Running Scared

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “No.”

  “Unarmed combat?”

  “No.”

  “As soon as this mess is cleared up, report to Niall for both. I won’t have my staff ignorant of self-defense when their jobs put them in situations like the one you’re in tonight.”

  Risa blew out a breath and didn’t argue. Right now the few nasty little tricks she had left over from a rough childhood didn’t seem like much of a shield against Socks or whoever had killed O’Conner and Cline.

  Glancing at her watch, Risa silently willed the light to turn green. Eventually it did.

  “How are we for time?” Dana asked.

  “Five minutes.”

  Dana looked at the map she had printed off a Net site. “We’re fine even if we hit a few more red lights. Go left at the next corner. After one mile the motel should be on the right about two-thirds of the way down the block.”

  Risa turned left.

  No one else did.

  The closer Risa and Dana came to the motel address, the less traffic there was. The distant, glittering Strip was a magnet sucking all the money away from this part of Las Vegas. The businesses that could move to the Strip did. The rest began a steep and dusty decline.

  “When you make the turn at the motel, find the room and then back into a nearby slot,” Dana said. “Turn out the lights and leave the engine running. When you come out to get the money, you won’t see me, but I’ll be behind the wheel. If you don’t like what you see when you walk in the room, turn around and get out now. Clear?”

  “What about the gold?”

  Dana was counting on Niall to take care of any gold artifacts that were lying about, but she didn’t think Risa was ready to hear that. Nor had Dana mentioned that there was a quicker way to the motel. They had been given fifteen minutes; Niall would need every second of it for whatever scheme his devious and yet breathtakingly pragmatic mind had hatched.

  “We know who Cherelle is,” Dana said. “We’ll find her again.”

  Risa’s fingers flexed and released on the steering wheel. The quality of Dana’s voice said more than words about what she thought of Cherelle Faulkner’s chances of getting away from a full Rarities search.

  “Okay,” Risa said. “You worry about the gold, and I’ll turn and run if I don’t like the setup.” And if I can. “I have to admit that I’m beginning to see the appeal of self-defense training.”

  “From what I saw on the casino tape, you have the first requirement for coming out on top.”

  “Speed?” Risa asked dryly.

  “Brains. You never stopped thinking.”

  “Cold sweat must lubricate the mind.”

  Dana laughed. “Niall will enjoy that one.”

  “Good for him. I sure didn’t.”

  The gold neon crown that marked the Midas Motel rose along the right side of the road like a dusty, gap-toothed smile. When she saw it, Risa’s heart slammed, then settled into a different, more rapid beat. She could feel adrenaline lighting up her blood, making colors clearer, more vivid, and each sound as crisp as glass breaking.

  “Remember,” Dana said as she slid down below the dashboard. “If it’s a setup, forget the gold and get out.”

  Chapter 69

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Night

  Shane didn’t bother to ask how it was going. The steady, whispering stream of curses told him that Niall was making progress, but not nearly as much as he wanted. One of the interconnecting doors was open. The other wasn’t.

  Stone green eyes glanced from the hinges on the offending door to the tire iron at Niall’s feet and then back out the slit in the curtains to the parking lot. If they had to, they could wrench the door off its hinges in a few seconds flat. But that would make a lot of noise. Better to unlock the damned thing and take Cherelle by surprise.

  The car that had just come in reversed, backed into a nearby slot, and shut off the lights.

  “They’re here,” Shane said.

  Niall grunted.

  “What’s the deal?” Shane asked.

  “Risa goes in, looks, and if she doesn’t like it—bugger all lazy maintenance men, this sodding lock needs oil!—she leaves to get the money from the car and doesn’t fucking come back.”

  Shane’s only answer was the blue-steel gun that appeared in his fist. He put his hand on the front door, ready to yank it open. “Tell me when.”

  Chapter 70

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Night

  Cherelle jumped every time lights flashed in the parking lot. Since the motel apparently was letting out rooms by the half hour, there were more vehicles coming and going than there were cars staying in place for an all-night rental.

  “Come on, come on! It’s been twenty minutes, for Chrissake. Where you at, Silverado? Where’s all that sweet cash?”

  Cherelle wanted the money so bad she could taste it. As she paced past the dresser, she reached for another warm beer—warm because the room didn’t have anything as fancy as a small refrigerator. Against her clammy fingers the can felt almost hot, almost fragile, like life.

  The thought made her pause. She decided she should wait before she had any more beer. She was drinking too fast, even though she couldn’t feel a damn thing.

  After chewing on her raw mouth, she put the can down without opening it.

  On the next circuit of the room she picked up the can and ripped open the tab so fast that foam shot over her knuckles. As she licked it off her hand, the beer tasted like sweat and piss, but alcohol would help dull the raw edge of her nerves.

  Lights swept over the closed curtains. Breath held, she waited. From next door the sound of some kind of sports show poured out in a wave of cheers and boos that peaked quickly and faded. The neighbor on the other side of her room was trying to hammer some working girl through the headboard, urged on by throaty groans scripted with an eye toward a big tip.

  The car turned toward the opposite side of the lot.

