Shel was a threat to Gil’s squeaky-clean DA image. Gil had been distancing himself when that stupid whore Erasma showed the video to Louisa. The one, single time at Isla Rosalba that Gil had let himself be tempted, after too many drinks, too many lines of coke, too many naked girls bouncing their tits. He’d given in—and they had filmed him. Hypocritical little bitches. They took the money and the gifts, they guzzled the champagne and snorted the coke, and then, oh poor me! I was exploited!
But Louisa hadn’t seen it that way when Erasma showed her the video.
Now Louisa had Erasma’s fucking flash drive. Of course, she’d run to her cop friend, Willis. Gil had to move fast to shut that down. He tried to shut down Louisa, too, but the bitch had surprised him. She’d evaded the professional he’d sent. She’d gotten away with the flash drive. The only thing that had saved his ass was a surprise visit from his brother-in-law, Josh. Perfectly timed. Destiny’s kiss.
Holding her precious brother over Louisa’s head had kept her in line so far, but this death grip was exhausting. And Shel was getting restless. Something had to give.
He’d played his role masterfully. The heartbroken husband. The dedicated and driven DA. Nothing, not even personal tragedy, would stop Gil Clemens’ crusade for justice, law and order. He would follow that crusade all the way to the top. From DA to governor. Then senator. Maybe attorney general. And then, eventually…president.
Strange how his instincts had failed him in regards to Louisa. He’d thought she was docile. Easy to mold, once he cured her of her childish fits about her art hobby.
She’d tricked him. Tried to destroy him. She deserved to be punished. His games with Shel’s whore had taught him how much fun sharp discipline could be.
He could develop a taste for that. Making them whimper and squeal.
But Sheldon was devolving. Two hundred billion dollars was a superpower, but not if the man fried his own brain.
“…waited long enough to get this mess cleaned up!” Shel was complaining. “Nail that bitch to the wall, Gil! Do you need more personnel to get the job done?”
“I’m good,” Gil said. “Everything’s under control.”
“I have a whole army on retainer, you know. I’ll give you one more week, Gil. Get it handled. And send me pictures, to show me that it’s done.”
“The next time we talk, I will have news,” Gil promised.
“You’d better.” Gil heard Shel’s ice cubes rattle as he glugged his drink. “It’s expensive, owning a pet DA.” His voice was smug and oily. “Earn your fucking keep.”
“I will.” Gil waited for Shel to hang up. He was in no position to hang up first.
One of his most urgent life goals was to be able to hang up on that prick. Better yet, to choke the life out of him. Shel was a worthless playboy, already on track to die young, but it would be fun to hurry the process along. He could get drunk and fall off his yacht. Or auto-asphyxiate himself in a sex game with his whores. The possibilities were endless.
Josh’s game soundtrack was annoying the shit out of him. Josh had no access to a phone or a router, and was allowed only single-player games, but the music drove Gil nuts. “Enough gaming,” he told Josh. “Go to bed. I’m sick of listening to it.”
Josh didn’t turn. “One minute.” His voice was flat and dead. “Let me level up.
Mouthy little shithead. Gil had nothing left to gain from pretending to be friendly with his brother-in-law. But Josh still hadn’t gotten the memo.
“Belker,” he said to the guard who sat near the couch. “Explain to Josh the importance of doing what the fuck he’s told.”
Belker stood. He was a barrel-shaped guy with a squashed looking face. He pulled a black club off his weapons belt and sauntered toward Josh, smacking the club against his big, leathery palm, smiling widely. Belker liked his job.
Josh looked at Belker, then at Gil. The younger man’s face was mottled with bruises, some fresh, some older and yellowed. Nineteen-year-old Josh had finally grasped the depth of the trouble he was in, which made it too dangerous for Gil to display him in public.
No more interviews for Joshie. No reason to hold back on the punishment. Sometimes it was refreshing, to just let people know exactly who was in control.
“Go to bed, you fucking freak,” Gil said icily. “Or I’ll have him beat you again.”
