“Damn it.” Paulie threw open the door, where a scrawny woman with dirty mouse-brown hair held up a chair beside a broken window.
Her pale face glistening with sweat, she wheeled around and pointed the four chair legs toward the doorway as if to ward off lions. The spaghetti strap of a filthy top had fallen off a blade-thin shoulder, and her legs jutted beneath a skirt that fit her like a grocery sack. “I fuckin’ told you,” she said to Crystal in a smoker’s voice coarse as a squawking crow’s. “I can’t wait around here. I told you, I can’t do it.”
“Put down that chair and sit,” Ruby said, stunned to see the wreckage of a trashy but head-turning high school beauty. “You said you’d see me, and here I am. So I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell me what you know about my sister.”
“I gotta go,” Jackie repeated.
“Answer and you’re free to leave, I promise,” Ruby told her. “Otherwise, Paulie’s pressing charges for this damage.”
“Damned right I am,” he bellowed, causing the woman to shrink back. “All I have to do is pick up that telephone, and I’ll have deputies before you finish cussing me about it.”
The woman looked at each of them in turn, then glanced toward the shattered window as if to gauge her chances of scrambling out before they grabbed her.
“Please tell her about Misty,” Crystal said. “This could turn out to be important. This could save a little girl.”
“Screw a little girl,” growled Jackie, at which point, Ruby pulled the handgun from her purse.
“You don’t want to answer for my family’s sake, then answer because you don’t want me to blow your head off that scrawny little neck.”
“Ruby.” Crystal shrank back, her eyes huge.
At the same moment, Paulie warned, “Not in my place, Ruby. I won’t have this here, you understand me?”
But Jackie stared at the gun before slowly lowering the chair. Perching on the seat’s edge, she stared up sullenly, her bruised arms crossed over her narrow chest.
“Fine. I’ll talk to you.” Her pale blue eyes fastened on to Ruby’s before she nodded in Paulie’s direction. “Not the pig, not the fluff, just you, Ruby Monroe. And then I walk out with no trouble.”
“Deal,” said Ruby, then glanced toward Crystal and Paulie. “I need a half hour.”
“Ruby, you can’t do this,” Crystal pleaded, tears streaming down her face as she looked at her boss. “I didn’t know there would be a gun.”
“This is a family restaurant,” Paulie warned. “I’ve got goddamned little kids out there eating chicken nuggets. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get that woman out of my place. Make it ten, and then I call the sheriff.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll make it quick, and then we’ll be gone.”
“Let’s go, Crystal.” Paulie laid a huge hand on the waitress’s shoulder and spoke gently. “We have customers to see to.”
Once they left the room, Jackie leaned forward to ask Ruby, “Got any cigarettes?”
When Ruby shook her head, Jackie asked, “How ‘bout some cash, then? You know, for smokes and stuff.”
Ruby began to suspect Paulie had been right about the woman, that she was simply trying to exploit a tragedy that had caught her ear.
“I don’t have any money,” Ruby said carefully. “I’m told my sister took off with it. Thought you might be able to offer a little insight on that.”
The skinny shoulders shrugged, reminding Ruby of an animated scarecrow.
Jackie’s eyes narrowed as she leaned forward. “Here I thought you were gonna turn out to be so fuckin’ pure and perfect and smart. All I can say is if you trusted your sister with your money, you’re just plain stupid. Nobody can trust nobody these days. Too many damn temptations in this world. Your man sure as hell knew that.”
Ruby nearly choked on her own fury. “You didn’t know Aaron and you don’t know me, so quit with the bullshit before I have Paulie call the sheriff.”
If the woman had been worth the effort, Ruby would have added that there were good people, people who fought off the kinds of temptations that ruled the creeps in Jackie Hogan’s circle. From her neighbor Sam McCoy to so many of those she’d met in the war zone, Ruby had seen people risking everything to help others. People like Carrie Ann, who had risked her life—and maybe lost it—to warn a stranger not to file a grievance against her supervisor.
Guilt stung Ruby’s eyes, whispered that she might have saved Carrie Ann if she’d only dared to act. Saved her or lost her own head for a near stranger.
