The Kill Radius

by Nichole Christoff

  Bran grabbed a couple of long-necked bottles from his mini-fridge, snapped the caps, and passed one to me.

  “Here’s to you,” he said, “and your timely arrival.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks for not leaving me in the ditch during your exit.”

  Bran toasted me with his beer. He drank. I didn’t.

  “So, Jamie girl”—Bran flopped into his well-worn armchair, stretched his legs out in front of him—“what were you doing at the Nevis house this morning?”

  “Me?” I pretended to be comfy on the couch, one foot tucked behind the other. “I was on my way to the Sunday School picnic. I must’ve taken a wrong turn. But now that you mention it, what were you doing out there?”

  “Working,” he said.

  “For Ray? Or against him?”

  Bran laughed. With his thick shoulder-length hair and high cheekbones, he had the misfortune of looking like a male cover model. And when the corners of his mouth turned upward in a boyish smile, he even looked honest.

  He said, “You know, Ray’s told me all about you.”

  “That’s interesting. He’s never said a thing about you.”

  Bran waggled his beer at me. “Get one or two of these into Ray and he’ll tell tales about you all night long. He’s proud of you, Jamie girl. From the sound of things, you’ve done all right by him.”

  Ray was so proud of me he asked someone else to be his partner in the firm, I thought. But I shoved that truth aside. After all, what would I have done with the offer? Pulled up stakes and moved to Mississippi? I had my own firm—and my own life—in the District of Columbia.

  I said, “Is this some fancy way of saying you’re not going to tell me what you were doing before Vern tried to crack your skull wide open?”

  Bran cocked his head, considered me for a moment. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but he must’ve found it. He leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees.

  He said, “What do you know about Hunch Nevis?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Well, on the up-and-up, he runs a lawn and landscape company, an asphalt and blacktop concern, and as just about anyone in these parts will tell ya, the region’s largest trash collection company.”

  “You’re saying he’s a garbage man?”

  “With contracts in five counties. But on the down-low, he spends his time running an illegal gambling house. You saw it this morning.”

  Bran meant the mansion with the green door. It stood to reason. Gambling might be a regulated pastime in Mississippi these days, but anytime our vices become legal, some offerings still stay off the grid. There would always be high rollers looking for bigger pots—and bigger risks—than the legal casinos would provide. Plus, some hotshots would want amenities that the establishments along the waterfront, or the pleasure cruises like the Lady Luck, couldn’t offer—and I was willing to bet this Hunch Nevis did a brisk business meeting those wants and desires.

  “Ray’s had me documenting every aspect of Nevis’s operation for the past two months,” Bran continued. “Nevis has got some big names going in and out of his place. You saw a few of them headed out this morning after one of his infamous all-night parties. Of course, the one thing I haven’t been able to swing is a look inside the place. But you could, Jamie girl.”

  “For you?”

  “For Ray.”

  Maybe Bran had named Ray just to push my buttons. Or maybe I really was in a position to help. Either way, if Ray truly wanted my input, he knew he could tell me so himself.

  “What’s inside that’s so important?” I demanded.

  “Nevis’s gotcha list. Ray wants to know who’s on it and how much each person owes.”

  Gotcha sounded about right. Folks in over their heads with an illegal gambling organization usually had no reasonable way out. It was gotcha all the way around.

  “Why does Ray care?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know that he does. He just says this is a score he needs to settle. If Ray gets his way, he’ll shut Nevis down.”

  But that would be a tall order. Whenever their livelihood is threatened, men like Hunch Nevis never just fold up their card tables and settle into a quiet retirement. To think otherwise was foolhardy—and Ray had never been a fool.

  I set my bottle on Bran’s coffee table with a click and rose to my feet. “Thanks for the beer. And you might want to soak that shirt. That blood’s going to leave a heck of a stain.”

  “Ray’s not doing so hot,” Bran said, stopping me in my tracks. “You’ve seen the pill bottles lined up in his kitchen cabinet, haven’t you? He’s on the downhill slide, Jamie girl.”

  “From what?”

