Blue Smoke and Murder

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Jill let go of the curtain. “I’m alone right now. I’m checking to see if there’s a back way out.”

  No such luck.

  Above eye level, over the toilet, there was a sliding frosted glass panel. Jill stepped up onto the lid of the toilet and eased the panel open.

  “No back door, but there’s a small window over the head. I see a barn and—” Her voice broke. She swallowed. “There are two really big black SUVs, smoked windows, waiting in the barn doorway. And what looks like the rotor of a helicopter. Are you listening, St. Kilda? This is a trap.”

  And she couldn’t see a way out.

  85

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH

  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:34 P.M.

  A white Lincoln Navigator wheeled up beside the Skymaster almost before the plane stopped. Zach flung off his seat harness, shoved open the door and leaped out, duffel in hand.

  All the windows of the Navigator were rolled down. You could shoot into a car with closed windows, but it was hell to shoot back that way.

  A man bailed from the front seat and pushed into the already full backseat, making room for Zach next to the driver.

  Zach jumped in front and slammed the door. He didn’t recognize anyone, and didn’t need to. Their weapons were clean and carried professionally. Body armor bulked up their clothes.

  Zach wished he and Jill were wearing some. But he hadn’t taken his on the vacation that had become a job, and Jill probably didn’t even know what body armor looked like.

  The Navigator turned onto the ranch road and accelerated, its headlights looking frail against the dusk.

  “Red Hill still in place?” Zach asked the driver.

  “Last I heard,” she said.

  “Craptastic.”

  “That’s what Faroe said.”

  “Anything new?” Zach asked.

  “The client—”

  “Jill,” Zach cut in. “Her name is Jill.”

  The driver gave him a sideways glance. “The BlackBerry bug on her works fine. She spotted the Red Hill vehicles and helo and described them. She’s in the fourth cottage on the right. She looked for a back way out. Didn’t find one. There’s an extra com rig for you in the glove compartment.”

  Zach opened it, put on the familiar lightweight headset, and adjusted the voice pickup. Now he could communicate with the rest of the team, as well as with St. Kilda.

  “Any idea who hired Red Hill?” Zach asked.

  “If Faroe knows, he isn’t sharing.”

  “Then he doesn’t know,” Zach said.

  The Navigator hit a rough patch and shuddered hard.

  The driver kept the accelerator halfway to the floor.

  Jill’s voice whispered through Zach’s earpiece. “Ski Mask is coming back toward me. His body language is all about rage. So is the gun in his hand. Whatever happened in the sixth cabin really punched his buttons.”

  “Faster,” Zach snarled.

  The accelerator slammed to the floor and the Navigator surged forward.

  Zach had a cold feeling in his gut that it wouldn’t be fast enough.

  86

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH

  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:35 P.M.

  Score yanked the ski mask back over his face and stalked toward the fourth cottage. Rage surged through him at being chewed out by some candy-ass lawyer half his age who thought a private investigator was another name for dumbshit errand boy.

  Stupid lawyer about wet his pants when he saw my gun. Does he think the world is run by big words in his lying mouth?

  The lawyer was a mistake.

  Score figured he’d have to be the one to fix it. The thought made him smile.

  A million bucks and South America was looking better every second. He’d eaten enough crap from way too many smart-mouthed suits.

  He opened the door on cabin number 4 hard enough to bang it back on its hinges. Part of him was worried that his temper was slipping out of control.

  The rest of him just wanted to bring it on.

  The gloves are finally off. Any more shit goes around, I’ll be the one sending it.

  Jill looked up from the briefcase full of bundled, used hundred-dollar bills. She didn’t know how much money was there, but she doubted it was two million. Even in hundreds, two million bucks was a lot of bills.

  Twenty thousand, to be precise.

  “Where are the rest of the paintings?” Score demanded.

  “Where’s the rest of the money?”

  “You’ll see it when I see the rest of the paintings.”

  Jill didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried that she’d been right about the short money.

  “Give me the keys to your car,” he said curtly.

  “Why?”

  “Fuck it,” he said, turning on his heel. “I’ll just trash it and burn what’s left.”

  “Wait!” Jill reached into her belly bag. The gun felt cold, unreal against her fingertips. The keys felt ordinary. She launched them toward him. “Catch.”

  Score nailed the keys with a vicious swipe of his hand.

  Somewhere out back, an engine started up. Then another. The whine of a helicopter engine winding up drowned out the sound of the cars.

  What the hell? Score thought. First the deputy bags it, and now Red Hill is getting restless.

  He looked out the door just as a black Suburban accelerated toward the cottages and the dirt road leading back to the highway. Following the first Suburban was another, equally black, equally intent on leaving. The second vehicle stopped for men who swarmed up out of the desert, covered in dust and camouflage gear, weapons slung for travel.

  With a vicious curse, Score pointed his gun toward Jill. “Go back to counting money, bitch. If you leave, you’re dead.”

  Jill froze.

  The front door slammed shut.

  She grabbed the BlackBerry and ran to the front window.

