Fox S02 Across The Broken Line Read online

  His younger son rolled his eyes behind his father’s back, then saw me watching and gave a sly grin. I kept my expression stony. I’ve never been exactly maternal but sneaky kids are the worst kind. Undeterred, he disappeared and shortly after came the pound of teenage feet up the stairs.

  Dabrowski shrugged helplessly to Parker. “Boys, huh?”

  “How old are they?”

  “Tanner just turned thirteen,” Dabrowski said. “Adam was sixteen last fall. I guess he’s starting to find his younger brother a drag.”

  From what I’d just seen of Dabrowski junior, I couldn’t blame the older brother for that.

  “If your wife wants out,” I said mildly, getting us back on track, “then surely a divorce would be easier?”

  Rendelson gave a snort that might have been twisted laughter. With him it was difficult to tell. “Not when you’re on the rich list,” he said.

  He gave an abrupt twitch of his right shoulder, the kind that might once have resulted in the dismissive flick of a hand. I tracked the direction, saw a framed picture on the wall just behind a grand piano that had the look of furniture rather than instrument.

  I stepped closer, recognised it as a front cover of Forbes - the money mag. I unhooked the picture and carried it across to Parker.

  The cover photo was of a woman standing with one fist on her hip, the other holding the hand of the boy who’d just ratted out his older brother. Adam stood a little way back from his mother and Tanner, both kids scrubbed up and shiny. The perfect family.

  The headline read:

  OLIVIA DUVALL - SELF-MADE MILLIONAIRE SUPER-MOM

  “Ah,” I murmured as I handed it to my boss. “You’re married to that Olivia Duvall.”

  Dabrowski hesitated a moment, then nodded, as if caution on the subject had become a habit hard to break. “She done good,” he said, his voice a mix of shame and pride.

  “So, she doesn’t use the name Dabrowski?”

  “Not any more - something to do with ‘brand image’ or something.” He shook his head. “She did explain it to me one time but …” He glanced at the pair of us briefly, a shy smile on his face. “I didn’t take it in much. She calls herself Olivia now. Don’t like it when I tell folks it ain’t so.”

  I looked for malice, saw only a hurt bewilderment. He looked for all the world like a man who was still in love with his wife, but she had reinvented herself. The woman he’d married didn’t exist any more.

  “I’m guessing there was no pre-nup agreement,” I said dryly. “So a divorce would cost Ms Duvall big bucks.”

  Dabrowski’s face took on a stubborn cast. “She worked hard for what she’s got. I only want what’s fair and no more.”

  I heard his unspoken ‘but’ and queried it.

  “She knows I’d never let go of my boys,” he said simply. “I raised ‘em single-handed, near as dammit. Ever since I got laid off and my Olive set up on her own. Internet stuff.” He spread hands so big he could have scooped up a litter of puppies in them, and jerked his head in the direction of upstairs. “Truth be told, the boys probably understand it better than I do.”

  “They’re fine boys,” Parker said, his eyes still on the picture.

  Dabrowski ducked his head in acknowledgement. “We didn’t always have money,” he said. “Might be that way again - this economy, who knows? I’ve tried to keep their feet on the ground. They still do their chores, earn their allowance. I want to see ‘em raised right.”

  “You could come to some arrangement over joint custody,” Parker suggested.

  “My Olive’s an all-or-nothing kinda girl - always was,” Dabrowski said. “I guess that’s why she’s done what she’s done.”

  For a moment I thought he was referring to her business empire. It was left to Bill Rendelson to expand.

  “She rigged his truck to explode.”

  I didn’t respond to that immediately. It seemed a little outrageous, put baldly like that. And where would a middle-class suburban mother-of-two get the components for … ?

  “Ah,” I realised, almost to myself, “she just happens to run an electronics company.”

  Bill Rendelson flicked me a brief look of surprise as if he hadn’t expected me to put it together.

  “It was kind of obvious to be a serious attempt,” Dabrowski said quickly, like that excused the whole thing. When Parker raised an eyebrow, he shrugged. “I seen a lot of IEDs back when I was in the military.”

