Last to Die

about to punch a hole through bone. Who would find their bodies in this blighted building? It could be days, even weeks, before anyone noticed her abandoned car. Before anyone thought to trace its owner.
    Frost thumped down to his knees beside her. She heard the beeps of a cell phone being dialed, then Denzel said: “We’ve got a problem. You want me to finish it?”
    She glanced sideways at Frost and saw terror in his eyes. If they were going to fight back, this was their last chance. Two of them against an armed man. One of them would almost certainly take a bullet, but the other might make it.
Do it now, while he’s on the phone and distracted
. Muscles tensing, she took a breath, maybe her last.
Twist, grab, deflect
…
    Footsteps clanged on the stairway and the gun barrel suddenly lifted from her scalp as Denzel stepped away, beyond her reach. Beyond any hope of wrestling the weapon from him.
    The footsteps ascended to the top of the stairs and moved toward them, heels clipping sharply against the wooden floor.
    “Well, this
is
a problem,” said a shockingly familiar voice. A woman’s voice. “You can both get up, Detectives. I guess it’s time to drop all pretenses.”
    Jane rose to her feet and turned to face Carole Mickey. But this was not the lacquered blonde who’d claimed to be Olivia Yablonski’s colleague at Leidecker Hospital Supplies. This woman wore sleek blue jeans and black boots, and instead of a matronly blond helmet shellacked with hairspray, her blond hair was gathered in a tight ponytail that emphasized a model’s jutting cheekbones. Once, she would have been a stunning beauty, but middle age was now etched in that face, in the creases fanning out from her eyes.
    “I take it there’s no such company as Leidecker Hospital Supplies,” said Jane.
    “Of course there is,” said Carole. “You saw our catalog. We carry the latest in wheelchairs and shower seats.”
    “Sold by sales reps who never seem to be in the office. Do they actually exist, or are they all like Olivia Yablonski, running operations around the world for the CIA?”
    Carole and Denzel glanced at each other.
    “That’s a very big leap of logic, Detective,” Carole finally said, but that two-beat pause told Jane she’d hit the target.
    “And your name isn’t really Carole, is it?” said Jane. “Because I
know
his isn’t Denzel.”
    “Those names will do for now.”
    Denzel said, “They asked me about Nicholas Clock.”
    “Naturally. They’re not idiots.” Carole picked up the fallen weapons and offered them back to Jane and Frost. “That’s why I’ve decided it’s time we worked together. Don’t you think?”
    Jane took back her Glock and considered, just for an instant, turning the gun on Carole and telling her to screw that
working together
crap. These people had drawn a gun on her, had forced her and Frost to kneel with the full expectation of death. That was not something you easily kissed and made up over. But she choked back her temper and shoved the gun in her holster. “How did you just happen to be here?”
    “We knew you were headed this way. We’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
    “This is like the Leidecker company,” said Frost. “Another fake business, this one used as Nicholas Clock’s cover.”
    “And this is where they’d come looking for him,” said Carole.
    “But Clock’s dead. He died aboard his yacht.”
    “
They
don’t know that. For weeks, we’ve been leaking rumors that Clock is alive, that his appearance has been altered by plastic surgery.”
    “Who’s looking for him?” asked Jane.
    Carole and Denzel exchanged looks. After a moment, she seemed to come to a decision and said to Denzel: “I need you outside to watch the street. Leave us.”
    With a brisk nod, he left the room, and they heard his footsteps clanging down the stairs. Carole watched from the window and didn’t say a word until she spotted her associate outside.
    She turned to Jane and Frost. “Boxes within boxes. That’s how the Company controls information. He knows what’s in his own little box, but nothing outside it. So now I’m going to give you a box, which belongs to just you two. Not to be shared. You understand?”
    “And who knows it all?” asked Jane. “Who owns all the boxes?”
    “I can’t tell you.”
    “Can’t or won’t?”
    “That’s not part of your box.”
    “So we get no idea of where you stand in this hierarchy.”
    “I know enough to run this operation.