Fear and Loathing
Page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Recent Titles by Hilary Norman
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
June 2
June 3
June 4
June 5
June 6
June 7
June 8
June 10
June 11
June 12
June 13
June 14
June 15
June 16
June 17
June 18
June 19
June 18
June 19
June 18
June 20
June 21
June 23
Recent Titles by Hilary Norman
The Sam Becket Mysteries
MIND GAMES
LAST RUN *
SHIMMER *
CAGED *
HELL *
ECLIPSE *
FEAR AND LOATHING *
BLIND FEAR
CHATEAU ELLA
COMPULSION
DEADLY GAMES
FASCINATION
GUILT
IN LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
LAURA
NO ESCAPE
THE PACT
RALPH’S CHILDREN *
SHATTERED STARS
SPELLBOUND
SUSANNA
TOO CLOSE
TWISTED MINDS
IF I SHOULD DIE (written as Alexandra Henry)
* available from Severn House
FEAR AND LOATHING
Hilary Norman
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain and the USA 2014 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.
eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2014 by Hilary Norman.
The right of Hilary Norman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
Norman, Hilary author.
Fear and loathing.
1. Becket, Sam (Fictitious character)–Fiction.
2. Murder–Investigation–Fiction. 3. Intermarriage–
Fiction. 4. Police–Florida–Miami–Fiction. 5. Suspense
fiction.
I. Title
823.9’2-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8406-0 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-557-4 (ePub)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,
Stirlingshire, Scotland.
For Linda
With love and so many happy memories
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My gratitude to the following (in alphabetical order):
Howard Barmad; Cécile Campéas; Veronika Dünninger; Gaby Harris; Daniela Jarzynka; Special Agent Paul Marcus (and Julie too) – without your incredible patience and experience, I’m not sure Sam could handle everything I throw at him!; Wolfgang Neuhaus; Sara Porter; Sebastian Ritscher; Helen Rose – always there for those late-night conundrums; Dr Jonathan Tarlow; Euan Thorneycroft.
And Jonathan, with my love always. I could not do it without you.
June 2
The onslaught came without warning.
Relaxation to mortal terror in less than a minute.
One moment, a leisurely, intrinsically Miami Beach Sunday evening scene.
Barbecue in progress on the patio of a small, pretty backyard facing the Intracoastal.
Host Gary Burton flipping burgers on his new American Outdoor Grill with titanium and chrome burners. Molly Burton, his Chinese-American wife, setting down the last dishes of salad and chopped vegetables. Their best friends, Pete and Mary Ann Ventrino, dipping chips, drinking chilled Becks, planning their Fourth of July party.
The boat purring by was blue and white, sleek, well-maintained.
Nothing special about it. Nothing to make the Burtons or Ventrinos do more than glance at it when it docked two houses away.
Gary turned his head, checked out the guys debarking.
Four men. White tees, jeans, boat shoes, navy blue baseball caps. Clean-cut, respectable, wearing sunglasses, one guy toting a navy duffel bag. Looking up and back along the towpath, then noticing the party on the Burton deck and coming their way.
Lost, for sure.
‘Hey,’ one of them said.
Easy, friendly tone of voice.
‘Hey,’ Gary Burton said back.
The first man opened the steel gate.
‘Help you?’ Pete Ventrino asked him.
Gary looked back down at his burgers, saw that they were ready, lifted his spatula.
Heard Molly’s soft gasp.
Mary Ann’s: ‘Oh my God.’
Gary turned.
The black muzzle of a gun was right in his face.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said as his heart cartwheeled up into his throat and the spatula fell out of his hand on to the decking.
‘Shut up,’ the man with the gun told him.
‘Goes for all of you,’ another man said.
Both voices ice cold.
Gary edged his gaze from the weapon, saw that his wife had a gun held tight against her temple, saw her gorgeous almond eyes huge, staring at him.
He looked toward Pete and Mary Ann. Same deal.
Mary Ann’s blue eyes were brimming terror tears, but Pete’s had gone jet-black, almost blank with what Gary realized was rage, and Christ, if Pete’s impulse was to fight, they had zero chance …
‘Inside,’ his gunman said, sharp and clear. A command.
Gary registered that they’d put on black gloves, had to have put them on in a blink of an eye when they took out their guns, and that efficiency made it even more terrifying.
‘What do you want?’ The weapon to his forehead so damned big he couldn’t focus on the gunman’s face. ‘Tell us, and we’ll give it to you. Just please don’t do anything crazy.’
‘Inside,’ the man repeated.
