i dont have anyplace else 2 go. this is the only place they cant get me. Her texted words reverberated in his head. Plaintive, desperate.
What would happen if he took those meds, made the messages go away? Would she still have a place to hide? And what did it indicate about his mental state, that he was even asking questions like this?
Oh, man. Don’t even go there. Just keep running. Just outrun it.
The Dodge Ram he’d bought from Sean waited patiently under its forest camo tarp. He shimmied beneath the vehicle to take out the box attached to the undercarriage, where he stashed his electronics.
The engine fired up with no hesitation, even after weeks of abandonment. He plugged the phone in, and started down the long, twisting logging road. About a mile from the town at the pass, he got some cell coverage, so he stopped to assess his social situation.
Eighteen missed calls. Forty-two text messages. Twelve from his mother. Six from Sean, nine from Aaro, four from Bruno. Seven from Cindy, his cheating ex-girlfriend, whose face he had difficulty recalling. If Cindy was texting him, probably the wanker rock musician she’d dumped him for had moved on, and she was ready to take up with her default chump again.
Huh. If there was one good thing about getting his ass kicked to hell and gone, it was that it put his love life sternly into perspective. The Cindy thing seemed so small to him now. Something that had happened to a much younger self. He deleted Cindy’s messages unread.
He deleted his mother’s messages, too, except for the most recent one, which he glanced at. Standard hysterical maternal anxiety. He would call her as soon as he had filled the prescriptions in his wallet. He could face his mother only if drugged into a state of catatonic calm.
Aaro’s messages were rants. He’d gotten spoiled, having Miles working twenty-four/seven, and wanted him back in the saddle. Of course. The guy was crazy in love. He had a life now, and wanted all the nice things that a life entailed. Time to canoodle, daily long lunch breaks with the pretty lady friend, long weekends in the hot tub, chugging champagne and slurping oysters off the half-shell between bouts of hot sex. Aaro wanted to work a scant third of the grinding hours he used to put into his business, and he wanted Miles back to pick up the slack.
Too bad, dude. No more. He loved the guy, though he could not really feel the love through the shield right now. He’d almost died for Aaro and Nina at Spruce Ridge. He was paying a high price for that attempt at heroism. He deleted Aaro’s messages unread, without guilt or regret. His guilt and regret functions were disabled.
He selected Sean’s latest, and opened it with just an instant’s hesitation.
get ur ass to b&l’s wedding or there will be hell to pay
Wedding? Oh, Christ. Bruno and Lily’s wedding had been put off because of Spruce Ridge, and the premature birth of their son. They had rescheduled for . . . what day was today? He thumbed around on the smartphone. Oh, fuck. Today. The wedding was today.
He let out a long, whistling breath of real dismay. That he felt. Keenly. Even through the shield.
He didn’t have to go to the wedding. He could just load up some more supplies, and drive on. To another mountain range. A farther one.
Yeah, and never call his mother back again? That was a big deal to wrap his head around. Kind of like suicide. Considering that he was teetering on the edge of certifiable mental illness already.
He had a voice mail message, too. He didn’t recognize the number.
He clicked on it. “Hello, Miles.” It was a cracked, quavery old woman’s voice. “This is Matilda Bennet. I know you said you did your best trying to find poor Lara. Well and good. But I did some more digging on my own, and I came up with another line of inquiry that I think you could do something with. I’ve reached the end of my resources, but maybe you could push it further. If you have any interest in hearing about this matter, call me back at this number.”
That call had come in a week before.
Huh. That was unexpected. He’d met Matilda right before Spruce Ridge. She’d worked at Wentworth College with Lara’s father, the Professor Joseph Kirk. She was the one who had originally set Miles upon this quest to find Lara.
Matilda’s words were calculated to sting him into action, but the barbs did not get through his shield. Just a weird, fluttering sense in his belly, that Fate was playing tricks on him. There was something he should be noticing here, some pattern that eluded him.
It should be obvious. If he weren’t so goddamn thick.
Lara’s dead. Let it go, man. Don’t drive yourself any further into crazyland. Don’t sublease yourself a fucking condo there.
