The Devil's Work

by Linda Ladd

  The longer they drove, the more Claire believed they were taking her somewhere isolated in order to murder her. There were turnoffs and rural roads all along Florida interstates with deserted places perfect for committing homicides. Maybe they did want her baby and would just chain her up like some blue-ribbon-winning mare and wait for the birth. These guys were evil and inhuman. Maybe they’d hit Black with a ransom demand. They were greedy, too, and Black had more money than the banks could hold. Maybe Max could not bring himself to waste a perfectly good pregnancy. For a moment, she was simply appalled at what they were doing, that their goal was to wait for her to give birth and then sell her baby to the highest bidder. Then she’d be dead, and her husband would never find their child.

  No way was Claire going to let them have her baby. No matter what, she was going to escape, somehow, somewhere along this road. She’d do anything, try anything. She could not let them reach the place where she would have no opportunity to make a run for it. Her best chance to get away was right now, when she still had a gun on her person. She had to make her move soon. Maybe the first time they stopped, if they stopped.

  Claire kept telling herself that Novak would find her before Black got back from Miami. She’d seen him track down people with less information, and he was skilled at other things, too. If he got to her in time, he’d beat the hell out of these guys. He might kill them. Or she would. It hurt to think about her husband. Black would be frantic and enraged, just like Novak, and they would not stop looking for her. Somehow it made her feel better. She had to keep thinking that it was just a matter of time. She had to wait for the cavalry to show up, but she was on her own till then. Okay, worst-case scenario: they’d take her into the Everglades, make her kneel, shoot her in the head execution-style, and toss her body to the alligators. Maybe they’d decide she was a bigger threat to their operation than her baby was a commodity.

  The same frightening tapes kept playing over and over inside her head but stopped the moment the car turned off smooth pavement onto gravel. The driver’s window was rolled down, and the crunch of the rocks under the tires was loud. She could smell the fetid odor of rotting vegetation and the deafening racket made by cicadas and crickets. Her heart hammered out of control. They were in the Everglades. They were going to kill her and dispose of her body. Okay, she couldn’t wait for Novak and Black to save her. Time was up. She was alone. After that stark realization, she strove to think of a reasonable plan. Bad thing was, there wasn’t one; there wasn’t even an unreasonable one. She was screwed. After about fifteen minutes, the Lincoln’s tires rattled hollowly over what sounded like a planked bridge. She could hear the rush of water. Time was up; she was going to have to make her move.

  “Hey, I’ve got to go to the bathroom. I can’t wait any longer, please stop.”

  “You won’t have to hold it much longer.”

  They all laughed. Claire ground her teeth. “Please. I’m going to be sick. I get carsick now. I’m gonna throw up. Let me out!”

  Only seconds elapsed before the man sitting on her left gave the order. So he was in charge. “Okay, Murphy, pull over up there. This’s as good a place as any.”

  Okay, this was it. They were going to kill her. She had to get to the gun. She heaved deep breaths. Her muscles went tight; her throat felt dry. Her baby was so restless. Maybe she sensed danger, too. The car rolled off the bridge, hit gravel again, and came to a stop. The driver killed the engine, and the four men opened their doors and got out. The boss grabbed her and dragged her bodily across the back seat with no regard for the baby’s safety. Her feet hit the ground, and her sneakers sank into shallow mud. “Could you please take off the hood so I can see what I’m doing? Please.”

  One of them jerked it off. Claire blinked in the smoky light thrown off by the headlights, which speared the darkness like twin arrows. It was a misty night in the swamp. The road was narrow and overgrown with weeds. Thick tropical vegetation closed in tight on both sides of them. The air was muggy and warm. The river was at one side of her, about twenty yards across, but was gushing out from under the bridge into a deep pool at the bottom. It looked like a creek swollen and swift, fed from the heavy storms going on up north. The water swirled in currents as it swept downstream and disappeared into darkness. This runoff channel might be her only hope to escape. It looked deep there under the bridge and the water too swift for any alligators to be lying in wait. She hoped so, because she was going to have to jump in and pray she didn’t hurt the baby.