Josh’s hollow eyes lingered on the club in Belker’s hand. Smack. Smack. Smack.
Belker’s eyes were bright with anticipation. Gil found himself hoping Josh would rebel. In his current mood, the spectacle would be a pleasure to watch.
But Josh got up, moving as stiffly as an old man. He turned toward the stairs.
“Take a goddamn shower before you come down here again,” Gil ordered. “And change that shirt, for fuck’s sake. I’m sick of smelling it.”
Josh shuffled toward the stairwell. Gil listened to his slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs going up. Belker followed him up. A guard was always stationed outside Josh’s bedroom, and the windows on his bedroom had been barred and alarmed.
Gil leaned back with a sigh and picked up his tablet, resuming the paused video about that crazy town up in the mountains.
There she was, that cute brunette with the big, tilted green eyes. She flapped her hand expressively while she talked. Gil tuned out her yapping, focusing on her full lips and luscious figure. She was sitting at a lunch counter. The camera panned back, showing colorful chalkboard menus.
He paused the video and ran it back. Played it again. What was it about that…?
It was tickling the back of his mind. Those chalkboards. Bright chalk drawings of fruits, breads, cakes, veggies. They were familiar.
Gil dug around in the videos about Shaw’s Crossing until he found another one featuring the green-eyed woman. Her name was Demi Vaughan. She was a local restauranteur. The story involved some strange cult up in the mountains, all of whom had burned to death in a fire over a decade ago. He vaguely remembered hearing about that, back when he was a first-year law student. It had gotten a lot of press.
Now they were saying that the fire was actually a mass murder. That the perp was on the loose. Hah. The world was full of perps on the loose. That was humankind for you. Rolling in their own filth whenever they thought no one was looking.
He set the clip to play, and watched the restaurant owner talk. She was easy on the eyes. Clear green eyes, a full pink mouth. Curly brown hair, twisted into a bun.
“…strange, how many things in this town were taken as deaths by coincidence, or natural causes, like my own father’s death,” she said. “We all felt like we were cursed. Now we know that there’s more to all those unexplained deaths. There’s an explanation, and we have to get to the bottom of this, for everyone’s sake.”
He did a search of restaurants in Shaw’s Crossing. One was called “Demi’s Corner Café.” He looked up the restaurant’s Facebook page to find the address.
Lo and behold. The masthead across the top was a collage of chalkboard menus. Feathery carrot fronds, artfully drawn garlic and leeks, tufts of parsley and basil, baskets overflowing with colorful fruits.
It floated back to him quite slowly. Louisa had done drawings like that. He hadn’t paid much attention to them, since he’d considered it a poor use of her time, but it had amused her to draw decorative chalkboard menus for dinner parties. She’d once done a chalk drawing for the bar mitzvah of a friend’s son. She’d done chalkboard menus for the wedding of a friend of hers, too. One of her own bridesmaids. Taryn was the woman’s name.
He looked up Taryn on Facebook, and scrolled back to the date of the woman’s wedding a little over a year ago. Sure enough, Taryn had posted pictures of the chalkboards. There were over three hundred likes, and a scroll of fawning comments below about how adorable they were, peppered with smiley faces, heart emojis.
The chalkboards for Taryn’s wedding were extremely similar to the chalk art on the Facebook masthead. Bright, playful, silly, frivolous, like all
of Louisa’s amateurish art attempts. But Louisa’s style, although childish, was distinctive.
His spirits soared. That dumb bitch. She had sent up a beacon for him.
He slid the phone into his pocket, his balls tingling, and addressed the guard watching the monitors. “You, Belker and Aldo, don’t take your eyes off the kid,” he said. “Erdinger and Jamison, let’s move. We have a lead.”
It was going to feel so good to put this problem to bed.
With a shovel.
8
Nate felt the chill settle in as dawn started to lighten around the blackout blinds. Elisa didn’t say a word, and she didn’t have to. The wild magic they had generated together was circling the drain.
