The Unlucky Page 6

  His stomach rolled as his legs weakened for the umpteenth time today. He leaned against a car, panting, his heart smacking against his rib cage.

  “You okay?” Marina asked.

  “Yeah. The hand’s throbbing. Just give me a sec.”

  If Sarah was here and she knew everything, then he was done. She brought down The Rapturites. She attacked a street gang even the cops were afraid of. The MS-13 or something. Cops retired because of Sarah. He remembered her having friends. Tough guys. Friends on the force and the FBI.

  But what was she doing in Toronto? Didn’t her boyfriend live here? He couldn’t remember everything as he hadn’t worked on those cases, but he knew a few cops who worked close with Sarah. She was an enigmatic vigilante who lived by her own rules. Of course she would know what to say to him. She would know where he had stashed his gun. Sarah would know everything, and he figured his life was about to change for the worse.

  Marina’s phone rang. She grabbed it without taking her eyes off Tim.

  “Speak.” She nodded and smiled. “They sure?” She nodded again. “How did they know about it?” Her eyes moved to Tim. “Scanner. Makes sense. We’re on our way. Make sure they stay where they are. Don’t let that car leave their sight. I’ll be there in minutes.”

  She jammed her phone in her pocket and turned in a run.

  “Who was that?” Tim asked. “Where are you going?”

  “They found the Charger.”

  “Gathered that. Where?”

  “Parking garage. Second level. Eaton’s Centre.” She looked back. “You coming?”

  Suddenly his legs had strength again.

  “Wait. What did you mean before when you said to Niles that it fit with the shooting?”

  “Just that it was Sarah Roberts who shot Vanessa. We have three cell phone recordings that place Sarah at the scene, firing three times into your daughter.”

  Tim didn’t know how much he could take in one day. And how could Marina say what she just said so casually, as if discussing a dead dog on the highway?

  “What …” Tim muttered.

  “We have her fingerprints on the murder weapon, too. That’s why there’s a publication ban and we seized all the recordings at the Tower. At least we thought we got them all.”

  “But why?” Tim asked, stunned, his head beginning to hurt, throbbing at the temples.

  “Sarah’s done a lot of good for the people of Toronto. Someone high up wants to hear her side of the story before it all comes out. She’s earned some respect around here. I was given this case to make sure she gets that respect.”

  “Then why tell me now? Why are you bringing me in on this?”

  “She involved you, not me. This little meeting took place because she has an agenda, a purpose. Find Sarah, learn what she’s up to, and we’ll discover why she went after Vanessa. Are you coming or not?”

  “Nothing would stop me,” he gasped as he breathed in deep.

  He would interview Sarah himself. Assaulting a police officer. Breaking and entering. Stealing his weapon. The last one to see Vanessa alive before she was murdered.

  Sarah wasn’t psychic. She was full of shit. It was risky meeting him like that. What if he had known what Marina knew?

  What could she have gained by talking to him?

  He should have shot her. When officers arrived, they would’ve understood. Sarah Roberts was a murderer, after all.

  An eye for an eye. Sarah Roberts had to die.

  But before all that, Sarah had a lot of explaining to do, and he was just the one to accept her apology and atonement for what she had done.

  Chapter 8

  Sarah walked up University Avenue, then turned down Queen Street and unbraided her hair as she hit Bay Street. Detective Timothy Simmons’ gun fit snuggly at the back of her waistband. Vivian hadn’t been forthcoming as to why it was necessary to harass the father of the dead girl or steal his weapon. When Sarah asked her sister if Tim was responsible in any way for Vanessa’s attempted suicide, Vivian had replied that Tim had done terrible things that would catch up with him soon enough, but that he wasn’t holding the smoking gun. Tim’s daughter had gotten herself into trouble all on her own. Tim knew the people responsible, but that was the only connection.

  One thing Sarah could rely on was absolute truth from Vivian. But that truth came when Vivian was prepared to offer it.

  Sarah was still angry with what Vivian made her do. Shooting Vanessa with so many witnesses couldn’t end well. Sarah could’ve died jumping from the CN Tower. So many things could’ve gone wrong. A limit in how much Sarah was willing to trust Vivian appeared on the horizon. It seemed Vivian would do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, consequences be damned.

  Usually that was fine with Sarah. That was their foundation, who they were. But unjustified murder? Even in Sarah’s angriest moments, Vivian intruded to remind her that Vanessa was dead anyway and murder had been the only way. Suicide kept buried the things Vivian needed exposed. Murder opened the proverbial can of worms.

  So Sarah kept listening, doing, performing. Meet Tim at the funeral. Braid hair. Claim to be Erzabet. Question him. Rile him up. Escape his presence, but call Aaron and have the car moved. Steal Tim’s gun. Meet Aaron later. Next step happens tomorrow. Blah, blah, blah.

