The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets)

by James, Harper

  ‘I bet it seems like a lifetime ago,’ Guillory said to Evan. ‘Him biting your ear, I mean. Don’t know what I’d do if someone had done that to me, and I got a chance to—’

  ‘Get even?’

  She nodded, moved away from the bed again.

  ‘Won’t be long.’

  ‘No! I’ll tell you what you want to know.’

  She came back again, a last chance look on her face. Evan was glad it wasn’t directed at him. She sat back down on the chair, straddling it again. So McIntyre knew she was serious.

  ‘Okay. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.’

  McIntyre stared at her, not knowing where this was going. Evan too.

  ‘I’m going to ask you some questions. Evan here is going to hold your hand ...’

  She kept her eyes on his as Evan wiped his hand on the side of his pants and took hold of his hand. McIntyre let him do it.

  ‘If I think you’re not telling me the truth, Evan’s going to give your hand a little squeeze. Of course, when I say little, I actually mean really, really hard like he’s trying to break some fingers.’

  McIntyre held his breath.

  ‘You want Evan to show you, so you know what I’m talking about? Show him Evan—’

  ‘No!’

  Guillory smiled at him.

  ‘Only joking. Evan wouldn’t do that.’ She looked up at Evan. ‘Would you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  McIntyre didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Okay,’ Guillory said, ‘let’s start at the beginning. Why don’t you tell us what happened in Frank Hanna’s house?’

  McIntyre started to object. Guillory held up a finger.

  ‘That was your one and only free pass. Next lie, Evan’s gonna squeeze that hand so hard you’ll ... I don’t know what you’ll do but it’s a good thing there’s a plastic sheet on this bed. Now, try again.’

  McIntyre told her the same story he’d told Lisa Stanton, how it had been an accident, Hanna swinging at him and toppling down the stairs. His eyes kept flicking from her face to Evan’s and back again. Evan gave him a tight little smile, winked at him each time their eyes met.

  ‘What were you doing in the house?’

  Evan ran his fingertip over the dressing on McIntyre’s palm, just so he didn’t lose concentration.

  ‘Looking for his will.’

  ‘Did you find it?’

  McIntyre shook his head.

  ‘Why’d you want it?’

  McIntyre took a deep breath. Evan tickled his palm again.

  ‘You know all this already.’

  ‘I know I do. I want to know if you do.’

  ‘To see if he changed it, cut Lisa off.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Evan said, just for the fun of it.

  ‘Piss off, Buckley.’

  It was a brave thing to say.

  ‘Go on, why don’t you squeeze my hand, see if you can make me scream.’

  Evan thought about it, tried to recall the feel of McIntyre’s teeth ripping into his ear, his boot smashing into his balls as he writhed on the ground. Guillory was watching him intently.

  ‘Evan.’

  The moment passed. Guillory sensed the change in him, turned back to McIntyre.

  ‘It’s okay Mr McIntyre, you don’t have to answer that one. We all know it’s because Hanna doesn’t want his money going to a low-rent douchebag like you.’

  McIntyre wasn’t prepared to try telling her to piss off. Evan reckoned that was a very good call. If the man had demonstrated judgement like that in his business affairs, he wouldn’t be in the mess he was in now.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Guillory said, ‘is how your friend Mr Vaseline would be happy with you telling him, sorry, I couldn’t find the will. Let’s hope he didn’t change it. He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’s happy to wait and see.’

  McIntyre was very still, the only sound his breath rasping through his cracked lips.

  ‘And I bet you didn’t tell him about your little spat with Lisa either, did you?’

  McIntyre came off the pillows so fast his hand twisted in Evan’s. He let out a sharp gasp.

  ‘That wasn’t my fault,’ Evan said, grinning at Guillory who was doing her best to keep a straight face.

  ‘Should have dropped Hanna’s phone down a drain,’ Guillory said.

  ‘It was that crack about needing a boob job did it,’ Evan said. ‘Just think what that one nasty little comment might end up costing you.’

