Chameleon's Challenge (Chameleon Assassin Series Book 3)

by BR Kingsolver

  A check of the coordinates brought up Sturgeon Lake.

  “Wil, I think I tracked down Grenier’s place out in the woods.”

  “How far out in the woods? Are there roads?”

  “Probably. It’s a cabin near a lake about a hundred miles from here. It’s near civilization.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At Entertaincorp, but it’s too late to go out there today. In the morning?”

  “Yeah, that works. Send me the address of the place and I’ll make arrangements.”

  With the chase after Grenier on hold until the following morning, I checked my to-do list and decided I had time to go check on Lady Vivien and thank the lycan kids. Maybe they had seen him again.

  I left my bike at the orphanage, then took three buses to get near Lady Vivien’s place. The sun set while I rode the bus, the big red ball lighting up the smog in a riot of color. Sunsets in the country were always reds and yellows, but I thought the purples and greens that the air in the city added in made them more interesting.

  Considering that I was dressed for my meeting with Tremaine, I knew I would attract more attention in the enclave than a circus parade. With my pistol in hand, I blurred my form and set off, walking down alleys and keeping close to walls and fences.

  It took me about forty-five minutes to walk in. Full dark had set in, and the neighborhood was bustling.

  The store up the street from Lady Vivien’s place had a line out front waiting to get in. Two enormous lycans sat on either side of the entrance acting as gatekeepers and bouncers. Running a food store in an area where people sometimes starved wasn’t the safest profession.

  On the other hand, the apothecary shop place had people waiting outside but no security. Her customers needed her, not what she had.

  I ducked behind a crumbled wall in an alley and unblurred, then stepped out into the street. As I approached her shop, I heard the sound of skateboards behind me on the street. Turning, I saw six young, ragged lycans rushing toward me.

  About the time I bent my knees, ready to jump out of the way, the kid in front pulled some kind of trick that left him standing on the street and catching his skateboard as it flipped into the air in front of him.

  “Hi!” he said with a grin showing more teeth than I was comfortable with. “Thanks a lot for the board.”

  I looked around at the kids who now encircled me, each holding a new skateboard and grinning.

  “Lady Vivien told me you did a good job, so you got paid.”

  A couple cocked their heads, a couple more nodded. The others just kept grinning.

  “I have another job for you, if you’re interested.”

  The grins got larger, and they all nodded so hard I was afraid they might sprain something.

  “You know where The Old Store is?” I asked.

  “Yeah, everyone knows where that is.”

  “There’s a weird looking guy that hangs out around there—” I started.

  “He don’t hang out, he lives there,” one kid said.

  “The one who beat up Lady Viv,” another said.

  “Don’t live there no more,” a third one chimed in. “Soldiers blew the hell out of the place.”

  “Yeah, so you know the guy I’m talking about. If he comes around again, I’ll give twenty creds to anyone who leaves word at Miz Amanda’s orphanage.”

  They stared at me, slack-jawed, as though I had done something magical.

  “And I’ll pay another ten creds to each of you if you can follow him and find out where he goes and where he’s staying now. What do you say? Deal?”

  “Wow! You bet!”

  The five boys turned and raced away. The girl stayed.

  “Are you Miz Libby?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re so purty. I wanna be like you when I growed up.”

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Esmerelda.”

  “Do you know where Miz Amanda’s is?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “If you want to be something when you grow up, you need to learn to read and write.”

  “Ain’t no schools around here. My mama don’t got money to pay if there was.”

  “Go to Miz Amanda, and tell her that you want to go to school. Tell her I sent you. School runs from early morning to late afternoon, so you have to go during the day.”

  “You serious?”

  “Always. Are you serious?”

  “I’m lycan.”

  “Lycans can learn to read and write. Scientific fact. Girl named Towanda goes to school there. She’s part troll. Depends on what you want and how much you’re willing to work to get it.”

  She continued watching me as I turned to go inside.

  In addition to the half-dozen people waiting outside, Lady Vivien had another half-dozen waiting inside. The place was so crowded that I could hardly squeeze through. I spoke with Vivien for a couple of minutes, then left her to her patients and made my way back to the bus stop.

  When Wil showed up the following morning, I was ready for him, dressed and with a cup of coffee in me. He tried not to look surprised, but didn’t hide it very well.

  “Is that breakfast?” I asked, snatching the bag out of his hand. “I went running and had a swim this morning and I’m famished.”

  “It’s eight o’clock. What time did you get up?”

  “Five-thirty. I managed to get some sleep last night. So, what’s the plan? Are we taking your whole strike force with us?”

  “Most of them. The APCs pulled out about half an hour ago, heading up to Sturgeon Lake. We have three helicopters ready to take off as soon as I give the signal. Considering the problems we had with him in the city, I figured it would be worse out in the woods.”

  “I’m just glad it’s out that far,” I said. “Closer to the city would mean more lycans.”

  “You don’t think lycans live away from the city?”

  “I know they do, but the ones out there are probably more civilized than the ones in the enclave. I think one of the towns on the lake is primarily lycan. But those aren’t the kind of people that are robbing and murdering strangers for their shoes.”