  “Kidney disease. Compounded by a heart condition.”

  Kidney disease could kill a man in slow, excruciating ways. The heart, on the other hand, could be fickle. It could betray a man all at once, or it could make his life a misery, leaving him weak and listless until he begged for death from his hospital bed. None of those options would be what Ray would prefer. Of course, Bran could’ve been lying to me about Ray’s health. True or false, however, the immediate result was the same. I’d known something wasn’t right with Ray since I’d seen the drugs in his kitchen cabinet Saturday morning, and these possibilities made me weak in the knees.

  Bran said, “Ray wants to put an end to this business with Nevis while he can.”

  I sank onto the sofa once again. “What does Monique Wells have to do with Ray’s grudge against Nevis?”

  “Nada, as far as I know.”

  “And yet you were on the cruise. You cornered her against the rail.”

  “What can I say?” Bran shrugged. “I like riverboats and she’s a good-looking girl.”

  “Yeah. So is Corinne.”

  Bran bounced up from his chair, stalked to the kitchenette, and got busy applying some paper towels to that wounded chin of his. But he couldn’t trick me. He’d gone pale when I’d said Corinne’s name.

  He said, “If I told you I saw Eddie Jepson at Nevis’s today, would that sweeten the pot?”

  “You shouldn’t tell me. You should tell the feds.”

  But I didn’t want Bran to do that.

  I didn’t want Eddie on the loose, but I didn’t want April Callahan dragging Eddie off to some secluded cell where her heavies would find disturbing and destructive ways to extract information from him, either.

  As if we were of one mind, Bran said, “I want a go at Jepson before the feds get him. On the Lady Luck, he just kept rambling about how Ray had ruined his life. I want to know what that’s about before he points the feds at Ray, and I’d think you would, too.”

  I did, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

  Still, Bran wouldn’t give up. “You could get to the bottom of this, Jamie girl. I did see Eddie Jepson at Nevis’s today.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Can’t. Camera’s gone. Unless that wreck you’ve got in your coat pocket still has the data card in it.”

  I pulled the remains of Bran’s camera from my jacket, tossed it to him as he stood at the sink. Bran ran his thumb across the card slot, found it empty. I’d plucked out the data card while Bran was getting the beer.

  I rose once again. “Bran, you can’t prove Eddie was at the Nevis house and you won’t tell me why you were putting the squeeze on Monique Wells. You wouldn’t let Corinne call the cops when Eddie almost barged his way into her kitchen, so you could toss my friend’s car when we rushed to help Corinne out—”

  “Your friend’s car? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jamie girl.”

  “Fine. Play it that way if you want, but this is where you and I part ways—”

  “Not yet.” Bran planted himself between me and the doorway. “Go with me tonight. At least get Nevis’s gotcha list for Ray.”

  “After our run-in with Nevis’s muscle this morning, I doubt he’d throw the doors wide open if he saw me rolling up the drive.”

  “I bet he would,” Bran said, “for a sena
tor’s daughter.”

  In my experience, too many people were willing to do too many things for a senator’s daughter. But there was always a price to be paid for those things. And too often, I ended up being the one who paid it.

  “Nevis’s place opens at sunset,” Bran said. “Go with me. I’ll keep you safe.”

  Bran had pulled me from the storm ditch when he could’ve taken my car and left me to be shot into Swiss cheese by Nevis’s handymen.

  But that didn’t mean I could trust him any farther than I could throw him.

  “Take care of that chin,” I told him. “And thanks again for the beer.”

  I turned on my heel and walked out of Bran’s apartment. He wouldn’t go back to Nevis’s tonight. I was certain of that.

  But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t go there without him.

  Chapter 19

  There are few places in the world where a well-dressed woman with a bright smile can’t gain access.

  And Hunch Nevis’s private gambling palace wasn’t one of them.

  I stepped out of the big, expensive-looking Cadillac Escalade I’d traded my rented economy car for, tugged my black off-one-shoulder sweater into a more modest position, and let my eyes wander across the façade of Nevis’s mansion. A camera in a discreet corner of the porte cochere swiveled to take a long look at me. I noted another one just like it between a pair of Ionic columns at the back corner of the building as Marc forked over the Caddy’s keys to the valet.