  ‘No, Mr Vaseline wouldn’t be very happy to hear you won’t get a penny even if Hanna leaves everything to Lisa,’ Guillory said.

  Evan let go of McIntyre’s hand, folded his arms across his chest. They had a much better hold over McIntyre than the threat of a little bit of pain—little compared to what Vasiliev would do to him.

  ‘Maybe we’ll tell him,’ Evan said and pulled McIntyre’s phone out of his pocket. ‘I’m sure you’ve got his number.’ He stepped away smartly as McIntyre tried to grab the phone, ended up just hurting his hand even more.

  ‘I’ll let Evan find that number,’ Guillory said. ‘Then we’ll get back to the questions.’

  Evan found the number easily enough and burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it, the shock of seeing it there. He showed the phone to Guillory. Her eyebrows lifted. She didn’t smile as she read the word after Vasiliev’s name.

  ‘Bet Vasiliev doesn’t know you’ve got him listed like that,’ Evan said. ‘Okay, let’s give him a call.’

  He hit the green call button.

  McIntyre lunged from his bed, a strangled wail of despair filling the room.

  Evan stepped back and held the phone up. They all heard it ring, then Vasiliev answered. Evan hit the red button. Immediately it rang in his hand. He dropped it back in his pocket, let it go to voicemail.

  ‘Okay, Mr McIntyre,’ Guillory said, ‘why don’t you tell us what you gave your friend there’—she pointed at Evan’s pocket—‘to make him stop at only one little finger.’

  Despite all the threats, McIntyre didn’t say anything. He stared down at his hands resting on the bedcovers, at the cannula sticking out the back of his right hand.

  ‘Five,’ Guillory said.

  Evan got the phone back out, didn’t know why he put it back in the first place, he’d wear out the lining of his jacket at this rate.

  ‘Four.’

  Evan found the name again, read it out under his breath, including the extra word after Vasiliev’s name.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘No!’

  Evan cleared his throat.

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Please.’

  Evan and Guillory shared a look. Is this guy serious?

  ‘One. Call it Evan.’

  ‘I gave him her name,’ McIntyre shrieked.

  It wasn’t what either of them were expecting.

  ‘Who?’ Guillory said first.

  McIntyre stared at his phone in Evan’s hand, at the finger poised above the green button. He dropped his head, his chin on his chest.

  ‘I told him the housekeeper would know where it is. I had to say something. They were going to cut off another finger.’

  Evan caught the phone as it slipped through his fingers, stuffed it into his pocket. He took a step towards the bed. Guillory was there, in his face, in an instant, blocking him. She put a hand on his chest. He was immediately back when he first met her, when they told him about Kevin Stanton’s suicide. She’d put her hand on his chest back then too, to stop him attacking her partner. He looked down at her hand, a hand that he normally felt smacking the back of his head for some wiseass remark.

  McIntyre stared at them, not understanding the implications of his admission, thankful she was between him and Buckley. But Evan and Guillory both understood. Evan pictured Mrs Kitson as she was confronted by Vasiliev and his men, more scared than she had ever been in her life, than she could ever have imagined being.

  They wouldn’t need to nail her
hand to a table or cut off her little finger. They might do it for sport anyway. In his mind he saw her faint perhaps, then heard the gabble of words she couldn’t get out fast enough, about the new will, delivered to that nice Mr Buckley. He imagined her remembering the DNA swabs she’d helped Hanna take, volunteering the information, anything to get these men out of her house, out of her life.

  McIntyre couldn’t have dropped them in it better if he’d tried.

  Chapter 43

  IDLE HANDS ARE THE devil’s workshop, so the saying goes. People say it’s a biblical quote but Evan knew that wasn’t true. The phrase had been coined with him in mind and he hadn’t been around nearly that long.

  Time weighed heavily on his hands. There was nothing to do until Sterling Yates got back from Geneva. Anyone would do the same in his position, he told himself as he backed the rental Honda into the disused dirt road a half-mile past Carl Hendricks’ farm. What did Guillory think he was going to do? Sit around the office and do some paperwork? It wasn’t going to happen. He parked the car, fetched a gas camping lamp from the trunk and set off.

