by Brenda Novak
“I don’t want to scare you but…”
She sounded scared herself. “Maybe you shouldn’t go in. Maybe you’d better call 9-1-1.”
That brought no response.
“Sonja?”
“Wait a second. There’s a terrible stench. And I see something.”
Vivian bit her lip and gripped the phone even tighter. “What is it?”
“Oh, God!” Sonja wailed. “Someone’s stabbed her. She’s dead.”
“They didn’t even lock the door. That means we’re basically invited in, don’t you think?” Ink chortled as he let himself and L.J. inside the cabin they’d come across earlier.
L.J. didn’t answer. He hadn’t said a word since Ink dragged him from the edge of the clearing where he’d been watching the pretty teenager sitting on her deck.
Attempting to ignore his partner’s sour mood, Ink visited the kitchen. “Hey, they’ve got enough beer in here to last us a month.” He opened the refrigerator door wide, so L.J. could see for himself. “Look at this.”
L.J. didn’t bother to glance over. Slumping onto the couch, he stared straight ahead.
Ink closed the fridge. “Quit pouting about that little bitch, will ya?”
“I’m just wondering why we always have to do what you want. You can threaten people, kill people, whatever. First you killed that lady in L.A. Then—”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“You told Horse she had information. You knew he was sending a couple Crew over there. What did you think they were going to do? Dance with her?”
“They did exactly what I expected. And, just like I told you, she did have information.”
“A phone number that goes to a restaurant?”
“It’s what brought us here, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, and I bet that old guy at the cabin’s glad we came.”
Ink didn’t want to think about the old guy at the cabin, but L.J. brought it up all the time. “Listen, you can have that sweet young thing when we’re ready to leave the area. Then it won’t matter what you do because we’ll be gone before the sheriff can come after us.”
“And when will that be?” L.J. grumbled.
“I’ve told you. After I kill Laurel Hodges and her kids and send their heads to her brother.”
L.J. grimaced. “That’s sick, man. Are you really gonna cut off their heads? Even the kids?”
“Why not?” Searching for clues that might tell him how many men they’d soon be facing, and what those men were like, Ink limped into the living room and began snooping around. He found a pair of waders, an extra fishing rod, a paper sack with a few pennies, a receipt for bait and a bag of chips.
A joint lay on top of the entertainment system. Ink thought that might come in handy.
L.J. watched him circle the room. “Getting that woman killed was bad enough. But the old guy? After seeing that shit, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”
“What’s the matter?” He grinned. “Can’t handle the violence?”
Two grooves formed between L.J.’s eyebrows. “That’s not it. It’s just…we been here a week and you still don’t know where this Laurel woman lives. Unless she’s dumber than dirt, she’s changed her name, so it’s not like we can just ask around. And it hasn’t done any good to stake out the Golden Griddle. How will we ever find her? Ask everyone we meet to see if they know a woman who’s tall and thin with long blond hair? That could describe lots of women. And she could’ve gained a ton of weight or changed her hair color.”
“Maybe she can change her hair color and her weight, but she can’t change her height. She’s got to be five-ten. That doesn’t describe as many women as you think.”
“Oh, yeah? You might be surprised.” His sulk more pronounced, he folded his arms.
“Besides, I’ve seen her,” Ink said. “I’d recognize her.”
“That might work if she ate at that restaurant, but we haven’t spotted her there.”
“We could spot her somewhere else.”
L.J. barked a laugh. “What’re the chances? You gotta be realistic, man. All you got is the phone number Horse’s men forced out of Laurel’s mother. That’s not much. Maybe if they could’ve gotten the kids’ names, we’d have a chance, but the old lady wouldn’t give that up.”
“I’m going to remember the daughter’s name myself. You’ll see.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying since I met you, bro.”
“I will. I heard Laurel say it once. I was right there in her living room.”
L.J. waved him off. “So we got nothin’, like I said.
We’re just wastin’ time.”
