Lethal(74)

Honor looked over at him. “Tori.”

“Aunt Tori,” Emily chirped. “She’s funny.”

The gender of Honor’s friend shouldn’t have mattered to him at all. He was surprised by how glad he was to learn it was a woman. “Good friend?”

“Best friends. Emily thinks she’s family.”

“You trust her?”

“Implicitly.”

He pulled off the road, rolled to a stop on the shoulder, and dug his cell phone from his front pants pocket. Then, turning to Honor, he laid it on the line. “I gotta dump the two of you.”

“But—”

“No buts,” he said emphatically. “Only thing I need to know, when you’re free of me, are you going to call in the cavalry?”

“You mean Doral?”

“Him, the police, the FBI. Last night, you enumerated all the reasons you came with me. One of them was mistrusting the authorities. Does that still hold?”

She nodded.

“Say it.”

“I won’t call in the cavalry.”

“All right. Do you think your friend would hide you for a couple of days?”

“Why a couple of days?”

“Because that’s how long Hamilton gave me.”

“He gave you less than that.”

“Will she hide you?”

“If I ask her to.”

“She wouldn’t betray your trust?”

Without an instant’s hesitation, she gave an emphatic shake of her head.

“That means she can’t call in the cavalry either,” he said.

“That would be the last thing Tori would do.”

It went against his nature, as well as his training and experience, to trust anyone. But he had no choice except to give Honor the benefit of the doubt. As soon as he was out of sight, she might very well sic Doral Hawkins on him, but that was a risk he had to take.

The alternative was to keep her and Emily with him. If he did, they could very well get hurt or killed. He didn’t think even he, who’d seen unimaginable atrocities, and had inflicted a few himself, could handle watching the two of them die. It was his fault they were in this. He should have left Honor blissfully ignorant.

But second-guessing was a waste of energy, and he didn’t have time for regret.

“Okay. You’re about to put that implicit trust in your friend to the test. What’s her number?”

“It won’t work if you call. I’ll have to.”

He shook his head. “If you do, you could be implicated.”

“Implicated? In what?”

He glanced at Emily, who was singing along with Elmo. The ditty had annoyed him at first, but he was used to it by now and, most of the time, able to tune it out. Coming back to Honor, he spoke softly. “Implicated in any shit that may come down when my deadline expires.” Her green eyes stayed fixed on his; he read the question in them. “If I do nothing else, I’m going to take care of Doral Hawkins.”

“Take care of?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You can’t just kill him,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I can. I will. I am.”

She turned her head away and stared through the bug-spattered windshield at the glowering sky. Visibly distressed, she said, “I’m so far out of my element here.”

“I realize that. But this is my element, so you’ve got to trust my judgment.”

“I know you’re doubtful about Stan. But he would—”

“Not an option.”

“He’s my father-in-law, Coburn. He loves us.”

He lowered his voice even more, so that Emily wouldn’t be distracted from her singing. “Do you want Emily around to witness the confrontation between him and me? Because you know it will eventually come down to that. Do you think he’s going to let me just walk into his house and start going through Eddie’s things? No. Whether he’s guilty of partnering with The Bookkeeper or Marset, or an honest citizen safeguarding his dead son’s good name, he’s going to resist my intrusion. With force. Not only that, he’ll be good and pissed with me for dragging you and his granddaughter into this.”

Her expression was a giveaway. She knew he was right. Even so, she continued to look miserably indecisive. He gave her only a few seconds before prodding her again. “What’s Tori’s number?”

She raised her chin stubbornly. “Sorry, Coburn. I can’t.”

“You don’t trust her enough?”

“This is my mess. How can I drag Tori into it? I’ll be placing her in danger, too.”

“Tough choice, I know. But it’s the only one you’ve got. Unless…” He tipped his head toward Emily. “You trust Doral Hawkins to spare her life. I wouldn’t bet on it. You might.”

She gave him a baleful look. “You always use that.”

“Because it always works. What’s Tori’s number?”





Chapter 28





Even before Tori checked the light beyond her shutters, she knew by instinct that it was an ungodly hour for her phone to be ringing.

She groaned and buried her head deep into her pillow to escape the noise. Then, remembering the events of yesterday, she rolled toward her nightstand and grabbed her phone. “Hello?”