  Sarah had done it all and was now one block from the Eaton’s Centre parking garage. Vivian had not unveiled the next step or who she would be chasing tomorrow.

  Sarah turned south on Yonge toward the Shuter Street entrance to the parking garage when two police cars raced by, sirens off, lights rotating.

  She slowed her step.

  Three black and whites were coming from the other way with an unmarked cruiser behind them.

  Sarah picked up her step again. They couldn’t have run the plates, called the rental agency, got the name and then found where Aaron had parked the car in all of a half hour, could they?

  Unless Tim called it in early and they caught a lucky break.

  Aaron was with the car. He would be waiting for her.

  Shit!

  She jogged the rest of the way, entered the access door to the parking garage and took the flight of stairs to the second level two at a time. Once there, the metal door opened without a sound. An inch was all she needed to watch what was taking place. The police cars had surrounded the white Charger. Officers with guns out shouted at the driver of the car to get out with his hands up.

  Her fury with Vivian rose for dragging Aaron into this and allowing him to get involved when Sarah had come here to make peace. This was the last thing she needed. Aaron had fled this life and with one phone call was being arrested for her.

  The car’s door moved slowly until it was fully open. A moment later, Aaron’s hands rose above the roof of the car as he emerged.

  Three officers jumped in, two holding him down while the other cuffed him from behind. One of the officers forced his knee into the back of Aaron’s neck. Aaron yowled in pain.

  Sarah opened the stairwell door, ready to run at them, but Vivian screamed in her head to stand down. The scream was so sudden and overwhelming that Sarah staggered on her feet. Stunned, she grabbed at the door to avoid dropping to her knees. With one deep breath, she eased back into the stairwell, but not before Aaron’s eyes found her.

  They stared at each other for a moment before Sarah mouthed the words, I’m sorry.

  He made a half smile, then blinked his eyes in an I got this gesture. Her heart swooned in that moment.

  What did they have on him, anyway? Sitting in a car in the parking garage? That wasn’t illegal. Sure it was the car she’d used, but she was the one they were after. He would have an alibi for any questions they threw at him. He had friends, a dojo to run, students who would corroborate his attendance in class. They had nothing on him. This arrest was a formality. Aaron would be home for dinner.

  Maybe that was Vivian’s plan since the beginning.

  But Sarah didn’t have to like it. The people she
was close to weren’t pawns. Sarah was always willing to do what was necessary, but lately, without use of the old method of automatic writing, Vivian could tell Sarah what she wanted whenever she felt like it, and that was taking some time to get used to.

  They picked Aaron up and placed him in the back of the unmarked cruiser. A tall woman closed the car door and leaned in the passenger window. When she stood back up and walked around to get in the driver’s seat, the passenger leaned out the open window.

  Timothy Simmons.

  He was connected to all of this. When would Vivian let her in on it?

  Soon …

  The word echoed throughout her head.

  Sarah eased the door closed and headed down the stairs to the sidewalk. Outside, she mingled with a crowd of people and watched as the cruisers, one by one, exited the parking garage.

  The unmarked car with Aaron in the backseat emerged from the garage and hung a left. As it passed, she studied the female driver. When she moved her eyes to look at Simmons, he was staring back at her.

  The car’s tires screeched to a stop as the cruiser braked instantly. He’d seen her and recognized her without the braids.

  Sarah ducked low and bobbed and weaved through the crowd until she was in the stairwell again. She ran up, jumping two stairs at a time as she did ten minutes ago. On the second level, she exited the stairs and headed for the edge to look down on Yonge Street. The passenger door was closing. Tim must’ve lost sight of her and got back in the car. It started away, Aaron in the backseat.

  After watching until she couldn’t see it anymore, she entered the mall and exited at the south end. A few blocks up she found a small bar.

  Vivian wanted her to take a Greyhound to somewhere just north of a city called Barrie. It was something to do with a summer cottage she was supposed to stake out tomorrow afternoon for some reason.

  But tonight she would stay lost in the stream of thousands of people downtown Toronto. Tonight, she would drink to squash the memory of shooting Vanessa, such a young girl with so much life ahead of her. She would drink because she had no idea how many days of freedom she had left.

  She felt very unlucky. As if nothing was working out as it should. How could Vivian get a murder charge off her back? What did the police know? They had to have pictures, videos, eyewitnesses to the shooting. Yet the media weren’t publishing much because of a gag order.

  She had thought about calling Parkman in, but not now. The way Vivian handled the people close to her convinced Sarah to keep Parkman out of this one.

  The bar was quiet as the sun hadn’t dropped yet. After a few drinks she would take a taxi to Mississauga. She knew a few hotels that took cash, no ID. After some rest, she would take the bus north of Barrie and stake out the cottage. For what, she still had no idea. But she’d do it because that’s who she was. Vivian’s pawn.