Ink gritted his teeth. As far as he was concerned, L.J. didn’t deserve to call himself a member of The Crew. The Crew didn’t whine like this kid. That was the problem these days. They were letting in guys who had no balls whatsoever. “You’ll see. I’ll think of the name eventually.” But he didn’t have a lot of hope. He’d been racking his brain for the past four years to no avail. All he knew was that it was short and unusual…?.
God, it drove him nuts. At times, it was on the tip of his tongue. And why would she change it? She probably didn’t even remember using her daughter’s name in front of him. He’d only been at her house for one or two minutes. “Pineview ain’t that big,” he pointed out.
“So? Maybe she doesn’t live in town. Maybe she lives out here, in the mountains. These cabins are so spread out we couldn’t find ’em all even if we wanted to.”
“She has to go into town sometime.”
“Who says? Maybe she lives like a freakin’ hermit.”
Tired of the complaints, Ink began to fondle the trigger of his gun. It would be so easy to blow L.J.’s brains out…?. “She has kids. That means they gotta go to school.”
“Not during the summer.”
“They have to get groceries, dumb shit.”
L.J. shot to his feet. “Stop calling me that! I’m tired of it, you hear? I’ll leave your sorry ass to limp around this place on your own if you don’t keep your mouth shut!”
Ink nearly raised the gun. L.J. needed to learn some respect, needed to see how a real Crew member behaved. The Glock he held was all they’d been able to bum off their brothers on such short notice, so it wouldn’t be hard. L.J. didn’t even have a weapon.
But Ink wasn’t about to sabotage his own success, not after getting this far. Once he had what he wanted, he’d cap L.J. Then he’d steal a car, sneak over the Canadian border and get lost in a whole other country. Until then, he had to have someone who could go into town and ask about Laurel, someone who didn’t stand out the way he did. Who else could he trust?
“Calm down before you ruin everything.” Picking up a Playboy from the coffee table, he stared down at the blonde bombshell on the cover. According to the issue date, it was a recent purchase, which meant the guys who were staying here must’ve brought it with them. “We’ve got a nice place to stay, plenty to eat and drink. We even have some naked girls to enjoy.” He tossed the magazine at L.J. “We keep our cool, we can have ourselves a party, once we whack the guys who rented this cabin.”
L.J. let the magazine fall to the couch. He had such a sullen look that Ink wondered if L.J. was contemplating the odds of overpowering him. Ink was fifteen years his senior and couldn’t stand straight anymore but L.J. didn’t have as much experience, or enough nerve to kill a man. The way L.J. had puked up his breakfast after Ink beat the crap out of that Realtor convinced Ink that half the shit L.J. claimed to have done wasn’t true. Ink thought he could beat L.J. despite his handicap, and was eager to do it—but he had other plans for the time being, so he adopted a more conciliatory tone. “What do you say?”
At last the kid sat back down. “If you know where Laurel’s brother is, why don’t we just go there, shoot him and be done with it?”
“Because I don’t know where he is. That’s what she’s going to tell me in order to save her kids.”
“You just said she’s met y
ou before. That means she’ll realize that nothing can save her kids.”
“Then something in her house will give it away. Virgil and his sister were always close. She’ll have his phone number, letters, emails from him, some way to find him.”
L.J. pulled a piece of gum from his pocket and shoved it into his mouth. “What about the other guy?”
“Who?”
“What’d you call him—Pretty Boy? We’re going after him, too, right?”
Just the mention of Pretty Boy made Ink clench his jaw. “You know we are.”
“You haven’t said anything about him lately. It’s been all about the bitch.”
“Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten him. She’s first. Virgil and his wife are next. Pretty Boy’s last. The order’s important.”
Muttering something that sounded like, “You’re crazy,” L.J. turned on the TV, but Ink grabbed the remote and turned it off again.
“What are you thinking? They hear that shit, they’ll know they got company. You want to face the business end of five rifles?”
