Safe House Under Fire. Elisabeth Rees

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      David stood and watched Lilly Olsen comfort her daughter in the living room of their home, stroking her hair and holding her hand. The teenager had understandably reacted with shock and distress after their terrifying ordeal, but after twenty minutes of soothing, David was beginning to lose patience. As a father of two grown girls, he had plenty of experience as a parent, and he felt that Lilly was treating Astrid with too much mollycoddling. If anyone knew where that would lead, it was David.

      “Miss Olsen,” he said. “I appreciate the fact that your daughter needs you, but we have important matters to discuss here.”

      She ignored him for a few seconds, continuing to stroke her daughter’s hair while sitting on the couch. Then she turned to him. “I realize that you’re here to help us, but my daughter always comes first, so give me a minute or two, okay?”

      David gritted his teeth and glanced exasperatedly at Goldie, who had returned from her chase empty-handed. The van had gotten away, and that meant Lilly remained in grave danger.

      “You’re safe here, honey,” Lilly repeated to Astrid. “And nothing bad will happen now.”

      David stopped himself from interrupting and contradicting her. It was dangerous to tell teenagers that nothing bad happens in life. It was better to tell them that the world was a cruel place and to give them strong boundaries to mitigate the risk.

      Astrid rose from the couch. “I’m going to call Noah and tell him why I’m not in school today.”

      “No phone calls,” David said. “Not until I say so.”

      Lilly rose also and smoothed down her shirt. “She just wants to make a quick call. There’s no harm in that, surely?”

      “I said no phone calls.”

      “You can’t stop me calling whoever I like,” Astrid challenged. “I’m not in jail.”

      “No, you’re not in jail,” David said slowly, reminded of the arguments he used to have with Chloe, the big bust-ups that would result in her storming from the house and spending the evening with her totally unsuitable boyfriend. “But I need you to listen to me and do what I say.”

      “Who put you in charge of me?” the teenager said, sliding her eyes from David’s to her mother’s, correctly identifying the weakest link in this scenario. “Mom, can I call Noah?” Her bottom lip wobbled, and she rubbed one eye like a tired toddler. “I just want to tell him I’m all right.”

      Lilly nodded. “Sure, but don’t give him any details about what happened today. Tell him you’re not in school because you’re sick. Okay?”

      Astrid glared at David with a hint of triumph before strutting from the room, and his hackles rose. Disobedience was something he could no longer abide in young adults. As a widowed single dad raising two girls, he’d made the mistake of believing that you could reason with teenagers, that you could give them some freedom and be prepared to compromise. But that was before Chloe ended up in a car wreck with her drunk boyfriend and suffered irreversible brain damage as a result. Prior to the accident, she had gone off the rails, become totally unmanageable, and David blamed himself for her downfall. If only he had set stronger rules when she was younger. If only he’d come down harder. And now Lilly Olsen was making the same mistake.

      “Teenagers need a firm hand, ma’am,” he said. “Trust me, I know. You shouldn’t let your daughter get away with manipulating you.”

      Lilly’s brows crinkled beneath her sleek blond fringe. “Manipulating me? Is that what you think she’s doing?”

      “Yes, I do. She’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”

      She held up a palm. “Excuse me, Agent... What was your name again?”

      “Agent McQueen, but you can call me David.”

      “Okay, David,” she said with a false smile. “You literally just met me, and you know nothing about me, or my daughter, so can I suggest that you mind your own business and focus on the man who just tried to kill me.”

      David rubbed a hand down his face as Lilly’s clear blue eyes bored into his. With her arms crossed and her head slightly tilted, her previously soft features now took on a harder tinge. Her criticism was undoubtedly fair. He had lost concentration, thinking back to times when his own daughter had emotionally manipulated him, just like Astrid had with her mom. At that moment, there was a bigger issue to tackle.

      “I apologize,” he said, sitting on the couch. “You’re right. Let’s get to work.” He pulled a photograph from a file that he had placed on the coffee table. “Was this the man who attacked you?”

      She responded instantly. “Yes, his name is François Berger. He’s a wealthy art collector, originally from France but living in Pittsburgh for the last twenty-five years. I’ve been speaking regularly with him on the phone for the past couple weeks and he finally came into the bank yesterday to transfer his money to a European account. He’s moving back to Paris next week.” She touched the photo. “He seemed so nice when I spoke with him. Why would he try to kill me?”

      David placed the photo back into the file. “His real name is Gilbert Henderson and he’s a con man, born and raised right here in Pennsylvania.”

      “No, that’s not possible. This guy has a French accent.”

      “It’s fake. Everything about Gilbert Henderson is fake. We’ve been trying to catch him for more than ten years, but I gotta give him respect where respect is due. He’s cunning, he’s smart and he’s always one step ahead of us.”

      “So where is the real François Berger?”

      “Dead.”

      Lilly gasped. “How?”

      “We found him in his chest freezer, probably been there a while. We’re doing an autopsy to establish the cause of death, but it looks like a bullet to the head.”

      Lilly clearly struggled to make sense of this. “But... What... Why?”

      “Gilbert Henderson targets wealthy individuals with little or no family,” he explained. “He chooses somebody with the same age and characteristics as himself. He then murders them and assumes their identity, before setting out to empty their bank accounts and strip their assets. He does this so quickly and professionally that by the time we’re alerted to the crime, he’s long gone. And so is the money.”

      “But I transferred Mr. Berger’s money to a legitimate bank in France. They’ll have procedures to deal with fraud so you can recover it.”

      David smiled at her naïveté. “Once the money reached the French account, it was moved again and again via very complex channels. It’s now been funneled into countries where we have no financial jurisdiction.”

      “Everything was in order,” she said, her eyes scanning the carpet, perhaps wondering how she could have prevented this crime. “He gave me all the right identification documents and said all the right things. I didn’t suspect a thing.”

      “Don’t blame yourself. This is probably the fifth time Henderson has СКАЧАТЬ