The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers)

by Perkins, Cathy

  No answer. There was the stink of cigarettes in the house. Maybe pipes and cigars. Leon left the house and followed the stone path lit by a few Malibu lights up through the trees, leading to a stone hut.

  The old man he took to be Cillo was playing stud with a young girl in the rock pool in front of some kind of building. The lovers played in the water like kids. Leon, hidden in the trees, wondered how much she cost. There, in the pool, the old man sitting on a rock with the whole of Tahoe below, the girl was giving him a blow job. And she had to work at it. She jerked and blew on him, him trying like hell to get to the end of it all and then finally appearing to.

  Leon got a little excited and a little sick. He waited, hoping the little skank would leave so he didn’t have to do something with her body. He wasn’t in the mood for complications. That was the whole problem with not having time to plan, track, assess, predetermine. These guys were in a panic to shut down the threat, and that led to haste. And haste always, always, brought on unforeseen, unplanned complications.

  Fortunately, half an hour after getting the old man off and having finished a drink, she climbed out, then got a towel from a little shed next to the hut. She mumbled something about the night and went down the hill toward the house, wrapped in the towel. A few minutes later, dressed in shorts and a halter top, she crossed the porch and disappeared down the steps. Moments later, she pulled out in the Prius and left.

  About damn time, Leon thought. He figured the old man would slip, hit his head on the rock, and drown. Nice, fitting end. They’d find him in a week or so. Instead, the old man smoked a cigar, naked in his rock pool, enjoying that his ancient cock still had some life in it.

  “Nice place you got here,” Leon said. “I take it you’re Tony Cillo, master of this domain.”

  The old dude turned, not showing as much shock as you’d think. Anger was more like the expression. Looked a little high on something.

  “You on Viagra?” Leon asked, smiling.

  “Who the fuck are you? What are you doing spying on me like some kind of sick voyeur?”

  “I see where the damn half-breed dog got his attitude,” Leon said. “So far, everybody I’ve met in Tahoe has some kind of messed-up attitude. People up here in paradise should have more chill. You’re either a dog or you’re a wolf. That in-between shit doesn’t make it.”

  “Get the hell off my land!”

  “Soon as I get what I came for. You got a nice pad here. Isolated. View of the whole basin. Sit up here getting stoned, having some skank getting you off. Hard work for her.”

  Leon loved to see how people lived. How big they made their lives. It was so meaningless. Life was short and you were dead forever; all the shit you built up meant nothing.

  “I’ll tell you what,” the old man said, showing no fear. “You best get outta here.”

  Leon smiled. “Tough old bastard, aren’t you? I gotta ask you a question, and you better have a good answer. I’m not here by accident. There’s this dude thinks he’s God’s gift to the planet sitting in his pad at Incline Village. He brought me all the hell the way out here to get some answers. I’m a kind of a liaison between him and you. So let’s cooperate so I can get out of your way.”

  This information changed Cillo’s expression. Now he knew the name of the game. His voice went down to a more civil tone. “All he had to do was call. What does he want to know?”

  “Where your nephew is. The one who has the woman who’s causing all this trouble.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Now, now,” Leon said. “Let’s be smart. I didn’t come all the way out here, put up with assholes and mean dogs, for ‘I don’t know.’”

  “It’s the truth. I don’t know where he went,” Cillo said. “I tried to bring him in, but so far, he’s out there, and you’ll have to go find him. I can’t help you. If I could, I would. If he contacts me, I’ll let your boss know.”

  Leon frowned. The nice-guy attitude didn’t last long. The bastard couldn’t resist getting back to his tough prick self. “Let’s get something straight. I haven’t eaten in a long time. Makes me mean. I don’t want to get mean. Like I said, I didn’t fly three thousand miles to hear any bullshit. I asked you a question, and I want an actionable answer.”

  “He cut me off. I got no idea where he is. Now get the hell out of here,” Cillo said. “This conversation is over.”

  Leon left his Glock on the rock and stepped into the pool.

