Bad Road to Nowhere

by Linda Ladd

  That told him something all right. She was clueless. “Wilson is not a story. If I’m right about him, he’s ruthless and dangerous. So are his men, and they’re loyal to him. You’re gonna get killed and dumped somewhere. Understand me, Mariah? For the tenth time, you are gonna end up dead, or worse. And if you’re not careful, you’re gonna get me and Emma and Ryan killed, too. That what you want?”

  “Well, I’m sorry you don’t like my methods.”

  Novak stared at the wipers, where they were slugging it out with the relentless downpour. “You get captured? I don’t know if I can get you out. Okay? Trust me on that. Emma’s under their control, locked up most of the time, and she’s scared to death of Wilson. You need to be, too. The last thing I need is both of you to be in his hands. The guy’s a damn psychopath.”

  After that, Novak ignored her. There was no reasoning with Mariah Murray. None. Never had been. Never would be. He drove back to Sikeston, trying to get a hold on the anger roiling around inside his gut and making him want to slap some sense into her. It was taking all his willpower. “Where’s the safe house? You did find a safe house like I told you to, right?”

  Mariah had vented on him. Now she acted subdued. “Yes, of course I did. That’s where I’m staying.”

  Novak drove on as she gave him directions. The safe house was located on the north fringe of the county, not too far outside Sikeston and surrounded by more heavy woods. Very private, very quiet. One way in, one way out. She’d picked a good place. But that was probably the only good choice she’d made since they set foot over the Georgia line.

  The house had an attached garage, and she got out a remote and pressed the button. The door slowly slid up, and Novak drove inside and killed the motor. Mariah got out first, slammed the door, and stalked into the house. Novak followed her, more than a little pissed-off himself. She had complicated his plans, and he didn’t like it. He wanted her completely out of the picture. She was like talking to a brick wall.

  Once inside the kitchen, Mariah slung off her black jacket and turned on him. “Just so you know. I found out what’s in that red barn that you’re so concerned about.”

  Now, that did surprise him. And he sure as hell wanted to know. He just stopped and waited. Thinking that she was probably lying through her perfect white teeth.

  “It’s her art studio. I got a peek inside. That’s why I was out there tonight.” She turned around and paced a few steps away. Ended up in the adjoining living room. That’s when she whirled back to face him and glared daggers at his face. He was glad she didn’t have a blade or it just might be lodged in his head. “Well, all I know is that I’m cold and I’m wet all the way through, thanks to you. I’m going to go take a hot shower and change into dry clothes, and then I’m going to make us some coffee and warm up a little. Or better yet, you make it for me. Since you know everything about everything.”

  “Hell, no, I’m not making you coffee. I want you to stop interfering with the job you asked me to do. You, Mariah. You asked me.” They glowered at each other for a few seconds. “What if they’d caught you up there sneaking around that barn? What do you think would’ve happened? Nothing? You think they’d just let you mosey off on your merry way? No, they would not. They might torture you first, to find out why you were snooping around in the middle of the night, then they’d kill you, and nobody would ever find your body.”

  “I’ve watched them every night from a safe spot. In the daylight, too. Emma goes down there alone several times a day to work on her paintings, or whatever it is she does in there.”

  “If that’s all there is to it, why is it so heavily guarded?”

  “It’s not, except at night. The guards stay around her, not around that barn. Two men are dogging her footsteps when she goes down there. She doesn’t even get out of the house all that much. Not that I’ve seen. I didn’t see her all day today.”

  “That’s because he keeps her locked up most of the time. Were they forcing her to go into the barn?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I guess. It looked like they were taking her down there. They were marching her between them. Yeah, I guess she did look like a prisoner. Sort of.”

  “How do you know it’s an art studio?”

  “I saw a van come and back down to the big door. They unloaded crates of canvases and paints and all that kind of stuff and were taking them inside that barn. I guess they were unpacking them inside because they brought the empty containers back out and threw them in the bed of the truck. Looked like containers for easels.”