Gary’s eyes flicked right toward the towpath, the water, looking for help.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ his gunman said.
‘OK,’ Gary said. ‘Just don’t hurt us. We’ll give you what you want.’
No one out there anyway. Smooth water. No neighbors, no passersby.
The man leant past him and switched off the American Outdoor Grill.
‘Better safe,’ he said.
Like lambs to slaughter.
Only quieter.
Small sounds along the way, gasps of fear, Mary Ann’s soft weeping. Molly’s dark eyes on her husband’s face, frightened and bewildered, trusting him, even now, to find a way to stop this. Gary and Pete both silent, their thoughts scrambling wildly.
‘Scream or yell for help,’ one of the men had told them, ‘and you die.’
Their baseball caps were off now, all four tossed on the couch on the way past, the act looki
ng rehearsed, like part of a performance.
Any second now, Gary thought with a flash of hope, they’d toss the guns too, break into song, and this would turn into a joke – a ‘killergram’ maybe.
No joke.
They were all blond – all golden, all exactly the same color, which was weird.
Least of their problems.
One gunman per victim. Lousy odds.
Gary and Pete were both smalltime gamblers, friendly poker games mostly, visits to Gulfstream Park, Vegas once in a while, keeping the stakes affordable, both keen to keep their lifestyles intact.
Death-styles now, perhaps, Gary thought.
At least he and Molly had no children, but Pete and Mary Ann had two little ones.
Please, he said inside his head.
The directions were clear and precise, most issued by Gary’s gunman, his voice steely.
Guns against their necks now, ordered through the Florida room, the great room, into the square hallway, the only sounds their breathing, Mary Ann’s weeping and the tread of the gunmen’s rubber soles over the solid wood floors, moving past the jade fu dog statues that Molly had told Gary would guard them against negative energy. Around the corner – the leader plucking keys from the glass dish beside the fish bowl (goldfish meant luck in China, Molly had said) – and along the corridor that led to the garage.
The leader opened the door.
‘Inside.’
Gary’s mind flew suddenly with scenarios.
It was just his car they wanted, his Beemer, until minutes ago his prized possession, but now only a damned car. And then his mind cranked up ten notches: they were going to take them on a bank heist, use them as hostages … Up another twenty: they were going to turn the car into a bomb, make Gary drive it someplace … Maybe these men were terrorists …
They took off their sunglasses.
They all had bright blue eyes.
Shit, but they were freaky, Gary thought.
Blond Number Two, the one holding a gun on Mary Ann, the one with the duffel, reached into it, pulled some things out and gave them to the other three men, the motions almost synchronized again.
Lengths of cord. Precut lengths.
Gary’s mind ceased stockpiling plot outlines.
More than enough horror right here, right now.
‘You two’ – the leader addressed him and Molly – ‘against that wall.’
Oh, Jesus.
Firing squad time.
Not yet.
‘On your knees,’ Blond Number Two told Mary Ann.
She fell on her knees, started crying, big time.
Number Two took a roll of tape from the duffel bag, slapped a length over her mouth. Mary Ann’s eyes bulged.
‘She can’t breathe,’ Pete appealed. ‘She has bad sinuses. She’ll—’
Tape across his mouth before he got another word out.
Molly said something softly, under her breath.
‘What did you say?’ her gunman demanded, words loaded with menace.
She repeated it.
Gary hadn’t learned much Mandarin during their years together, but he knew.
‘She’s praying,’ he said.
‘Who to?’ Blond Number Three asked. ‘Some fat little Buddha?’
‘It’s the Lord’s Prayer,’ Molly told him.
He turned, struck her across the face with the back of his gloved right hand.
Rage flamed through Gary, made him bellow, but Blond Number One kneed him in the small of his back, shoved him down on the ground, stuck his gun hard up against his left ear.
‘I love you,’ Molly told Gary.
‘I love you too,’ he told her back.
And then their mouths were taped up too, and the next stage began. Working in pairs now, starting with Mary Ann, guns always trained on all the victims as they went about the business of tying them up.
The Burtons watched as Mary Ann was hogtied – hands behind her back, feet tied at the ankles, bonds linked together – and then swung, screaming beneath the tape, into the back seat of the BMW. Then Pete, struggling furiously, hopelessly, dumped in the passenger seat. Then Gary into the back with Mary Ann. And finally, Molly.
Except, in her case, they looped extra cord around her neck, torture style.
If Molly Burton did not keep her neck, arched back and legs still, she’d be strangled.
They deposited her in the driver’s seat.
