by Karen Rose
‘You bet,’ JD said lightly, but his mouth was grim.
‘Who’s Tasha?’ Joseph asked.
‘My dog,’ she said against his coat.
‘Protection dog,’ JD mouthed. ‘Fucking huge.’
Which meant that any agents who went to search the house should be prepared.
‘You took down Bill Millhouse,’ she said, still not looking up. ‘What happened?’
‘He left the courtroom before everyone else and I knew he was up to no good. We got the Turner kids out and I saw Bill skulking around. Followed him, found his stash. In the trunk of his car he had ten more assault rifles. He’d planned something big.’
‘Dear God,’ Daphne mumbled. ‘This is craziness.’
‘I need to get her to the ER,’ Joseph said, pointing at the reporters who were venturing towards them, now that the bullets had stopped flying. ‘I’ll keep you updated.’
Tuesday, December 3, 11.40 A.M.
That stupid little bitch. Mitch stared at the television screen in stunned disbelief. He’d known Marina Craig was a wild card. But ... the girl was fucking nuts.
Luckily enough, she was now fucking dead. She’d come seconds away from ruining everything. Be glad you’re dead. If you’d killed Montgomery, I would have killed you myself. And I would have made it hurt a hell of a lot more.
The video wasn’t the greatest quality. Whoever operated the camera was far away, across the street from the courthouse steps. At least the picture was now stable, the camera mounted on a tripod. Before, it had shaken, the cameraman obviously rattled.
The crowd had scattered, media and protesters ducking for cover. After her initial hit on Montgomery – and thank God for Kevlar – Marina had started taking out cops.
The door behind him creaked, giving him only a second’s warning before Cole flopped on the sofa beside him, sending the frame shuddering. ‘Whatcha watching?’
He frowned at Cole, but didn’t look away from the screen. Daphne Montgomery had yet to get up. There was a guy kneeling next to her, looking like he was doing first aid. I need to see her get up. ‘You’re going to break this sofa one of these days.’
‘And my eyes’ll get stuck if I roll them,’ Cole said. ‘What movie is this?’
‘It’s not a movie,’ Mitch said dryly. ‘It’s the news.’
‘No shit? This is real life? I thought it was . . .’ Cole pitched forward, squinting.
Montgomery was on her feet, so he turned the TV off. ‘Nothing you need to see.’
Cole gave him the look. ‘I’m thirteen and a half. Get a grip.’
‘Oh, I’m about to. Why aren’t you in school?’
Cole shrugged. Scowled. Said nothing.
Mitch’s temper boiled up. ‘You’ve skipped nine of the last ten days. You’re going to have that social worker on my ass, boy. And I don’t like that. They’re always poking in other people’s business.’ And when they poke, they find shit I really don’t want them to see. ‘Isn’t it bad enough that you spend half your time suspended because you can’t stop looking for fights? You’re gonna skip the other half? I don’t think so.’
Cole set his jaw, his expression mutinous. ‘I don’t go lookin’ for fights.’
‘They just find you,’ he said sarcastically and stood up. ‘I don’t need this right now. Go to school, or so help me God, I’ll drag you.’
Cole stood up. And looked down at him. Whoa. When did he get bigger than me?
‘I do not go looking for fights,’ Cole said through his teeth. ‘But I ain’t gonna run from one if it comes looking for me.’
‘Go to school. If you leave now, you can still make your last two classes.’
Cole’s eyes flashed with fury, but he turned for the door. Visions of nosy social workers had Mitch flinging a few parting words. ‘And if you try real hard, maybe you can stay out of trouble till the Christmas break.’
‘If you’d wanted me to stay out of trouble, maybe you never shoulda dragged me back to this godforsaken hellhole. Everything was fine in Florida. Just fine.’ He swept from the room, slamming the front door so hard that the house shook.
Mitch stood looking at the front door. Behind him he heard the door to the basement open, then close softly.
‘Boy’s got a point,’ Mutt said mildly. ‘You packed him up in the middle of the night, dragged him into a U-Haul truck and never let him say goodbye to his friends. You wouldn’t have reacted nearly so well at the same age.’
