Tension hung like a pall in the room.
The phone rang again.
“I have to answer that,” Adam protested. “It’s Ellen, my lawyer. She is the only one who has the number to this phone, and if I don’t answer she’s going to know something is wrong."
Antonio favored him with a warning look for another ring, then shrugged.
“We’re not here, Adam. Okay?”
“Understood.”
Antonio nodded and Adam reached for the phone. He saw Olivia motion her boss over as he flipped open the cell phone.
“Ellen?”
“Hi, Adam.”
“Hey! I’m sorry for the wait. I was cooking something on the stove and left the cell phone on the coffee table. What’s up?” He glanced over at Antonio, who gave him a thumbs-up before turning his attention to what his assistant was showing him on the laptop.
“It’s okay. Adam, I need to talk to you.”
“Sure. Are you okay? You sound funny. What’s all that noise?”
“Oh, I’m calling from Los Trabajos.” There was a hint of slur to her speech. “You remember the place?”
“Sure, it’s where you and all your lawyer buddies hang out. You took me a few times. Are you okay?”
“I’ve had a few,” she admitted. “Look, I’ve got some news…and it’s not going to be fun to deliver.”
“What’s wrong?” Adam turned away from the pair across the coffee table and dropped his voice. Ellen seldom drank, but when she did she approached it like everything else she undertook…with ruthless abandon. And he knew that meant she was very unhappy, because it had to be bad for her to seek solace at a bar. “What’s happened?”
For a moment there was only silence, then Ellen answered. Her voice was soft and unhappy.
“Adam, I’ve handed your case off to another attorney.”
He closed his eyes and bit his cheek to stop the shocked exhalation from escaping him. She had told him about her fiancé and his father back in the hospital, and Adam knew this action had been inevitable. He had tried not to think about it, having gotten kind of comfortable seeing Ellen again after all these months, and deep down he knew he had allowed himself to depend on her more than was fair to her. Still, this came like a blow to the gut.
“I understand, Ellen.”
“Adam, I got your case taken by Bob Zenderhaus. He’s good. I promise.”
“It’s okay. I’m sure he is.” He collected himself. “Ellen, you’ve done more than right by me, and I thank you for it. I know anybody you recommend has to be top notch. I’m sure he’ll do fine.”
“Well,” Ellen’s voice dropped, “it turns out he may not have very much to do. It looks like you are now in the clear, as far as the police are concerned. I just got a call from the DA a little while back.”
“Really?” Adam leaned back in his chair, then quickly forward again when he felt the pistol press into his back. “Then you shouldn’t feel bad about handing me off at all. You shouldn’t anyway, you’ve been great, but now you should be happy.”
“This isn’t good news.” The somber tone in her voice brought him up short. A tiny feeling of dread started to creep down his gullet.
“Ellen, what is it?”
He heard her inhale over the phone, and knew whatever she was about to say was even worse than the news she had delivered so far.
“Adam, they found David’s car.”
He couldn’t speak, and closed his eyes to hear the rest.
“It was found on a dirt road north of Beaumont,” she continued, “all shot to pieces. There were a couple of bodies inside. They managed to identify one of them as Titus Guthrie, a drug pusher who operates up in Cole County, north of here. There was powder all over the inside of the car where a bullet had struck and exploded a brick of cocaine. They also found the body of Eddie Vega nearby, a mid level drug runner and enforcer for the cartels out of Mexico.”
Adam shook his head, his eyes still closed. He didn’t want to hear the rest, even though he knew what it was going to be.
“The police are now certain David and his family were carjacked on a back road somewhere by Titus. He was probably thinking of expanding his operation, and they stumbled on to it somehow. He killed them, buried the bodies, but kept the car. Then he must have stepped on some toes when he decided to branch out, and the cartels sent Eddie Vega to talk to him. Apparently they met and the conversation was with bullets. Luckily for us, the bastards killed each other.”
Adam still shook his head.
“But the man at the pool, Ellen. What about what he said regarding Tucker?”
“He was probably some coked up soldier who worked for Titus. Who knows, maybe he was telling the truth…but I wouldn’t count on it. I’m sure the police won’t give up, though.”
“Yeah.”
“Adam, I know this has got to be killing you, but at least it’s over. It’s like the old blind fortune teller here told me, ‘Bad things are about to be coming to an end.’” Ellen laughed bitterly. “If you can’t trust the predictions of somebody crazy enough to sew her eyes shut, who can you trust?”
Adam started to reassure her he would be okay, when her final words struck home. He stared dumbstruck at the cell phone in his hand, then looked up to see Antonio standing at the other end of the table, gaping at him in obvious shock.
He knows! Adam realized while still also trying to come to grips with Ellen’s announcement. That bastard knows what Ellen just told me! How? He watched Antonio snatch a piece of paper off the coffee table and start scrawling furiously with a pencil.
“Her eyes sewn shut?” he repeatedly lamely, trying to think of anything to say while watching his guest try to write and gesture at his assistant at the same time.
“Yeah, it was pretty grisly. Some people will do anything to spice up their act.”
