Die Smiling

by Linda Ladd

  I cursed under my breath, furious at the time we were wasting. “Then I’m requesting a leave of absence, sir, for personal reasons.”

  More silence. Then Charlie said, “Granted.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Make sure you make that call to Ortega when you land, I mean it, Claire. And be careful, goddamn it.”

  That’s the first time I ever heard Charlie use the Lord’s name in vain, but I forgave him. I clicked him off and punched in Black on speed dial. He answered quickly.

  “We’re approaching the Springfield-Branson Airport. We’ll set down there in a few minutes.”

  “I need you to get me to Miami, and fast.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I think Bud’s gone down there after Costin, and we’re wasting time.”

  “Damn it, Claire.” Silence. “All right, I’ll have my pilot work up a flight plan. Where are you now?”

  “I’m still at the hospital. I’ll get a cab and meet you at the airport. It’ll be faster.”

  We hung up, and a mere twenty minutes later we were in the air. I filled in Black on the details, and he frowned a lot, but he listened until I was finished. Then he said, “This is not a good idea. In fact, it’s stupid as hell. We’re talking about trying to apprehend a killer outside your jurisdiction.”

  “No. We’re just gonna go pick up Bud. We’re stopping him from doing something stupid.”

  “You’re headed for trouble, Claire.”

  “Bud’s caught up in some kind of blinding bloodlust thing and I’m afraid he’ll get hurt.” That wasn’t all I was afraid of, but I didn’t say it. “I can’t let it happen.”

  “Well, hell, I’d say Bud has good enough reason to be out for blood. I’d like to kill that son of a bitch, too, for what he did to you.”

  “Just get the pilot to land as close as he can get to Hollywood, Florida. That’s all I’m asking. I can talk Bud down from this, make him see reason. I know I can.”

  Black was not happy. I could tell by his massive frown and the way he was pacing the floor and shaking his head and making disapproving growls. “Only if you check your weapons with airport security like you did last time. God, I can’t believe I’m letting you talk me into this.”

  I left him to talk to the pilot and arrange permission to land, and then I punched in Mario Ortega’s number.

  He answered and said, “You get him?”

  “Not exactly.” I explained what went down in Springfield and what was going down now.

  He said, “Holy shit.”

  I agreed. Same phrase, too.

  He said, “When’s your partner setting down out at MI?”

  “I don’t know. How about checking out the passenger lists for me? He’d fly out of either St. Louis, Kansas City, or Springfield, Missouri. Would you be willing to find out and pick him up when he gets off the plane? We’re gonna land up the coast near Hollywood, then drive down to Costin’s place. Can you find out if he’s on a flight anywhere in to south Florida?”

  “Yeah. Won’t be easy, but I’ll get it done.”

  “How about getting me permission to carry instate when I land?”

  “Yeah, I’ll arrange it. Just don’t shoot anybody.”

  We hung up and I felt distinctly relieved. So would Charlie. So would Bud when he came to his senses. And then, hooray, all our troubles would be over.

  We ended up landing at the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, where Black had a rental car lined up and waiting. I still hadn’t heard from Ortega. In the misty morning light, we took the coast highway south, Black driving because of my stupid foot, and it took us almost twenty minutes to reach the road that turned off the highway and led us to Hilde’s beach. When I thought we were close to the house Shaggy had described, we pulled off the side of the road and stared at the rental car parked on the opposite shoulder. Bud had beat us there, after all. How, I couldn’t figure. Or maybe it was Costin’s. Whoever the car belonged to, the driver had obviously wanted to sneak in to the beach house from the back, probably on foot. We climbed a low hill and got our first look at Costin’s hideout. It was pretty much as Shaggy had described it. Quiet and deserted. Gray, weathered, the ocean swelling and ebbing in front of it, the roar loud and foreboding. A green Concorde was parked at the rear of the house. I got a really, really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  That sensation increased when I saw that the back door stood open. Black and I approached, weapons out and ready. Yeah, he had one, too, just like last time. I didn’t like this, not at all. We stood on either side of the door. I peeked around the door. It led into some kind of laundry room. No sound inside. Nothing looked disturbed. No sign of human habitation, except for the two cars.

  So in we went, me first. We performed the same wary dance outside the door to the kitchen. I darted a look around the door frame and saw a kitchen table and two chairs. There was one plate sitting on top. Half-eaten macaroni and cheese. A glass was overturned, milk pooled on the table. Lots of white gauze bandages and antiseptic burn ointments lying around. One of my slugs had hit Costin. Broken dishes littered the floor and crunched under our feet. Through the living room, we saw that the front door was open, too. It looked like either Bud had dragged Costin out the back or vice versa. Knowing Bud had the element of surprise, I had a feeling it was the former. Oh, God.

