Say Your Goodbyes

by Linda Ladd

  “Say your goodbyes, you sick son of a bitch,” Novak ground out between clenched teeth, and then he hit him in the face with his doubled fist, about as hard as he’d ever hit anybody in his life. The Mayan went down on his back in the mud and didn’t move.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Almost an hour later, Novak sat in that same leather recliner in the living room of Claire Morgan’s new cabin. He had on dry clothes now, and the bleeding stab wound on his shoulder had been cleaned and pulled together with a couple of butterfly bandages. One lamp burned in the corner. The drapes were closed, and the rest of the house was dark. He stared at the little man who had heretofore seemed so deadly and elusive. He didn’t look so tough anymore. Novak was somewhat surprised at how easily he’d been taken down. The guy was good when he had the advantage but not so good when he didn’t. He should have known that Novak would be waiting for him, long before he encountered him in the lake. The Mayan had made a big mistake this time, a mistake that would end his bloodstained career. First, however, Novak wanted some answers, and he was going to get them. So he waited, relaxed now and in no particular hurry.

  Across from him, the Mayan hung by his arms from ropes tied to the upstairs banister. Novak had spread out a painter’s tarp under his feet so he wouldn’t mess up Claire’s new floor. The killer’s face was a mess, both his eyes already swollen and beginning to turn black, his nose smashed and broken and still trickling blood. The house was silent and deserted.

  Right after Novak had dragged the Mayan into the house, Claire and Black had gone back to Cedar Bend by water, roaring out of the cove in the big Cobalt 360. The final inning of the assassin’s deadly game had begun, and he was losing. Novak had counted on the killer to come alone, and he had. Now Novak had the bloody bastard, dead to rights, and the rest of the night was probably going to be the most unpleasant evening that the killer had ever experienced.

  After some time had passed, Novak did get impatient. He stood up, walked into Claire’s spacious new kitchen, got a glass out of the cabinet, and filled it with water. He drank it down, staring at the assassin where he sagged unconscious against the wall. Then he refilled the glass, took it out to the living room, and stood in front of the Mayan. He tossed it into the assassin’s face, damn sick and tired of waiting for the bastard to come to. He wanted to end this thing, once and for all. The Mayan roused a bit, sputtered, coughed and gagged on blood, and then slowly came out of it. Novak sat back down in his chair and watched the Mayan remember that he was in a shitload of trouble.

  It took a couple more minutes for the killer to lift his head and figure out where he was and what had happened. Novak sat and watched him. Said nothing. The Mayan spit out more blood. His nose was definitely broken and he was struggling to breathe. Novak liked to go for the nose first. A hard blow there caused his opponent lots of pain and took the fight out of him faster than anything else. Except for a hard kick in the groin, maybe. The Mayan’s eyes were bleary and bloodshot when he was finally able to focus them on Novak.

  “Bravo,” he sputtered out, his words hoarse and strangled. “You got me. Be proud of it. Nobody else has ever come close.”

  Novak was surprised the Mayan’s English was so good. He hadn’t expected that. He had expected him to speak exclusively in Spanish again. “Yeah, I’ve got you. Good for me. Bad for you.”

  “Why not just kill me out in the lake when you had the chance? Hold me under and let me drown?”

  Novak watched the guy pull at the ropes, testing them, still thinking he had a chance to escape. Wrong. He couldn’t get out of those knots in a million years. Novak had made sure of it. “Because I want answers. I want to know why you targeted me and more important why you abused that poor little girl I found tied up on your boat. You cut up her arms and legs and terrified her. She’s just an innocent little kid. That bugged me. Pissed me off, if you want to know the truth. So now you’re going to answer for it.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  Novak scowled, angered by his question. “She is. No thanks to you.”

  The Mayan let his head hang down again, his chin resting on his chest. Poor guy was too tired to hold his head up. He was all dressed up in his ninja outfit, but his clothes were sopping wet and muddy and covered with his own blood. When he lifted his face again, he said, “I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t do anything to her.”