Lips pressed together tightly, Jackie clutched the edges of her seat and glanced toward the door.
“Come on,” Ruby urged. “Just tell me. What tempted my sister? You told Crystal you saw Misty. Unless you were lying about that, too.”
“I saw her, all right.” Jackie wouldn’t meet her gaze.
Ruby sat on the edge of a second chair and whispered, “Was my daughter with her? Was my little girl there?”
Jackie nodded, looking up, her gaze hard with disapproval. “She shouldna had her at that party. Shouldna come there with no kid.”
Though Ruby tried to control her reaction, the gun shook visibly in her hand. “Was she—was Zoe all right?”
“The kid? She was kinda scared of Coffin’s dogs. Those big fuckers are nasty, and his friends aren’t hardly any better.”
“Is this Coffin the same guy with the 666 on his cheek?”
Nodding, Jackie laughed until she coughed. “That’s really somethin’, ain’t it?”
Heat rushed to Ruby’s face, and her knees wobbled with the confirmation. “My—my daughter was with…”
“She was there, yeah,” said Jackie, “but she calmed down after a while. Dylan got her some toys n’ shit to play with. And Misty, she’d rip the eyeballs out of anybody who looked at that kid crosswise. Still, it wasn’t right—”
“Dylan? You’re talking about Dylan Hammett?” Ruby broke in.
Jackie once more glanced at the door, then nodded. “Yeah, Dylan. Misty showed up to get him.”
“Showed up where?”
Another shrug. “At Coffin’s mama’s place, back in her pool house. But don’t tell Dylan’s old man he was hanging with us. Dylan can’t handle any more of his shit right now.”
“You’re saying Misty’s involved with Dylan Hammett?” Ruby asked, still unable to believe it. Sure, the two of them had been close at one time, but their platonic friendship had ended when he’d refused to take responsibility for Crystal’s pregnancy. Besides, Dylan was married, and married men were something Misty didn’t do. Ruby felt sick, wondering how she could accept the word of some skanky, drug-riddled “witness” over her knowledge of her own flesh and blood.
But she could no longer ignore the signs that something had gone very wrong with Misty, something she had clearly taken pains to hide. As she might hide a pregnancy resulting from an affair with a married man, especially one who’d fathered her own best friend’s child….
Jackie nodded. “Hell, yeah, she was into Dylan. She was hangin’ all over him. Leanin’ on his shoulder, pullin’ on his arm. But when he wouldn’t leave with her, she stuck around and chilled awhile. So we talked about some people we both used to know. And she told me you was the one my Aaron Monroe finally hooked up with.”
A warning prickled at the base of Ruby’s neck, but she reminded herself that now was no time to worry over Jackie’s intimations about Aaron. Wrenching her mind back to Zoe and Misty, Ruby asked, “Who else was there? Anybody named Best? Hobson Best?”
Jackie shook her head. “Never heard of him.”
Ruby wasn’t sure whether to believe her. But then, it seemed ludicrous to think that a professional assassin sent in by DeserTek would hang out with the local stoners. “Was my sister using at the party? Did you see her take any—”
Jackie’s gaze snapped back. “Did one visit to Coffin’s turn her into some kind of crack whore, you mean? What’s the matter, you worried I’m contagious?”
“No. I don’t—” But Ruby didn’t know what she meant. “Please, my daughter. I just have to know about my daughter.”
Jackie’s expression softened, so her pale eyes looked inhabited instead of empty. “Listen, put away the damned gun. I’m here because I heard Aaron’s kid was missing and because”—she tapped a chest diminished from its glory days—“because, hell, I still got a heart in here, you know?”
Ruby slipped the handgun back inside her purse. “I’m sorry about that. It’s been a hell of a last couple days, and I’m feeling pretty desperate. The sheriff thinks—she’s got an idea Coffin might have them. Or might’ve hurt them, depending on how things went.”