  “Something’s happening,” she said quickly into the bug. “The men in the Suburbans look like they’re leaving. Ski Mask blew out of here with the mask in one hand and a gun in the other. From what I can see, he’s totally lost it. Yelling at the sixth cabin, waving the gun around. Even in the dim light, his face looks flushed. Can’t make out the words. Now the well-dressed dude is trotting over. He’s got his cell phone against his ear and is yelling at Ski Mask. The helicopter is revving up. The Suburbans are driving toward the highway, ignoring the—”

  Jill’s voice cut off in shock as a pistol barked once. The well-dressed man spun sideways, then went down hard.

  “Ski Mask shot him,” she said numbly. “He just shot him. My God.”

  The gun barked again. A head shot this time. The body twitched and went utterly slack.

  Ski Mask looked down at the body, spat, then turned away.

  The BlackBerry fell from Jill’s numb fingers. Something had gone terribly wrong.

  And now the murderer was heading right for her.

  She ran for the bathroom, grabbing the briefcase full of money and one of the wrought-iron chairs along the way. Once inside the bathroom, she locked the door, tilted the chair on two legs, and wedged it under the handle.

  I’m safe for now, she thought, holding the briefcase like armor against her chest.

  And trapped. Did I mention trapped?

  The door creaked when someone kicked it hard. The next kick sent cracks screaming through the cheap wood. The man outside was cursing steadily, savagely.

  Jill stepped onto the toilet seat and wrenched the sliding window off its tracks. She didn’t know if she could make it through the small opening.

  She knew she had to try.

  She grabbed the gun from her belly bag, banged it against the window frame, pointed the muzzle at the door, and pulled the trigger three times. Sound echoed around the small bathroom.

  If Ski Mask had been standing in front of the door, he was badly hurt or dead.

  A man screamed curses and returned fire. Bullets smashed through
the door at waist level and below, screaming off porcelain.

  Ski Mask hadn’t been standing in front of the door. And now he was going to kick down the door and shoot her until she didn’t move again. Ever.

  87

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH

  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:38 P.M.

  Gunshots sounded above the SUV’s racing engine. Zach recognized the sound of the Colt Woodsman. The return fire was from a bigger caliber pistol.

  “Faroe!” Zach said urgently. “Is Jill on the air?”

  “No. We heard shots fired over Jill’s bug, but Red Hill had already agreed to withdraw. What’s happening?”

  “Does Red Hill have her?”

  “Negative.”

  Something burned like ice in Zach’s chest, in his gut. “Jill could be down, hurt. Tell Red Hill to get the hell out of my way.”

  “The general has already done that. Jill’s last known position was cabin four.”

  “Go!” Zach said to the driver.

  The driver didn’t bother to point out that she couldn’t go any faster.

  A set of headlights appeared, coming down the one-lane dirt road at them. Dust and grit boiled up in the lights.

  “Don’t slow down and don’t give way,” Zach said.

  Jill, talk to me. Tell me you’re alive.

  You’ve got to be alive.

  Silence came through his earphones.

  “They’re not giving way,” the driver said.

  “Put ’em in the ditch,” Zach said.

  The driver flipped on the emergency blinker and kept the accelerator pinned, hurtling through the dusk.

  The onrushing Red Hill vehicle held its course until the last possible instant, then veered off into the sage and scrub. There was a loud grinding as something metal slammed into rock. The Red Hill SUV caught air, slammed down, veered back onto the road behind Zach, and raced for the highway.

  “There’s a second vehicle somewhere,” the driver said.

  “Ignore it unless it gets in your way,” Zach said.

  “And if it does?”

  “Ram it.”

  The driver waited, but Faroe didn’t override Zach’s command.

  “Zach, you don’t have body armor,” Grace’s voice said. “Let the other ops take care of it.”

  Zach didn’t answer.

  “Zach?”

  The driver looked sideways at her passenger’s face, then looked away. Zach was in the kind of mental space where she never wanted to go.

  Headlights flared near the ranch. The second Red Hill SUV didn’t even try to play chicken—it just took off into the desert, cutting a wide arc around the St. Kilda vehicle before getting back on the dirt road and speeding toward the highway.

  An executive helicopter lifted and banked away, lights blinking, climbing fast, heading toward Las Vegas.

  The driver put the Navigator into a power slide that ended at cabin number four. While the SUV was still moving, Zach opened the door and bailed out in a hail of rocks and sand. He hit the ground running, gun at the ready.

  A shot rang out from number four. Then another.

  The scream of pain was female.

  A bulky male figure dashed out of number four and turned the corner, heading toward the back of the cottage, running hard. The gun in his hand had a surly gleam in the headlights. He held the weapon one-handed, fired the same way.

  Like the shooter in Taos.

  Bullets gouged dirt inches from Zach. He stopped and fired two closely spaced shots.

  The man jerked, reeled, and scrambled around the back of the cabin. As he ran, he dropped a spent magazine and slammed another one into the butt of his pistol.

  Zach went low through the front door of the fourth cabin, sweeping the room over his gun, remembering the driver’s words.

  She looked for a back way out. Didn’t find one.

