by Cari Z
I pulled in next to the car, and the person who came out to meet me was also, very clearly, not a man. “Hi,” the lady, dressed in a flannel crop top and a pair of Daisy Dukes complete with, yes, cowboy boots, said. She had long blonde hair, bright red lips, and an enormous smile. She also had a very thick Southern twang that sounded more Georgia than Missouri.
“Does Phin know anything about you at all?” I asked as I got out. It was hot today, but I kept my battered fedora on out of sheer solar self-defense.
“Oh, nobody knows all my secrets,” she demurred, tilting her head and biting her lower lip. I almost expected her to giggle. “That’s how you stay alive in this business.”
“Yeah, well, you can drop the cutesy act and start things off right by giving me my new equipment.”
“Ooh, tough guy.” She patted her waist, and I saw the Taser at her hip. “Let’s not get too bossy, huh? This is business, but that’s not to say it couldn’t be pleasurable too. I’ve heard a lot about you, after all.”
Yeah, I just bet she had. “Nobody knows all my secrets.” I tossed her own words back at her and watched her frown and fumble them. “And I’m not interested in pleasure, not with you or anyone else. I just want to pay for my stuff and go.”
“Not very fun.”
“Lady, I don’t even know your name. Don’t go asking me for fun.”
She beamed at me. “You can call me Cherry! Or just pick a fruit. I don’t care, sugar.”
“How about Kumquat?”
“Now that’s just rude.” She leaned her hip against the car. “I could just leave, y’know. I don’t have to do Phin any favors on this hot, hot summer day. I came because he told me you could give me what I wanted.”
“I’ve got money,” I said. “Let’s keep this clean.”
“Mmm, no. I think I’d rather get dirty.” She grinned as though she had any idea of what she was talking about. Gods save me from people who thought they could out-witticism me.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “You got a call from Phin, and he let something slip that he probably shouldn’t have, and you thought to yourself, hey, I know what would be neat! I could get this guy to tell me all about my future, so I know what’s coming for me. Then once he’s done, I’ll tie things up all nice and neat by killing him. Only he might see that coming, so first I’m going to lure him in so that he trusts me, or at least doesn’t mind me getting nice and close, and then I’ll use my fake Taser―” Her hand automatically twitched toward her hip. “Yeah, I can tell, I’ve seen modded Tasers before. It injects what, ketamine? What were you planning on drugging me with? Not that it matters, because you’re going to stay the fuck over there, and I’m going to stay here, and we’re going to do this transaction in money and nothing else.”
The smile had completely dropped from her face. “I wasn’t going to kill you.”
“Easy to say when I’m too far away to see into your future.”
“Why would I risk it?” She sounded a little desperate.
“Because you’re arrogant. Like everyone who thinks they can pull this shit on me. You’re not the first…” I leaned forward a little bit, juuust far enough to see more than the glimmer of her baby blues. “Charlotte Hauser. And you won’t be the last.”
My knowing her name threw her off for a moment, but she rallied fast. “It’s for my kid.”
“Sure it is.”
“I’m serious!” She thrust her hand toward her car. “Who do you think wanted a My Little Pony on the hood of this piece of junk? Why would I put something like that on the car I do business in?”
“To get people to underestimate you,” I said. “The same way you do by inviting people to pick a fruity name for you. Honest to fuck, you really think that’s cute?”
“It’s worked on plenty of assholes before. I’m not sure why it didn’t work on you,” she snapped. “And I am serious. My ex ran off with my daughter five days ago. I don’t know where they are, and I need to find her! Look, you want a show of goodwill?” She reached into the back of her car and pulled out a black duffel bag about half the size of mine and threw it over to me. “Take a look inside.”
I put the bag on the hood and opened it warily. Inside was a full magazine for a Glock 19 as well as a box of ammo, two smart phones with charge cords still in the packaging, a first aid kit, and a sleek new Nintendo 3DS. The bottom was layered with clothes and, yes, underpants. I held up a pair. “SpongeBob? Why are these even made in adult sizes?”