  The car had pulled over close to the bank, and the five of them stood right above the deep pool. Claire put one hand on her belly and hoped what she was about to do didn’t kill her or her baby, because she had no other choice. They were about to put a bullet in her head.

  “How about giving me some privacy? Turn your backs like gentlemen. You know, that human decency thing.”

  They laughed. The one who was smoking the cigar said, “We’re not decent, lady.”

  “No kidding.”

  They just stared at her. So they were going to watch and humiliate her before they shot her. Claire took a step closer to the bank and turned her back to them. They didn’t do anything about it, so she squatted down. Then surprise, surprise, she could reach her .38. They stopped smiling when she pulled the gun, spun, and opened fire on them. She just kept pulling the trigger because she was desperate. She put down two of them fast. Both fell with multiple slugs to center mass. The driver scrabbled away behind the car, but not before she’d got him in the abdomen. The other guy ran down the riverbank and jumped into the vegetation. She didn’t have a chance to get him because the driver started returning fire. He winged her in the arm, but she barely felt the impact. She was still out in the open, a sitting duck now because he fired from under the car. The next bullet would put her down.

  Claire jumped to the top of the embankment, gun clutched in her hand. She jumped and landed halfway down and then slid the rest of the way. She hit the gushing water feetfirst and prayed the baby would survive. She plummeted deep, holding her belly with one hand and clinging to her gun with the other. Her feet hit the bottom, and when she jetted back to the surface, the current got hold of her and sent her turning around wildly as she was taken downstream away from the bridge. She could see the fourth guy, out of the brush now and running along the bank to keep up with her. He stopped, raised his weapon, and opened fire. She ducked under the water and tried to pivot toward the opposite side before he hit her. When she came up, he had been stopped by another swampy ditch that intersected the main channel. He stood back there and peppered the water around her with bullets, but she was too far away.

  Claire tried to relax and let the current carry her farther from the bridge. She fought desperately to keep her face above the surface and protect her belly, but she kept her fingers in a death grip on the .38. Behind her, the potshots stopped. She kept fighting the strong current at midstream, thinking she had to get out of that water fast for fear of hitting rocks and debris, but she couldn’t fight her way to the bank. Helpless to stop, she tried to stay on her back as she was swept down the river out of the car lights and into a black, impenetrable swamp.

  Chapter 9

  The GPS signal was blinking strong and steady. Black was an experienced pilot and followed a steady course southeast toward the Everglades National Park. He flew fast, well above the tree line, toward the immense tract of darkness in the distance. The reflection of the instrument panel colored Black’s face a pale greenish hue, but Novak could clearly see the harsh angle of his friend’s jaw and the way his fists were clamped on the controls. The ride was smooth, the weather good, but the noise of the rotors rumbled like unending thunder, and they had to use headsets to talk. Black glanced in his direction. “You don’t know for sure if they hurt her when they took her?”

  Novak didn’t know that and didn’t like to think about what those monsters might be doing to Claire. The same thugs had trie
d to drown a young woman and her brother who were causing them trouble. He refused to let himself think about it long, but now he had to. “The woman, Allison, the one I found inside that pool house? She said they didn’t hurt her when they took her out of that mall parking lot. They pushed her around some but really didn’t hurt her or the baby.” She had also related how they’d choked her unconscious, but he didn’t go into that. Black was barely holding it together anyway. “Apparently, they fed her pills to make her drowsy but didn’t harm her because of the baby. That’s what they want from these women. They want their unborn children to sell off. So until your baby comes, they aren’t going to hurt Claire.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  No, Novak didn’t. But he wanted to. “Well, thinking the worst isn’t going to make things better. It’s only going to drive you crazy.”