I would have killed me in my sleep. ‘Your point?’
‘The kid’s not stupid. He knew something was wrong then. He does now.’ Mutt’s brows lifted. ‘He nearly stumbled on your stash this morning.’
Mitch’s jaw tightened. ‘Dammit.’
‘This surprises you? You hid storage tubs filled with cash in the root cellar. It’s not exactly the most diabolically secure hiding place.’
Mitch did have a more secure hiding place in the basement – the small room that connected to the tunnel – but until recently it had been filled with the guns he’d skimmed from his stepfather’s shipments. Now the guns were gone, making room for Pamela MacGregor, stolen to force Kimberly’s compliance last night.
‘Why was Cole in the basement to start with?’ he asked, remembering he’d tried to ask once before.
‘Hiding from you. He didn’t want you to catch him skipping school. Or smoking.’
Mitch’s jaw dropped. ‘When the hell did he start smoking?’
Mutt started laughing. ‘You’re hiding a quarter million in your root cellar and you’re worried about Cole smoking? Oh, come on, Mitch. You gotta see the irony in that.’
No, I really don’t. But he made himself chuckle. ‘I guess I do.’ He made a point of looking at the suitcase in Mutt’s hands. ‘I see you’re starting on my deposits.’
‘After my meeting. I’ll email you a receipt.’
I wonder what number Mutt will write on that ‘receipt’. Mitch knew to the dollar what he had downstairs, so he’d know exactly what his brother had just stolen from him. Only the knowledge that he knew exactly how to break into Mutt’s precious accounting program to take his money back kept the easy smile on his face. ‘You do that.’
When Mitch had closed and locked the door, he let himself snarl. Does Mutt think I’m that stupid? Does he really think I don’t know what he’s doing? Or does he just think I’m too weak to tell him no? Probably all of the above.
I’m not stupid. I’m a helluva lot smarter than he is. And I did it on my own, without a fancy college degree or my daddy’s money. Mitch marched up to his bedroom. If I was stupid, I wouldn’t know how to do this.
Sitting on his bed, he pulled up Beckett’s garage webcam on his phone. The shed was empty and Mitch was reluctantly impressed. It hadn’t taken Ford nearly as long to escape as he’d expected.
Now, let’s see if I was right. He’d predicted Ford would escape, leaving Wilson Beckett alive. Because Ford was oh-so-kind. Which was really too bad for the kid. Ford Elkhart had the brains and brawn to be somebody someday, but that tender heart he wore on his sleeve would relegate him to the pussy ranks forever. Just ask Kimberly.
The girl had enchanted Ford with her brains and enticed him with her bod, but it was her whispered tale of the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend that had cemented her hold.
Kim’s stories were, of course, pure fabrication. Her parents lived together in a rich suburb of Philadelphia. There was no boyfriend, abusive or otherwise.
It had been a risk, having Kim lie about her family. Ford might have had her checked out. If he had, her true connection to Ford’s mother would have been revealed and because she’d already lied, he wouldn’t have believed anything else she’d said.
But Mitch knew people and was damn good at predicting what they’d do. Ford hadn’t checked her out because he wanted to believe the girl. Kim’s stories had roused the kid’s inner white-knight, ensuring he’d follow her anywhere. Even into an alley.
&n
bsp; Mitch switched to the camera feed in the cabin and grinned. Am I good or what? Beckett was on the floor – alive, tied and gagged. And naked as the day he was born.
Mitch chuckled. You go, Ford. Stealing the old guy’s thermals took chutzpah – and a strong stomach because the old man stank like he hadn’t bathed in a long time.
Now I can sleep. But not for too long. If Ford wasn’t found by nightfall, Mitch would need to drive back and help the kid out. He couldn’t have Ford dying before he took his message back to his mama.
I’m back. Did you miss me?
Tuesday, December 3, 11.47 A.M.
Cole flattened himself against the side of the old house, holding his breath. He shouldn’t have worried. Matt didn’t look his way as he walked to his Mercedes.
He drives a damn Mercedes. It wasn’t fair. Matt got the money and he and Mitch had to scratch for everything. Cole wasn’t stupid. He knew that Mitch was a drug dealer. He knew that Matt was too, he just did it in a suit and tie.