  “She really wants the boys that badly?” Parker asked.

  “She’s built her whole image on being some kind of super-mom,” Rendelson said, twisting the words with contempt, “but she barely sees the kids from one day to the next. She just hates to lose.”

  “So you think getting rid of Joe might be a cheaper option for her,” I said.

  Rendelson began to bristle. “If it’s the money you’re so damn worried about, I’ll pay the agency’s going rate myself - “

  “I’ll pay what I can,” Dabrowski said stoutly. “I ain’t asking for charity.”

  Parker paused, considering. Bill Rendelson leaned in, as if about to plead and loath to have to do it in front of me, muttered, “Joe and I served together. I don’t often ask for personal favours, boss …”

  Parker got to his feet, buttoning his jacket, and it might have been my imagination but his gaze lingered over the two kids in the photograph. “Let’s worry about the money later,” he said. “Mr Dabrowski, we offer a very special service in cases like this. Not just close protection in the traditional sense, but a more … proactive approach.”

  I saw the man’s frown at the sideways terminology and simplified it. “What he means is, we draw out the threat and neutralise it.”

  Dabrowski rose also, suddenly uneasy. He was half a head taller than Parker, and towered over both me and Rendelson.

  “I just need to know I’m gonna be around for my boys,” he said again.

  “I think we can arrange that.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  I smiled. Was it really only three weeks ago? It seemed so easy then.

  “By offering to help your wife.”

  ***

  Five minutes ago …

  “Olivia!” I called again. “We need to get out of here before we all get killed.”

  “Isn’t that what you want?” her voice yelled back. The echoes made it harder to define direction. But at least she was talking to me.

  I skirted the forklift as it began to retract, balancing a pallet-load of HD flatscreen TVs. I watched it whirr away quietly into the gloom.

  “Things have changed,” I said. I crabbed forwards with great care, keeping close to the stacks. “Whatever’s happening here, it’s not what you think.”

  “Oh really?” There was a harsh bark of laughter. “What made you betray me, Charlie? Did he promise you a fat bonus if I didn’t make it to the final decree? Well, I got news for you, honey. Anything happens to me, every cent goes to the boys.” Her voice caught audibly. “If the bastard hasn’t killed them already.”

  My ears finally got a fix. I dived through one of the cross-streets - there was no other way to describe the gaps between the racking. One up and two across.

  And there she was, staring around her with fear-filled eyes. She was clutching the little revolver she’d bought for her own protection after claiming her husband tried to kill her. I moved into view with the SIG up and levelled.

  “Put it down, Olivia,” I said, loud enough for there to be no mistake, soft enough not to startle her into a negligent discharge.

  She spun with a gasp, even so, staring at me. If I expected to find her dishevelled I was disappointed. She still looked like she’d stepped out of the pages of a fashion mag.

  “Not while that bastard’s out there,” she said. She gestured to the SIG. “What - are you really going to shoot me?”

  “No,” said another voice, deep and bitter. Joe Dabrowski came rushing out of the shadows with his own gun raised and pointed straight at his wife. �
��But I will.”

  And then, out of nowhere, the darkness came whistling in on us and Dabrowski’s hand jerked.

  He fired.

  ***

  An hour ago …

  “The bomb was a blind,” Parker said.

  I felt the Navigator twitch slightly as I reacted to the news. I almost dropped my cellphone - which served me right for not taking his call on hands-free while I was driving. It had begun to snow again and the roads were lethal, even with four-wheel drive.

  “Charlie - you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here,” I said. “What do you mean, it was a blind?”

  “It was too complex for an amateur to have put together. Olivia Duvall may run an electronics company, but that doesn’t mean she has the knowledge on how to build an improvised device, so I had Bill check it out. We’ve been waiting for his tame IED expert to rotate home from Afghanistan and he’s gotten an expert opinion - she couldn’t have done it.”