“Little more interesting than plain old gray, right?” she said, the teasing edge coming back into her voice. “It’s pretty good, huh? The Nintendo already has games loaded onto it, but the wireless has been disabled so you won’t be traceable that way. All this would normally cost you ten grand, easy―” and that was some bullshit, but I was willing to hear her out “―but I’ll trade it to you for information. I just want my daughter back.”
“You do.”
“Yeah.”
I sighed. I could already see where this was going. “Put the Taser down and come here.”
She frowned. “I don’t think―”
“I’m not getting any closer with that in grabbing distance, Charlotte, so put it down and we’ll deal.”
She took it off and set it aside immediately, which at least showed she was serious. “But don’t touch me,” she said as she stepped closer. “Otherwise you will have a bad time, sugar.”
I put my hands behind my back. “I’ve got no interest in touching you, don’t worry about that.” She stopped about a foot from me. “Look at me,” I said.
Charlotte looked at me, fierce and afraid all at once. It was better than most people managed. I stared into her eyes, so wide, so blue. Her daughter didn’t have blue eyes. Her daughter took after her biological mother, Charlotte’s partner, the one who had objected when Charlotte made a deal with the―
“You’re fucking kidding me.” Really?
“What?”
“You made a deal with the Mexican equivalent of the Godfather and then you tried to skim off the top? Are you stupid or just suicidally hopeful?”
“It was just an extra hundredth of a percent, who notices stuff like that?” Charlotte exclaimed.
“The fucking Godfather does! I’m not looking anymore.”
“You have to.”
“No.” There was no way. The last thing I wanted to see right now was Charlotte or her daughter being tortured to death, and that was 80 percent likely given as deep as I’d gone. “You want my advice, here it is: leave St. Louis and let your girlfriend keep Hayley for now, okay? Because until you’ve secured yourself, you’re not safe to be around.”
“But if I leave, they won’t know where to find me!”
“But you’ll be alive,” I pointed out. “Tough love, Charlotte. Don’t go home, just go. And don’t be such a fucking dumbass! It isn’t difficult to find people to scam. You could have played along and made it big later, but you got greedy. Now get in your car and go find a hotel somewhere safe, and wait at least a month before you try to get in touch with Penny and Hayley.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “But who will keep them safe if I’m not there?”
I shook my head. “They’re a lot safer without you around right now, okay? Go. You have to go. Thanks for the stuff, but you have to go now. You’ve got to run.”
“Fine.” To her credit, she didn’t draw it out any longer. She just grabbed her Taser, tossed me a nasty look, and got back into her pony rainbow car. She drove away, and I rubbed a hand over my face.
I’d barely looked into her future, but I knew she’d at least make it out of Missouri. That was a good start. I reviewed the scene in my mind, seeing through Charlotte’s eyes as she drove past the entrance, past the big black SUV, down to the exit where she could get back onto the―
Big. Black. SUV. With a tall blond man in the front seat, wearing a black suit.
It could be a coincidence.
Y
eah, right.
Chapter Twenty
You weren’t supposed to bring a firearm into an amusement park. The rules might be different in a place like Texas, but in Missouri the prohibition stood. More than that, I wasn’t comfortable carrying and possibly firing a gun in a place where a lot of children were going to be running around. There was disregarding my own safety, then there was being okay with copious collateral damage, and I wasn’t that. So fine, no gun. It didn’t matter. I just needed to find Sören and get out of here. Hopefully I could snag him as he came off a roller coaster and get him out before his brothers got close.
Yeah. And how often did things work out for me like that?
I moved the Electra closer to the entrance, keeping my eyes open for any sign of a black SUV. Ha, this was the land of Sport Utility Vehicles―the only things there were more of in this parking lot were trucks. There were way too many cars to mark, so instead I kept a weather eye out for enormous Icelandic bastards in suits as I made my way to the front of the line.