  “Jill!” he called. “It’s Zach!”

  Silence answered.

  Gun at the ready, Zach took three gliding steps and saw the bathroom door. The breaks streaking through the cheap paint and the bullet holes like black eyes made his stomach clench.

  One kick finished what somebody else had started. The door screamed and broke away from its handle, taking the ice cream chair with it.

  The bathroom was empty.

  The toilet window gaped. Khaki shreds hung from it.

  Jill was alive.

  And so was the killer chasing her.

  88

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH

  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:40 P.M.

  Pain was a living, wild creature clawing at Jill.

  She accepted it and kept running, long legs driving hard, as wild and alive as the pain itself.

  The blood flowing down her right arm made the briefcase handle slippery and sticky at the same time. She switched hands. She thought about the gun in her belly bag.

  Not now.

  Later.

  If I’m trapped again.

  The first thing her great-aunt had taught Jill was not to waste bullets on a target she couldn’t hit. Sprinting flat out the way she was, her right hand bloody from a wicked cut, she would be lucky not to shoot herself.

  Don’t look over my shoulder.

  He’s either behind me or he isn’t.

  A shot screamed off a nearby boulder. She flinched at the spray of rock chips.

  He’s behind me.

  She kept running, turning unpredictably every few steps, like a rabbit chased by a coyote. Pain was a whip forcing her body to hold the sprint that was her best chance of saving her own life.

  She’d hoped that the other shots she’d heard had been St. Kilda arriving and taking down Ski Mask. She’d hoped, but she hadn’t expected. Even though it felt like she’d been running forever, she knew it had been only a few minutes. Three at most. Quite probably only two.

  St. Kilda hadn’t had time to arrive.

  You’re on your own.

  Keep running.

  Her heart felt like it was going to hammer out of her chest, her breath was starting to burn, but she didn’t slow down her headlong sprint. She didn’t take her concentration off the dusk-shrouded desert in front of her and the shoulder-high, brittle brush.

  The lay of the land told her there was a ravine ahead. She didn’t know where or how far.

  She only knew that that ravine was her best chance of survival.

  89

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH

  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:41 P.M.

  Zach turned and raced for the front door of the cabin, blowing through the St. Kilda ops that had followed him inside.

  “Stay here,” ordered a male op. “You don’t have body armor.”

  “Neither does she,” Zach snarled, shouldering the op aside.

  An op in the bathroom yelled, “Two people, running east. Client is first. Target is second. Too far for pistols. Bad light getting worse. Pass that rifle up here!”

  Zach kept going, increasing his stride. In the dusk-to-darkness, a rifle wasn’t going to do much good. Jill was doing the smart thing and running for cover.

  So was the killer behind her.

  From beyond the cabin, the sound of man-made thunder rolled through the twilight. Someone was shooting.

  It wasn’t a Colt Woodsman.

  The op behind Zach began shouting orders to the others.

  He ran hard, away from the back of the cabin, careful to stay just off the path of the target in case the op with the rifle got lucky. In his mind he replayed the few seconds he’d had the shooter in range.

  I hit him, but he didn’t go down.

  Son of a bitch is wearing body armor.

  A head shot would be the only fast way of killing him. And a head shot was a tough target when the man was running.

  No problem. I’ll just get close enough to shove the barrel up his ass.

  But that would take time.

  Time Jill didn’t have.

  90

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH


  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:42 P.M.

  Jill was running hard through raking, dry, shoulder-high brush when she hit the edge of the ravine. She shifted her balance in midair, twisted, and landed with a jolting roll that made her hurt arm scream. The soft, sandy bottom of the dry creek absorbed some of the shock of her landing. The rest knocked out a lot of her breath and set her head spinning.

  Like a cornered animal, she staggered to her feet, her breath almost as rapid as her heartbeat. She could hear the crackle of brush as Ski Mask ran closer. The ragged walls of the wash were more than five feet tall. Too high for a fast escape.

  And a fast way out was the only thing that would keep her alive.

  To her left a long, pale ribbon of rocks and sand slanted up to a dry waterfall. A glance told her that the dark rocks of the fall were too far off. Every step of the way she would show up against that light sand like the target she was.

  She’d be shot to death before she reached the uncertain cover of the dry fall.

  To her right the wash took a hard turn around a rocky outcrop. She was running for it before she consciously made a decision. She didn’t know if she would find cover at the bend in the wash, or another long stretch of pale sand. But the crooked stretch of wash was the only hope she had.

  She sprinted toward the bend, her breath harsh, burning.

  A rock poked out of the darkness, tripping her, sending her flying. She landed facedown and felt black light spin down out of the sky over her. She tried to get up, knowing that the shooter could still see her.

  Her body didn’t respond.

  Fighting to breathe, Jill waited to be shot.

  91

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH

  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:42 P.M.

  With each step, Zach gained on Ski Mask. Whatever the shooter did for a living, wind sprints weren’t on his daily to-do list. As Zach closed in, he could hear the man’s breath groaning in and out. Zach couldn’t see Jill any longer. Either she’d gone to ground or she’d outrun Ski Mask.