Late afternoon
The burning in her cheeks and neck had subsided, and Hazel had suppressed the urge to smash the steering wheel with her fist. They’d been stupid; thorough but stupid, and the whole investigation had been tainted from the start. She tried to identify the point at which she could have seen the devil on her shoulder, but the case had been so opaque in places, and her life beyond the case so nerve-wracking … Had she been distracted? Had she dismissed a warning sign anywhere that might have drawn her attention back to the leak? Of course it had never occurred to her that Lydia Bellecourt had simply slotted Hazel into place in their plan, but that is exactly what had happened. It was shameful and horrifying. She had asked the questions What is the girl running from? and What is the girl searching for?, and these questions had been so worthy that at no point did she ever wonder if there was a fatal flaw in her point of view.
The sideroads swept past as she came closer to the Ninth Line.
What would she do now? Bellecourt had congratulated herself for staying one step ahead of them the whole way.
But now, finally, they were ahead. She knew where both the girl and Lee Travers were headed. She’d already dispatched cars. It had taken LeJeune less than five minutes to decipher the name Mr. Sugar. Everyone in high stakes knew him. He was a whale, not just to the casino, but in stature as well. He was allowed to eat at the tables because he bet a minimum of a thousand dollars a hand. He tipped well, too, especially the waitresses, who found him disgusting. He told them to call him Mr. Sugar. He’d made his fortune in energy drinks.
His name was Carl Duffy.
Now she didn’t have to fake having a plan. She could gun for Bellecourt and let the woman find out for herself what kind of rage Hazel was capable of. Nobody put a hand on anyone she cared for.
Bellecourt planned to keep Hazel occupied with the fate of her lieutenant; she was going to keep Bellecourt occupied with the fate of her fiancé. This was their endgame. Bellecourt would have to get to Lee, or wait for him in those fields. Hazel wasn’t about to let her choose, though.
She had to not care. The problem with a threat like the one that had been issued was that if you allowed yourself to be governed by the fear of the outcome, you might end up with nothing but the thing you feared. She had to push past it, keep Bellecourt in her sights. It was probably the only way to save Wingate and get Bellecourt and Travers into custody. She fumbled with her cell and dialled Ray Greene. “I’m not stopping,” she said to him. “In five minutes you’d better have half your hands on deck up near Duffy’s place and the other half on the Ninth Road. You’re going to need a heat sensor to figure out where James is.”
“Where are you going?”
“Straight through,” she said. “I’m going to go get her. Then you move in and get Wingate out, and anyone else who might be under there.”
“I don’t know, Hazel.”
“I don’t know, either, Ray. But the longer she’s roosting on top of them, the greater the chance of an outcome I don’t think either of us can live with.”
“Stay in touch with me. And be careful.”
“I will. Just get James out.” She ended the call as she passed the Eighth Line and continued up Sideroad 1 toward the grove. She might have been driving over the body of her detective constable; she focused herself on the task at hand and powered LeJeune’s dark blue Maxima over the hardtop toward her destination. As she crested a low rise, she saw, in the distance, the black Mercedes that she’d seen before, coming slowly toward her, and she reached for the radio. “Bellecourt? Come in. We’re alone on this frequency.”
She waited. The black car seemed to be slowing. Then it turned and blocked the road sideways.
“Bellecourt?” she said into the radio. “I’m not stopping on this road.”
“Hazel,” came the constable’s voice. “I thought I gave you my instructions.”
“I know where Lee is.”
“You don’t.”
“There are cars heading to his location as we speak.”
“Please do stop. I don’t want to have unnecessary blood on my hands. That’s Earl Tate up ahead in the car. Do you see him?”
“I do.”
“He has a rifle on him with a range of almost four hundred metres. I lent it to him. He’s a good shot, too.”
“Well,” said Hazel, pulling the car onto the verge, “I’d better avoid him, then. Your commanding officer’s cruiser has got quite a bit of horsepower.” She drove far out into the field, beyond range, she thought, and then cut back in. She kept a wide berth behind the Mercedes as she drove back toward the road, through the vibrant soy.
Gunfire erupted from the passenger window of the Mercedes as she bored down on the road and pulled LeJeune’s cruiser back sharply onto the hardtop. The cruiser hit the road with a jerk and a heave and fishtailed around a little, or appeared to fishtail – the fact was, Hazel was now pointing south on purpose. She was a hundred and fifty metres above the black Mercedes. The driver was no longer visible in the front of it. Protecting his head from a shot. “Last chance to catch a lift with me,” she said into the radio.