  “Could be. I’m a city kid. What makes you think it’s a lycan town?”

  “So am I, but I figure a bar called The Wolves’ Den, a butcher shop advertising ‘fresh caught rabbit’, and the fact that the doctor and the vet share an office was sort of a tip off. And if everyone in town is a lycan, I assume they keep some kind of order and make their money off each other honestly.”

  Wil’s brow furrowed and he pooched his lips. “Logic? Applied to human beings? Going out on a limb there, aren’t you?”

  I had to laugh.

  Even though I was crowded into the helicopter with a bunch of men armed to the teeth, the ride out to the lake was both thrilling and beautiful. The trees were turning, the leaves shades of red and orange and yellow, with the green of the conifers, and blue lakes and streams sprinkled in. I’d flown over the area in a large plane, but never as low and slow as in the helicopter. I would have paid good money for such a ride just for pleasure.

  We received word that the APCs had arrived and the troops they carried set up a perimeter surrounding the cabin I had identified. Two of the helicopters stayed aloft, covering the lake side, and the one Wil, Donofrio and I rode in landed on the road that passed the property.

  “The driveway is about two hundred yards long,” Devon told us. “We haven’t seen any activity, and there aren’t any vehicles, but there’s a one-car garage.”

  I looked at Wil. “I can go in and scout things. No sense going in blind.”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll send a couple of our scouts with you,” Devon offered.

  With a shake of my head, shooting Wil a warning look, I said, “No, I don’t need any backup. I’ll do better on my own.”

  “Miss Nelson is a trained intrusion specialist, as you should know. Hold your men in reserve.”

  Devon nodded.
He had worked with me when I pulled Wil out of a hostage situation in Chicago. Donofrio cocked his head and said, “Intrusion specialist?”

  “Yes, Inspector. Red-hat intrusions are part of the security services my firm offers. And I’m very good at what I do.”

  He didn’t look entirely convinced, and I was sure he started thinking about all the unsolved burglaries he had on his desk. None of them involved my security clients. When I protected a property, it stayed secure.

  I slipped away into the trees, and as soon as I could, hid behind a boulder and blurred my form. Sneaking through the trees, trying to keep a low profile, I reached the cabin. The driveway emptied into a small clearing with the cabin in the center. A garage large enough for one car sat off to the right side, and as I circled around, I saw the lake less than fifty feet from the back porch. A short pier provided a place to tie up a boat, and a small boat sat upside down on the side of the house.

  It had rained a few days before, and tire tracks were evident on the dirt driveway leading into the garage. Luckily, things had dried out since then, so crawling across the short distance from the woods to the boat wasn’t too icky. From there, I reached the side of the cabin. I held completely still for about ten minutes but didn’t hear anything, so I took a chance and peeked through a window.

  The front of the cabin was one big room, including the kitchen and a dining table. A couch and chairs faced a fireplace. A couple of dishes sat on the counter next to the sink, and a muddy pair of Wellington boots sat next to the door. Someone had been there.

  The next window showed a bedroom with two neatly-made single beds. I worked my way around to the other side of the building, and peering through a window, saw a large double bed that hadn’t been made. One open door gave a glimpse of a washroom, and another open door showed an empty closet.

  As far as I could tell, no one was home. A check of the garage revealed that it was empty.

  Feeling a little more secure, I checked the back door and discovered it was open. The room beyond was narrow and ran the width of the house. Fishing stuff, more Wellies, rain gear, oars for the boat, and a bunch of other junk half-filled the space. A second door opened into a hallway with three doors and the large room beyond.

  A quick survey of the cabin didn’t provide any more information than I was able to see through the windows. I pulled out my phone and called Wil.

  “He’s not here, but someone has been recently. When did it rain out here last?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I thought executives at your level were omnipotent.” I waited a beat, then said, “I didn’t expect you to know that off the top of your head, but maybe someone on your team has the skills to check? You know, call the local authorities and ask, perhaps?”

  I heard him speaking to someone, and a minute later he said, “Day before yesterday. Why?”

  I went outside and examined the tire tracks. The mud was mostly dry, but I could tell the tracks were made when the ground was still wet.

  “It looks like someone was here, but pulled out yesterday.”

  I walked back to the road and found Wil and most of his men had taken off their filter masks. Cautiously, I lifted mine and smelled fresh vegetation. I wasn’t used to clean air, and it took me a few minutes to convince myself it wasn’t harmful in some way. We took a long time checking out the property before heading back to the city.

  Chapter 18

  I’d like to say that life returned to normal after that. There weren’t any more killings, just lousy weather as winter approached. But the ominous feelings of dread never went away. I could tell that Richard and Nellie and Mike were more than ready to get back to their lives. Paul Renard told Entertaincorp security that he didn’t need around the clock bodyguards any more.

  Half of the Chamber strike force members quietly disappeared, leaving only those who didn’t have families. Devon stayed on, but Wil was in and out of Toronto several times.

  Wil was in San Francisco when, after a month of quiet, I received a call from Inspector Donofrio as I was getting ready to go to the club with Nellie. “Miss Nelson? There’s been another murder.”