  As she ordered her drink, a thought struck her. Maybe Vivian was withholding something because the information was too horrible. After all that Sarah had seen and been through, what could be so bad that Vivian felt the need to shield her from it?

  Just trust me …

  The echo of those words made her call the bartender back.

  “Cancel that wine I ordered. I need whiskey. Make it a double and keep the bottle close. I need to drown out the voices in my head.”

  “Coming right up, lady.”

  Chapter 9

  With every cop in Toronto looking for Sarah, taking public transportation was risky. The Greyhound ticket to Barrie was already bought in her name, but instead of using it, she took a cab to the Toronto International Airport and hired a black limo—not the stretch kind—to drive her to Casino Rama in Orillia. Just short of her destination, she told the driver to pull over and let her out. She paid the full amount and started walking.

  The cloudless sky offered a rich shade of blue, the sun high and blazing its heat down upon the cement she walked, sweat oozing from her every pore. Eyes half-lidded, she lumbered along the road hoping today wouldn’t require a lot of physical work.

  Vivian had explained where to go in a version of psychic magnetism. The image of the cottage Sarah was supposed to stake out was planted in her mind like a photo. The location was offered in a way that Sarah knew where to go by moving forward—which was a strange feeling. If she headed away from the cottage, an internal compass, a yearning to turn back, coursed through her. Until she reached her destination, this internal guide led her to the cottage just south of Orillia without any explanation as to why.

  “What’s this for, Vivian?” she asked out loud.

  The concession road she walked along was dirty, the pavement broken and disheveled in places. A sign on her right said Frost Heaves, which probably explained the decrepit look of the back road.

  The heat didn’t help with her throbbing head. Even after three painkillers, her whiskey headache had only dimmed slightly, leaving a subtle throbbing between the temples.

  Served her right for trying to block Vivian’s voice. It seemed she couldn’t detect Vivian’s presence at all when she was quite sloshed. The more she drank, the further the voice moved into the far recesses of her consciousness, and the more Sarah got herself back. In the end all that achieved was a drunk Sarah without Vivian’s protection. That was scary and made her feel vulnerable in its own way, but it was also liberating.

  The year before, she had learned whiskey meant something like water for life in Gaelic. She could use some water now as her tongue was an arid piece of meat flopping around in her mouth.

  It wasn’t the brightest idea to get drunk in Toronto either. Not while every authority on every block hunted her.

  They probably still had Aaron locked up, drilling a thousand questions at him. And when they learned he was her boyfriend but had only heard from her recently under mysterious circumstances, they wouldn’t believe him. How could Sarah be in Toronto and her own boyfriend didn’t know about it? Where is she? they’d ask. Why is she here? Aaron was tough, but they would push him hard.

  When this was over, she would find a way to make it up to him if he’d let her.

  The concession road was surrounded by shrubs, bushes and trees. Not a single leaf moved in the still air. The sound of the highway grew dimmer as she walked away from it.

  After five minutes, a green car came toward her. The female driver checked her out, staring longer than normal. Sarah paid the driver no extra attention. There was a cottage Vivian was leading her to. Focus on that. Watch the place. Then leave and get water. And more sleep.

  After fifteen minutes, a tall fence came up on the right. A cool slither moved down her back, a chill in the heat for a brief moment. She slowed her step.

  Is this the place?

  Sarah didn’t need an answer. She knew what she was looking at. That all-knowing feeling, strange as it was, returned.

  She had found the cottage. It was surrounded on all sides by a fence topped with barbed wire.

  “How do I get in?” she asked out loud.

  The urge to move forward swept over her. Putting one foot in front of the other, Sarah followed the fence until she came to a corner where the road turned to the right.

  Detective Simmons’ gun had slipped slightly in the sweat at the back of her pants. She pulled it out, checked that the safety was off and held it aimed at the sky as she eased around the corner. A large iron gate sat open. Atop this gate, barbed wire was twirled in circles like the fences at concentration camps.

  How can I watch the cottage from outside the gate?

  Enter quietly in half a minute, came the reply, echoing in that resonant cadence of Vivian’s voice. Even though Vivian had occupied her body, made her pass out and write notes, saved her life countless times and now talked directly to her in this fashion, it still took some getting used to. Sarah had the urge to shake her head as if a mosquito buzzed close by when Vivian whispered to her. Only recently had she been able to resist that urge, knowing how it would look to others.

  The clo
ck ticked. The gate remained open.

  Maybe the woman who drove by minutes before had come from here, leaving the gate ajar.

  Then why wait, Vivian?

  At least twenty seconds had passed. Sarah decided to move forward. She stepped out from behind the corner and heard footsteps approaching almost immediately.

  She pivoted on her heels and jumped back behind the security of the wall where she had been hiding moments before.

  A man emerged from the opening in the gate. He walked with purpose, his face glued to the phone in his hand. White cords fed from the phone to his ears. As she watched him, the man touched something in his pocket and the large iron gate began to close.