  Maybe there was some kind of art forgery going on in that barn. That’s what it sounded like. Maybe Emma was being forced to fake certain paintings for sale on the black market. It fit with what he’d seen so far. “What did Emma do in there? Could you see her?”

  “I’m changing out of these wet clothes and then we’ll talk about it. Take off your coat and boots. You’re tracking mud everywhere. I put a five-hundred-dollar security deposit down on this place and I want it back.”

  Novak ignored all that and watched her disappear into a hallway that led toward the back of the house. He moved closer to the fireplace. It was still burning. That was dumb, too. What’d she do? Leave the fire unattended while she left for hours at a time to sneak around in the woods in a thunderstorm?

  That’s when he decided it might be wise for him to take a moment to check out the house. The place looked like an old hunting cabin that had been modernized. Various hunting trophies hung on the walls and a large moose head was displayed over the mantel. Deer heads, rifles in a locked cabinet beside the hearth, rustic black and red and tan plaid furniture and tables made out of logs. Novak was surprised there were any trees left standing in the area. He checked out the rooms, found three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The shower was still running inside the master bathroom. He checked the closets and found nobody or nothing suspicious.

  When he got back to the living room and stood warming himself in front of the fireplace, he saw a man’s jacket thrown down at one end of the hearth. He turned around when he heard Mariah come back into the room, now dressed in warm fleece sweats again, this time dark green ones. Her black hair was wet and combed straight back off her forehead. Her face was flushed and free of makeup. She headed for the kitchen and started filling the coffeepot out of the faucet.

  “How long you been staying out here?”

  “Since you told me to find this place,” she snapped back.

  “Alone?”

  Mariah stopped messing with the coffee. Gave him one of her looks. “No, of course not. I invited all my friends here since I’m new to this country and hiding my true identity, and all.” She grimaced and turned on the coffeepot. “What do you think, Will?”

  Sarcastic as hell. Dripping with it, words frigid as ice. More like the Mariah who Will was used to. “Then whose jacket is that?”

  “What jacket?” She planted her palms on her hips and looked around.

  “The one lying right over there. On the hearth. A man’s jacket.”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t even noticed it. Maybe somebody left it here. The renters before me, maybe? Who knows? Who cares? Want it? Go ahead, take it.”

  Novak remained where he was, and she just stared at him. The coffee perked and dripped and filled the room with a delectable aroma. He wanted some of that coffee. “What else have you found out? Any of the girls tell you anything else?”

  “No. They’re scared to. Act like something bad’s about to happen, maybe. That’s the feeling I got.”

  “Maybe that’s a clue you should’ve picked up on.”

  “Why don’t you just quit banging at me for one minute? I’m trying to help you get Emma out of there. All you do is yell at me.”

  “Leave it to me. I’ve decided to take her out. Soon. But it’s going to take some planning. Unless you screw it up for me.”

  “This is my case, my story. You’re supposed to be helping me, not keeping me out.”

  “I thought thi
s was about helping your poor kidnapped friend and her little son. Guess not.”

  Mariah’s anger ratcheted up a couple of notches. “Just stop with this guilt-trip rubbish, would you?”

  So here it came again. Novak was damn sick and tired of having this conversation. He was damn sick and tired of having to threaten her. “How about I stop with everything and clear the hell out of here? I was pretty sure this was gonna turn out this way when you demanded to come with me. Looks like I was right again.”

  Mariah paced away and then immediately turned back and planted her palms on her hips again. She looked just like Sarah in that moment, too, on the rare occasions when his wife had gotten really upset with him. He looked away. Mariah is not Sarah. Damn her.

  Still agitated, she poured them both mugs of coffee, brought his to him, and then sank down on the plaid love seat. He sat down across from her on the matching couch. They both drank for a while without speaking, and the coffee felt hot and bracing going down Novak’s throat. He was still wet and cold and angry. Rain attacked the roof and windows, and lightning flashed periodically outside the front window. The worst of the storm had passed by. Regardless, the plans he’d had for the night were over and it was her fault.

