.

That was their deal, although Merrick seemed capable of anything at this point. The dried blood caked down the front of his suit made Gibson wonder what had really happened in the presidential suite. The fisherman had claimed that Lea had killed all those people, but Merrick’s clothes told another, grimmer story.

“Just drive,” Merrick said.

The car’s clock read 5:56 a.m. when they turned onto the road that led up to Dule Tree Airfield. Somehow they bumped their way up the hill without Merrick accidentally shooting Gibson. Praise be.

Gibson drove out to the runway and parked. No plane. That fact wasn’t lost on Merrick.

“It’ll be here,” Gibson said.

He hoped that was true.

Merrick ordered him out of the car.

To the east, the sky was rimmed in jaundiced yellows and reds, as if a burner, lit beneath the horizon, were bringing it slowly to a boil. Gibson watched it with a sense of gratitude. He was so close now. One last thing and then home. Improbable as it felt, he’d come through this night whole. He felt both alive and dead—a foot resting in both worlds.

He glanced back to Merrick leaning on the hood of the Nissan, Gibson’s laptop beside him for the mythological transfer of a billion dollars once they were safely in the air and out of the country. Merrick looked gaunt and old. His eyes had the haunted distance of a man sobering up after a historic bender and remembering in painful clarity all his worst excesses. Gibson knew those kinds of memories—the ones that never faded but only became more lurid and disgraceful with each remembering. He consoled himself that the things he’d done had been for good reason; he doubted Merrick knew any such solace.

“One hell of a night,” Gibson said.

Merrick flinched at having his mind read. “This plane—what’s its flight plan?”

“Doesn’t have one.”

“Good. And it’s not owed anything?”

“I paid in full.”

“You mean I paid.”

“I met your son,” Gibson said, thinking of those who had truly paid.

“Martin?”

“You have other bastards?”

Merrick ignored the jab. “How is he?”