Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,107
team. Du Pont said there must have been a grenade or a mine there. But it blew right as he took a shot over by the gate. I think he planted the bomb himself, and then I think he fucking set it off with that shot. Couldn’t prove it, though. We were on opposite sides of the perch, and I didn’t actually see what he was doing.
“There was an inquest. He was on notice. For a while he was careful. He got paired with a different spotter. And that guy was a piece of shit, too. His name was Porter. If Du Pont was still fucking around, Porter was covering up for him. They’d go off to their assigned position, and then they’d come back hours later, and what they said they were doing never quite matched up with what we’d seen them doing.
“Finally a girl got attacked—”
“What girl?” I interrupt.
“A local girl. She worked for us as a translator. We found her body burned with gasoline in an empty house. Dress pulled up around her waist. Couldn’t prove it was Porter and Du Pont who did it—but that was the last nail in the coffin. They both got the boot. Barely escaped court-martial. Discharged and sent back stateside. We were all relieved to see them go. I left the army and went private contractor a few months after.”
I nod. It’s about what I expected, reading his file.
I fill Raylan in on what’s been happening here. The rally, the shot at the restaurant, and what Du Pont said when he called me on Simone’s phone. As I talk, it starts to rain—fat droplets spattering against the windshield and breaking apart,
“Wait . . .” Raylan says, sneaking a look over at me with his eyebrow cocked. “Are you talking about your girl from way back?”
I told Raylan a very brief, highly edited version of what happened between Simone and me. But Raylan is a sneaky fucker. He uses that southern charm and casual manner to get all kinds of information out of you, bit by bit, when he’s got all the time in the world at his disposal. I’m guessing he formed a fairly accurate picture of the situation, over time.
Now he’s trying to hide his smile and his amazement to hear that Simone and I have reconciled. Sort of.
“I thought you were looking slightly less miserable than usual,” Raylan says. “The one that got away is back again . . .”
“She was,” I say, gruffly. “Now she’s with that murdering piece of shit.”
“He’ll have the advantage, wherever he wants to meet.”
“Yup. But there’s two of us, only one of him.”
I think about that. Think how to best use it to our advantage.
“Let me see what you brought in that bag,” I say.
39
Simone
Before I can saw through the zip tie with the screw, Du Pont turns down a long gravel road, which bounces me around in the back of the van like the last kernel in a popcorn machine. I think every inch of my body is going to be bruised by the time we stop. I cling tight to the screw with my sweaty fist, not wanting to lose it.
I can’t see out the back of the windowless van, but I know we’ve been driving in a straight line down some highway for hours, and now we’ve turned off onto this side road that definitely isn’t paved. We must be in the middle of nowhere.
At last, the van rolls to a stop and Du Pont gets out. I hear his crunching footsteps coming around the side of the van. He opens the back doors, seizes me by the ankle, and hauls me out.
He sets me down outside the van, barefoot on the gravel. One of my strappy sandals came off while he was driving, and I kicked off the other, thinking that bare feet were better than heels. The rough stones poke my feet and the ground feels cold. It’s still night, but the sky is beginning to get that gray hue that shows that dawn isn’t far off.
Du Pont looks me over, expressionless. He has a strange sort of face. Not bad looking—in fact, in many ways he should be handsome. He’s got a lean, symmetrical face. A straight nose, thin lips, blue eyes. But there’s a fire in his eyes that