“Hi there!” the lady behind the counter said as I stepped up. “One for the day?”
“Half day,” I corrected absently as I pulled out my money.
“Right! That’s twenty-five dollars. Are you interested in any of our special rides? The water park is open, and we have an exciting paintball course.”
I wasn’t, actually, but I knew someone who was. “Sure. I’ll play some paintball.”
“That’s an extra forty dollars, then.”
That was fucking extortion, but I didn’t care enough to rail at unforgiving corporate gods. I forked over the money and got a stamp on my hand and a special ticket for my troubles. “Our paintball field is straight back through the rides, on the right-hand side,” she told me. “Just give one of our team members the ticket, and they’ll get you the equipment you need.”
“Thank you―” I glanced at her nametag. “―Alta.” I looked into Alta’s smiling face and past the warm brown glimmer of her eyes and saw her mild concern when, in about fifteen minutes, a bunch of cop cars suddenly pulled up at the front gate. Okay then―that was my timeline. “Have a nice day,” I said, heading off into the park.
There were two kinds of crowds―well, no, there were a million different types of crowds, every situation was slightly different, but for me, the distinction was simple. There were crowds in which you could hide, blending in like one of the herd. Then there were crowds in which you stood out no matter what you did. This particular crowd? I stood out like a streak of blood on a plain white canvas. With no kid accompanying me, tattooed and pierced and in a hurry―folks stared as I walked by. I was tempted to stare back, but I didn’t have time for them. I had to find Sören as soon as possible. I was hedging my bets, going after him at the paintball course first. If he was on a roller coaster and I had to backtrack, we could be in trouble, but my gut said he was in the mood to shoot things today. Fuck, I knew I was feeling that way. First Charlotte, and now the Family Egilsson. How had they found us so fast?
That was a question for Sören. I had to keep reminding myself he wasn’t on my side, no matter what he’d already done for me―or to me. He wasn’t on anybody’s side. He was the prize, and we were the fools fighting over him, like goddesses battling it out over a golden apple meant for the fairest. Only in our cases, it was a matter of life, death, and sanity. There was still so much I had to work out, so many things that had to come together for me to end up victorious...for a given value of victorious, of course. My Sören was bound to the landvættir, and before I could think about separating them, I had to win them both.
Those were issues for tomorrow. Right now I needed to solve my immediate problem, which was finding Sören and getting the fuck out of here.
Apparently a paintball match had just begun, because there was no line when I got to the entrance to that part of the park. Behind the shed that held all the equipment was an open field scattered with bits and pieces of old rides, the sort of thing that would look incredibly creepy if it was dark out. Beyond that was a heavily wooded area where I saw people running around and heard the quiet pop-pop of their guns.
“Hey,” the guy manning the booth said disinterestedly. “Gotta ticket?”
“Here.” I handed it to him, and he grunted before adding another stamp to my hand. “You wearing that out into the field?” he asked, gesturing at my suit jacket. “It’s gonna get messy.”
My suit was destined for the trash at this point anyway. “I’m fine with that.”
“Yeah, okay.” He passed me a muggy face protector and goggle set and then handed over the paintball gun. “There are preloaded hoppers back here if you need more ammo, which you shouldn’t,” he emphasized. “Just gotta wait until some of these games are played out, then you can go in.”
I leaned in a little. “Actually, I’m looking for a friend of mine. Really pasty guy, tall, not the most patient person ever…”
“Oh, him.” I saw the memory play out in the guy’s head. “Yeah, he’s part of the King of the Hill game over that way. Gotta wait to get in on that so we can reset the field.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s the rules, man. Haven’t you played paintball before?”
“Of course,” I lied, “but it’s kind of important I go in after him now. He’s got a medical condition, and I need to get him his inhaler.”
The guy scowled at me. “What are you, his dad?”