  “You’re sure it’s Grenier?” I asked.

  “We’ve never released all the details of the other killings. There’s no doubt.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to see a pale-faced Nellie leaning against the door frame.

  “Another one?”

  “Yeah. I guess Grenier healed up and decided to start his game again.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “He didn’t say. Apartment on the third floor of your building. Number six.”

  “Kandi.”

  “The strawberry blonde we saw at the club that night?”

  “Yeah. Henri Latour’s mistress.”

  Nellie followed me into the bedroom and sat on the bed as I got dressed.

  “Nellie, have I ever met Ruiz’s mistress?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “About my size, maybe shorter, brown hair, very pretty. Why?”

  “Grenier skipped her. He did Ruiz’s daughter, who sorta fits that description, but taller, then shot Ruiz’s wife. Now he’s back to his original mode of operation. Something I’ve noticed is he gets his jollies torturing tall blondes. Like his wife.”

  “But he did torture Victoria Ruiz. How does that fit in? Or Weeks’s daughters?”

  “It doesn’t, but he didn’t spend much time with Victoria. I figure less than an hour. Then he skipped the mistress and shot the wife. I think he didn’t get any pleasure torturing the brunette. Weeks’s daughters were blonde, and the fifteen-year-old was five-ten, like her mother.”

  “Well that’s good for me, right?”

  I shot a look at the sickly smile on her face, then walked over, sat down, and hugged her to me.

  “He’s never going to get a chance with you. Just keep playing it smart, okay?”

  She nodded. I kissed her and went downstairs to get my bike so I could go see another sickening crime scene.

  I had an electronic opener for the garage under Nellie’s apartment building, and that seemed to take the cops outside the building by surprise. A constable came running after me and almost got hit by the garage door closing behind me.

  The elevator opened on the third floor to a scene of cops, forensics, and medical examiner personnel. No one paid much attention to me. A couple of cops who had seen me at other crime scenes nodded to me.

  Kandi’s apartment was identical to Nellie’s. The first thing I noticed when I walked into the living room was the body of the guy I’d seen with Kandi at the bar, Alonzo Donofrio’s enforcer. He had a surprised look on his face, probably due to the hole in his forehead and his brains decorating the couch he was sitting on. He was also missing part of his anatomy that was normally found between a man’s legs. This was obvious because he wasn’t wearing any clothes.

  Kandi was in the bedroom, hanging on the washroom door, the same way Grenier had hung Olga and Mrs. Weeks. A cursory look around showed a scene almost identical to that in Olga’s apartment.

  I turned and walked out, through the living room, and out into the hall. Donofrio followed me.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know who the man was?” he asked.

  “One of your uncle’s employees, or at least that’s what I was told. Kandi was with him at The Pinnacle one night.”

  “He had a pistol, but it hasn’t been fired.”

  “Hard to shoot someone you can’t see. Looks like Grenier interrupted them. The guy came out into the living room with his pistol, but his clothes were folded on a chair in the bedroom. I didn’t see any clothes of Kandi’s anywhere, so I assume she hung them in the closet. With the other victims, we saw the woman’s clothes in the room where she was tortured.”

  Donofrio nodded.

  “Inspector, this is back to the original MO with Carleton Weeks. What about Connolly’s mistress? Why didn’t he ever go after
her?”

  “Connolly’s smarter than the rest of them,” Donofrio said with a slight smile.

  “How so?”

  “He sent his girl home to visit her mother after Carleton Weeks was killed. Grenier might have wanted to do the mistress before he tried the Connolly estate, but she was out of town. His wife and kids are now vacationing in Europe.”

  That convinced me more than ever that Richard O’Malley wasn’t thinking straight. I decided to have another conversation with him and Nellie.

  “Who found her?” I asked.

  “Mr. Latour. The ME says they’ve been dead at least twenty-four hours.”

  “That must have been a shock for him.”

  “You might say that. I don’t think he was expecting to find a dead man in his mistress’s living room.”

  “That rather pales compared to what’s in the bedroom,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder.

  “I expect you’ll be speaking to Director Pong.”

  “Yeah, I’ll talk to him. What concerns me is, who else is on the target list? He’s broken pattern before. His next strike could be against anyone.” I was especially thinking about my friend Paul, who lived alone in an apartment under The Pinnacle.

  I called Pong, then took the elevator down to the garage. As I walked to where I’d parked my bike, I heard a sound and turned to see who else was down there with me. I didn’t see anyone.

  The scuffing sound of a shoe on concrete caused me to throw myself to the side and blur my image. The deafening report of a gun sounded next to my head.

  I hit the ground but my feet tangled with someone’s legs, and instead of rolling, I landed on my left elbow, a sharp pain shot up my arm as my hand went numb. Then my attacker fell, landing on my leg.

  Drawing my other leg up, I kicked as hard as I could and connected. His pistol clattered to the floor and skittered away from us. I was able to free my leg and roll, reaching for my small backup pistol in its holster hidden inside my calf-height boot. I stopped rolling and faced back toward where I’d been.