  Novak grimaced. So now that the guy was caught like a mouse in a trap, he was going to deny his crimes and try to save his own skin. Damn coward. “So what’s that mean? You saying she cut herself up like that? I don’t think so.”

  “I’m saying I was helping her. Just like you are helping her now.”

  Novak felt his teeth grind together. “You murdered my friend Jenn. You killed her, and you killed that young woman with her, and now I’m going to kill you.”

  “I didn’t kill either of them. And I didn’t hurt the child.”

  Halfway surprised that the assassin was denying his crimes, Novak stared at him, absolutely disgusted. He figured the killer would be proud of his murderous prowess. Most assassins were. “So I guess you didn’t kill all those guys on that beach, either? Or the Asian woman back in the jungle? Li Liu? Remember her? You sayin’ you weren’t back there in that house, slicing off her skin inch by inch? We heard her screams. Guess you didn’t do any of that, either, did you?”

  “I killed them all. I admit it. They deserved to die, every single last one of them. They were thieves and rapists and slavers. The woman was the worst of them all. I knew her well. After she received the ransoms, she executed many of her victims with bullets in their heads and left them to rot in the jungle. I do not regret my actions that night. It is better that they are dead.”

  “Oh, I get it. You’re a good guy now. Just getting rid of all the other bad guys.”

  “That’s right. I kill bad guys.”

  The Mayan turned out to be even smaller than Novak had first thought. He looked five feet three, maybe, if that. He was muscular and fit for his size, and probably very quick—not quick enough tonight, though. He had long black hair tied back at the nape and a small goatee. He had the handsome visage of a Central American Indian, might even be descended with a pure lineage.

  Their gazes locked. Neither blinked. Neither looked away. The Mayan did not seem afraid of Novak or of what was coming next. He should be. He should be terrified. But he wasn’t. He was quite calm.

  “I’m ready to make a deal now,” the Mayan told him. “It will be in your best interests to come to terms.”

  Novak actually laughed at that one. “No deals. You are soon going to be too dead to make any deals. My friend Jenn? She was a good person. An innocent woman who spent her life helping other people. I cared about her, and you murdered her in cold blood. You took her body and dumped her out in the ocean like a bag of garbage.”

  “I did not hurt her. I helped her.”

  Novak sighed, weary of the whole damn mess. He didn’t like to think of Jenn out there, alone, dead, and drifting around on the bottom of the ocean. “Quit lying. I know who you are and what you do. You murder for hire. You work for Arturo Ruiz. But you’ve killed your last victim. Now you are going to find out how they feel the moment before you slice open their jugular.”

  The Mayan remained silent. Then he took a deep breath and blew it out. A burst of blood droplets hit the tarp in front of him. “You are wrong, my friend. Your lady, the one you call Jenn? She is not dead.”

  All right, that stunned Novak. He sat up straighter, hope flaring alive and then dying almost as fast. He set his jaw, angry again. Probably just another cruel game the Mayan wanted to play.

  “I saw how much blood you left inside her house. I saw where you clubbed her or knifed her out on that deck. I saw where you killed Marisol.”

  The Mayan’s eyes held his, dark and intense but with a look of utter serenity. “They were attacked, sí, very brutally attacked. But I did not touch them. When I arrived at that house, your friend Jenn was
lying outside, unconscious and bleeding. The other girl was inside. She had been butchered like a sacrificial lamb. Her name was not Marisol Ruiz as you believed. Her name was Luisa Mendez, and she has been Marisol’s best friend since they were children. They plotted this whole thing together, and I guess Marisol decided to leave no witnesses when everything started going wrong. As you probably know, Luisa was not a strong person, not a monster like Marisol is. She would have been easy to dupe, and she would be easy to kill. She would have fallen to her knees and begged for her life. It was clear from the scene that Jenn fought to stay alive, and maybe that is why she was in better shape when I got there.”

  “Then how come we found the blue butterfly tat on Luisa?”

  “Marisol and Luisa both have that tattoo. Identical butterflies, done at the same place at the same time. I can remember when they got them, years ago. Luisa adored Marisol, wanted to be like her in every way. That’s how Marisol manipulated her the way she did. They played you.”