He’d prepared himself for this. It was normal for her to shut down and pull away from him afterward. The woman had mysterious issues that he didn’t know shit about. It would have been a miracle if this hadn’t happened.
Knowing that didn’t make it easier to swallow, however.
That night had torn down all his natural barriers. He’d never felt a sexual connection like this one in his life. And he’d had lots of opportunity to work on them.
There was just enough light to make out her face, but it told him nothing. He felt her withdrawal on a deeper level, as if she was taking a silent step back from him, then another. Tiptoeing away, in the privacy of her mind. Hoping he wouldn’t notice.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.” Her voice was detached. “I’m great. You need a lot of reassurance, Nate, you know that?”
As an experiment, he tugged her toward himself. Sure enough, she resisted the pull. Just as he thought. The door had slammed shut. The lock had engaged.
That night had seemed too good to be true…because it fucking was.
He waited until he could control his tone. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She rolled away, sitting up with her straight, slender back to him. That mass of wavy dark hair tapered down to curly wisps at waist level.
He let his silence speak for him. She made an impatient sound. “I don’t owe you an explanation for every last little feeling that I have, Nate.”
“Not unless I’m the one who made you have it,” he replied.
She waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but there’s a lot going on inside my mind that has nothing to do with you.”
“I don’t doubt it. If you told me about some of it, maybe I could help.”
Elisa got up, shaking her hair back. “I knew this was a mistake.”
Well, then. That was his cue, if he ever heard one. Nate got up and reached for his pants. He didn’t trust himself to say another word.
Elisa scooped up her tank top from the floor and yanked it over her head, shaking her hair loose over it. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “That sounded bitchy. The sex was amazing. But the reason that I held back for so long was because I knew that we’d come to exactly this point. I didn’t want to have to cut you off, and be rude. To make you feel rejected. You don’t deserve it. I just didn’t want to do that.”
“So don’t,” he said. “No one’s forcing you.”
“You have no idea what’s going on with me, Nate.”
“So tell me,” he urged.
She blew out a sharp sigh. “I’ve never had sex like that. It really was amazing. Wonderful. But I have nothing else for you, and I want my privacy back. I know it sounds harsh, but you need to go. Right now.”
Nate methodically tugged on his shoes. Tucked in his shirt. Buckled his belt. That was how long it took to get his face under control before he looked at her again.
“We have something special,” he said, pulling on his shoulder holster.
“Don’t make this harder,” she said. “Let it go. Let me go. That’s all that can happen.”
“Why? Why does this have to be it?” He simply couldn’t keep the words back.
She threw up her hands. “Because of me, okay? I’m messed up! I’ll ruin your life! True thing. I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but I’m actually trying to do the right thing here. I should never have slept with you in the first place.”
“Why would you ruin my life?” Nate shrugged on his suit jacket. “You’re not the life-ruining type. I’ve met that type before. I can spot them at a hundred yards. You’re not one of them. You’re a great person. You’re creative, positive, you work hard, you’re talented, you’re ready to help. Everyone likes you. Demi adores you. If you were that messed up, we would have noticed by now. You’re blowing smoke at me.”
She held open the door to the apartment. “Goodbye, Nate.”
He pulled on his overcoat and stepped through the door. “This is not over.”
“Wrong.” She shut the door in his face.
Not fast enough. He’d caught it. The catch of tears in her voice.
Nate leaned his forehead against the door. His heart thudded like he’d been running, and his eyes stung. He tapped the door with his fingertip.
“I’m on to you.” He said the words so softly, Elisa would only hear them if she was right on the other side, leaning on the door herself. He was sure that she was there. No need to raise his voice. “You don’t fool me for one second.”
No response.
“I’m a tough bastard,” he went on. “Tougher than whoever’s fucking with you.”
“Goddamn it.” He could barely hear her whisper behind the door. “Just go.”
“For now,” he told her. “But I’ll be back.”
Nate went down the stairs and stepped out into the icy air of dawn. The world was fuzzed with frost. The puddles were frozen.
