Lethal

by Sandra Brown

  “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “The hell he wouldn’t. If he thinks you’ve got information, he’d hurt you plenty, you or your kid. Make no mistake about that. And then, whether you’d told him anything useful or not, he’d kill you. So stay and die, or come with me. You’ve got to the count of five to make up your mind. One.”

  “Maybe you’re not lying, but you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong. Two.”

  “I can’t just leave with you.”

  “When Hawkins gets here, I’ll be gone, and you can explain—or try to—how his dearly departed twin wound up with a bullet hole in his head. He probably won’t be in a very receptive mood. Three.”

  “Doral wouldn’t raise a finger to me. To Emily? Eddie’s child? Out of the question. I know him.”

  “Like you thought you knew his policeman brother.”

  “You’re wrong about Fred, too.”

  “Four.”

  “You’re telling me you’re the good guy, and I’m supposed to believe it simply because you said it?” Her voice had gone raw and ragged with emotion. “I know these men. I trust them. But I don’t know you!”

  He stared at her for several beats, then put his hand around the front of her neck to hold her head still. He moved his face close to hers and whispered, “You know me. You know I’m who I say.”

  Her pulse beat rapidly against his strong fingers, but it was his piercing gaze that held her pinned to the wall behind her.

  “Because if I wasn’t, I would have fucked you last night.” He held her for several seconds longer, then dropped his hand and backed away. “Five. Are you coming or not?”

  Doral Hawkins hurled an armchair against the wall, then, angered because it hadn’t busted up like they do in the movies, he whacked it against the wall again and again until the wood splintered. He punted a thick New Orleans Yellow Pages through the living room window. Then, standing amid the shattered windowpane, he clasped a double handful of his thinning hair and pulled hard as though wanting to rip it from his scalp.

  He was in a state. Part agonizing anguish, part sheer animal rage.

  His twin lay dead on the floor of Honor’s house with a bullet hole bored through the center of his head. Doral had seen worse wounds. He’d inflicted worse. Like the time a guy had bled to death, slowly and screaming, after Doral eviscerated him with a hunting knife.

  But his brother’s lethal wound was the most obscene of Doral’s experience because it was like looking at his own death mask. The blood hadn’t even had time to congeal.

  Honor wouldn’t have killed him. It had to have been that son of a bitch Coburn.

  During their last phone conversation, Fred, speaking in a hushed and hurried voice so Honor wouldn’t overhear, had told him that their quarry, Lee Coburn, had been making cozy with her all the while they’d been chasing their tails through the pest-ridden swamp looking for him.

  “He’s there now?” Doral had asked excitedly.

  “We’re not that lucky. He’s split.”

  “How much head start does he have?”

  “Minutes, or could be hours. Honor says she woke up, he was gone. Took her car.”

  “She all right?”

  “In a tizzy. Babbling.”

  “What was Coburn doing there?”

  “The whole house is torn up.”

  “He knew about Eddie?”

  “When he put in on this bayou, I got a sick feeling, and, yeah, looks like.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “What did Honor say?”

  “Said he was after something that Eddie had died protecting.”

  “Fuck.”

  “My thought exactly.”

  After a short pause, Doral had asked quietly, “What are you gonna do?”

  “Go after him.”

  “I mean about Honor.”

  Fred’s sigh had come loudly through the cell connection. “The Bookkeeper didn’t leave me a choice. When I called in that I was going to check out Eddie’s place… Well, you know.”

  Yes, Doral knew. The Bookkeeper took no prisoners, and it wouldn’t matter if it was a family friend, or a woman and child. No loose ends. No mercy.

  Fred had been torn up about it, but he would do what he had to do, because he knew it was necessary. He was also aware of the severe consequences suffered by anyone who failed to carry out an order.

  They’d ended their call with the understanding that he would take care of the problem, so that by the time Doral joined him at the Gillette place, they could report to the sheriff’s office the horrifying double murder of Honor and Emily.

  They’d chalk up the homicides to Coburn, who was sure to have left his fingerprints all over Honor’s house. There were muddy, blood-stained clothes left in the bathroom, which would prove to be his. Law enforcement personnel would be galvanized. Fred knew the buzz words to use with the media so they’d take the story and run with it. Soon the whole state would be salivating for a piece of Lee Coburn, only suspect in the warehouse massacre, woman and kid killer.

  It had been a good plan, now shot to hell.

  Doral spent a critical ten minutes in rage and grief. But, his fit having subsided, he wiped the mucus and tears from his face and forced himself to put personal feelings aside until he could indulge in them properly, and instead to evaluate the present situation. Which sucked. Big-time.

  Most troubling was that Fred’s body was the only one in evidence. There was no sign of Honor and Emily, or of their remains, in or near the house. If his brother had dispatched them, he’d hidden their bodies very well.

  Or—and it was a really troublesome or—Coburn had popped Fred before he’d had a chance to dispatch Honor and her daughter. If that was the case, where were they now? Hiding until someone came to their rescue? Possibly. But that meant that as soon as he found them, he’d have to kill them, and the thought of that made him queasy.

  There was also a third possibility, and it was the worst-case scenario: Coburn and Honor had escaped together.