  A fresh round of cheers drowned out the fake passion. The whumpa-whumpa-whumpa of headboard slamming into wall continued. For an instant Cherelle pitied the poor whore who had taken on a jackhammer for a client. Of all the johns, they were the worst. Give her a sixty-second man anytime.

  At first Cherelle thought the knocking sound she was hearing was a continuation of the sex next door. Then she realized it was her own front door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Risa.”

  “Wait.”

  Cherelle went to the door, peered out the cloudy peephole, and saw nothing useful. Leaving the chain on, she opened the door just enough to see that Risa was standing there alone. Quickly Cherelle shut the door, released the chain, and opened the door again. As soon as Risa was inside, she put the chain back on.

  A fast look told Risa the room was empty of all but Cherelle and the gold artifacts laid out carelessly across one bed. She walked close enough to focus on first one and then the other, taking pictures as fast as she could. The lighting was awful. Even if it hadn’t been, Dana had made it clear that she was supposed to find a way to check out the bathroom.

  “I need better light,” Risa said.

  “Shit. Try the toilet. Light over the can’s pretty good.”

  Risa scooped up gold at random, walked past the bed, and into a short, offset passageway that boasted a few hangers on one side and a sink on the other. The bathroom was just beyond. A brief look around didn’t show anything unexpected. Toilet. Tub/shower.

  She dropped the toilet lid with her elbow, spread out the pieces of gold . . .

  And forgot to breathe. Dagger and sheath gleaming with ancient ritual. A torc made of braided gold chains that radiated power like heat off a fire. A golden god-mask looking through time into man’s shadowed soul. The sight of the gold was so mesmerizing that Risa had to force herself not to fall into the deep past, where Druid gold was the burning center of death and renewal.

  Forcing herself to move, Risa turned
toward Cherelle, who had followed her partway out of the main room. From her position at the head of the passageway, Cherelle could see both the front door and Risa.

  Risa could see only Cherelle. She was watching Risa with a stranger’s eyes, brittle and calculating. Strung out. There was no point in trying to reach whatever was left of her friend beneath the hard surface. The Cherelle that Risa remembered wasn’t there.

  All that was left was the money and the gold.

  “I’m amazed,” Risa said. “All that gold and you don’t even have a gun.”

  “Brains are better than guns any day.”

  “So where’s Gail? You’re all alone here.”

  “You snooze, you lose. She just lost. Where’s the money?”

  The front door crashed inward, gunshots exploded, glass shattered.

  Cherelle staggered toward Risa and went to her knees in a bright burst of blood. “Baby-chick? What happened?” She shook her head and tried to brace herself against her palms. “No. Not like this. I’m too smart.”

  Chapter 71

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Night

  Shane was out in the parking lot before the intruder’s semiautomatic spit out the second and third shots. When he saw the blocky figure in the doorway to Cherelle’s room, Shane snapped his gun into position and squeezed on the trigger.

  In the split second before he could fire, a shotgun blasted from across the lot. The attacker’s arms jerked up, and he staggered into Cherelle’s room. Another blast spun him around. A third one knocked him down. He stayed there.

  Both Niall and Shane had tracked the last muzzle flashes. They fired twice each in a staccato hail. A hoarse cry came, followed by the sound of something hitting the ground. Gun at the ready, Niall ran across the lot in a zigzag pattern.

  Shane made a long, diving roll that took him inside Cherelle’s room. “Risa.”

  “Back here. Hurry!”

  He kicked the gun out of the intruder’s lax fingers and ran toward Risa’s voice. As soon as he reached the little passageway leading to the bathroom, his heart jerked and his guts turned to ice.

  There was blood everywhere.

  Risa and Cherelle were in the middle of it.

  He went to his knees beside Risa. “Where are you hit?”

  “Help Cherelle!”

  “Where are you hit?”

  “It’s not me. It’s Cherelle. Oh, Jesus, it’s Cherelle!”

  If Shane hadn’t already been on his knees, relief would have put him there. “Let me see her.”

  “I can’t let go. She’s bleeding too much.” Tears left trails down Risa’s blood-spattered face. “Cherelle! Cherelle, can you hear me?”

  Shane saw what Risa couldn’t accept: Cherelle’s blood no longer pulsed between Risa’s fingers. He measured the utter slackness of Cherelle’s body. With gentle fingertips he closed the pale, staring eyes.

  Risa made a raw sound.

  In the front room Niall peeled off the attacker’s ski mask. “It’s our old buddy Socks. Deader than dirt. Risa?”

  “She’s all right,” Shane answered.

  “Cherelle?”

  “Dead.”

  Shane eased Risa away from Cherelle’s body. “What about the one in the parking lot?” he asked.

  “White male, somewhere between fifty and sixty. Looks more like an executive than a shooter.”

  “Dead?”

  “He should make it.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Shane said to Risa.

  Wearily she nodded.

  Both men headed out of the room at a trot. There wouldn’t be much time before the cops arrived.

  Dana was already at the second man’s side. A gun gleamed in her hand. She pointed a flashlight at his face and hit the switch.

