Second Shot by Zoe Sharp

abandoned his drink and strolled out after her. As he went past he inclined his head a fraction, the friendly nod of one professional to another.

Seven
     
    Y ou’re the one on the ground, Charlie,” Sean said. “If you feel you need more people, say the word.” “It’s not a question of that,” I said. “I talked it over with Simone again last night and she won’t
have
any more people. I spoke to the police here this morning—and getting anything out of them was a bit of a saga—but they’re still adamant that O’Halloran’s accident wasn’t suspicious. In fact, the guy in charge reckoned he’d had a drink or two, which doesn’t help convince them he was bumped off.”
    “So you think Neagley’s overreacting?”
    I paused a moment before replying. I was in my room overlooking the harbor again, watching the commercial jets angle out of Logan. We’d just had an early breakfast and Simone was getting Ella wrapped up and ready for a trolleybus tour of the city. The concierge, no doubt trying to be helpful, had given Simone all the details. Ella was excited about it and I could hear her high-pitched voice giggling and asking questions through the open doorways to the next room. I shifted the phone to my other ear.
    “I don’t know,” I said then. “She’s certainly taken it seriously enough to call in close protection of her own, and Neagley didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would panic over nothing. This has got her rattled, that’s for sure.”
    “Mm,” Sean said. “Armstrong’s are a good firm—head office in New York and very switched on. I’ve worked with the boss, Parker Armstrong, a few times myself. And they’re fair. They wouldn’t take her money unless
they
thought she needed their services.”
    “Which brings us back to Greg Lucas,” I said. “Why didn’t anybody warn me he might react badly to being confronted with his long-lost daughter?”
    “At this stage we don’t know how he’ll react. Nothing in the information we were given suggested he would go to those kinds of lengths to avoid being found.”
    “Well then,” I said, “I suggest you dig a little deeper. Simone’s determined not to give up looking and, if he’s going to become a threat, I think it would be a good idea if I knew about it sooner rather than later, don’t you?”
    A fter my conversation with Neagley in the bar the night before, I’d gone back up to our rooms to find Simone curled up watching TV on my side, Ella already in bed and dead to the world, poor kid.
    Without much of a preamble, I’d given Simone the gist of Neagley’s grievances. For a few moments Simone had sat in silence, feet tucked up underneath her, apparently lost in her thoughts. It was only when she finally spoke that I heard the anger vibrating in her voice and realized she’d been bringing herself up to the boil.
    “OK, so my father was in the army—so were you,” she threw at me. “Does that make you both killers?”
    I stilled.
Don’t go there, Simone.
…
    When I didn’t answer immediately she took a deep breath and said, quietly but with more bitterness, “Why are you telling me this, Charlie? You want me to give up and go home, is that it?”
    “Of course not,” I said, too patiently. It had only inflamed her.
    “Tell me something. When did you last see your father, huh?”
    “Six months ago,” I said shortly.
    She’d already opened her mouth to snap back at me before she registered what I’d said and closed it again. “OK, but that’s your choice, right?” she said, slightly mollified. “You know who and where he is, right?”
    “Yes,” I agreed. But that didn’t mean I knew him—not really. My father was one of the top orthopedic surgeons in the UK, and while he might be my biological parent, most of the time I found him a cold aloof stranger. So much so, in fact, that when my short-lived army career had ended in scandal and disgrace I’d shortened my name from Foxcroft to Fox in an