“Coffin? That son of a bitch would sell his mother’s kidneys if could find a payin’ market. He liked the look of Misty, kept going on about what a ‘prime piece’ she was, which frankly pissed me off. But Dylan made it clear that she was his, you know? Told Coffin that no matter how much he owed, she and the kid were both off-limits.”
If they could be found safe, if all this really turned out to be related to some drug deal, Ruby thought she might kiss Dylan’s cheating lips instead of wringing his neck.
“Do you think Dylan and Misty might still be together?” Ruby asked. “Do you think he could’ve run out on his wife and taken my sister and my daughter somewhere?” Somewhere safe…
The blade-thin shoulders hunched another shrug. “I don’t know. Could be, I guess. What I told you’s all I know about it, really.”
“What about my house? Have you and your friends ever been to my house?” Two of those friends, Ruby suspected, had never made it out.
Jackie darted a look toward the window. “Do you think Hammett’s already called the deputies? That fat shit’s always hated me, accused me of stealing when I didn’t.”
“We still have a few minutes,” Ruby assured her, though she hadn’t bothered to keep track of the time. “So answer me, please, Jackie. Were you ever—”
“You’re stalling, aren’t you, Ruby? Trying to get me thrown in jail.”
“Were you ever in my house?” Ruby demanded.
Jackie’s anger shifted to a look of slyness, making Ruby instantly regret her question.
“Guess your husband never mentioned me, huh?” asked Jackie. “Never talked about our way-back-when? Yeah, I’ve been to your place. Sneaked in through a back window.”
“Why are you lying to me?”
Jackie laughed, clearly amused by her distress. “Fucked my brains out in his bedroom, with his mama and his daddy fast asleep down the hall. That foster kid, too—we laughed our asses off to hear Sam snoring in the next room, never guessing, while we went at it like—”
“I don’t need to hear this.” Even if it were true, Ruby told herself it didn’t matter. Aaron had never pretended to be a virgin.
Yet the other woman’s sneer, her unspeakable claims, made Ruby want to pull the gun out of her purse and pistol-whip her.
“Don’t worry,” Jackie said. “It was over in no time flat, once the stick turned blue.”
“You lying bitch.” Furious, Ruby was reaching for the bag when, with a startled gasp, Jackie jumped up from her seat. But she wasn’t worried about Ruby. Instead, her gaze was on the parking lot, where Deputy Savoy was climbing out of a marked SUV.
“Oh, shit,” Jackie announced as she shoved past Ruby on her way to the door. “That rat-bastard Hammett.”
Ruby didn’t try to stop her as she bolted down the hallway. But Jackie didn’t get far. Chaos erupted in the dining room, in full view of Paulie’s customers, several of whom panicked when Jackie snatched a knife off a table as she raced past.
Assessing the situation quickly, Deputy Savoy yelled, “Freeze. Sheriff’s Department,” and rushed after her with his gun drawn.
Emerging from the kitchen with an apron tied around her thick middle, Anna Hammett shrieked at the sight of the knife-wielding woman rushing toward her. Customers screamed, and children’s heads were pushed down beneath tables. One man started swearing at the deputy, and a quick-thinking waitress—the same young black woman who had retrieved Crystal for Ruby a day earlier—shoved a chair out into Jackie’s path.
With her frantic gaze flicking from the deputy to Anna, Jackie never saw it coming. Catching one leg on the chair, she flew over it, then landed with a sharp cry.
“She’s on the knife,” screamed the waitress. “Oh God, she came down on the—”
“No! Goddammit.” Struggling to get up, Jackie streamed profanity and pressed a hand to her thigh, which was spouting blood. The blade clattered to the floor, and quick as thought, the waitress kicked it spinning out of reach.
“Calm down, Jackie. Please calm down.” Grave and dignified in spite of his hard breathing, Deputy Savoy approached the injured woman, whom Ruby suspected he’d arrested in the past.
She edged backward, thinking that she’d seen enough.
A hand clapped down on Ruby’s shoulder. “Where’re you off to?”
She looked up at Paulie Hammett. “I’m going to stop by for a visit with your son. Jackie says she saw him with my sister. At a party. And he was messed up, Paulie. Messed up the way he used to—”
“That’s horseshit. Dylan’s been over all that for a long time.” Paulie loomed above her. “You can’t seriously believe her. Ever since the first time I set eyes on that Jackie, she’s been trouble.”