  Black stared straight ahead. “I’m going to kill those guys. I’m going to kill all of them.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me.” Novak knew Black wouldn’t kill anybody unless he had to. He was capable of it, that was for damn sure, and these guys deserved to die. Thing was, Black would probably have to kill somebody, if they wanted Claire back alive. Black didn’t believe Novak’s everything-is-gonna-be-fine bullshit, either. Novak knew that. They both knew the Skulls organization was a brutal motorcycle gang with blood on their hands who inflicted pain and grief and horror on innocent people. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill anybody who got in their way. None of them would lose a wink of sleep by shooting Claire down in cold blood, be she pregnant or not.

  Novak knew Claire wasn’t chosen at random but rather a threat to their operations. Whoever ran it would be out for her head and for Novak’s. Max Kellen would order them both eliminated. That’s why it was urgent to find Claire. Black remained silent, but he looked wired with tension, and his expression remained scary. Novak should have been more vigilant, should’ve known somebody was watching them. He usually could spot a tail, but he hadn’t this time, if that’s the way they found them. He had been careless, and Claire was paying the price. If anything happened to her, anything, he’d never forgive himself. He glanced over at Black.

  “I’m sorry, Nick. I thought she was safe when I left her outside in that car, I swear to God.”

  “I don’t blame you. I know how Claire is. I doubt if she gave you a choice, did she?” He glanced at Novak.

  “She insisted, but I could have stopped her.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I understand that.”

  “She was thinking about the baby, though. That’s why she agreed to sit out there in the car while I went inside alone. We both thought she’d be safer down the street.”

  “I wish we’d never come back from Rome, had never heard of this case, much less taken it on. I’m the one who asked her to take it as a favor to Eloise Harbor. It’s as much my fault as it is yours.”

  That was it as far as the blame game went. They understood each other. Black was pushing the chopper to the limit, the nose of the craft tilted down as they roared out over the Everglades. Novak’s gut told him that’s where they had taken Claire. Finding her inside those vast wetland swamps was a different story. The park and preserve were huge, with miles of roads and lakes and grasslands and swamps. Novak kept his eyes riveted on that little blip, afraid it would stop moving. Then it did.

  “Looks like they’ve stopped the car somewhere, but the signal’s still strong. We’re getting close now.”

  They left the sparkling strings of headlights as cars sped along the highways behind them, and then it was just empty darkness below, stretching out in all directions. It seemed to Novak like the enormous black holes out in space with the perimeter edged with highways. The signal was definitely coming from somewhere straight ahead. When they reached the exact coordinates, Black switched on a spotlight to illuminate the ground below. They were above a gravel road that led to a rickety bridge. Some kind of river flowed under it, the rough, swirling water eventually disappearing into the dark downstream.

  When they hovered over the bridge, they could see the black Lincoln sitting at the far end. The driver’s door was standing open. It looked like two dead men were sprawled out on the ground. As Black took the chopper down closer, Novak realized they were Skulls, and they’d both been shot multiple times. Blood was pooled around them. There was no sign of Claire.

  The scene looked surreal in the bright light shining down from above, the beam vibrating from the spinning rotors, giving the whole area a strobe effect. It looked like a scene out of The X-Files when humans were spotlighted by UFOs. Then they saw a third man. He was still alive and sitting up with his back propped against the front fender. Blood was spreading out underneath him. He lifted his arm in a feeble wave for help.

  “Claire’s not down there, damn it,” Black ground out.

  “Take me down close enough to jump. I want to talk to that guy. He’s got to know where she is. She was inside that car the last time I saw her. She could be tied up in the trunk or on the back seat floor.” The thought was chilling, but even worse was the idea that already she’d been shot and dumped in the river.

  There was nothing nearby to interfere with the rotors—no electric lines, no big trees, no telephone poles—so Black got the chopper down to about twelve feet off the ground and hovered there long enough for Novak to jump onto the roadway. He hit the gravel feetfirst and rolled forward but managed to end up back on his feet. Black took the helo back up to a safe level and stayed there, his spotlight remaining on Novak and the lone survivor. Fighting against the powerful wash of the blades, Novak made it to the man and grabbed him by the front of his bloody vest.