  “I need to get back to the compound before I’m missed,” Novak said.

  “I’ll take you.”

  “You sure as hell will. Then you’ll come back here and stay put. When I get her and the kid out, I’m going to bring them out here to you. So you need to be ready to take care of them. Buy some clothes for them, coats, jackets, and some food, medicine, whatever you think they’re gonna need. He’s beating her up. I’ve seen him jerking her around, talking down to her. Disrespecting her. The kid seems all right, but he didn’t seem to mind her being locked up. Said she was being bad. Wilson’s probably turned him against her. That’s what abusers usually do. Use the kids as leverage.” He pulled Mariah’s gun out of his waistband and examined it. It was a Ruger with a full mag. He didn’t remember any of Wilson’s guards carrying Rugers. They all carried Springfield XDs. She was lying to him again. Man, she just didn’t know how to tell the truth. He laid it on the coffee table between them. “Keep that handy, because as soon as Wilson finds them gone, all hell’s gonna break loose up at that compound. So stay out here from now on. I don’t want to have to worry about your getting in my way again.”

  Mariah shrugged and left the gun where it lay. Novak knew then that she wasn’t going to listen to him. Not a single word. She’d probably end up dead, and there wasn’t anything else he could do about it. He’d like to pack up his gear and go home, and he would if he hadn’t seen the fear and humiliation on Emma Adamson’s face. She was in big trouble, just like Mariah had figured. Novak was not leaving her inside that prison with that bully, not her and not the kid.

  An hour later, Mariah dropped him off on the logging road. Fifteen minutes after that, he was back in the woods and headed for his cabin. It was still raining but finally beginning to slack up. The thunder and lightning had eased off due west of him, and nobody was stirring at the bunkhouse or the cabins or at the cafeteria. All was quiet, thank God. Right now, Novak needed to grab some sleep before he headed back in to work. He hadn’t gotten a look inside that barn, not the way he had intended, and he wasn’t at all sure it was Emma’s art studio, as Mariah had said. That could very well be a cover for something more sinister. The woman had walls and walls of windows in her house. Extremely good lighting, perfect for painting, and one hell of a good view for inspiration. No reason to go down in the woods to a barn in order to paint a picture. He needed to find out what the hell was inside that barn. Once he did that, maybe Wilson’s real reason for employing dozens of guards would reveal itself. It was sure to be something illegal and highly lucrative. More drugs or a meth lab. Or maybe it was all about the art. Maybe she was painting and Wilson was passing it off as posthumous discoveries and thereby getting six figures for it. Or maybe it was a smuggling ring. But it was illegal, no doubt about it.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Wilson’s orders had been for Novak to report to the cliff house at five o’clock sharp. Be on time or lose the plumb assignment. Good enough by Novak. He never slept very long; had trained himself not to have to. He wasn’t certain about the woman yet or what was really going on between husband and wife. She was Emma Adamson, all right, he had no doubt about that much. Problem was she was never going to trust Novak. Not right off, anyway. She had been abused and was frightened of her husband, and probably of her own shadow, and enough so that she would fear telling Novak what really went on behind closed doors in their unhappy, dysfunctional little home unsweet home. On the other hand, she didn’t have to tell him anything. Novak had seen it for himself. The guy pushed her around. But that was about to stop for good. Novak relished the idea of slamming his doubled fist into Wilson’s smug face.

  Just before five, when the sky was still dark and the temperature cold, he climbed inside his truck and took off toward the road that intersected with Wilson’s entrance drive, one that would take him straight up to the enclave on the cliff. No one else was about yet, not a soul stirring. When he reached the house, it still looked dark and deserted, not a single light anywhere inside. No activity, either, just one guy sitting under Emma’s bedroom balcony and another guard leaning against the wall beside the front door. Novak shoved the gearshift home, got out, and walked up the sidewalk. He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.