  Late in the afternoon, Marc had caught up with me at a computer in the business center of my fancy hotel, studying the snapshots on Bran’s pilfered data card. For a full seven minutes, the DEA agent had ranted and raved about his worries for my safety because I hadn’t answered his calls all day. But I also heard what he didn’t admit. Secretly, he’d feared my radio silence had meant I’d been in Barrett’s arms. He just wasn’t about to confess it.

  Really, I’d had no phone calls, no emails, and nothing so much as a text message from Barrett since he’d flown from our bed in the middle of the night. And rightly so. He had plenty on his plate as he and his federal task force tracked down Eddie Jepson without taking the time to send electronic love notes—or even hate mail—to me. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been occupying prime real estate in my mind. After our argument, I couldn’t quite evict him—or an uneasy feeling that I’d ruined everything—from my brain.

  The solution to that problem had been to keep busy. It had taken me the better part of the day to procure the few things I needed for my invasion of Hunch Nevis’s domain that night. Traditional blue laws banning commerce on a Sunday had died out in many parts of the Deep South, but in Beauville they were alive and kicking. So I’d had to go halfway to Biloxi to find the certain special evening bag I carried across my body on a glittering gold chain and some high-heeled shoes that wouldn’t look out of place in a high rollers’ room. When two more cameras, nestled in the tall, twisting topiaries flanking the entrance to Nevis’s house, zeroed in on me, I figured I’d done all right.

  The luscious green door I’d spied from the road was a solid, heavily paneled thing, and it probably bore a steel core and electronic locks that could withstand an onslaught from federal agents with a battering ram if necessary. It swung open silently as an attendant, dressed in the morning coat and white gloves of an old-fashioned English butler, bowed in welcome. As Marc and I crossed the threshold, the fellow neglected to point out the metal detector built into the doorframe, but I didn’t worry about it. I knew one would be somewhere in a place like this and I’d planned accordingly. I wouldn’t set off its bells and whistles.

  “Good evenin’, miss. Hello, sir,” the butler said with a smile. “Is this your first visit with us?”

  He knew it was or he wouldn’t ask.

  “It is,” I confirmed. “But you come highly recommended.”

  I had his full attention now, even as he sized up Marc. “To whom do we owe a debt of thanks for the endorsement?”

  Bran had suggested a senator’s name would remove all barriers.

  But I wasn’t about to draw the attention of a man like Nevis to my father.

  “My daddy’s old friend visits you from time to time,” I said. “Governor Brixton always enjoys his stay.”

  At least, I figured he did. I didn’t really know. To my knowledge, my father had never crossed paths with the notorious Alabama governor who was in the news and on the outs with his constituents these days. But thanks to Bran’s data card, I’d seen photographic evidence of the gentleman climbing into a limousine under Nevis’s portico just that morning.

  “We’ll have to thank your daddy, too,” the butler said. “He would be…”

  I flashed the man a wicked smile. “Terribly disappointed to learn how his little girl is spending her trust fund.”

  The butler grinned in return. Because my words suggested I had lots of money to lose and plenty of secrets to keep. And I suspected a man like Hunch Nevis might see his customers’ secrets as a secondary financial opportunity. After all, blackmailing a trust fund baby could be lucrative. The butler knew it, too.

  “Mr. Nevis always likes to offer a personal welcome to his preferred guests. May I suggest beginning your evening with a complimentary drink at our bar? I’ll let Mr. Nevis know you’ve arrived, Miss…”

  “Call me Vivian,” I said, relying on the pseudonym that matched the name on the credit card in my handbag.

  “Miss Vivian.”

  The butler bowed again, gestured across the foyer with his gloved hand. I thanked him graciously. Marc slipped his arm around my waist like he was more than just my bodyguard, and together, we set off to claim that drink—and to wait until Hunch Nevis called for me.