  The old man tried to get up, but Leon was fast on him, grabbing the guy under the chin to lock his head and partially choke him out before he intended to bounce his head on a rock, then drown him. But the old codger, in spite of age and fat, had some fight in him. He pushed off with one foot against the side of the pool and Leon slipped back, hitting the protruding rocks. Now, enraged, he grabbed the old man and put an MMA chokehold on him.

  Leon leveraged the bastard, worked him around, and got the hold he wanted. He kneed him in the crouch to get him off balance, then slammed him back against the side of the pool, smashing his skull on the rock. As the man slipped under, momentarily out cold, Leon held him down. Scene still looked good for a slip and an accidental drowning.

  Accidents look as good as suicides. No real follow-up.

  But then the bastard came alive like some horror-movie dude, grabbed Leon’s ankle, and tried to drag him down with a seriously strong grip, forcing Leon to back off. The way Cillo came up coughing, spitting, and fighting, Leon had to smash him in the face repeatedly, then jump on him with his knee against the bastard’s throat, pinning him under. Even then, the old man showed remarkable fight, and it took a hell of a long time to get him to settle and get done with it.

  Finally, the kicking and struggling stopped. The last gurgle and bubbles came next. Leon knew soon the bowels would let loose, and he didn’t want to be in the water. He got out, breathing hard, soaked—amazed at how strong and determined the old fool was. Probably the damn Viagra.

  Leon cursed himself for being lax. The last guy, so willing to die, so beaten, had affected him in dealing with this guy, and he wasn’t happy with himself about that. If it was to look like he slipped and fell in, he must of slipped a couple times.

  Dripping wet and staring at the dead guy, Leon said, “You miserable old son of a bitch, you had some life in you, I’ll say that. All I did for you—even let you get your last blow job. And you got to give me a bad time. You and your fucking wolf-dog.”

  Before heading back to the house, Leon went through the dead man’s robe and found his cell phone. So far, nothing had gone smoothly. First he met the asshole client. Then he ran into this crazy old bastard and his dog. Now he was wet, hungry, and pissed.

  He had a lot of work yet to do. Not a good start to the night. Leon left Cillo’s and hiked back to his Raptor. He had his travel bag in the vehicle. Leon never left anything in a hotel room.

  He changed, draping the wet clothes in the back seat. Then he headed for Jesup’s condo on the other side of South Lake. He wanted to get a hold of Jesup’s computer, notes, and files.

  All the fun had gone out of the night.

  22

  Marco was asleep when Sydney got the call from her police-reporter friend. She went into the bathroom.

  “Hi. Thanks for getting back to me. What did you find out?”

  “Not a lot, but enough. You were right about this guy. His records have been sanitized. Wiped clean. I talked to a very solid source who knew all about Marco Cruz and his problems.”

  “Federal?”

  “Yes. He wouldn’t tell me anything real specific, for obvious reasons. Cruz ended up in a Mexican prison for unknown offenses. I’m not sure he was even charged, but if he was, it’s been cleaned. This was after he took out the guys who killed the border agent. It may or may not have been connected to the gun-walking deal.”

  “How did he get away with being in Mexico?”

  “He has relatives in Mexico. Some with questionable associations. Anyway, he ended up i
n prison for a time. All under a tight wrap. Can’t confirm anything about what happened. Then he’s out, vanishes for over a year. Now, apparently, he’s clean and in Tahoe. According to my source, he survived in prison because he was friendly with the big dog in there. Maybe the guy was a relative or a friend of a relative. He got released suddenly, without any explanation. Who got him out, and what he did to earn his freedom, or what he did for his benefactors, I don’t know. Whatever he did, somebody with lots of power liked him for it. And the only people who can clean records like that have a lot of federal power. Could even be the CIA. He was a perfect candidate for whatever they wanted—his military and border background, shady family ties. Like he was designed for clandestine activity.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate your help.”