“Just a concerned friend who doesn’t want to have to explain to your boss why my buddy is getting hospitalized on your watch.”
You didn’t have to be psychic to read this guy’s mind. After silently calling me every name in the book, he grunted and vaguely pointed. “Over there. But you have to wear the protective gear, and you have to play by the rules!”
“I’d never dream of doing anything else.” I headed out into the field toward the woods.
“Ha!” A kid who couldn’t be more than twelve suddenly jumped out from behind an abandoned Moon Car and sprayed my right side with paintballs. It stung a bit where they hit me―I’d probably have some lovely bruises tomorrow. “I got you!”
“Nice job.” I kept going.
“You’ve got to be dead now!” she―I think it was a she, it was hard to tell with the mask and heavy camo clothing on―yelled at me.
“I’m the walking dead.”
“Zombie!” I got another spray of paintballs to the back as I walked away. Kids, holy fuck, what little menaces.
I quickly found out there was no way I could just walk over to where Sören was hiding, which was naturally at the top of the damn hill, shooting down on everyone else. If you weren’t wearing camouflage, didn’t run from tree to tree in an effort to avoid getting shot, and didn’t look like you were part of the team? Then you got shot by everybody. I wouldn’t have minded so much, but some people took the rules really damn seriously. Even the people on the team trying to take the hill looked askance at me after a little while, as covered in paint as I was.
“Fine,” I muttered to myself. I needed to get up that hill and I needed to do it fast, so I’d break a different rule. I took my jacket off and turned it inside out to hide most of the paint, fastened it in the front, and then positioned myself at the back of a wedge of players who seemed to be mustering the nerve to rush the hill.
When one of them glanced at me, I hoisted my gun. “Oo-rah!”
“Oo-rah!” he shouted. “All right, let’s do this, motherfuckers!” With copious yelling and screaming, they started up the hill.
Of course it didn’t work. Everyone got mowed down in a hail of paintballs, but instead of letting the man in front of me fall, I held onto the back of his shirt and used him as a human shield until I got to the very top of the hill, where the bunker that Sören defended was located.
Instead of getting mad, the guy just gave me two thumbs up and said, “Awesome!” Then he fell down in a heap, and I hopped into the bunker.
Sören didn’t instantly shoot me, which wa
s nice. He wasn’t wearing his face mask, and I took my own off, throwing the sweat-saturated accessory aside. “You came to play!” Sören sounded pleased. “Are you defecting to my side?”
“If anyone’s defecting today, it’s you,” I said grimly. “We’ve got to go, now.”
“But I haven’t won the game yet.”
“There isn’t time for the game! Your brothers are here.”
Sören blinked quizzically. “How many of them?”
“At least one, probably more.” How much time had passed since I first entered the park? Were we coming up on fifteen minutes? “Look, cops are going to be showing up soon. We need to be gone before they get here.”
Sören looked on the verge of pouting. “But I want to win the game. I’ve hardly had a chance to do anything fun yet!”
Aaand there was the youthful rebellion. I should be playing this more cautiously, given that Sören was probably strong enough to rip my head off, but I was at the tail end of my patience.
“You want to do something fun? Here.” I grabbed him by the back of the neck, drew him close, and kissed him.
It wasn’t like I remembered kissing Sören to be. He’d been a good kisser, his lips soft and firm by turns as we played with who was going to be on top. This Sören was mostly still, and when he finally did move, it was with teeth, not lips. He gripped the sleeve of my jacket and bit into my lower lip and then released me only to do it again. It hurt, but it felt strangely good too. I had to stop now that I had Sören’s attention. Doing so was harder than it should have been.
I pulled back. “Please.” My lower lip felt raw, but I didn’t touch it. I let Sören look at it, and me, and come to his own conclusion that yes, I really was this desperate.
“Very well.” He reached over and picked my face protection up off the ground. “Put this back on.”