  More cameras tracked our moves as we made our way into the bar. Once upon a time, the space had undoubtedly served as the drawing room of an antebellum matron. Her genteel daughters had very likely gathered here to embroider cushions, fans, and fire screens until their fingers stung, while pedigreed gentlemen callers had sent in their cards on the silver trays of attendant house slaves who were sentenced to spend their lives caring for what they weren’t permitted to own or even enjoy.

  Tonight, however, the room resembled a high-end watering hole. A massive bar had been built across the back side of the room. The thing had probably been imported lock, stock, and barrel from some manse deep in the Carpathian Mountains. The champagne was French and cold and there was plenty of it. Marc’s scotch had come all the way from the Isle of Islay, so if nothing else, I’d learned Nevis wasn’t cheap—and that his patrons were wealthy enough to expect him not to be.

  As we sipped our drinks, Marc and I studied the room. Exits were few and far between. There was the wide arch to the foyer, of course. But going that way would mean going through the butler, and I was willing to bet he would prove quite capable in a crisis. Otherwise, he would’ve been washing dishes in the kitchen.

  Even the tall, nine-over-nine windows overlooking the perfectly manicured lawn were thick with specialty glass. The panes would slow a bullet, stealing its velocity. And they might fracture, but they wouldn’t shatter, so a security specialist who might need to make a fast getaway couldn’t count on them to help her out.

  The only remaining portal was a red door, located behind the bar. It opened and closed as a cocktail waitress in fishnet stockings and a short crinolined skirt arrived with a tray full of empty glassware collected from thirsty gamblers in the room beyond. For her return trip, she keyed a code into a panel beside the door. Without those numbers, Marc and I wouldn’t be going anywhere in a hurry. We were trapped in this house, awaiting the pleasure of Hunch Nevis.

  “When Nevis sends for me,” I whispered, leaning close to Marc, “see if you can find out who’s losing big in that room back there.”

  Because Nevis did send for me. Just as I knew he would. The notion that a crooked governor’s not-quite-innocent acquaintance had stumbled into his lair had to be too much of a temptation for a man in h
is line of work. Either I’d be willing to lose a fortune at his tables or I’d be stupid enough do something compromising that his myriad of cameras could record.

  Two thugs in beautiful suits brought the summons, and to my relief, neither of them was one of the guys who’d tried to break Bran’s bones that morning. The first man had the cold, colorless eyes of a shark. Relentlessly, those eyes swept the room, assessing everything. The other man sported a smirk that was probably permanently etched into his face. He looked only at me and he did all the talking.

  “Miss Vivian,” he said. “Mr. Nevis would like you to have a drink with him.”

  Marc rose, inserted himself between the goons and me, and Mr. Smirk’s grimace deepened.

  “You’re not invited, big boy. This is ladies only.”

  Marc glowered, but before he could open his mouth and ruin everything, I patted his cheek.

  “It’s okay. Be good until I get back.”

  Marc didn’t fuss, but I felt his gaze on me as I left the bar between the two men.

  We returned to the foyer, bypassed the butler busy with new arrivals, and mounted an elaborate staircase curling along the inside of the house.

  A broad hall cut through the center of the second story, terminating in French doors at either end of the corridor. Long before air-conditioning, these doors would’ve stood wide open to catch even the gentlest breeze. Tonight, however, they were closed tight.

  Watered silk covered the walls of the hall and antique oil paintings of horses and dogs, battles and blood sports covered the silk. I even spied a painting by Thomas Eakins, that nineteenth-century Philadelphia prodigy who’d had the audacity to paint the American everyman’s experiences with the composition and color palette of the Continent’s grand masters. In this painting, in exquisite detail, a bloody boxer leaned against the ropes while his coach wrapped the man’s hands for another bout against a fresh opponent. The blond, broad-shouldered athlete made me think of Barrett. But I was here with Marc to slip into Hunch Nevis’s good graces and walk away with his gotcha list, so I had no business thinking of anything except the task at hand. I reminded myself that Eakins’s work cost a small fortune these days and if the example here at Nevis’s was real, it meant the gambling business was booming and I needed to be careful.