  Outside, we again met with ocean roar. Wind in the sea grasses. No one to be seen.

  Black looked at the old garage. “They’ve got to be in there.”

  We headed for it, gained the door, and stood on each side, guns ready. We were getting good at this team thing. I pushed it open with my left hand. At the creak it made, Bud spun around to face us. He was sitting in a chair. His face was ashen. He gripped his .45 in one hand, but had it lying atop his lap. He didn’t say anything.

  Costin was taped to a chair a few feet in front of Bud, ankles, arms, forehead. He had tape over his mouth. His eyes were open and staring. He had a bullet hole between his eyes.

  I said, “Oh, God, Bud, what’d you do?”

  Bud stared at me. He seemed slightly stunned, but dead calm. Black and I moved forward, but my heart was in my throat. If Bud had lost control and murdered Costin, he was finished in law enforcement, finished period. He was going to prison for a very, very long time.

  Bud said, “He was dead when I got here.”

  “Bud, that’s not gonna wash. Charlie knows you came down here. Ortega knows. How could you do this?”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  Black had gone straight to the body. He squatted down in front of Costin but didn’t touch him. “Claire, look at this.”

  I joined him and stared at the corpse and knew then Bud hadn’t done it. Both Costin’s earlobes were gone, neatly sliced away, blood coagulated on the straight edge. Relief flooded me.

  “Cutting off the earlobes is the Rangos trademark,” Black told me, “This is their hit, no question about it.”

  Black waited for me to argue, but I only nodded. I already knew whose calling card it was. Ortega told me what the Rangos did to their victims when I was at the station going over Esteban Rangos’s file.

  When I didn’t speak, Black raised both hands, as if to ward me off. “I had absolutely nothing to do with this,” he said. “I swear to God. I haven’t spoken to Jose since we saw him at the compound.”

  I believed him, of course. “I know you didn’t. They found out Costin killed Esteban, that’s why they did him. Ortega said Vasquez told them it was Costin who cut his mouth when they came to the hospital.”

  “How’d they know where to find him?”

  That was a good question, so I shrugged.

  Black answered it himself. “Doesn’t matter. Jose has his ways.”

  I nodded, sure that was true, but I was so glad that Costin was dead and so damn relieved that Bud hadn’t done it, I didn’t really care who had. Just so Bud didn’t have to rot in some stinking jail cell for murdering this piece of garbage.
That’s all that mattered to me.

  Bud was staring at the body now, and I had a feeling he was a little disoriented. “I was gonna kill him. I wanted to kill him. I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about it, couldn’t stop thinkin’ about what he did to Bri.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Well, you didn’t, thank God. And you probably couldn’t have, any more than you could go through with it in Springfield.”

  “I wanted to kill him. I wanted to shoot him.”

  I had to snap Bud out of his fog, and do it fast, because I had to get Ortega on the phone and report this crime right now. But that didn’t mean Bud had to hang around and get involved.

  “You gotta get outta here, Bud. Now. I’m calling Miami PD in on this, and they’ll alert Hollywood authorities, and you’re in no shape to be interrogated. It’s better if they don’t know you were ever here.”

  Black nodded. He said, “Let’s go, Bud, you need to get your car and drive up to the airport. My plane’s here, waiting for us, refueled and ready. Get on it and stay out of sight.”

  “You don’t understand. I wanted to murder him.” Bud looked lost and bewildered, bandaged arm and leg, bloodshot haunted eyes. He hadn’t slept; none of us had. We were all operating on anger and adrenaline. Under his windbreaker, Bud wore the clothes he’d worn the night before. Brianna’s blood crusted his sneakers.

  “You’re gonna have to snap out of it, Bud, now. Do what we say. Brianna needs you. She’s barely out of surgery, and you’re not there. How’s that gonna make her feel?”

  “Oh, my God, poor Bri.”

  Tears welled up in Bud’s eyes, making them shine in the dim light. His features twisted with utter agony, and he sobbed, totally out of it, bleary with fatigue and grief. “You saw what he did to her. You know how she suffered. I can’t get it outta my mind. I can’t stop thinkin’ about it…”

  Black took hold of Bud’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Okay, Bud. Let’s go. I’ll drive you to the airport in your car. Claire can handle this on her own until Ortega and the local authorities take over. You need some rest, that’s all. I’ve got something on the plane that’ll make you relax and sleep.”