  “Syd, how you’re connected with this guy, I don’t know…and maybe don’t want to know. But he’s not exactly someone you want to take home to Mom. Look, I know some rumors, and I don’t much like to deal in them—”

  “What?”

  “Well, this is rumor. After prison activities—and this is speculation because of timing and location—but it might be connected to the fall of one of Mexico’s most powerful families. That’s very much undercover as well. Information surfaced about connections beyond the cartels, reaching all the way to the Middle East. Somebody got that information and there’s this rumor—and that’s how it was put to me—that Marco Cruz was involved in the operation. People died. People ended up disappearing. It was supposedly a major operation. His role in it, I don’t know. But be careful—”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “Syd, I don’t know what you’re doing, but—”

  “Don’t ask. I won’t tell.”

  Sydney hung up. When she walked back into the dark bedroom, Marco was still dead asleep. She stared at him, that rugged but handsome face, the scar on his neck, the mouth and nose, the curly hair, the dark skin.

  He’s my guy, she thought. My dark knight.

  She smiled. If he was half as bad as it appeared, Well, she thought, maybe he’s exactly what a girl needs when the most powerful people in the Sierras are trying to kill her. It wasn’t like she was marrying the guy. And it wasn’t like he didn’t do this kind of thing. But, she admitted, he needed to come to it himself. If all he wanted was the shooter, so be it.

  At some point in her ruminations, she realized he was awake and staring at her.

  “You looked stressed out about something,” he said, shifting in the bed, propping his pillow to sit up a bit.

  “I had my police-reporter friend, my only real friend up here at the moment, check you out. His advice was to get the hell away from you.”

  “Sounds like he’s a wise man. You don’t strike me as someone who doesn’t take good advice.”

  “I don’t.” Sydney Jesup looked away from him, her gaze on the wall, the window curtain, the old furniture in the room. “I never, ever thought of myself as crossing certain lines. Always by the book, by the law. And then I did.”

  “Let me tell you something,” he said. “You take the very best, law-abidingest person on the planet and you stick them in the midst of massive and brutal corruption that has even the law in its grasp, and that leaves a simple, if unfortunate, choice. You have to submit and become corrupt, as many cops do—if not most in Mexico and quite a few in this country—or you have to rebel and cross that line. You took the right moral path in my mind. It comes with costs and high risks, but it leaves you your soul.”

  “And your Shelby Mustang,” she said with a smile.

  “That’s right, and I’m going to get the bastard who put bullet holes in it.”

  No, it’s not ending there, she wanted to tell him. You might not know it yet, but you’re in this, and you can’t get out that easy. You’re going to help me get those bastards.

  I’m not a cop or DA’s investigator anymore, she told herself. And he’s not a soldier or border patrol agent. But what did the things they were going to do—because she was confident that the deeper he got, the more locked in with her he was—make them? Criminals?

  No. We’re not criminals, but we aren’t going to use the authorities, and we’re probably going to commit crimes. There needs to be a third category.

  Staring at him, she made a decision: at some point in the not too distant future, she was going to climb into his bed if he showed interest.

  23

  Shaun Corbin was freaking out, yelling at himself in his head, coming apart.

  You are such a moron! Jesus, man, you’re a dead man, Shaun Corbin. Sonofabitch. Is this how it ends?

  His first panicked thoughts when he woke up in the dark in his pickup were, I got to get the hell out of here. Pack, get money from Kora, hit the road.

  He’d been sleeping in his truck on a side street near the ski run. He drove the short distance to his house. Earlier, he’d been afraid to go home, but now he needed to pack up and get ready to run.

  He parked and stood outside for awhile, looking around for something amiss. Something that would tell him somebody was there. But he realized he was alone on the lonely road. He wasn’t even entirely sure it was the same night. He went inside and put stuff together in a backpack and suitcase. Just the essential stuff—his laptop, some files, the travel junk, some clothes.

  Should I take it with me now? No, I can’t leave it in the truck and go up to see her. If she can’t get the money until the bank opens, then what?