Yet, he clicked the number the message had been sent from, and hit “call.” It was brutally early, but Matilda wouldn’t want to wait for a callback, not about this. The phone rang twelve times. He had almost given up when the line clicked open. There was a brief pause. “Hello?”
It was a youthful female voice. Not Matilda.
“Hi, sorry about the hour. Can I speak to Matilda?”
A breathless squeak answered him. Nothing comprehensible.
“Hello?” he prompted. Then more loudly. “Hello?”
A male voice spoke into the phone. “Hi. Who am I speaking with?”
“My name is Miles Davenport,” he said. “I’m looking for Matilda.”
“Well.” The guy’s voice was heavy. “She’s, ah . . . she’s dead.”
Miles’ mind flash-froze. “Huh?”
“Like I said. A week ago.”
“A week . . . ?” That was the day Matilda had made the call. Miles struggled to organize his thoughts. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mike Stafford. Her granddaughter’s husband.”
“I see. I . . . I’m sorry for your loss. How did she die?”
The guy paused. “Haven’t been watching the news lately, huh?”
“No,” Miles admitted. “I’ve been out of town for a few weeks.”
“She was murdered,” Mike Stafford told him. “Home invasion. Some drugged-up asshole broke in. Threw her down the stairs.”
The news sucked him down. The gravity load on his guts tripled.
“Ah . . . I’m sorry,” he stammered. “Could you tell me the name of the detective who’s got the investigation?”
“You know something about it?” The guy’s voice sharpened.
“No,” Miles said. “But Matilda called the day she died, and left me a message. I didn’t take the call, but the cops might want to know.”
“Calm down, Amy,” the guy muttered, evidently to his wife. “Okay, don’t see why not. His name is Detective Barlow.” He rattled off a telephone number, which Miles committed to memory.
“The funeral’s today,” the guy went on. “Six P.M. at the Merriweather Presbyterian Chapel. If you want.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Miles groped for words. “Give my condolences to your wife. I gave her a jolt when I asked for Matilda. Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, man. Not your fault. It’s okay. Whatever.”
Miles closed the conversation with what grace he could, and sat there, eyes squeezed shut.
Holy fuck. Matilda Bennet? Tension mounted in his body.
He’d thought he was as cold as ice, an orbiting satellite. Free at last, in his own lonely, fucked-up way.
But he wasn’t. His belly clenched over the sick, greasy nausea roiling there. A wedding, a murder, a funeral. A desperate ghostly entity locked in his own head, pleading for help and rescue. A cryptic voice mail message from a murdered woman.
It didn’t matter how hard he tried to stay anchored in reality.
Reality was getting royally fucked, from every single quarter.
Mud and rocks spat and flew as his tires jolted him out of the ruts and bounced him down the road, faster than conditions permitted.
Who could have wasted Matilda? She was a harmless old lady, built like a brick, stumping along with her dowager’s hump and cane. He didn’t need emotion to be outraged about this. It was outrage o
n every level, even that of cold logic. A scumbag who killed nice old ladies needed to be wiped off the face of the earth. Like the polio virus.
He’d liked Matilda. He’d hated to disappoint her. After all his big talk, all his good intentions, all his fantasies about being the brilliant courageous intrepid blah blah blah who saved the maiden fair.
Reality was always such a fucking letdown. Matilda had been nice about it when he threw in the towel. She understood. Still, she was the kind of woman you wanted to bring results to. To get your pat on the head, your cookie, your sternly measured dose of approval. A strict but benevolent grandmother type.
It made him . . . fucking . . . furious.
He got gas at the station at the pass, holding his breath against the fumes, ignoring furtive stares. He must look strange, after weeks of sleeping rough and not much attention to hygiene, other than the occasional icy plunge into a mountain stream. He had to haul ass if he wanted to clean up and find decent clothes for the damn wedding.
His smartphone found him the perfect trifecta; a drugstore, a motel and a big-and-tall men’s clothing shop, all in the same strip mall. No time to schlep up to Aaro’s lair for his own stash of clothes.