Cole knew that Mitch was on the run right now because of that botched job at the pill popper palace in Miami. Mitch had forced him to leave his friends behind without saying goodbye and part of him hated Mitch for that.
I wish he weren’t involved in any of this illegal shit. But Mitch was, and Cole found himself wishing that if Mitch was going to be bad, he would at least be better at it. Then they wouldn’t have to be running from the law all the time.
They could stay in one place. Have a decent house. A decent life. Like Matt has. But Mitch sucked at being bad and they were on the run, hiding in this piece of shit house that Mitch called ‘home’. Cole called it ‘hell’.
Mitch loved this hellhole and Cole had no idea why.
I hate it here. I hated it when I had to live here before. His mother’s aunt had been so old. Betty had tried to take care of him, but she couldn’t even take care of herself. I had to do it all. And he’d only been a little kid. Only eight when Mitch went to jail. Because of Matt’s father.
Who says I’m not his son. It shouldn’t matter. But it did. It mattered because Matt got everything. And I have to live here and keep up the act. Mitch wanted everything to look normal, wanted people to believe he really did HVAC work with that black van he drove. He wants me to go to school and have friends.
Sure, like I’m gonna invite the guys to hang here at Hotel Hell where my brother’s hiding a quarter million in cash in the root cellar and a pile of pistols in that room in the basement that’s supposed to be secret.
Mitch thought he didn’t know. Mitch thought he was stupid. Sometimes Cole let people think that because they didn’t expect as much.
It worked sometimes. Sometimes it didn’t. Recently it hadn’t mattered. A few of the guys at school had bothered him last year, stealing his lunch, pushing him around. He’d grown over the summer and he’d thought things would be better and for a while they were. Until the head asshole at school found out that Mitch had gone to prison.
The bullying had started all over again. And now it was more personal. Calling Mitch a fag was bad. Saying Mitch was doing me was a hell of a lot worse.
Shoving me against a wall . . . Cole shuddered. They’d ganged up on him in the stairwell. If that janitor hadn’t come along when he did . . . God. I was so lucky. But he wouldn’t be next time. The guys had told him so. They’d wait until nobody was looking.
And Mitch wonders why the hell I don’t go to school? Cole didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like he could go to the cops. Not with a quarter million in cash in the root cellar and all those guns in the secret room.
Well, there was one less gun in that room now. Cole patted his pocket, comforted by the hard steel he’d kept hidden there for the past three days. Let them try to touch me again, he thought fiercely. They’ll be sorry.
Chapter Five
Marston, West Virginia , Tuesday, December 3, 11.50 A.M.
Ford had found the keys to the old man’s truck in his pants pocket. It had been easier to strip the pants from his body and dump the contents than to go rooting around and risk the old guy coming to. Once he’d ripped off the pants, it occurred to him that the old guy would have trouble following him in the snow were he to have no clothes at all. So he’d stripped him to the skin. And hadn’t that been fun? That would be a big no.
Tying the old man up had been considerably more satisfying. Ford had found some strong twine and tied it tight. No way was anybody getting free from those knots.
Then Ford had searched the place, looking for any hint to where this cabin was or where they’d taken Kim. He’d found nothing and began to worry that the creepy guy would come back. I’m back. Did you miss me?
Ford shivered, grasping the steering wheel of the old guy’s truck, his hands covered with a pair of ratty gloves that were too small for his hands. He wore the old man’s coat and had dumped every article of clothing he’d found in the cabin into the bed of the truck so the man couldn’t put clothes on and follow him should he manage to escape.
Then he’d rounded up the old man’s weapons and any food he could easily carry. The unloaded rifle was on the seat next to him. Still unloaded, because he hadn’t found any ammunition. He’d taken every knife in every drawer, his final action being to roll the old man’s fingers across one of the blades.
So the cops would know who the hell they were dealing with. Or at least one of the two. Hopefully the old man would roll on the creepy guy once the cops got involved.
Marion Morrison my ass.