  A million damn questions and problems. He separated out everything with Kora North involved—the videotapes, photographs. It was what he would trade for the cash. He put it all out on the coffee table.

  Kora was his greatest find. She was now the top call girl in Tahoe and worked exclusively for his cousin’s party set. But it was late—he assumed she’d have to go to the bank in the morning, and probably bring the money to him. By then, he’d make up his mind what to do. And she could find out some things for him, like when his damn cousin was coming back. Maybe she’d even know something about what was going on with the pro Gatts said was coming.

  That scared him. Last thing he wanted was to be in Tahoe when some stone-cold killer showed up.

  I’ll be gone by then, he told himself.

  He sat for a minute, his brain all messed up from the binge he’d been on. But to get himself straight, he needed a drink. And he needed to go see Kora.

  On his way to her place, like a broken record, his mind played the hatchery shooting again and again and again. He’d been so close, fired so many shots. Then the chase and her escape in the Shelby. It was the worst moment of his life when she’d gotten out of there. It didn’t seem possible. It was like the universe conspired against him. Hated him.

  Instead of being on the hunt, he’d been riding the bottle. He’d messed up big time and it was over. He had to get out.

  He was drunk and miserable. His greatest opportunity kicked him in the gut and mocked him. He hated himself for wanting so desperately to be accepted by the goddamn Thorps. All he did for them…the party girls, the drugs. God, he hated the whole arrogant elitist bunch of assholes. But he knew he’d screwed up big time. He was a dead man if he didn’t get the hell out and get far away.

  Once he had some running money, he was thinking of Florida. He’d get what he could from Kora and from a guy who owed him. Then he’d pay a visit on his way out of town to Gatts, maybe, and relieve him of some cash and drugs and be on his way.

  For sure, Kora North had become the star. Nothing like the demand for her. She had become the mother lode for Thorp and Rouse’s ambition to get everyone on sex tapes for future use. She was a sex magnet. Tahoe’s new Monroe.

  He turned onto her street. Kora lived in a place at the trendy Tahoe Keys condos. Top of the line, all the way. Sixty to a hundred grand was what he figured he needed to get things going, but he doubted he could get much more than thirty out of her.

  He parked. The Keys had fingers of land reaching into the wetlands they’d drained and ma
de into boat docks, condos, and houses. He went up to her place, a corner unit with a nice view of the lake, and started with the doorbell.

  After no response, he started pounding. “C’mon, bitch, wake up!”

  24

  Who the hell…? Oh, Jesus…

  Kora North, on her bed writing in her journal, wearing her running pants and a T-shirt, heard somebody pounding on her door in the middle of the night and knew who it had to be. She went out into the living room and heard Shaun Corbin, the nemesis of everyone’s life, out there yelling for her to wake up. Looking through the peephole, she confirmed it, then opened the door.

  “Shaun, what the hell are you doing here? It’s, like, one-thirty in the damn morning. You look like shit.”

  He pushed his way in. “That problem I got is too big to argue with you. You didn’t talk to me. Hung up on me, you bitch.”

  “What problem? You’re drunk. Get the hell out of here. You want me to call security or the police?”

  “You got anybody here?”

  “No. And I don’t want you here, either. Goddamn, you’re drunk and you stink.”

  He went over to her bar, his gun sticking out in the small of his back. He shoot somebody? she wondered. She watched as he poured himself a half-glass of vodka.

  “You got anything to eat?” He opened the little bar fridge and pulled out some string cheese.

  “You’re pathetic. What do you want, Shaun? If it’s about your big screwup, don’t come to me. And don’t break anything. Who’d you shoot?”

  “What do you know?” he said, giving her a look of concern.

  “That’s the point of the question, isn’t it, genius?”

  He looked almost relieved. “I got a serious big problem and I need some help.”

  “You are your biggest problem. You did something, and I don’t care about it, so why are you here? Go. Get the fuck out of here. You mess me up and you know what’ll happen to you. They’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog, and it’ll go bad.”