The gods that protected speeding motorists were kind, even when he hit the I-5 corridor. The drugstore was his first stop in Portland, for toiletries, a comb, some razors. The fluorescent lights made his eyes burn, even through dark glasses.
His motel room stank of cigarette smoke and room deodorizer when he got inside, but he breathed through his mouth and ignored it, heading straight for the shower.
He stared at himself grimly in the mirror afterward as he combed out the caveman dreads. His torso was burned a leathery brown from shirtless climbing. He still had muscle mass, but he was lean, stringy. Every muscle, vein, and tendon, right out there on display. He looked like a wild-eyed, underfed Afghani goatherd, left out alone in the desert mountains way too long.
Scraping off the beard helped, but that made his shaggy mane look that much wilder. At least it was clean. He might not have even recognized himself, if not for the nose, which was as big and hooked as ever. Christ, he looked so much older. New lines burned around his mouth. And his eyes . . .
He looked quickly away from his eyes.
Just keep moving. Breath. Through his mouth. He dragged the cleanest clothes he had left back on, clean being a relative term.
The clerk at the big and tall store gave him the fish eye when he walked in, gazing pointedly at the grubby jeans, the stained T-shirt.
“I need a suit,” Miles announced. “Dark gray. I’m supposed to be at a wedding in . . .” He consulted his smartphone. “Shit,” he hissed. “Thirty-five minutes.” Maybe he’d get lucky, and the bride would be late. Like, forty minutes late. A guy could hope.
The young woman behind the counter leaned on her elbows and gazed at his torso appreciatively, dirty clothes and all.
“I need a shirt, too,” he told them. “White, I guess, or a pale gray. And a tie, and a belt. Dress shoes. Some underwear.”
The male clerk’s nostrils flared. “Price range?”
Miles shrugged. “It needs to look good, and it needs to be fast. Try and keep the tab under two grand.”
The clerk’s eyes squinched down. “And how will you be paying?”
Miles took off his sunglasses, and just looked at the guy. The man’s larynx began to bob up and down.
Aw, fuck it. Back in the old, pre-Spruce Ridge days, that guy’s attitude would have pissed him off. Not now. He didn’t blame the guy for judging by appearances. Every normal person did. He had, too, in the old days. Admittedly, he looked like hell.
Still, he let the prick blink and sweat for a minute before fishing the plastic wrapped envelope out of his jeans. He’d shrink wrapped some cash for random emergencies. He slit open the plastic, and peeled off fifteen C-notes. “We’ll start with this.”
The guy scooped up the bills. “One minute.” He disappeared into the back. The girl behind the counter fluttered heavily mascaraed lashes. “You don’t look like the type for a suit,” she observed.
Miles grunted. “Don’t feel like one, either.”
“You look more like the leather and chains type.” Big dewy blue eyes went blinkety blink. “Like, do you ride a Harley?”
Heh. Leather and chains and a Harley. That would have been rib-cracking, gut-busting funny, if he’d been capable of anything approaching humor. “Could we start with the shirt?” he asked.
The girl’s flirty expression cooled. Her colleague came back out, marginally more polite, but clearly wanting to get him served and gone as soon as possible. Fine with Miles.
Some time later, he walked out, in a suit a full size smaller than his previous, pre-Spruce Ridge days. Just his enormous feet and hands and nose were eternally constant. He peered at himself in the rear-view, wishing he’d bought clippers and buzzed off the hair. Even with the snarls combed out, it looked like exactly what it was, a badly grown out haircut that had been self-inflicted months ago in a state of emotional crisis. Ragged primordial locks dangled between shoulder and chin. It did not jive with the suit. But there was no time left for a barber.
After all, once he waltzed into the wedding, egregiously late, and faced down a mass of people who were all pissed off at him to varying degrees, his bad hair day would be the least of his problems.
He put on his sunglasses, and his ear plugs. The city haze of electrosmog, exhaust fumes and particulate matter were making him nauseous as hell, but there was no shield or remedy for that. He clenched his teeth till his ears ached and hit the road, wedding bound.
4
Sam Petrie lurked ouside the small, packed church, having shown himself to Bruno, and to Zia Rosa, the formidable Ranieri matriarch. That duty done, he’d slunk out to have a smoke.