“There’re fishing poles in here.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t do a little hunting, too.”
“Black bear’s the only thing in season. How many black bear hunters can there be?”
“Enough to have a season, right? Who told you it was bear season, anyway?”
“That guy at Walmart. I distracted him while you lifted our shoes, remember?”
He gazed around the cabin again. “So they could be hunters, like I said.”
L.J. scratched his neck. “They could also be a bunch of yuppies who wouldn’t know how to use a gun even if they had one.”
“Like I told you before, it’s safer to assume the worst.”
“Fine. We’ll assume the worst.” With a sigh, L.J. got up and helped himself to a cold beer. “So what do we do until these bear hunters come back? It’s barely noon.”
“We wait until they drag their sorry asses home. They’ll be here for dinner, if not before. With all the food they got, I’m betting they’re planning a barbecue.” A snick sounded as L.J. popped the top of his beer. “That could be five or six hours, man. I hate waiting.”
Ink whirled on him. “Could you quit complaining? I mean, you got any better ideas? Where else are we gonna stay? How else are we gonna get food?”
When he didn’t reply, Ink gestured at the Playboy. “Why don’t you go look at that magazine if you want some tits and ass? Take it into the bathroom. The way you’re actin’, two minutes should take care of your problem.”
“At least I can still get it up,” he snapped.
L.J. was guessing, but he was right. It wasn’t just his ability to have an erection that Laurel, Virgil and Pretty Boy had taken away from him. He wasn’t half the man he used to be. But they’d pay for what they’d done. They’d pay for everything. Soon.
He opened his mouth to tell L.J. the dick he was so proud of wouldn’t work very good if he shot it off when he heard a car pull up outside. “They’re early!”
L.J. checked the window while Ink got behind the couch.
“How many are there?” Ink asked, his voice barely audible.
“Four.”
“They have rifles?”
“Not unless they left ’em in the truck. They’re carrying cameras. Looks like a bunch of dads getting together for some kind of reunion.” At that point, L.J. glanced back as if he wanted to ask Ink not to go through with it. But it was too late. Ink didn’t have any choice. He had to get rid of these guys; it wasn’t like they’d walk away and keep their mouths shut just because he and L.J. asked them to.
The door swung inward. Then L.J. dropped to the floor, and Ink began to fire.
16
Rex had his arms around her. They were standing beneath a tree in Libby in some park she’d probably passed by once or twice but never noticed, and he was crooning words of comfort in her ear. “It’ll be okay, I promise. Don’t worry about anything.”
Vivian heard what he was saying but his words held no meaning. Her mother was gone. Murdered. And Vivian wasn’t even sure she’d loved her. Not at the end. Was it possible to love someone you couldn’t trust? Someone you blamed for so much heartache?
She’d wanted to love Ellen. All along. But…
God, she’d thought her feelings involving her mother were complicated before this happened, but she’d had no idea how confusing they could get. She needed to find herself in all of this, to at least grab hold of an emotion she could understand. An emotion that would make her feel normal. But she couldn’t manage it.
“What’s going on, Laurel?” Her real name seemed as foreign as everything else at the moment. She was no longer Laurel. He wasn’t Pretty Boy anymore, either. He’d told her that himself. Too much had changed.
She missed him, missed her old self, too. And yet she wanted more power than she’d had before. She wanted to take charge of her life and refuse to let The Crew control her through the threat they posed.
Rex pulled back to look into her face. “You haven’t said a word since you dropped the phone.”
The way she’d grabbed the pedestal in order to keep from sagging to the ground had told him something was wrong. He’d dashed out to catch her, hung up the handset and helped her back to the car. Then he’d brought her here, where there was no phone and no busy street, only green grass, green trees, gold and orange flowers and a wide blue sky.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I don’t even know what to feel.” She was pretty sure there should be something besides emptiness inside her. What about sorrow? Regret? Relief? Vindication? She could justify any of them, and yet they weren’t there. A void filled her heart where the pain should be.