  Doral gnawed on that. It portended all kinds of trouble, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He was a hunter, not a detective, and not a strategist except when it came to stalking. Besides, it wasn’t up to him to determine what the next course of action should be. He’d let The Bookkeeper figure it out.

  Like the Godfather in the movie, The Bookkeeper insisted on hearing bad news right away. Doral placed the call and it was answered on the first ring. “Have you found Coburn?”

  “Fred’s been killed.”

  He waited for a reaction, but didn’t really expect one and didn’t get it. Not even a shocked exclamation, certainly not a murmur of sympathy. The Bookkeeper would be interested only in hearing the facts and hearing them immediately.

  As uncomfortable as it was to be the bearer of bad news, Doral described the scene at Honor’s house and passed along everything that Fred had told him before he was shot. “I got one more call from his cell, but as soon as I answered, it was cut off. I don’t know who placed that call, and when I dial his number now, I get nothing. The phone’s missing. I found his police-issued one in the hall. I don’t know what happened to Honor and Emily. There’s no sign of them. Fred’s pistol is also gone. And… and…”

  “More bad news? Spit it out, Doral.”

  “The house is torn up all to hell. Honor told Fred that Coburn came here looking for something he thought Eddie had squirreled away.”

  The silence that followed was deafening. Both were thinking about the grave implications of Coburn’s search through Honor’s house. They certainly couldn’t dismiss it as a bizarre coincidence.

  Doral wisely remained quiet and tried to keep his gaze from wandering back to his brother’s corpse. But he couldn’t help himself, and each time he looked at it, he felt a burning rage. Nobody humiliated a Hawkins like that. Coburn would pay and pay dearly.

  “Did Coburn find what he was looking for?”

  This was
the question Doral had most dreaded, because he didn’t have an answer for it. “Who’s to say?”

  “You’re to say, Doral. Find them. Learn what they know or retrieve what they have, then dispatch them.”

  “You don’t need to tell me.”

  “Don’t I? I told you and your brother not to let anyone leave that warehouse alive.”

  Doral felt his face burn.

  “And let me emphasize,” The Bookkeeper continued, “that there’s no room for another mistake. Not when we’re on the brink of opening up a whole new market for ourselves.”

  For months The Bookkeeper had been obsessed with sealing a deal with a new cartel out of Mexico that needed an established and reliable network to provide protection as they trafficked their goods across the state of Louisiana. Drugs and girls going one way, guns and heavy weaponry the other. They were big players, willing to pay substantial sums for peace of mind.

  The Bookkeeper was determined to get their business. But it wasn’t going to happen unless one hundred percent reliability was guaranteed. Killing Sam Marset was supposed to have been a swift and bloody resolution to a problem. “Make a splash,” The Bookkeeper had told him and Fred, tongue in cheek.

  But although it would never be admitted, the mass murder had opened up a hornet’s nest. They were now in damage control mode, and in order to protect his own interests, Doral would go along. He had no choice.

  “The next time I call you, Doral, it’ll be from another cell phone. If Coburn’s got Fred’s phone—”

  “He’ll have your number.”

  “Unless your brother did as told and cleared the log each time we talked. But in any case, I’ll switch to a new phone.”

  “Understood.”

  “Get Coburn.”

  “Also understood.”

  He and Fred had had a patsy in place to frame for the warehouse murders. But the dock worker who had managed to escape the bloodbath, this Lee Coburn, had made himself an even better “suspect.”

  They had counted on finding him within an hour of the killings, hunkered down somewhere, shaking in his boots, praying to his Maker to deliver him from evil. Later, they planned to attest that he’d been fatally shot while trying to escape arresting officer Fred Hawkins.

  But Coburn had proved himself to be smarter than expected. He’d eluded Fred and him. And even when being tracked by armed men and bloodhounds, he’d run to Honor Gillette’s house and had spent a lot of valuable time searching it. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist…

  “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

  “I don’t pay you to think, Doral.”

  The insult stung, but he pressed on. “This guy Coburn burst onto the scene a year ago and worked his way into Sam Marset’s confidence. I’m beginning to think he’s no ordinary loading dock worker, somebody who accidentally got wind of the more lucrative aspects of Marset’s operation and decided to horn in. He seems—what’s the word? Overqualified. Not your average trucking company employee.”

  After another weighty silence, The Bookkeeper said bitingly, “Did you figure that out all by yourself, Doral?”

  Chapter 15

  Since Honor’s house was outside the city limits, the sheriff’s office had jurisdiction. The deputy, who was that department’s singular homicide investigator, was a man named Crawford. Doral had failed to catch his first name.

  Doral was retelling how he’d come to find the body of his brother when Crawford looked beyond his shoulder and muttered, “Dammit, who’s that? Who let him in here?”

  Doral turned. Stan Gillette must have talked his way past the uniformed officers stringing crime scene tape around the perimeter of the Gillette property. He paused only briefly on the threshold, then, sighting Doral, made a beeline toward him.

  “That’s Stan Gillette, Honor’s father-in-law.”

  “Great,” the detective said. “The last thing we need.”