  “Am I supposed to relieve you or the other guy?”

  The guard yawned. Took a moment to stretch and straighten up. “How the hell should I know?”

  It appeared that Novak still wasn’t in the running for Most Popular inside Wilson’s kingdom. “I’m supposed to guard Mrs. Wilson today. That help you figure it out some?”

  “That’s Jose Madero’s job. He’s out there beside the pool. She takes an early swim every morning, and Madero waits there for her until she shows up. After that, you just follow her around and let her do what the boss says she can do. You get detailed orders. Make sure you do it the way the boss says. He doesn’t like people changing his wife’s schedule.”

  “Why?”

  The guy grinned. “He likes to know where she is all the time, in case he gets a hankering. If you know what I mean.”

  Novak knew what he meant, and he didn’t like that, either. He nodded and strolled around a paved sidewalk that curved through an outside flower garden with a dry fountain and a sundial, but where everything living thing was pretty much gasping and on its last legs. Somebody should have taken those plants to the greenhouse at the first frost. He passed a third guy at a side door, who simply stared a hole through him without speaking. Novak ignored him. The pool looked warm and inviting, all smoky and blue. Inside the pool gate, he found Jose Madero reclining on a chaise longue with dark blue cushions. Half asleep.

  “Wake up, Madero. I’m here to relieve you,” he said in a loud voice.

  The guy jumped up. He looked Hispanic, maybe, and a lot younger than most of Wilson’s men. Slimmer, buffer, and better looking. Dark skin and hair. He had trimmed his beard to hug his jawline and his hair was long enough to blow around in the wind that had picked up a bit. Looked halfway competent to guard a woman. Right now, he looked pretty damn upset. “No way, Novak. I’m supposed to guard Mrs. Wilson all day today. Got my orders a couple of days ago for the whole week. I got this assignment when Sandy took off. The missus requested me. Boss approved it.”

  “Well, not anymore. I got my orders from Wilson, too. Last night at supper. Looks like you’re off bodyguard duty for a while. You want to argue with Mr. Wilson? Give him a call.”

  Madero’s expression changed, pretty much revealed that he was still majorly agitated. “But she requested me. I like it up here on house duty. She likes me guarding her.”

  “Well, get over it. Her husband just overruled you both.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, pretty much. Guy over there says you had a list
of dos and don’ts concerning her day. That right?”

  Madero nodded, looked sullen. Not happy, not happy at all. Like Novak thought, a kid who hadn’t learned to disguise his emotions. He better acquire the knack, and he better acquire it quick. Madero pulled out a bound black notebook, pocket size. “Here you go. Good luck, man. I don’t like you better’n anybody else does, but here’s some advice. Toe the line when you’re up here. Boss comes down hard if people don’t follow his instructions about Em.”

  “Em?”

  The guy got worried. He glanced up at the balcony above them and then at the deck door, just above the pool. “She said I could call her that. Don’t let the boss hear you doing it, though. He don’t want none of us to call her anything. We’re not supposed to talk to her at all.”

  Novak was going to have to deal with Wilson before this job was over and deal with him hard. It was inevitable. A force meets a stationary object. A force destroys a stationary object. “Well, that’s not gonna happen. Not as long as I’m around. I’ll talk to her if I want to talk to her.”

  “Go ahead, buddy. Boss ain’t gonna like it, and he’ll make you pay.”

  “Boss can go fuck himself then.”

  Madero appeared a tad shocked. He stared at Novak for a few seconds, and then shook his head. “You must be stupid, man. He’s killed people for less than what you just said.”

  “That right? So what did he kill them for?”

  “That’s all I’m sayin’, man. Just don’t mess with him. I’m warning you. He’s got a real bad temper. I’ve heard him yelling at her, even slappin’ her around some, throwin’ things at her. It gets pretty damn awful sometimes.”