  Novak didn’t like that, but it made more sense than the rest of it. “You’re a damn liar. There was too much blood in that house for either of those women to have survived.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. I suspect Luisa contacted Marisol and told her where they were and about the trade, you in exchange for Marisol. I believe Luisa probably panicked when she thought she was being taken to the Ruiz compound. Arturo would have had her shot for tricking him. She knew that, and I know that. I don’t know how she contacted Marisol, but she did.”

  “At the exchange, the blond girl said they were alive and waiting for me at the beach house.”

  “Surely you didn’t believe her? She is a consummate liar, just as Luisa was. Marisol killed Luisa and then tried to kill Jenn. Your friend only survived because I followed Marisol and got there in time. Jenn is still alive and in a safe place.”

  “How the hell did you find them? We cut the chip out of the girl you’re calling Luisa.”

  “I wasn’t tracking Luisa anymore. Couldn’t find her signal. So I went back and tracked Marisol. She has the same kind of GPS chip inside her body. I know, because I’m the one who implanted both girls. Her father ordered it done when I had brought them back home to him after they’d run away. I did it while they were sedated. Neither of them had any idea I could track them. I tried to find Marisol first, but she moved around too often for me to catch up with her. So I started tracking Luisa. I knew she could tell me where Marisol was. Marisol’s the one I want.”

  Novak considered everything he’d said. “Say I believed you for one single second, which I don’t. No way could anybody, especially some young girl like Marisol Ruiz, get the jump on Jenn. Jenn’s a trained operative, as good as they come.”

  “You don’t know Marisol Ruiz. She is a deadly woman. Believe me, I trained her myself.”

  “You’re saying that the blonde that they exchanged for me was the real Marisol Ruiz.”

  “Yes, when things started going wrong and she had a chance to return to the safety of her father’s compound, she apparently decided going there was her best bet. She knew I was coming to kill her. That girl you pulled out of the water and tried so hard to protect was her friend Luisa. As I just told you.”

  Novak said, “You were after Luisa. You came after us with everything you had.”

  “That’s right. She was just as guilty as Marisol is. I am not innocent of crimes. I admit freely that I have been an evil man for most of my life. I have killed many people. I will answer to God for those souls on the day I die.”

  “Today, you mean.” Novak wasn’t buying what the Mayan was selling.

  “I did not kill the woman named Jenn. I swear it. She is still alive. I treated her wounds right there on that beach to try to stop the bleeding. Luisa was already dead, but the American woman lived, and I figured her life meant something to you. I assumed she might come in handy as a bargaining chip if you should ever get the better of me. You are an adversary that I can respect. I do admire your dogged determination.”

  “You’re lying. Jenn’s dead.” But Novak wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe she was still alive, about as much as he had ever wanted to believe anything in his entire life.

  “Then let me prove it. Cut me down and I will show you.”

  “Prove it right now.”

  The Mayan bent his head back. His nose had started bleeding again. It ran into his mouth and made him choke and cough. Novak was unmoved.

  “I can give you a mobile number. You can even use FaceTime, if you’ve got it. A nurse will pick up at the other end and hold the phone so that you can see the woman named Jenn. You will see her with your own two eyes. She is severely injured but still breathing. Then you will know that I did not kill her. I saved her life. She will tell you that, too. She will tell you that Marisol Ruiz attacked her and left both her and Luisa for dead.”

  Novak considered his story, considered what kind of ruse he might be trying to pull. This guy was clever, no doubt highly adept at getting himself out of tight situations. Novak suspected he’d never been captured until tonight. Still, if Jenn was alive, if there was any hope of it, Novak had to know and had to find her. He considered how the Mayan could be perpetrating a trick or a trap and why the killer would give him a way to verify his assertions. Novak couldn’t figure how calling a phone number could put him at a disadvantage. He had to know. If Jenn was alive, he wanted her back. He wanted to go get her. The Mayan had a bargaining chip, all right, and he had just laid it on the table.