“You put too low a value on life,” came Bellecourt’s voice.
“I have a sliding scale,” said Hazel, and she put the car in first and floored it. That’s when her hunch was confirmed and she saw Bellecourt pop upright in the front seat of the Mercedes. Yes, my dear, she thought. She remembered the Mercedes’s driver had had long black hair, and she knew from Forbes’s report that Tate was bald. She was already going forty kilometres an hour when Bellecourt began to hurriedly back the Mercedes up. She wasn’t talking now, was she? Hazel closed the distance between the two cars, angling the cruiser to make contact with the front side of the Mercedes – fifty, sixty kilometres an hour, and she could see the determination on Bellecourt’s face. She was retreating as fast as she could, dust kicking forward from her front tires, and Hazel had the whole front right panel in her sights. She collided hard against the black car and she saw Bellecourt’s body leap up and toward her, but then the world went white and something punched her with incredible force. It took a moment to realize that the impact had triggered the airbag in LeJeune’s steering wheel, and even as Hazel punched it down and coughed out a lungful of the white powder that now filled the car, she could see the Mercedes rolling slowly away toward the ditch, smoke and steam flowing upwards into the summer air, its rear facing Hazel. The pain in her neck told her she was going to be popping anti-inflammatories later, but job one was getting out of the car. She pushed herself out of LeJeune’s cruiser and drew her weapon. There was no movement inside the black car, and the spent bladders of three airbags were hanging from its dashboard and doors. Hazel moved carefully around the back. The driver’s door was still closed. She wrenched it open and found Bellecourt lying awkwardly against the passenger seat, blood dripping from the side of her head. She had something in her hand – the radio. Bellecourt’s standard-issue Glock was sitting on the floor below the passnger seat. “Do it,” Bellecourt said into it the radio and dropped it. She lifted her head to Hazel and gave her a small, pained smile.
“Boom,” she said.
The fields behind them jumped and Hazel landed on her hip three feet from the car, skidding.
She shot to her feet and looked out to where the dust was settling within the soy. Something had been detonated, but there had been no sound, only the sensation of the earth bucking and all the air in the county rushing past her. She forced herself to focus on her prisoner: the constable was struggling to get herself upright in the front seat, and Hazel leapt out with her empty hands – the gun had gone flying – and wrapped them around Bellecourt’s head to pull her out and to the ground. The constable was bleeding freely from the temple. The look in her eyes suggested Hazel had plenty of time to retrieve her gun. She grabbed it and then stood over Bellecourt, peering down the barrel at her.
“Didn’t you wonder where Earl Tate really was?” Bellecourt asked her.
“Aren’t you wondering if you’re going to die today?” Hazel replied.
“I don’t worry about that anymore.”
“You should,” said Hazel. She leaned over, her back protesting, and grabbed the constable by the front of her uniform and yanked her off the flattop into the base of her kneecap. Bellecourt’s nose exploded against the bone and a jet of blood described the arc of her head as Hazel dropped her back to the pavement. “But I can hurt you. A lot.”
Bellecourt smiled at her.
“What have you done to Wingate?”
“He’s with the virgins now.”
Hazel dropped the gun now and fell to her knees, straddling Bellecourt around the waist and trapping her arms. “Whatever they do to you in a court of law isn’t going to be enough,” she said.
Bellecourt spat blood at Hazel, laughing. “All you can do to me is shake a finger. The law is nothing, not compared to other laws.”
“You’re right about the law we both supposedly serve.” She suddenly punched Bellecourt in the mouth, splitting both lips. “It lacks certain elegance.” She punched her again, and again. Bellecourt, with her arms pinned, could do nothing to defend herself. “How do you think Lee will like you without your beauty?” Hazel asked, and she rained blows down on the constable. She stopped short of knocking her unconscious. “You thought I was bluffing, didn’t you? I know where the girl has gone. I know where Lee is headed.”
“You know … fuck all,” Bellecourt rasped.
“175 Highland Crescent on Gannon. Carl Duffy.” She lay her palm down flat against Bellecourt’s clavicle and levered herself to standing. Bellecourt’s face was swelling as if someone was pumping air into it. Hazel told her to get up.
She leaned over to retrieve Bellecourt’s gun. She tossed it out the window and onto the road. “Let’s go find your man,” she said. Then she dragged Bellecourt back to her Mercedes and shoved her into the passenger seat. The cruiser was toast.