Now he held his breath as he turned the key in the ignition, then let it out when the engine turned over. Thank you, God. At the end of a mile-long unpaved driveway he came to an actual road. Right or left? East. Eventually he’d end up at the ocean.
He didn’t think he’d been taken too far west. The rock form-ations were shale and sandstone . . . Which you’re only gonna find in Appalachia, son. With a start he realized that it was Gran’s voice he heard. I guess I was listening better on all those hiking trips than I thought. I’m in Appalachia.
Ford’s lips curved in a smile for the first time since he’d left the theater the night before. Assuming it had been only one night. From the way his head had started to heal, that made sense. Plus, he’d be a lot hungrier had it been more than one night. And he was damn hungry as it was. All he’d found was some beef jerky and canned beans and he’d save that for when he was positively starving.
Don’t think about being hungry. Just drive until you see a house or another car. A call box on the side of the road. Something. Just drive.
Baltimore, Maryland, Tuesday, December 3, 12.00 P.M.
Daphne shivered despite the fact that the heater in Joseph’s Escalade was set to high and she wore his coat.
She’d need a new coat, because hers had Mike the cameraman’s blood on the sleeve and one of the detectives had taken it as evidence. My coat is evidence. And her blouse would be, too, once she got to the ER. It was soaked with Deputy Welch’s blood.
‘I’d almost forgotten,’ she murmured.
‘What?’ Joseph asked. He stared straight ahead, his expression grim. He might have been a statue were it not for his forefinger that tapped the steering wheel.
‘About the courtroom fiasco. Reggie and his mother. Deputy Welch. I feel . . . disconnected. Like I’m dreaming. But I’m not.’
‘No. You’re not.’
She bit her lip. ‘I left my phone in the pocket of my coat.’
‘JD will get it back to you.’
‘If it survived my fall. Grayson’s didn’t survive the courtroom brawl. Reggie’s mother kicked the screen in.’
‘So that’s why he didn’t call me back,’ he muttered to himself.
‘Can I use your phone?’ she asked when he didn’t offer.
He handed his phone to her. ‘Just don’t look at texts or any of my call logs.’
‘I won’t. I just need to call my mother. She was worried before. She’ll be worried sick now.’ Daphne dialed, then frowned when
the name of her mother’s dress shop appeared on the screen. ‘Joseph, why do you have my mother’s shop in your contact list?’ she asked him while her mother’s phone rang.
The shop’s answering machine picked up before he answered and she heard her mother’s voice, stating the store’s hours. ‘Mama,’ she said when the tone had beeped. ‘Mama, it’s me. Pick up the phone. Mama? Okay, now you’ve got me worried. Call me so I know you’re all right.’ She hung up, her frown deeper. ‘She should be there.’
He glanced at her, his expression unreadable and intense all at once. ‘She’s okay. The squad car JD sent to check on her reported back. She’s fine.’
‘How do you know they reported back?’ He’d taken no calls.
‘JD texted me a few minutes ago.’
Something didn’t feel right. Okay, lots of things didn’t feel right. Joseph was acting strangely, even for Joseph. ‘But she should be there. She never closes the shop early.’
‘She’s probably been bombarded by calls from the press so she’s screening her calls. I know for a fact that she’s okay. So don’t worry about her.’
‘All right.’ Still, something wasn’t right and she didn’t know what it was. ‘Why do you have my mother’s shop in your contact list?’
‘Because Paige bought Grayson’s mother a hat to wear to one of those fundraisers you two are always having for the women’s center.’
Daphne had to think. Hats? ‘Oh. The one at the race track last summer.’ All of the ladies had worn hats, à la Derby Day. ‘What a nightmare. Never seen so many big hats in my life. They kept whackin’ each other over the punchbowl. One stabbed the other with her hatpin. It was awful.’ And you weren’t there, she thought, watching him. She knew every fundraiser he’d attended by heart. Because I’m just that pathetic.
She still hadn’t gotten over the shock of looking up to see his face. She’d thought herself a goner, for sure. But he’d saved her. Which is a good thing. So what was bothering her so much? ‘I still don’t get why you have Mama’s shop in your phone.’
She was missing a detail. It wasn’t this detail, but she had to start somewhere.