Damn, this group was heavy into weddings. It gave him an unpleasant sense of déjà vu. He’d lurked outside during Kev and Edie’s ceremony, too. He didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but the giddy nuptial scene made him feel smothered and vaguely depressed.
Next time this crowd inflicted a wedding invitation on him, he’d send a salt and pepper shaker and his apologies, and stay far away. For now, he compromised by lurking, which was why he was perfectly positioned to witness Miles Davenport’s arrival.
He didn’t recognize Miles at first. He was giving a habitual once-over to each person as he or she approached, and his attention snagged on the tall man striding purposefully toward the church. He pegged the guy as a potential problem instantly. Dark, hard eyes. Leathery, dark, tanned skin. Shaggy, unstyled hair. He’d been sleeping rough, in spite of the nice suit. Flinty gaze. Granite-lipped. A walking unexploded bomb. Not an element you wanted waltzing into a friend’s wedding. He was stepping forward to do his civic duty both as friend and cop, to ask if the guy had mistaken his venue when the recognition slammed in.
Jesus, that nose. Was it . . . holy shit. He stared. “Miles?”
“Hey.” Miles shook his shaggy mane off his face. He did not smile.
Petrie reached out to clasp his hand. Some instinct stopped him, a sixth sense, of stray wires, high voltage. “Good to see you, man.”
Miles nodded. “Yeah.”
He did not offer further pleasantries, or say it was good to see Petrie, too. That part of Miles Davenport had been rendered away, along with twenty-five percent of the guy’s body weight, from the looks of him. His big hands contrasted starkly with the cuffs poking from the sleeves of his suit. Brown, covered with scabs, nails battered. Like he’d been crawling through rocks and thorns under a desert sun.
Where the fuck have you been, man? Everybody’s been worried sick about you. He stopped the words. The unlucky bastard was going to be fielding that question all afternoon. He did not look up to the task.
Before Petrie could come up with anything, the limo pulled up. Rosettes, with streamers flying from the antenna. Behold, the bride.
Doors opened, and a confusion of
gartered and stockinged legs and fluffy skirts started spilling out. Lily straightened up, adjusting her gown, which was a graceful, pleated Grecian goddess sort of thing, which looked awesome on her. Nina was also looking hot, her figure set off in a clingy, eye grabbing shade of sunset orange. She adjusted her friend’s hair. The wind caught the veil, flipping it out like a banner.
And there she was. It never failed. Petrie’s mouth went suddenly dry as Sveti emerged, in a satin sheath that clung to her like she’d been dipped in slate blue liquid. She came out ass first, focused on the squalling occupant of the car seat. Marco Ranieri, the newest addition to the McCloud Crowd’s progeny. An opportunity to gawk at Sveti’s awesome booty with no repercussions was precious, so Petrie took advantage of it, forgetting Miles altogether as Sveti emerged, swinging shiny locks back over her pale shoulders. Marco was drapped over her bosom, hiding what the gown’s neckline was designed to showcase. Damn shame, but predictable as sunrise.
Aaro and Kev McCloud unfolded themselves from the front seat. Miles shrank back, as if hoping not to be noticed. A vain hope.
Aaro spotted Miles first. His face went blank. He murmured to Kev, who was offering Lily his arm. Kev’s bright gaze instantly zapped up to Miles, but he’d positioned himself well out of their trajectory, and the bride was busy getting up the steps without tripping on her train.
Nina glanced over at them, a puzzled frown between her eyes, but Aaro hustled her in to do her maid-of-honor duty.
Sveti lagged behind, joggling the fussing Marco to calm him down. The movement made her tits quiver. Her shoulders were creamy pale in contrast to her long, dark hair. Petrie wrenched his gaze away. Down, boy. Daring to look at the lofty goddess’s perfect ta-tas. But her scolding attention was focused mostly on Miles, not him. So no worries.
She stopped on the step below, frowning up. “Miles?” she asked, as if she didn’t quite believe it.
“That would be me,” Miles said.
“Where in hell have you been? Do you know how worried—”
10 Fatal Strike Page 4