  “What’s the number?”

  The Mayan told him, and Novak punched it into his phone. They stared at each other while it rang at the other end of the line. Two rings. Three. Then somebody picked up. A woman’s face appeared very briefly. Then the screen turned around, and Novak could see Jenn. She was lying on a bed, her head propped atop white pillows. She had bandages on her face and wrapped around her forehead. She had on a hospital gown and was covered with a white blanket. Her eyes were swollen almost shut, but she was awake and aware and was trying to focus her eyes on the phone. She couldn’t quite do it.

  “Novak? Is that you? I thought he killed you.”

  Her voice sounded as if her lungs had been affected, maybe collapsed from the attack. But it was definitely Jenn. No question about it. And she was alive. Novak felt his throat constrict, close in on itself and almost strangle him with emotion. His muscles went tight. He was relieved, so damn relieved to see her alive and talking to him.

  “Are you okay? Are they treating you all right?” Novak asked her quickly, glancing at the Mayan.

  “I’m hurt pretty bad, I think. They’re giving me something in an IV to help with the pain.”

  Across the room, the Mayan grinned at Novak. His teeth were bloody, both his lips raw and split open. Novak still could not believe Jenn was alive. But she was, and she was talking to him. “Where are you?” he asked her. “I’m getting you out of there.”

  “I don’t know. A hospital, I guess. They give me sedatives and I sleep most of the time. There’s a doctor here and some nurses who take care of me.” She stopped and took some rasping breaths. It was hard for her to talk, hard for him to understand her. “I’m handcuffed to the bed. I don’t remember how I got here. The Mayan came here once, I think, and told me you might call and talk to me if I didn’t try to escape. I was afraid to believe him. He told me I was his safety net.”

  “I went to your house, Jenn. I saw blood everywhere. He said the girl was already dead when he got there and you were close to it. Tell me what happened, Jenn. Tell me who did this to you. Did the Mayan attack you?”

  She shook her head. “That girl you pulled out of the ocean. She wasn’t Marisol. I don’t know who she was, but she’s dead now. I think she got hold of my phone somehow, maybe when I was in the shower, and called the girl who attacked us. She must have let her in to the house. The girl had been so compliant after you left that I let down my guard.” She stopped, licked dry lips, rested a moment. She was in
a lot of pain, all right. Her eyes were dull with the drugs. “I heard them whispering, and then the girl screamed. I ran into the living room, and she was already down beside the couch, throat cut, and she was just, God, she was just down there gargling on her own blood. Then some other girl came out of nowhere with a big knife and started slashing at me. She was screaming and yelling, in some terrible, crazy frenzy. I got a shot off, but she stabbed my arm and I dropped my weapon. I got out to the deck, and then she was on me so quickly that I couldn’t get away. She just kept stabbing me.” Jenn’s words trailed off and she shut her eyes. “I passed out, I guess. I don’t remember much after that.”

  “Was the woman who attacked you tall with blond hair?”

  Jenn nodded.

  “What does the Mayan have to do with this? Was he with her when she showed up with the knife?”

  “I didn’t see him, but it all happened so fast. When I came to again, I was on a boat. Down in some dark place. I was bandaged up and he was feeding me pills. He had my arm chained to the wall. Water was sloshing around on the floor, I think. I was only half conscious then.” She stopped, took more breaths that seemed to hurt her. “He asked me who had done this to me, and he said he was going to get her. He told me that if you kept interfering, he would use me to make you see reason.”

  “I’m seeing reason. He’s tied up by his arms and bleeding all over the place and offering me deals. I haven’t killed him yet. Doesn’t mean I won’t.”

  The Mayan showed his bloody teeth again. “You won’t kill me. Because those doctors and nurses taking care of your friend? They have been instructed to leave her there without food and water or medical attention if I do not call in at scheduled intervals. She’ll die slowly, chained to that bed, dehydrated and starved to death.”

  Novak knew then that he didn’t have a choice. “Are you okay, Jenn? Are they hurting you?”