Long Time Lost Read Free Page B

completed.
    Renner had received a number of similar confirmations during the thirty-plus years in which he’d worked for the Lane family, though the method of sending them had changed over time.
    Except not tonight. Because no text had reached him. Which meant one of two things: either there’d been an unexpected delay, or the man he’d hired had failed in some way.
    Delay seemed the most likely explanation. The intel Renner had paid for on their target’s location and security had been comprehensive, and the killer he’d contracted had an excellent track record. But if the alternative scenario was in play and he’d failed, for whatever reason, then Renner needed to know immediately. Because while it was true that Aaron Wade – the borderline psychotic who was at this very moment hanging off the tower of the crane, pawing at his traumatised victim – was highly adept at persuading people not to talk, or to confess absolutely everything to him, depending on Renner’s whim, it was also true that whatever was happening right now on the Isle of Man, or had already happened, would determine the fate of the unfortunate young man currently swinging by his ankles below him, no matter how positively he responded to Wade’s particular brand of torture.
    So Renner listened very hard to the ringing of his phone. He clamped his free hand over his ear in order to block out, as much as possible, the noise of Wade’s jeering taunts and the young man’s increasingly desperate whines.
    But all he heard was the drone of an unanswered call until eventually he gave up and powered down his phone, stripping out the SIM and pocketing the component parts for safe disposal at a suitable time and place in the future.
    He leaned out of the cab, his tie flapping in the breeze, and looked down at Wade, gripping the tower in his fist, a crazed grin on his face.
    Renner couldn’t say he liked Wade. He was always on edge in his company – the same way, he imagined, a lion tamer could never entirely relax when he took the stage with one of his animals. But he absolutely trusted Wade to carry out his instructions, no matter how extreme or unpleasant those instructions might be, and no matter how much Renner wished he didn’t have to issue them.
    Because despite his experience and his uncompromising reputation, the truth was that Mike Renner didn’t like killing people. Not because he felt guilty – if somebody posed a threat to the Lane family, then they also posed a corresponding threat to Renner’s livelihood and the well-being of his own wife and two precious daughters – but because killing someone always carried with it the risk of being caught.
    Which was why, when he called Wade’s name, with a voice that sounded to him oddly strained, and when Wade looked up, eagerly, and Renner shook his head at the young man swinging from the hook, he couldn’t escape a feeling of sickly dread as he cleared his throat and said, ‘It’s over. Kid has to drop.’

Chapter Four
    Miller shepherded Kate to the bottom of the cliff path. She’d refused to put on the fleece he’d fetched for her and he was trying hard not to show how much it rankled him.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, from behind. ‘It’s OK to freak out. You just shot a man.’
    ‘Oh, I am freaking out. But not about that. He came to kill me. Just like you said.’
    ‘What then?’
    She stopped and spun to face him. Miller lifted the holdall she’d packed and used it to motion towards the Audi estate he’d parked at the end of the seafront. They needed to keep moving but she wasn’t going anywhere yet.
    ‘It’s this.’ Kate spread her arms. ‘It’s you.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘I keep thinking I’m making a terrible mistake.’
    ‘The mistake would have been lying there and getting shot.’
    ‘I should have called the emergency number I was given. I should have dialled my handler instead of you.’
    Miller stared at her a moment, her vest clinging to her skin where it