  Like a sleepwalker, Bud moved obediently to the door and stood there waiting, his eyes latched on Walter Costin’s corpse.

  Black turned to me. “You will be all right here alone, won’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’ll turn this over to Ortega and then I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “Well, don’t forget, and don’t get caught up in something else in the meantime. And don’t worry. Bud’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him, give him a sedative.”

  I looked up at him. “That’s a lot of don’ts there, Black.”

  “I know you.”

  I smiled. “Know what, Black? You’re not so bad to have around.”

  Black smiled. Whoohoo, I do like that sexy smile he’s got.

  “Remember it. The truth is, I don’t need to be found at the scene of a Rangos hit, either. So why don’t I get Bud out of here so you can hand this thing over and we can get the hell out of here? I’ve had enough for one night.”

  I watched Black leave with Bud in tow, then I flipped open my cell phone and called Mario Ortega. When he answered, I said, “It’s Claire Morgan, Ortega. You better sit down.”

  I told him everything and gave him directions to the crime scene, then I glanced one last time at Walter Costin, who had ended up exactly the way he deserved. I wasted no pity on him. His deadly games were over for good. He would never hurt anybody, ever again. I walked outside and sat down in the shade of a palm tree and looked out over the ocean. I did so love the ocean. In time, I heard the wail of lots of police sirens.

  Epilogue

  Charlie didn’t ask too many questions, thank God, but the ones he did ask were punctuated with lots of fudge references. Bud took some time off, but he was all right after he spent a couple of days sedated in a hospital bed. He thanked us for what we’d done and told us he must’ve lost his mind for a little while, did things he wasn’t proud of, that he’d never have done if he was thinking straight. I believed that.

  Brianna got better, at least physically. Black flew in the finest plastic surgeons in the country to reconstruct her mouth, and they were as successful as anybody could be. But she couldn’t bear the terrible memories of the lake and all that had happened there, so she left for her beach house in Florida to rest and recuperate. Bud let her go, but they kept in touch. He was struggling to forgive himself for what he might have done if the Rangos family hadn’t struck first.

  Shaggy was reinstated at the coroner’s office, but on probation, and I didn’t tell anybody what Shaggy, Bud, and Brianna had planned to do. Their plot had failed, so no harm, no foul. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but at least Walter Costin was rotting in his grave. Truth was, Jose Rangos had just as much reason to want Costin dead as the rest of us, and he didn’t have any pesky law-and-order issues to deter him. I didn’t exactly condone the hit, but I wasn’t going to cry myself to sleep over it, either. Too bad he couldn’t whack all my other recurring, disturbing nightmares, too. Then all really would be well.

  Black came out smelling like a rose, of course, and I agreed to spend more time at his place if not completely move in with him, at least when he was in residence here at the lake. I felt like I owed him, you see, plus they did have some pretty awesome perks at Cedar Bend Lodge—room service and free housekeeping and a way cool weight room, to be exact. But I still liked my cabin by the lake, that was my home, and I still lived there, too, when Black jetted off on his ever-present, ever-important business trips, which was often, or whenever I felt I needed space and some time alone.

  Black backed off and hasn’t pressured me for a commitment, thank goodness, but that’s what he wanted and now we both knew it. I’ll make that decision later. I was enjoying some downtime while my foot healed and went fishing with Harve, now that he was back home from Michigan, not to mention having some quiet, intimate dinners with Black aboard his sleek motor yacht out in the middle of the lake where I was at the moment. These peaceful, halcyon days were well appreciated by Black and me, let me tell you, but they’d only last unless and until somebody else decided to kill their victim on my turf. And that would be a big mistake on their part, believe you me.

  I could see Black now, where he stood inside the big plate-glass windows of the main salon. He was talking business on the phone, but he only had on a pair of khaki shorts and no shirt, so I got to enjoy looking at all those hard, tanned muscles and ripped six-pack, remembering how good all that felt rubbing up against me. I did so with a great deal of appreciation and lascivious inner enjoyment. Yep, Black looked good, all right. Actually, he brought to mind one of my old college posters, you know the one all girls have tacked up in their rooms at one time or another, the one that says “a hard man is good to find.”

  When he saw me watching him, our eyes locked and some pretty strong sexual currents went crackling back and forth. I knew the minute he decided it was time to put down the phone and ring some erotic bells. I know that intense look he gets, that little pleased smile, that air of sensual anticipation. How do I know? Because I look pretty much the same way at the moment. So, so long, I’m heading inside and see what happens. Truth is, I know a good thing when I see it. And believe me, I’ve seen it.

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  Copyright © 2008 Linda King Ladd

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN: 0-7860-2070-9