A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(6)

China lowered her knife. “Where the hell did you get two free tickets to Europe?”

“Courier service.”

He went on to explain. Couriers, he said, transported materials from the United States to points around the globe when the sender didn’t trust the post office, Federal Express, UPS, or any other carrier to get them to their destination on time, safely, or undamaged. Corporations or individuals provided a prospective traveler with the ticket he needed to get to a destination—sometimes with a fee as well—and once the package was placed into the hands of the recipient, the courier was free to enjoy the destination or to travel onward from there.

In Cherokee’s case, he’d seen a posting on a notice board at UC

Irvine from someone—“Turned out to be an attorney in Tustin”—looking for a courier to take a package to the UK in return for payment and two free airline tickets. Cherokee applied, and he was selected, with the proviso that he “dress more businesslike and do something about the hair.”

“Five thousand bucks to make the delivery,” Cherokee concluded happily. “Is this a good deal or what?”

“What the hell? Five thousand dollars?” In China’s experience, things that seemed too good to be true generally were. “Wait a minute, Cherokee. What’s in the package?”

“Architectural plans. That’s one of the reasons I thought of you right off for the second ticket. Architecture. It’s right up your alley.” Cherokee returned to the table, swung the chair around this time, and straddled it backwards.

“So why doesn’t the architect take the plans over himself? Why doesn’t he send them on the Internet? There’s a program for that, and if no one has it at the other end, why doesn’t he send the plans over on a disk?”

“Who knows? Who cares? Five thousand bucks and a free ticket? They can send their plans by rowboat if they want to.”

China shook her head and went back to her salad. “It sounds way fishy. You’re on your own.”

“Hey. This is Europe we’re talking about. Big Ben. The Eiffel Tower. The frigging Colosseum.”

“You’ll have a great time. If you’re not arrested at customs with heroin.”

“I’m telling you this is completely legit.”

“Five thousand dollars just to carry a package? I don’t think so.”

“Come on, China. You’ve got to go.”

There was something in his voice when he said that, an edge that tried to wear the guise of eagerness but tilted too closely to desperation. China said warily, “What’s going on? You’d better tell me.”

Cherokee picked at the vinyl cord around the top of the seatback. He said, “The deal is...I have to take my wife.”

“What?”

“I mean the courier. The tickets. They’re for a couple. I didn’t know that at first but when the attorney asked me if I was married, I could tell he wanted a yes answer so I gave him one.”

“Why?”

“What difference does it make? How’s anyone going to know? We have the same last name. We don’t look alike. We can just pretend—”

“I mean why does a couple have to take the package over? A couple wearing business clothes? A couple that’ve done ‘something to their hair’?

Something to make them look innocuous, legitimate, and above suspicion? Good grief, Cherokee. Get some brains. This is a smuggling scam and you’ll end up in jail.”

“Don’t be so paranoid. I’ve checked it out. This is an attorney we’re talking about.”

“Oh, that gives me buckets of confidence.” She lined the circumference of her plate with baby carrots and tossed a handful of pepitas on top. She sprinkled the salad with lemon juice and carried the plate to the table. “I’m not going for it. You’ll need to find someone else to play Mrs. River.”

“There is no one else. And even if I could find someone that fast, the ticket has to say River and the passport has to match the ticket and...Come on, China.” He sounded like a little boy, frustrated because a plan that had seemed so simple to him, so easily set up with a trip to Santa Barbara, was proving to be otherwise. And that was one hundred percent Cherokee: I’ve got an idea and surely the world will go along with it. But China wouldn’t. She loved her brother. Indeed, despite the fact that he was older than she, she’d spent part of her adolescence and most of her childhood mothering him. But regardless of her devotion to Cherokee, she wasn’t going to accommodate him in a scheme that might well raise easy money at the same time as it put both of them at risk.

“No way,” she told him. “Forget it. Get a job. You’ve got to join the real world sometime.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do here.”

“Then get a regular job. You’ll have to eventually. It might as well be now.”

“Oh, great.” He surged up from his chair. “That’s really terrificallygreat, China. Get a regular job. Join the real world. So I’m trying to do that. I have an idea for a job and a home and money all at once, but that’s apparently not good enough for you. It has to be the real world and a job on exactly your terms.” He strode to the door and flung himself out into the yard.

China followed him. A birdbath stood in the centre of the thirsty lawn, and Cherokee dumped out its water, took up a wire brush at its base, and furiously attacked the ridged basin, scrubbing away its film of algae. He marched to the house, where a hose lay coiled, and turned it on, tugging it over to refill the basin for the birds.