He headed toward the place where the alley intersected with the sidewalk—and saw people through the two corner windows of the diner.
Instinctively, he jerked back behind the wall. He peered around it cautiously.
The guy had his hands cupped, and was staring through the window into the Corner Café, smiling. He looked triumphant.
He didn’t look like one of Kimball’s goons. Youngish, late thirties, early forties, maybe. Chiseled face, square jaw, short hair. Tall, lean, built. Women would probably rate him high in the looks department, if somewhat bland. He looked prosperous, well-groomed. And way too interested in the inside of Demi’s closed restaurant.
Nate heard the sound of car doors opening. Two more men got out of a black late-model Audi, and spoke to the first man in low tones that he couldn’t overhear.
Those two, in contrast, could indeed be Kimball’s men. They had the battle-hardened look of guys who’d spent time in combat zones. But not the first man. And based on their body language, the second two men deferred to the first guy. He was their boss.
That guy couldn’t be Kimball’s man. No one working for Redd Kimball would stand out there on the street, gawking at Demi Vaughan’s restaurant, after everything that had happened recently. Kimball’s crew would be more discreet.
The mystery guy headed down the street, beckoning for the others to follow.
Nate eased out of the alley, taking a moment to memorize the Audi’s license plate number. After cautious interval, he followed them.
Dear Nate.
The pen in Elisa’s hand shook. There were wet spots on the paper, and it was the last sheet of paper she had. She’d packed up the rest of it, along with her pens, charcoal, chalk, paints, into her suitcase, leaving little room for clothes. Fortunately, her wardrobe was not extensive. Just an extra pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, some underwear. A toothbrush, a brush, some toiletries.
Dear Nate. So many things she wanted to say.
None of them were sayable. Not without putting him in deadly danger.
I would have loved to have you for my lover, but it’s not worth watching you die.
I’d prefer that you stay alive, even if I can’t have you for myself.
I like the world better knowing that you’re in it somewhere.
No. She couldn’t. That would just set h
im off on a hero’s quest. He’d get killed, like Willis.
She had to get to the bus station, on foot, dragging that suitcase across town. She couldn’t even call the town’s single, solitary taxi, since it was driven by Herbie Manz, an elderly Marine buddy of Henry Shaw, Demi’s grandfather. Herbie knew her by name. She’d served him meals, coffee, pie, for months. He would want to know exactly where she was going, and why. So the taxi was not an option.
Demi peered around the edge of the blackout blinds to see if Nate’s car was still parked on the street where he’d left it.
She jerked back from the window with a choked shriek, and found herself doubled over on the ground, her face resting on the futon bed, heart racing. Run, run, run. Go. Now.
That was Gil. Right there, on the street, below her window. Fuck.
She forced herself to get up on trembling, wobbling legs. Move, you idiot. She couldn’t freeze like a goddamn rabbit. No suitcase, then. Just her shoulder bag, to hold her laptop. She could run with that. She steeled herself to peek around the blinds.
First peek: two other men were getting out of Gil’s black Audi, the one he’d just bought right before she ran away. Next peek: the three men were talking together. The next time she steeled herself to look, they were gone. They had left the parked car and disappeared. She had no idea in what direction they had gone.
Oh God. Such a fool. She should have run long ago. She’d left it too late. But whatever. Onward. She had to keep trying.
Elisa pulled the brim of her hat down to shadow her face and slapped on the huge, face-distorting sunglasses she’d picked out at the Walmart in Granger Valley. They gave the world a drab green-brown tint.
She’d never had any illusions about how long her life might last. With facial recog tech and social media and cameras everywhere, it was just a matter of time until Gil tracked her down, in spite of her hat with the LED lights and her sunglasses. Gil had all of that asshole Shel Sinclair’s money behind him, and money was the key to every lock, including huge databases full of images. She knew what was coming. There was no way to head it off forever. When it ended, it ended.
Heedless: The Hellbound Brotherhood Book Four Page 8