  He was more careful this time as he made his way towards the farm. He kept off the road and came in from across the fields in an attempt to slip past the nosy neighbor. The cops wouldn’t swallow the same excuse as last time if they caught him again.

  The back door was still unlocked. He slipped inside and locked it like before, leaving the key half turned in the lock. Something was different in the kitchen. The smell was the same. The dirty dishes that had been in the sink were now stacked in a untidy pile on the counter next to it. That wasn’t it. And it wasn’t the half-chewed bone in the corner by the trash can either.

  He turned a full circle and then it struck him—Floyd’s bow was missing. The realization sent a shiver up his spine. The thing wasn’t just for show, as he’d known all along. Was Floyd out hunting at this very moment? Evan didn’t have long—Floyd might return any minute, his hound dragging their prey across the yard by the neck. He checked the back-door key in the lock one more time, made sure it wasn’t about to fall out, then headed for the basement.

  He lit the camping lamp and made his way down the stairs. Someone had been hard at work. Half the stack of lumber leaning up against the wall had been moved to the side, the floor in front of it disturbed, sawdust and splinters of wood kicked everywhere by feet tramping back and forth.

  Last time, he wrote off this side of the basement as a non-starter. Nobody, psychopathic maniac or anybody else, would want to move a stack of lumber like that to get to whatever might be behind it. It couldn’t be very important. But he needed to find out what was behind it, to put his mind at rest if nothing else.

  After a quarter hour humping lumber, he stopped for a rest. He was hot and sweaty, his throat dry. He ran back up into the house and into the kitchen. No point looking in the fridge, the power was off. He tried the faucet and was rewarded with a sputtering flow of water. He cupped his hands under it, leaned forward to drink. Then stopped. Something caught his eye, a smear of red. He turned off the faucet quickly, wiped his finger in the red smear.

  Was it blood? Or ketchup from the burgers and hotdogs Floyd was living on? He licked his finger. Not ketchup—but that didn’t make it blood. So what if it was. The dog ate raw meat, wouldn’t surprise him if Floyd did too. Still, there’s nothing like the sight of blood where it shouldn’t be to drive an atavistic spike of fear through your gut. He checked the door again and went back downstairs.

  Five minutes later he lifted away a piece of two-by-four lumber as tall as he was and stopped dead. It took a few seconds to recognize what he was looking at. Then it hit him—the corner of a door frame. There was something else— a key on a nail hammered into the frame.

  It couldn’t be this easy.

  He’d found what he knew in his gut all along was there. The realization made his knees weak. He hung onto the piece of two-by four, resting on it like a crutch. He closed his mind down, refused to process the myriad thoughts fighting for his attention.

  It was just a door. Most likely an old latrine.

  With muscles fuelled by the adrenalin coursing through his veins, he shifted the rest of the lumber—and suddenly it wasn’t so easy after all. He stared at the heavy hasp and the impenetrable padlock on it. He was a fool for thinking it. He dropped heavily onto the second step of the stairs, his elbows on his knees, his chin resting on his steepled fingers.

  For the second time in as many days he was transported back in time. He saw himself staring at a similar door not more than fifty feet away after he’d beaten Carl Hendricks to a pulp. He felt the same trepidation now as he had then, a desperate need to know what lay behind it, an equally strong aversion fighting inside him.

  He forced himself up off his butt and lifted the key off the nail, fitted it in the lock and turned. The lock opened like it was used every day. He pushed the door the full extent of the inch the hasp would allow. A damp, fetid smell rose up out of the darkness behind the door, flowed into the basement.

  Sure smelled like a latrine.

  Except there was something else behind the smell, something rotten, that made his throat seize, made him turn and spit, clear his mouth of the foul taste of his fear.

  He walked away from the smell, rested his head against the wall opposite to catch his breath, clear his lungs. Then he ran at the door and drove his foot into it throwing all his weight behind it. The shock reverberated all the way up his leg, numbing it, his momentum throwing him backwards as the solid wood door absorbed his puny attack and spat him back out.