  “Come on, Parker, any school kid with an internet connection can find out how to build an improvised device in about twenty minutes.”

  “True,” he allowed, “but you’ve been alongside her twenty-four/seven for the past week - when does she have the time?”

  “It’s like anything - you want it badly enough, you make the time.” But even as I said it, I realised that Olivia Duvall ran to the kind of schedule that would make presidents and prime ministers wilt.

  “So, what are we saying?” I demanded. “That she had help?”

  “Or that Dabrowski put the thing together himself,” Parker said flatly. I could almost hear Bill Rendelson simmering in the background. “He did admit to having extensive experience during his time with the military.”

  “But if Joe built the bomb he claimed his wife used to try to kill him does that mean - ?” I began.

  “That we’ve been taken for a ride?” Parker finished for me. “I hope not.” His voice was grim. “Where are you?”

  “On my way to meet Olivia at the house.”

  “What’s your ETA?”

  I took the phone away from my ear just long enough to use both hands on the Navigator’s wheel. I swung the big vehicle through a gap in the dirty banks of ploughed snow and into the tree-lined driveway. “I’m there now,” I said. The house came visible through the sparse foliage. I glanced across, saw the front door standing slightly ajar. “I’ll call you back.”

  For once I didn’t bother taking the Navigator round to the side of the building to the tradesman’s entrance. I left it sprawled untidily on the cleared stone setts of the driveway and ran to the doorway, sliding the SIG from its holster as I went.

  Taking a deep breath, I nudged the heavy oak door open with the toe of my boot and slipped inside fast. Nobody fired at me while I was silhouetted in the opening. A good sign.

  I went from room to room, moving quickly, quietly. The place had been festooned with Christmas decorations since my visit with Parker and Bill Rendelson, and the living room smelled of pine from the eight-foot tree near the grand piano. The time of seasonal ill-will was rampantly upon us.

  But I found nothing out of place - except the people. There was nobody at home.

  It was a Saturday, late morning. Joe Dabrowski should have been there with the boys. Olivia had said she wouldn’t be working for once. They had planned a family brunch, but when I stuck my head into the kitchen everything was squared away. There were no signs of food preparation.

  I looked into Joe’s workshop, which was empty and unlit. Tanner’s room was its usual muddle, scattered with dirty clothes that Olivia refused to allow the cleaning service to pick up for him.

  The room of the older boy, Adam, was neater, just cluttered with his music paraphernalia, the latest piece of which he’d bought second-hand from eBay. Joe had told me that the kid had bitched about the fact that Olivia sold all the latest gear through her company, but wouldn’t give him more than staff discount. They were trying to teach him the value of things. It was taking a while to sink in.

  I went back downstairs and stuck my head into Olivia’s study. Her handbag and briefcase were both sitting on the desktop. If the open front door had sounded the first note of alarm, that sent it up a notch. Olivia never went anywhere without her cellphone, laptop and diary. To find them apparently abandoned was worrying.

  I scanned the desktop, saw the message light blinking on the answering machine. Suddenly wary, I used the butt of the SIG to tap the replay button.

  “Hey Olivia.” Joe’s voice came raspy and barely recognisable out of the tinny speaker. “I’ve got the boys. Unless you want to be burying them, you’ll ditch the bodyguard and meet me at that mausoleum you call your empire. And you better hurry.”

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I punched the redial button on my cellphone. While it rang out, I paused the message, set it to replay. “Hey Parker,” I said. “I think you - and Bill - need to hear this …”

  ***

  Now …

  The motorised forklift caught Joe Dabrowski little more a glancing blow. Even so, I heard the bones of his shoulder give way like an old dry branch as it flung him out and to the side. If he hadn’t heard that betraying squeak at the last moment, started to turn, it would have mowed him flat.

  As it was, at least the shock of it deflected his aim enough to go wide. The discharge was still brutal in the echoing cavern, then the gun was falling from his grasp.

  I darted forwards and kicked the weapon out of his reach. It was an old Beretta, a standard military sidearm, something that was no doubt familiar to him.

