Second Shot by Zoe Sharp Read Free Book Online Page B

her face grew stony “Would America be far enough, do you think?”
    S he wants to go to the States,” I said. “We know that—,” Sean began. “Not next week, or next month, but now,” I cut in. “Today, if Madeleine can get her on a flight. What were her exact words? Oh yes. ‘Everybody’s telling me how rich I am—I’ll buy a goddamn private jet if I have to.’ I think that was the gist of it.”
    “What happened?” he said, clipped.
    I went through the events of the last hour, adding, “Now she’s getting over being scared, she’s pretty angry instead.”
    “Hardly surprising,” he said, and then was silent for a moment at the other end of the line. “And how
do you
feel about it?”
    I shrugged. A useless gesture when he wasn’t there to see it.
    I was in the living room, with the curtains firmly drawn. Simone’s house didn’t have double glazing and I kept my voice low, only too aware of the movement and raucous chatter going on outside the window. Si-mone was upstairs, trying to settle a still-tearful Ella in her bedroom. I reckoned she was likely to be there for some time.
    “I think getting Simone —and Ella—out from under the media spotlight would be the best thing for them right now,” I said carefully. “I’m just not exactly thrilled about the prospect of going along for the ride.”
    “The circumstances are very different from Florida, Charlie,” he said quietly
    I shut my eyes, gripping the phone more tightly and feeling like a coward. “Yes, I know.”
    He sighed. “OK, I’ll call you as soon as we’ve got Simone’s travel arrangements sorted out,” he said. “We’ll contact the private investigators as well, make sure they’re briefed. I’ll get Madeleine onto it.”
    Madeleine ran Sean’s office for him and handled the electronic security side of the firm as well as being an organizational genius and general paragon of virtue.
    At one point I’d thought she and Sean were more than work colleagues, and that was probably yet another reason she and I had never quite got along as well as we might have done. Somehow it didn’t help that, in the last few months, Sean had started talking about making her a partner. With more and more clients coming to Sean to secure their data as much as their personnel, I couldn’t argue with his logic, but on some lower level it still rankled.
    “Look,” he went on now, sounding weary. “If you’re really not ready for this, Charlie, tell me and I’ll assign someone else.” He paused a moment, as though
giving
me one last chance to change my mind.
    “Right now, I don’t know,” I said, aware of a prickle of nervous tension down my spine at my own vacillation. “I suppose I thought I’d have longer to get my head round the idea.”
    “I’ll call you back in an hour,” Sean said, without inflection. “You’ve got until then to make your mind up.”
    “OK,” I said, chastened. “Would you tell Madeleine if we’re
not
on a flight out of here today then we’re going to need a hotel for tonight as well?” I glanced at the curtained window “Simone wants to get out of the house as soon as possible.”
    “Mm, I can’t say I blame her,” Sean agreed. “For the moment, though, just sit tight and let’s hope the press get fed up with hanging around in the cold. We’ll have her out of the country within a couple of days at the outside, in any case.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I’m being a pain about this, but—”
    “Don’t worry about it,” he cut in. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. Just make a decision and let me know when I call back.”
    His tone was nothing but reasonable and I ended the call aware of a deep stab of disappointment that he seemed to have given in to my weakness quite so easily
    I t was another half an hour before Simone reappeared downstairs. I was in the kitchen by that time, mopping up the spilt water and wrapping the bits of broken glass in newspaper so I could