Antonio grabbed up the paper he had been writing on and held it before Adam’s face.
Is she still there? It read. And also, Was she alone? Behind him, his assistant snapped her laptop shut and rose to her feet.
“Hey, Ellen.” He laughed weakly, “why don’t you put her on the phone and see if she can read my fortune? Might as well see what I’ve got coming my way, too.”
“Sorry, Adam,” Ellen slurred. “She left about half an hour ago. I was her last customer.”
Adam almost dropped the phone when Antonio whipped out a very large handgun from beneath his coat and started ushering his assistant toward the front door.
“Ellen,” he croaked, “that thing I was cooking is burning on the stove! I’ve gotta let you go! Bye!” He snapped the phone shut and fought his way to his feet, almost falling when he placed the cane poorly. “Hey! What are you two doing?”
“We’re leaving, Mr. Sellars.” Antonio peered out the front window from behind the blinds. “It has been a pleasure, but it is past time for us to go. Olivia, I don’t sense anything, but that may not mean anything with her. How far away is Los Trabajos from here?” His voice didn’t sound panicked, but the intensity of his manner was not to be denied.
“If they made good time, it is possible for them to have already arrived,” Olivia responded in an efficient businesslike tone. “But the odds are they are still not quite here, or are arriving any minute.”
“Hey wait!” Adam fumbled for his own gun in the back of his pants as he tottered around the couch toward them. When he retrieved it, he realized it looked kind of silly compared to the heavy .45 in Antonio’s hand.
“There is no such thing as a silly firearm, Mr. Sellars,” Antonio said as he changed stance and peered down the other direction of the street. “Unfortunately there is such a thing as a useless one, and mine may qualify for that as much as yours in this case.”
Adam stared at the man, then looked over at his enigmatic assistant. She merely shrugged, slid her laptop into its carrying case, then shouldered it. She appeared calm, but taut and ready to move in an instant.
“How did you…,” Adam began at
Antonio’s back.
“Okay, here is what we’re going to do,” his visitor interrupted. “You make a run for your car, and get out of here. Olivia and I will run for ours down the block. You get to a motel, somewhere across town, and wait for me to call. Don’t answer for anybody but me. Understand?”
“Yes, but…”
“Sir,” Olivia spoke up as her boss headed for the door, “I recommend an alternative plan.”
“What’s that, Olivia?”
“I think Mr. Sellars should come with us.”
“Why?” Both men said at once.
“Because,” she answered, “if they have already arrived, I think the highest probability is they have rigged Mr. Sellars’ car with explosives. It’s efficient, and it allows them to maintain the illusion of a drug hit, like the one described involving his brother.”
Adam’s world reeled. Things were happening too fast, and these people seemed to know everything.
“How the hell do you know what Ellen told me over the phone?” Adam demanded of Antonio.
“Not now,” the big man replied. “Olivia is right. If you want to live, you’re going to have to come with us. I’m going to assume she has a good reason for wanting us to bring you along.” He looked meaningfully at the woman.
“I do.”
“Then Adam,” Antonio turned back to him, “it’s decision time. I’m not going to force you, so you’re going to have to make your choice here…either go your own way or come with us. Understand, I have obligations, which means I will be acting in the interest of the people I represent. I mean you no harm, but I will act in what I deem to be the greater good. I will do my best to see to it those actions do not involve hurting you, but that’s the best I can promise.”
“If I stay?”
“I won’t lie to you. If you don’t come with us, then your best chance is to hope they haven’t gotten here yet and risk trying your car. Drive as far as your gas tank will let you before refilling, and then get out of this state. Go north. Far north. Where it’s nice and cold…all the time. It’s the only hope you have.”
“You don’t sound confident.”
Olivia answered that one.
“I put your chances of surviving the next hour at significantly less than one out of a hundred.”
That calm and simple pronouncement sounded very final, and Adam was starting to get the suspicion Olivia was very good at calculating things like this.
“Decision time, Adam.” Antonio grasped the doorknob. “It’s now or never. What’s it going to be?”
“I guess my mind has been made up for me.” Adam gestured helplessly at the raven haired assistant.
“She has that effect, doesn’t she?” Antonio favored him with a brief, brilliant smile. “But now it’s time to run. Are you ready?”
“Run?” Adam held up his cane.
Antonio stared at him for a split second, then slapped himself on the forehead.
“Right. Plan B. I’ll go get the car and bring it here.”
“No, sir.” Both men turned back to Olivia, who had produced a syringe from her computer case and was in the process of injecting herself in the arm. “You can’t, and you know why. I’ll go get the car.”
She shouldered the laptop case again and gestured toward the door.
“Olivia…” Antonio’s face radiated stern displeasure.
“Sir, if Grandma Lilah is out there, you are completely vulnerable to her. I am the only rational choice.” She folded her arms and met his glare with a level look of her own. “Unless you prefer we inject Mr. Sellars, spend the next hour trying to convince him of what he’s up against, then waiting for him to go down the block and get the car.”