He removed her sunglasses and lifted her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Start with what you’re thinking.”
“Nothing.” She gave her head a quick shake. “I’m numb.”
“Come on, don’t shut down.” Setting his hands on her shoulders, he squeezed them for emphasis. “Talk. It’ll make this easier. You can trust me, remember?”
She could trust him to care about her, but she couldn’t trust him to take care of himself. And that meant she couldn’t risk loving him. And yet she did love him. Not like she used to. Not in a romantic sense. But as a good friend, someone who’d always be special.
Even that frightened her.
“Laurel?”
She had to get him to stop calling her that. “Vivian.”
“Fine. Vivian. You’re scaring me. You’re white as a ghost and I could feel your pulse a second ago. Your heart’s racing like a rabbit’s. Will you let me know what’s going on inside that pretty head of yours?”
She studied the crushed grass between them while she tried to isolate a single ingredient from the stew of her thoughts. She wanted to ask what Ellen’s death signified. But he wouldn’t know. Did it mean The Crew had paid Ellen a visit and she wouldn’t give up what she knew?
That possibility made Vivian wince. Had she misjudged her mother after all?
Or…had Ellen told as much as she could about Vivian’s calls?
The mere fact of her death didn’t provide the answer. The Crew could’ve killed her even if she cooperated.
“Hey!” He gave her shoulders another squeeze.
Talk. She needed to talk. “Who’s going to see to her burial?” she asked. “I can’t expect Virgil to do it.”
“You’re right. He can’t leave Peyton. Not while she’s so close to having the baby.”
It was more than that. Her brother was absolutely convinced that Ellen had conspired with Gary to murder Martin and let him take the blame for it. He wouldn’t attend Ellen’s funeral even if it was right across the street and there was no danger.
“So?” She reclaimed her sunglasses and put them on. They provided a shield of sorts—a small one, granted, but that was better than nothing.
“It’s a homicide, so there’ll be an autopsy,” he replied. “Tha
t may take several days, maybe a week or two.”
“She’s already been dead awhile. Who knows how long? Sonja Ivey was so upset she could hardly speak. She was too busy gasping and crying.” Images of the murdered marshal in Colorado loomed, but Vivian shoved them away.
“The police will get whatever information they can about the way she was killed. But my point is this—you don’t have to make every decision right this minute. Let’s deal with the shock first.”
The shock was exactly what she was attempting to overcome. She felt as if she’d been dumped into some kind of arctic wilderness. If she didn’t force herself to keep thinking, keep planning, keep moving, she’d freeze and be unable to do anything. “But I have to worry about her burial at some point, don’t I? Some point soon.”
She stepped out of reach. Being so close to him had once felt right, but not anymore. He’d been Laurel’s crutch, Laurel’s love, not Vivian’s. Vivian was too infatuated with the sheriff to be able to fall back into a relationship with Rex. Not that she could pursue what she felt for him, either. “At the very least, I have to tell the police who’s responsible for her death. I won’t let The Crew get away with this.”
The empty place inside her was filling up—with anger and outrage. It threatened to make her reckless because she was beginning to care less about her own safety and well-being than achieving justice.
Or maybe it wasn’t justice she wanted so much as revenge. Was she becoming less like ordinary people and more like the men who hunted her? It wouldn’t surprise her. They’d made her live in their world, made her look over her shoulder every second, for nearly four years.
“You might have to let the police handle the investigation on their own,” Rex said.
“No.”
He gripped her elbow. “Look, I know what you’re feeling. I feel the same. But it’s a war we can’t win.”
She knocked his hand away. “We won’t win if we don’t fight.”
“Don’t you think Virgil and I have considered that? We have. Lots of times. But there are too many of them. We could pick off one or two, maybe even three or four. But we can’t get to the most powerful members. They’ll just keep sending more foot soldiers until we screw up or get too tired to run. Then they’ll get us.”