  “Where’s Claire? Tell me where she is!” he yelled down into the guy’s ashen face, only then realizing the extent of his own rage. He wanted to kill the guy. He could barely stop himself.

  “You gotta get me to a doctor, man,” the thug yelled back. “I’m bleedin’ out. You gotta get me—”

  “I’m not getting you anywhere until you tell me where Claire is. Tell me or I’ll let you die here in the mud like you deserve.”

  “She got away. She had a gun on her ankle.”

  Novak was sick of asking questions. He was sick of waiting for answers. He didn’t care if this disgusting animal drew another breath. He pulled out his .45 and pressed it hard against the man’s forehead. “Tell me where she is or I’ll blow your head off. I swear to God I’ll do it.”

  The gangbanger believed him. “That crazy bitch jumped in the river. There are gators all over the place out here, man. They probably already got her.”

  Novak felt his chest constrict, and then he dropped his hold on the guy and let him collapse to the ground. He stood up and turned to look out over the rushing water. It appeared to be some kind of spillway that fed the swamp with runoff floodwaters. It was spewing out from under the bridge in strong currents. If Claire had gone into that churning water alive, she would have been swept a good distance downstream, but she could’ve survived it. More concerning were the gators and pythons and water moccasins in that water. If these guys had called for help after Claire got away, they’d send more guys out here to make sure she ended up dead. Novak had to find her first. She couldn’t have been in the water long or the wounded thug would be dead already.

  Novak grabbed the key fob out of the ignition and did a quick check of the back seat. He found his backpack lying on the floor and grabbed it, then ran back to the trunk. He opened it with dread constricting his heart. It was empty. The punk had been telling him the truth. He signaled for Black to pick him up, and moments later, he was pulling himself up on the runner and then through the passenger door. Once he was safely inside and buckled in, Black took the chopper back up.

  “What’d he say? Where is she?”

  “It’s not good, Black. He said she pulled that .38 she keeps on her ankle and started firing. That tells me she knew they were
going to kill her out here. She wounded the guy down there but when he shot back, she jumped into the river. She had to or he would have killed her. That means she’s somewhere downstream, probably not too far, and we can find her. We’ve got to get down there fast.”

  “Oh, my God, she’s in the river? How long ago did she go in?”

  “Well, he hasn’t bled to death yet, and she got him in the thigh and abdomen. He’s not going to last long, but you better call in an ambulance.”

  Black muttered some kind of low Cajun curse Novak couldn’t make out, but he put in a radio call for help. He also reported that Claire had gone missing in the water, gave their coordinates, and then requested urgent emergency help from search teams from both the Florida Highway Patrol and the Everglades Park Rangers. Then he swung the helicopter around and flew down low and directly over the water, spotlighting the riverbanks. “Okay, Novak, Claire will know she’s got to get the hell out of that water. She’ll pull herself out on a bank or get up in a tree. We can find her now.”

  Novak said nothing, but Black wasn’t fooling himself. Claire could swim to a bank, all right, but that’s where the alligators liked to congregate. And the trees were where the big snakes liked to twist around branches. Anywhere she went in that river or along those banks, anything she did was a death sentence. Time was against her. Black knew that as well as Novak.

  A minute later Novak spotted a guy running down the right riverbank. He stopped as they came closer and looked up at them. He was yelling into a cellphone.

  Novak spotlighted him. “There’s a guy down there. He’s got a gun.”

  The guy on the ground opened fire on the chopper, and Black banked away briefly and circled back at a higher altitude. Then the gunman was gone, melted into the dark vegetation growing along the river where they’d never spot him. He was after Claire, Novak knew it, but they were helpless to pursue him. Not long after they’d seen the man, rain started falling, which made visibility worse. Novak didn’t want to give up. He kept the light on the bank and out on the water, but the farther from the bridge they got, the more night fog floated over the surface of the water and obscured their vision. They couldn’t see Claire, even if she were down there waving at them.