  I scooped one hand under his good arm and dragged him back against the stacks just in case another forklift bore down on us. He slumped there, breathing hard. The shock was taking care of the pain - for now. He was grey with it.

  I turned back, to find Olivia Duvall was covering both of us with the little revolver.

  Give me strength.

  “Olivia,” I said sharply. “Put that down before you hurt yourself - or I have to do it for you.”

  “Damn right she’ll hurt you,” Dabrowski told his wife through gritted teeth. “And she’ll keep hurting you until you tell us what you’ve done with my boys.”

  “What I’ve done?” Olivia demanded. “It’s you who’s threatening to bury them, you bastard!”

  I said calmly, “Olivia, we can sort this out, but not here and not at gunpoint.” And to prove it I slid the SIG away, ignoring Dabrowski’s groan. I held out my hand towards her, palm out.

  She wavered for a moment, then I saw the determined glint come into her eyes.

  “Not until - “

  “Look out!” I yelled, and rushed her.

  There was no incoming forklift this time, but the possibility was real enough to make her look. As she did so I rammed my elbow into the fleshy vee just below her ribcage. It knocked the stuffing out of her just as effectively.

  By the time she’d recovered enough to curse me, I’d spun the cylinder of the little revolver and dropped the live rounds out into my pocket.

  And then another forklift did come whooshing out of the murky darkness. We stepped back quickly.

  “Now you’ve temporarily finished trying to kill each other,” I muttered, “can we please get out of here before we all qualify for the Darwin Awards by removing ourselves from the gene pool in the most inventive way possible?”

  After the dimness of the warehouse interior, it seemed unnaturally bright outside, sunlight gleaming from the pristine snow around the exterior. I blinked a few times and saw Parker waiting with the security guard, standing by another of the company Lincoln Navigators.

  The two boys, Adam and Tanner, slouched between them. They looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.

  Their parents both stopped dead. Dabrowski tried to wipe his forehead, suddenly realising his arm didn’t work properly. He stared at it like he couldn’t for the life of him work out when that happened.

  His eyes, when they turned to me, were
bewildered. “But - ?”

  “Let me guess, Joe,” I said gently. “You got a message, apparently from your wife, telling you she had the boys and unless you wanted to arrange their funerals, you’d meet her here.”

  Dabrowski’s brow furrowed. “How the hell - ?”

  “Olivia got the same message,” I said. “From you.”

  Olivia’s attention finally tore away from her sons and towards me. “What?”

  “You were set up - both of you,” I said. “I had a phone call from Parker inside to confirm it. He analysed the messages. Your voices were sampled and digitally manipulated. They could have made it sound like you were saying anything.”

  “But …” Olivia stumbled into silence. “How … ?”

  “The ‘how’ is the easy part,” I said. “It’s the ‘who’ you’re not going to like.”

  They had moved instinctively closer to each other, I noticed. Which was possibly a good sign.

  “That can’t - ” The look Olivia threw me was fast and vicious. “You’ve crossed the line, Charlie.”

  “Trust me,” I said. “That line was already broken.”

  And despite the fact it was Olivia who’d had the drive and intelligence to start a major business from the ground up, it was Joe who put it together first.

  “Adam has one of those electronic synthesisers,” he said slowly. “He was always recording our voices - even made it sound like I could sing.”

  “No, no,” Olivia said, shaking her head as if that would make it all go away. “But … someone tried to smother me …” She put a hand to her throat. “No, not Adam! That’s ridiculous! I’m his mother - “

  “No offence,” I said, “but if someone the size and weight of your husband wanted to suffocate you, you’d be dead.”

  “And the bomb?” Joe asked, sounding hollow.

  “Olivia hasn’t the time or the expertise to have put it together,” I said, “but the average teenager, spending hours on the internet, and with access to your workshop at the house, could have something of that level of sophistication constructed in a couple of hours. Particularly,” I added, “if their father just so happened to have spent time dismantling IEDs after Desert Storm, and told them a few war stories.”