  Doral echoed the detective’s sentiment but kept his feelings from showing by assuming an appropriately somber expression as the older man approached.

  The former Marine didn’t even glance at Fred’s body, which had been zipped into a black plastic bag that was presently being strapped onto a gurney for transport by ambulance to the morgue. Instead he barked as though issuing a subordinate an order:

  “It’s true? Honor and Emily have been kidnapped?”

  “Well, they’re not here and Coburn was.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Stan ran his hand over his burred head, around the back of his neck, uttered a string of curses. Then he fixed a hard stare on Doral. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you out looking for them?”

  “I will be, soon as Deputy Crawford frees me to go.” He gestured toward the deputy and made a cursory introduction. “He’s investigating—”

  “With all due respect to your investigation,” Stan said, interrupting Doral and addressing the deputy with none of the respect he mentioned, “it can wait. Fred died in the performance of his duty, which is a risk that every police officer accepts. He’s dead and nothing can bring him back. Meanwhile two innocent people are missing, most likely kidnapped by a man believed to be a ruthless murderer.”

  He tilted his head toward Doral. “He’s the best hunter in the area. He should be out looking for Honor and Emily in the hope of finding them before they are killed, not standing here talking to you about somebody who’s already dead. And if you had any gumption at all, you’d also be out tracking the fugitive and his hostages instead of languishing here in the one place that they’re noticeably not in.”

  His voice had risen with each word so that his statement ended on a full-blown shout that brought all the activity going on around them to a halt. Everyone turned to stare. Stan, his color high, his posture rigid with righteous indignation, seemed not to notice.

  To his credit, the deputy didn’t wither under Stan’s blistering criticism. He was several inches shorter than both Stan and Doral, and was as physically unimposing as a man could possibly be. But he stood his ground. “I’m here in an official capacity, Mr. Gillette. Which makes one of us.”

  Doral could tell that Stan was about to blow a gasket, but Crawford didn’t flinch. “I’ll have the ass of whoever let you past the crime scene tape, but as long as you’re here, you could try to be helpful. Talking down to me and issuing orders won’t get you anywhere except escorted off the premises, and if you resist, you’ll be arrested and taken to jail.”

  Doral thought Stan might even be on the verge of taking out the knife for which he was famous and using it to threaten the gullet of the deputy. Before that could happen, Doral intervened. “Cut him some slack, Crawford. He’s just received distressing news. Let me have a word with him. Okay?”

  The deputy shifted his gaze from one man to the other. “Coupla minutes while I’m talking to the coroner. Then, Mr. Gillette, I’d like you to walk through the house with me, see if you can spot anything that’s missing.”

  Stan glanced around at the disarray. “How could I possibly determine that?”

  “I understand, but it wouldn’t hurt to look. Maybe you’ll notice something that gives us a clue as to why and where Coburn took them.”

  “That’s the best you can do?” Stan asked.

  The deputy merely returned his steely look, then said, “Coupla minutes,” and moved away. But suddenly he came back around. “Who notified you? How’d you get here so fast?”

  Stan rocked forward and back on the balls of his feet as though he didn’t intend to answer. Finally he said, “Yesterday Honor told me that she and Emily were sick. Obviously she was coerced into saying that, purposely to keep me away. This morning I was worried about them and decided to drive out and check on them. When I arrived, I found the house surrounded by police cars. One of the officers told me what it’s feared has happened.”

  Crawford sized him up again, said, “Don’t touch anything,” then turned away to consult the coroner.

  Doral nudged Stan’s arm. “Back here
.”

  They moved down the hallway. Doral went past Emily’s bedroom, but Stan paused at the open door and then went in. He walked over to the bed and stared down at it for several long moments, then slowly surveyed the room with his eagle eyes.

  Looking troubled, he rejoined Doral and followed him into Honor’s bedroom. In the salty language of the military, he expressed disgust over the damage done to it.

  “Listen,” Doral said, needing to get this out before Deputy Crawford reappeared. “Promise you won’t fly off the handle.”

  Stan promised nothing, merely stared at him.

  Doral said, “Crawford noticed something and commented on it.”

  “What?”

  Doral indicated the bed. “Looks like two people slept there last night. I’m not making anything of it,” he added hastily. “I’m just telling you that Crawford remarked on it.”

  “Suggesting what?” Stan asked through lips that barely moved. “That my daughter-in-law slept with a man wanted for seven murders?”

  Doral raised one shoulder, the gesture both noncommittal and sympathetic. “Is there a chance, Stan, the smallest chance, that she, you know, had met this guy before he showed up here yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure? You know everybody Honor—”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Every woman that Fred interviewed yesterday—neighbors, women who work at the trucking company—pretty much agree this guy’s a stud.”

  “If Honor is with Lee Coburn,” Stan said, his voice vibrating with anger, “she was taken against her will.”

  “I believe you,” Doral said, contradicting his insinuation of only seconds earlier. “The good news is that her and Emily’s bodies weren’t found here along with Fred’s.”

  For the first time Stan acknowledged Doral’s loss. “My condolences.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Have you told your mother?”

  “I called my eldest sister. She’s on her way out to Mama’s place now to break the news.”