Paulie glanced back toward the dining room, where parents were gathering their children, others were shouting for their checks while Anna fluttered among them and appealed for calm and reason. “I have to get back out there, try to convince folks Hammett’s is a safe place. Meanwhile, you leave Dylan out of all this.”
“Listen, Paulie, if he’s seen my family, if he’s wrapped up with drug dealers—”
Paulie’s face went crimson and he scowled at her, more threatening than ever. “Dylan’s put that all behind him. Only twenty-seven, and he’s already running his own remodeling business. Married a sweet girl, and they’re thinking of starting a family, giving us a real grandchild, any time now. You want to spoil that for him, Ruby? Want to screw up the life he’s worked so goddamned hard to build? Undo all of Anna’s and my work—your sister’s, too—and let’s not forget the tens of thousands we spent on rehab and helping him buy the business. You want to wreck everything on the word of some damned junkie?”
“Of course not. That’s why I have to go talk to him. Where’s he living these days?”
Paulie glanced back toward the diners, then said, “All right, Ruby. I’ll give you the address on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Leave that gun you’re toting locked inside my desk drawer where it can’t hurt anyone.”
C HAPTER T WENTY
“Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”
—Alfred Hitchcock
He’d thought he had her figured. Terrified, weak, and probably none too smart, his little bus driver should have gone to ground like a scared rabbit and stayed there, waiting for him to call her next move. Delay, he’d learned from long experience, drew panic tight as a noose. Uncertainty made things worse, and he’d done all in his power to keep her bewildered. Because his employer valued the quality of the target’s fear, her sense of helplessness, nearly as much as the item sought.
Because when the time was right, they needed the word of it to spread like oil on the water, a toxic nightmare that would be spoken of for years.
And yet he spotted Ruby Monroe, roaring down the road in her dead friend’s car. Racing along as if she meant to skip town…or was in the midst of carrying out some plan.
Braking the vehicle he’d “appropriated,” he made a three-point turn to follow. Because whatever she was up to, it was his business to find out. And to make her understand that he was in control here, that she was completely helpless.
He needed her to know that nothing she did would make a single bit of differe
nce. That like the predators of this realm, he would deal out death as he saw fit.
That once this was all over, once he had the item she had hidden, he would leave her broken, bleeding, just another bloody corpse to feed the stinging ants and worms and serve as warning. Another chance to prove that he was always—no exceptions—as good as his word.
For most of his professional life, Sam had played the part of hacker, testing security systems for governments, businesses, and, most often, financial institutions. He worked for hours, sometimes days straight, probing weaknesses, slicing his way inside, and then suturing shut the same loopholes he’d exploited.
But today, he wasn’t looking to correct an Achilles’ heel. All he cared about was working his way through the labyrinth of defenses of one particular bank. With no time to reinvent the wheel, he risked logging in to and harvesting some code he’d stored in an online vault before his arrest, code he modified to build an SQL injection attack.
Without Sybil’s assistance, the attack could be traced back to him if the breach were discovered and the right investigator dug into it. Sam figured it could cost him at least twenty years in custody, since the feds had zero sense of humor when it came to bank intrusions….
And all for a woman, the woman and the child of the foster brother who had gotten him thrown out of the only stable home he’d ever known. Sam could almost hear his lawyer screaming, calling him a dumb-ass gringo. Could almost see himself nodding his head in agreement.
Because he went ahead and did it, thinking that the preservation of his half-assed life scarcely tipped the balance when weighed against the safety of two women and a child.
Java whined and shuffled her paws, then shot him the long-suffering look of a Lab with a full bladder. Though he hated the interruption, Sam pushed his chair back from the table and scratched her ears, then took his best friend outside.
Only then did Sam notice that the sky, though clear, was dimming. Shouldn’t he have heard from Ruby by now?
Back inside, he used the phone Sybil had sent to call Ruby’s number. To his relief, she answered on the second ring.
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