Antonio ground his teeth in apparent frustration, and seemed to be searching for words to refute his assistant. Watching him, Adam realized there was a personal bond between these two that went deeper than mere employer and employee.
He also found himself recalling the funerals of the last people who tried to protect him.
There had already been too many of those.
“On second thought,” Adam spoke up, “why don’t you two get out of here. I’m getting tired of running and hiding anyway. I’ll just take…”
“Sir,” Olivia interrupted, “we may need him. And the fact is they probably aren’t here yet. But every second brings them closer. I need to go get the car.”
Antonio stared at Adam, as if seeing him for the first time, then shook his head and turned back to his assistant.
“Go,” he ordered. She started forward only to be stopped as Antonio laid a hand on her shoulder and offered the .45 with his other hand. “And be careful.”
“I’ll be quick, and I would prefer his.” The assistant gave a faint smile and flexed her slender fingers. “Easier to manage.”
Adam looked at his gun, then into those startling green eyes, then back at his gun again. He felt mildly like a sap at the lack of hesitation in which he then handed over the pistol, but realized he had placed his fate in these people’s hands anyway.
“Like your boss said, be careful,” he offered in lame support.
Olivia gave the .380 a cursory examination. Apparently satisfied with the small weapon, she concealed it by covering her hand with the computer case under her arm and stepped up to the door.
Antonio opened it without saying a word, and she stepped briskly outside.
Closing the door again, he moved to the window with Adam hobbling behind.
“How far away are you parked?”
“Only half a block. It should take her less than a minute to get there.”
“Why couldn’t you go? What was that stuff she injected herself with?”
“Not now, Adam. Go get your laptop and get ready to move. And leave your cell phone here. It can be used to track you.”
With a scowl, Adam complied. He knew Antonio had put him off, but conceded he had more important things to worry about at the moment. He scooped up his laptop, and stuffed it in his case. Then he considered scooping up the papers he had been printing out earlier.
“Leave those, too,” Antonio called from the window. “You won’t need them.”
Adam obeyed…marveling once more at his guest’s incredible intuition about everything that went on around him.
He looked at the cell phone on the table, and realized it was his last link to Ellen. Leaving it behind would mean she could no longer reach him if she wanted. She had sounded so unhappy over the phone, not her usual aggressively centered self, that he had become worried about her. For a moment, he wondered if he should reach out to her again, once all this was over.
No, she was letting go. That’s the real reason she was so unhappy. And you need to let her do it so she can get on with her life.
The thought rose unbidden as he stared at the cell phone. He had let her go once, and she had moved on. Then she had been a true friend and came back when he needed her. But she needed to move on again, and he knew the time had come to let her do it. It hurt to realize that…hurt like hell…but he knew the time had come for Adam to look after Adam and let Ellen make her own life again.
Adam wished there was some way he could repay her for all she had done for him, but he knew cutting loose was the best thing he could do for her. Not to mention, it would get her away from this mess he had found himself in. The fact she had come so close to one of his would-be killers left a sick feeling in his gut. This was for the best.
“Good bye, Ellen,” he said to the phone on the table. “I owe you one. A big one.”
He turned to see Antonio watching him from his position at the window.
“How is she doing?” Adam hobbled back toward the door with his computer case.
“She’s in the car.” His guest’s cell phone rang, and Adam watched him pull it out of his pocket. “Yes? Uh huh. Got it. We’ll be ready.” He snapped the phone shut. “Olivia says there is a pickup with a camper shell parked down the street that wasn’t there before. It may or may not b
e them, but we’re going to assume it is.”
“You’re kidding. Already? I thought she said they probably weren’t here yet.”
“They don’t like to be away from their home, Adam. And they probably want to get back there as soon as possible. Especially if they have…never mind. The good news is they may not realize we are here yet.”
“Thank God for the good news. Where would we be without it.”
“That’s the spirit!” Antonio’s face lit up with another one of his brilliant smiles. “Now get ready. When she pulls up, you jump in the front seat by Olivia, and I’ll take the back. I don’t want us stumbling over each other and fighting over doors. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good, because here she comes.”
The man ushered Adam over to the door, then made a show of taking the safety off the .45. He grasped the door knob, and then started a hushed countdown.
“5…4…”
The sound of a car engine could be heard approaching through the door.
“3…”
It got louder.
“2…”
“Wait, what is she…” Adam started.
“1…”
The sound of the engine now approached closer than any car on the street should.
“Go!”
Antonio jerked the door open and shoved Adam out ahead of him. Adam stumbled forward, trying not to slip on the wet grass, and lurched for the door of the blue four-door sedan parked in the middle of his front yard. Looking to his right, a little over fifty yards up the street, he saw the door to a Chevy truck open as he reached for the handle.
A tall blonde woman stepped out. He only got a glance at her, but Adam recognized the woman from the hospital security tape. The same set of jaw, the same rural clothes, and the same expression of focused determination.
She also held the same enormous gun.
The dripping street sat empty, nobody around to see this brazen display of weaponry, but previous experience suggested she probably wouldn’t have cared if there were a crowd. Time seemed to slow down as she raised the weapon and aimed it toward him.
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