  He paced the room, working some life back into his aching leg, pulling things angrily out of the way, opening drawers, becoming more frustrated by the minute. He picked up a length of heavy-duty rope, strangely damp, despite the dry basement atmosphere. He couldn’t think of anything to do with it, tossed it in the corner. Then his heart picked up when he found an angle grinder in a tool cabinet. It didn’t last long—like the fridge in the kitchen it needed power to work.

  Then, just as he was about to admit he was beaten, he pulled away a dirty tarp and saw a portable gasoline generator. He rocked it side to side, heard the slosh of gasoline in the tank. Trouble was, the fumes would fill the basement in minutes. He needed an air flow.

  He pulled back the dummy shelf unit, wedged open the door to the tunnel that led to the barns. A steady flow of cool air caressed his face. He did the same with the door at the top of the stairs leading up to the hall, wedged a three-foot-long piece of lumber under the handle. It wasn’t much of a through draft, but it was better than nothing, would give him what might be vital seconds.

  By the time he’d yanked on the generator’s pull cord a dozen times he was sweating like a pig. Even though the motor was turning over, it wouldn’t catch. He knew gasoline goes stale and won’t ignite. How long did that take? Six months? A year? Should he go back to the car, drive to a gas station for some fresh gas? It was a bad idea. It would take too long. He’d have to drain the old gas out of the tank somehow.

  No, it was all too much trouble.

  Of course, the way things turned out he’d have been better off going to the trouble. It would have saved him trouble of a different kind. But he didn’t know that at the time.

  He’d give it a few more pulls ...

  It caught on the second pull, the motor coughing and spluttering then running smoother as he eased in the choke. The noise was awful, the fumes worse. He hoped to God nobody turned up at the farm now. They’d be able to drive their car into the back door ram-raid style and he’d never notice. He imagined Vasiliev’s Mercedes SUV mounting the steps of the porch, its massive grill making firewood of the back door. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled at the thought.

  He plugged in the grinder and flicked the switch. Nothing. He flicked it on and off a couple times. That always works. Still nothing. The damn thing was broken. Already he was choking on the fumes filling the room. The through draft seemed to push all the fumes hi
s way instead of up the stairs.

  He dropped the grinder on the floor and killed the generator. After all the noise, it was eerily quiet. He cocked his ear to see if he could hear anything coming down the tunnel from outside. There was nothing. He’d only had the generator running a couple of minutes. He’d have to be really unlucky for someone to come along in that exact two-minute window.

  Even his luck wasn’t that bad.

  There was nothing more he could do now, not without fetching more appropriate tools—or assistance. Behind the smell of gas fumes, he still smelled something rotten rising up from behind the door. He pulled it shut. Maybe it was time to get some help, after all. Nobody would think he was imagining things now. He’d found another hidden door where everybody told him there was nothing. And there was a smell coming from behind it, a smell that shouldn’t be there, getting more pungent by the minute.

  He needed to get some fresh air.

  The fumes and the exertion had made him lightheaded. He climbed back up the stairs, hanging onto the handrail, feeling the atmosphere clear as he went up, the toxic mix of fetid damp and warm gasoline pooling below him. Showed how much use opening the doors had been. If it had worked, the fumes would’ve been blown up the stairs into the house.

  Stepping into the hallway, something was different. And different is rarely good. It was still quiet, almost too quiet. He dismissed the thought, put it down to the strange hollowness in his ears after all the noise. There was a draft, stronger up here.

  It was going the wrong way.

  Chapter 44

  THE DRAFT SHOULD HAVE been at his back, coming up from the basement. But it wasn’t, it was in his face. It was coming from the direction of the kitchen, from the back door.

  No way. It couldn’t be.

  He’d only run the generator a few minutes. If somebody kicked the door in, he’d have felt it. He tip-toed down the hall, expecting at any second a whistling rush of air as Floyd Gray’s arrow buried itself in the woodwork beside him or a stab of white-hot agony as it sliced through his flesh.