THE WATERY SUNLIGHT did little to brighten the gloom of the day. The scent of rain hung in the air. Shelby turned left, and they walked for several blocks in silence until they saw the Pret a Manger at the corner.
“Having the taxi drop us away from the coffee shop was a good idea.”
He shared a brief smile with her. “I might have done this a time or two.”
“Well, at least one of us knows what he’s doing.” Her shoulders hunched. “I wish I could see a way out of this mess.”
He did, too.
“Tell me about Lark.”
“Her real name is Hadley Larkspur, of the Nantucket Larkspurs. Off Cape Cod in Massachusetts? Old money. Her parents have no idea what to do with a genius daughter with ADHD. They sent her to the best schools, but she’s brilliant and easily bored. Right now, she’s doing a study abroad, but she’s supplementing her studies by doing research at Cerberus. She says she wants to be in front of the camera, reporting from the front lines, as it were. But her producers won’t even talk to her about it. Not until she becomes more conventional. And I doubt that will happen anytime soon.”
“What do you mean? More conventional?”
She slanted him a sly smile. “You’ll see.”
He let it go. He’d know soon enough.
“We’ve met there in the past. It’s very quiet.”
“How close is it to the Cerberus offices?”
“About three blocks. I don’t know why, but reporters don’t come here.”
Bringing a reporter into this mess seemed risky, but Shelby trusted this Lark. Worse came to worst, he could disable Lark and get himself and Shelby out of there.
Both had changed their appearances before hailing a black cab. Instead of looking like a career woman, Shelby wore an overlarge, shapeless gray T-shirt, with a sweatshirt tied around her waist. Her sweatpants were baggy and indistinct. She’d scraped her hair up into a cap. With her face scrubbed free of makeup, she looked far younger than her twenty-eight years.
To him, nothing could hide her innate beauty.
He’d chosen baggy wide-legged jeans that sagged around his waist. He then paired a rugby sweatshirt with Timberland work boots, and topped it with a random cap of the Los Angeles Lakers. The look was popular amongst London teens.
He was down to a hundred thirty-some-odd pounds in his wallet, and Shelby had maybe a few quid left from her emergency stash at home.
“I’ll call you when I’ve made contact with Lark,” she said. “Don’t get into any trouble, okay?”
“I’ll do my best. But trouble seems to be following me around of late.”
She screwed up her face into a playful frown. “Well, don’t kill anyone.”
“Right, then. Off you go.”
He faded into a doorway, watching her as she walked down the block carrying the hold-all. The Pret a Manger chain was as ubiquitous in London as Starbucks was in America.
He didn’t like letting her out of his sight even for a moment. Too many things could happen. Left with little choice, though, when she entered the coffee shop, he turned and jogged up the street toward the Cerberus offices.
Let’s see how trustworthy this woman is.
The Cerberus offices crouched within a modern office building sporting a clear glass façade and exposed support beams. Most of the other buildings were older, with shops on the ground floor and offices above. He scrunched into a doorway half a block down, hands in his pockets, trying to look harmless. From here, he had perfect line of sight to the office building’s entrance. The longer he waited, the more likely it was that something would go wrong. Either Jukes would find him, or—
“You there. What are you doing?”
—or the police would.
Trevor looked sideways at the cop in front of him. “Just waiting, aren’t I?” he said. “For my missus to come off work. So we can have a bite.”
“I don’t recognize you, do I, and I’ve been patrolling this patch for three years. Show me your identification.”
None of the Bedlamites had carried ID in their wallets for the museum job. Even his fake ID, which Eric had hidden at the hideout, announced him to be Trevor Willoughby, a man now wanted countrywide. He didn’t answer.
“Sir, your ID.” The cop came a few steps closer.
“My wallet was pinched, wasn’t it? I haven’t gotten my driving license replaced yet.”
The man considered him, hands on his hips, head cocked. “Come with me, then. We’ll get you sorted at the station.”
Trevor grimaced. “My missus will be bleedin’ pissed orf,” he said. “She only gets the half hour for tea break, doesn’t she.”