  “Recognize him?” she asked Shane.

  “Rich Morrison.”

  From all directions sirens wailed, still distant. But not for long.

  “Get the money,” Shane said to Dana. “Our story is that the gold changed hands before Cherelle died.”

  “Back to the room,” Dana said. “We need to get the rest of our stories straight. It’s going to be a bloody long bitch of a night.”

  Chapter 72

  Las Vegas

  November 7

  Afternoon

  April Joy walked in and looked at the five people who sat around Shane’s office in varying states of exhaustion. She knew how they felt. It had been a long night and longer morning for her, too.

  Caffeine was no substitute for sleep.

  “I think this pretty well defines the concept of cluster fuck,” she said.

  Niall and Dana watched April, wondering when she was going to drop the last shoe. They didn’t know what it would be. They only knew that the brilliant, ruthless Ms. Joy always had at least one more weapon in her arsenal than people expected.

  “What did Gail say?” Shane asked.

  Not that he thought Gail would change her public story, but he had to be sure before he tried to cut a deal with the very sharp April Joy. His earlier talk with Gail had been private and to the point: either she helped him or he buried her. She knew he could do it.

  More important, she knew he would.

  “Same thing she said the first time,” April said. “She got the call. She chickened out.”

  “I can vouch for that. She never left the building,” Ian said. “Spent the night on the casino floor talking to the customers. It’s all on video.”

  Shane began walking his gold pen across his fingers, end over end, the click of gold meeting gold, silence, silence, click. “Who did Gail talk to right after she decided to back out?” he asked April.

  “Morrison and Firenze.”

  “Carl or John?”

  “Carl. He took Gail’s money back to the vault. Morrison left, supposedly to take his money back to his own vault.”

  Click. “Who did Carl talk to about the meeting?” Shane asked April.

  “Gail.”

  “No one else?”

  “Just those two,” April said.

  Click.

  April looked at Risa. “You’re sure Cherelle wouldn’t have called Socks in for backup?”

  “Yes. She didn’t trust him. With good reason. He never gave her a chance. Just walked in and started shooting.”

  Click.

  Shane’s free hand smoothed over Risa’s dark hair. She let out a long breath and looked at her hands as though expecting to see them covered in bright arterial blood.

  “What about Tim Seton?” Risa asked in a low voice. “Has he turned up?”

  “No,” April said.

  “If the amount of blood he left on his mother’s doorstep is any indication,” Ian said, “he wouldn’t have been in any shape to hold a pump shotgun long enough to send several rounds through his buddy Socks. Morrison’s lawyers can scream all they want. He’s good for murder one. When he figures it out, he’ll start talking.”

  Click.

  “Don’t hold your breath, slick,” April said to Ian. “Morrison’s lawyers are talking about their client the civic hero, who killed a felon that had just killed a defenseless woman and was about to kill another one.”

  “Even if I swallow that without choking to death,” Dana said, “what was Morrison doing there in the first place?”

  Click.

  April smiled coldly. “He said he was worried that Gail would change her mind about going after the gold artifacts. He was there to protect her if she showed up. Then Socks came on the scene and started shooting. Morrison nailed him three times, only to be shot by two trigger-happy yahoos who should have known better.”

  Click.

  The pen flashed and disappeared into Shane’s pocket. “We have two separate problems,” he said. “Druid gold and a fake laundry. They intersect with me. They intersect with Gail. They also intersect with Morrison. There’s a pattern.”

  “What pattern?” April asked acidly. Her tone said cluster fuck.

&nb
sp; “None of what I’ll say can be proved legally, because all the parties are either dead or missing,” Shane said.

  Motionless, April waited.

  “At some time in the past week, Virgil O’Conner was murdered in Sedona,” Shane said. “Either before, during, or afterward, his Druid gold was stolen by Cherelle, Socks, and/or Tim Seton.”

  “Connection?” April said sharply.

  “O’Conner believed in channeling,” Risa said. “Cherelle and Tim represented themselves as channels. Also . . . we found three wooden boxes with O’Conner’s name and address in Cherelle’s rented room near Sedona. We believe, but can’t prove, that they came from his home.”

  April filed away the name of Virgil O’Conner.

  Risa threaded her fingers more deeply through Shane’s. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Cherelle and too much blood.

  “The DNA on file for Tim matched the DNA in the blood left on Joey Cline’s floor,” Shane continued.

  “How do you know that?” April asked.

  He ignored her. His talent for picking apart various official firewalls and looking through computer files wasn’t going to be part of the discussion. In any case, it was Factoid, Rarities Unlimited’s very own computer guru, who had done the hacking. That wasn’t something April needed to know either.

  “Take it as a given,” Niall suggested.

  April never looked away from Shane. “I’m listening.”

  “There were two sets of footprints going through the blood,” Shane said. “Tim Seton left one set. When the police get around to it, I’m betting that Socks will be a match for the other footprints.”

  “So?”

  “So we have the two of them fencing stolen gold artifacts,” Risa said, “and then killing the fence.”

  “Before he died, Cline turned the artifacts to Shapiro,” Shane said.