Gary could just see her eyes, tried desperately to send her thoughts: she had to hold on, not move, and soon these bastards would go back inside the house and help themselves to whatever they wanted, and then they’d get back in their boat and the four of them would get out of this, he would get out of this and free Molly first and then …
But they had seen them.
Their captors had made no attempt to hide their faces.
The realization cut off every lingering hope.
Gary shifted his gaze, looked at Pete.
Saw that he knew, too.
Mary Ann, beside him, moved a little, just enough so her right leg touched his left knee. He managed a semblance of a smile at her, felt the tape over his mouth tug, glad that she’d stopped crying, that she had clearly, horrifically, understood that if she didn’t stop she would suffocate.
He looked back at Molly, met her eyes again, then wriggled a little, trying to see what was happening outside the car, because the men were still in the garage and he could only see two of them, but his hearing was twenty-twenty.
He heard ripping, tearing – knew what they were doing.
Sealing up the place.
He craned his neck, saw duck tape around the up-and-over door and window above.
Knew what would happen next.
Either they’d rig the exhaust with some kind of tubing and run it into the car, or they’d just ensure that the garage was totally sealed, then start the engine.
And leave them to die.
Gary looked at Mary Ann, saw her rising terror. Looked at Pete, whose thoughts had to be running the same route – and, Lord love him, Pete was trying to shuffle himself in Molly’s direction, maybe so he could help take some of the strain off her, find some way to keep her from tightening that noose around her neck.
No way! They were not going to give in, trussed up like four Thanksgiving turkeys. The instant those sons-of-bitches were out of the garage he was going to start rocking like crazy, and if he used every ounce of his strength he thought he’d be able to kick out the window on his side, or else he’d …
The men had finished.
The place was sealed.
But they were not leaving.
They were putting on fucking gas masks.
Gary felt his guts shrivel.
They were going to stay while he and Molly and the Ventrinos were dying. Protected from the carbon monoxide, they’d stand by watching as they lost consciousness – as the noose tightened around Molly’s neck.
Watch them all dying.
One of the gang – impossible to tell which one now they were masked – opened the driver’s door, leaned in and started the car.
No problem. Gary’s Beemer started first time, like always.
Reliable and quiet.
Less than an hour ago, he’d been proud of that.
Now, the shitty truth was that no one beyond the garage was going to hear a thing.
The man who’d started the engine rested his hand on the back of Molly’s head, pushed, then let go, laughing behind his mask as she gasped.
It was the first time Gary had ever wanted to kill someone.
The man shut the car door.
Gary’s eyes met Molly’s, suffering yet still beautiful, not giving up. Both of them now asking the same question.
Why?
Andria Carrasco, childminder for Mary Ann and Pete Ventrino’s kids, was feeling tired and a little pissed off.
Starting to worry, in fact.
Because Mary Ann had said they’d be home by ten and it was
already after eleven, and if the Ventrinos were going to be late, they always called and Mary Ann reminded Andria to let her mom know, so she wouldn’t worry. And Andria had called home a while back, and her mom had been cool about it, because Pete would drive her home, and it didn’t matter much if she was late tonight because it was Jefferson Davis Day tomorrow, so there was no school.
Still, this was so not like them, and both Mary Ann’s and Pete’s cell phones were going to voicemail, and Andria was wondering if she should maybe go see what was going on, because she knew they were at their friends, the Burtons, who lived just along the road, and their house had a deck out back same as the Ventrinos, and Mary Ann had said they were barbecuing tonight, which meant all she had to do was scoot along the towpath …
She called her mom again to ask if she thought it was OK to leave the children for just five minutes because they were both sleeping.
‘You know better than that,’ Lisa Carrasco said.
Andria did know, had been minding her own brother and sister for long enough, and her mom had drilled into her that you never left little kids home alone even for a few minutes, because ‘anything’ could happen.
So she waited another ten minutes, tried both cell phones again, then went to rouse five-year-old Johnny and to lift Mia, his one-year-old sister, out of her crib, hoping she wouldn’t start crying.
Mia did protest a little, but settled quickly in Andria’s arms, good baby that she was, and Johnny was confused, then excited, wanting to know where they were going.
‘To fetch your mommy and daddy,’ Andria told him.
‘In the dark?’ Now he looked doubtful.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘We’ll put Mia in the stroller and you’ll hold my hand, and you know where they are, Johnny, it’s not far.’
‘Why do we have to go fetch them?’ he asked in the hall. ‘Did something happen?’
‘Of course not.’ Andria was bright. ‘They’ve probably just been having a great night and forgotten the time.’
‘OK,’ Johnny said.