“I’ve orders to detain anyone suspicious. We’re searching for the men who took hos—”
Trevor saw the exact moment the cop recognized him. A slight flaring of the eyes and nose as he simultaneously reached for his radio and Taser.
Trevor lunged at him, closing his fingers around the man’s wrist so he couldn’t deploy the Taser. One hit with that, and he’d be cuffed before his muscles stopped twitching.
“Forty-eight Charlie Papa. Officer in need of aid—”
A quick punch just under his jaw made the patrolman stagger back. Trevor snatched the radio speaker from his hand. “Belay that. Everything’s fine.”
The radio crackled to life. “Dispatch to all available units. Officer injured. Proceed to . . .”
Bollocks. Trevor tuned out the noise. He hadn’t really expected his ruse to work, but he’d had to try.
The cop tried to deploy the Taser again. Quick as a cat, he spun the beat cop around until his back faced Trevor, twisting the speaker cord around his neck several times to control him. The man’s fingers scrabbled against the wires, trying to clear his airway. Trevor put him into a choke hold, cutting off oxygen to his brain. Seven seconds later, the man slid to the ground, unconscious.
Trevor crouched down to unwind the speaker cord. Fingers pressed to his neck, he verified that the officer’s pulse beat strong and steady. He would wake up in about fifteen seconds; Trevor had to be long gone by then. He walked briskly away from the office building. What would Shelby think when she saw him gone? Probably the worst.
A patrol car, siren wailing, squealed around the corner behind him and slammed to a stop near the beat cop. A motorcycle marked with red and blue checks tore in from a different direction, the police decal prominent. In a matter of seconds, he would be spotted.
Sure enough, the motorcycle revved its engines, making a tight turn and gathering momentum as it sped toward him. He opened the nearest door, ducking inside, and found himself in a bootmaker’s shop. Rows upon rows of brightly colored fashion pumps, ankle boots, and shoes passed in a blur as he headed toward the back of the shop.
“Hiya, lover. Can I help you find anything?” The rather portly woman’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled at him. “A tasty snack like you will want the Jeffery Wests, yeah? I’m thinking the Lundy brogues.”
Trevor forced a chuckle, stopping to rotate in a slow circle. “Those shoes cost near about three hundred quid. What about this costume says I can afford those?”
She winked at him. “Breeding shows, love.”
That gave him an idea. “Right, you caught me. Here’s the thing. I’m trying to avoid my ex. She’s . . . relentless.”
“And yer needing a back way out, am I right?”
“I do.”
The motorcycle jerked to a stop at the curb.
“What makes it worse is she’s a response officer. Motorcycles.” He turned and leveled a resigned look out the window, silently urging the saleswoman to make a decision. “She’s got a grudge on, and reported me in for something or another.”
She followed his look out the window. “Right, then. Straight back are the restocking rooms; don’t go there. Go into the far right corner, where it says the toilets are. There’s a broom closet with a door at the back of it. I share it with my old man’s shop next door. Good luck to ya, lover.”
She gave him a push in the right direction, and Trevor sprinted across the shop. He ducked into the short hall just as the cop jingled open the bootmaker’s entryway. Sure enough, a metal door led him into a duplicate corridor of the next area, which turned out to be a barbershop. Only this hallway also had a rear egress. The security gate had been propped open; a few short steps took Trevor past a trash bin to a narrow lane.
Barely taking the time to look around, he took off. A siren grew strident as it neared. The lane held a hodgepodge of architectural designs from different periods; a typical London street. He hesitated at a brick-and-concrete archway, but the gate was closed and padlocked. The next arch had no fence and led into a short tunnel with—oh, shit—a dome-shaped security camera mounted on the upper left. He turned his head as he ran past it.
A response car rolled into view in the street ahead of him, blue lights flashing. Trevor ducked into a stairwell and slid the six steps down the handrail to the bottom. His hand grasped the solid metal fire door’s handle even before he stopped. Locked. Fuck and double fuck. That meant he’d have to return to the street.
The response car had continued on. Trevor doubled back the way he’d come and raced at top speed across the roadway and into the next lane.
And then he heard the helicopter.