Ultimate Prey (Book 3 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series)

by Kristine Mason

  She dropped his arm, then walked to the kitchen sink. “Ryan or Barney would know, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said, and washed her hands. “Based on what you guys found at the trailer this morning, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Steven got to the trailer after he heard the gunshots, killed the one dealer, then used the other to row the canoe back to Everglade City. Look at his arm. There’s no way he could’ve done the rowing alone.”

  Ian glanced at Steven’s arm. Two long crudely-stitched lines ran along the forearm, from the elbow to the wrist. Blood and puss coated the puckered flesh, which had swelled around the stitches. It looked damned painful and he hoped the bastard had suffered greatly.

  “If I look at his arm again, I might vomit,” Dante said, and set the ice pack on the table. “And, Lola’s theory makes sense. Only why keep the other guy around after Steven reached town?” He shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t care. He’s not worth thinking about. What we need to discuss is what we’re going to do about the house.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ian said. “I know the homeowner. I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Then he’d have the place razed and rebuilt to the standards he would need to fulfill his future plans.

  “Holy hell,” Barney called from the foyer. Seconds later, he entered the kitchen, his gaze falling onto Steven. “You boys don’t mess around. Which one of the bodies belongs to Jackass?”

  Lola cocked her head toward Steven. “That one.”

  Barney let out a low whistle and shook his head. “Looks like he tangled with a gator. And, damn, sutured his own arm.” He chuckled. “He would’ve died anyway, even if you didn’t put a bullet in his head. Gators teeth are almost as bad as the Komodo dragon’s. Infection would have eventually killed him.”

  Hudson stepped into the kitchen, holding a hunting pack. “Got the pack,” he said, as Ryan followed him through the door. “He has a laptop and cell phone inside.”

  “We’ll have Harrison look at them. I want his files checked.” They knew for a fact he’d killed his ex and her fiancé, along with Jordan. But he needed Harrison to run a check and make sure Steven hadn’t targeted anyone else. While he planned to have the computer and phone destroyed, paranoia also urged him to have all of the files wiped clean.

  “I’m right here,” Harrison said, stepping into the kitchen.

  “Why the hell are you here?” Ian slammed his left hand on the table, which jarred his body and made the burning in his side worse. “Barney, only you and Vlad were to—”

  “Vlad’s with us. Cami insisted we all go and—”

  “Put me down,” Cami demanded. “Vlad, I can walk.”

  The Russian entered the room carrying Cami in his arms. He assessed the situation, then shook his head. “Look like all hell break free,” he said, as Cami squirmed.

  The moment Vlad set her down, she rushed to Ian’s side. “Oh, no. No. No,” she sobbed, and met his eyes. “How bad is it? Please tell me you’re not dying.” She twined her arms around his neck. “I love you so much. I—”

  “Cami,” he said, taking deep gulping breaths. “Honey, you’re hurting me.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She let go of him, then, with a shaky hand, lay her palm over where he held the towel against his wound. “You have to get to a hospital.”

  “No,” he said, and explained who was coming to help him and John.

  She looked over her shoulder, gaped at John’s arm, then looked back at him. “Lola?”

  “Right behind you, Mom.” Lola held up both hands. “I’m fine. Not even a scratch.”

  Cami swiveled and stared at her daughter. “Thank God,” she said, then turned her attention back on him.

  Harrison took the computer and phone from Hudson, then left the room without a word. Meanwhile, Barney set the first aid kit on the kitchen counter. “If you got a doc coming, I guess we won’t be needing this.”

  “The hell we won’t,” Cami snapped. “Ian and John need attention until the man arrives.”

  “We’re fine,” he assured her, then he narrowed his eyes at Vlad, who shrugged.

  “Cami turn Vlad to pudding. Cami ask, Vlad do.”

  He let out a weary sigh. There were too many people in the room. He loved Cami, and appreciated her concern, but damn it, they had bodies to move. He didn’t want her to be part of this. He didn’t want her witnessing something that he couldn’t believe he’d not only put into motion, but condoned. He’d spent twenty years with the FBI following just about every rule before starting CORE. He had then spent the past eight years running his agency by the book and with the utmost respect for the law. He’d gone beyond that, and had not only placed his agents, but Ryan, Barney, Vlad and even Cami, in a precarious position. They could all either go to prison or have charges brought against them, if what he’d encouraged was discovered by the police. Which was all the more reason to expand his scope of business.

  Determined to make sure Cami’s involvement was at the minimum, he turned to Vlad. “Your loyalty to Cami doesn’t go unnoticed, but I need you to be loyal to me, as well. Take Cami into the living room, away from the dead.”

  The Russian nodded, understanding in his eyes. He lifted Cami, who insisted she could walk, then started for the living room.

  “Vlad,” Lola said, stopping him. “Once you get my mom settled, I need you to help Ryan and Hudson move the bodies to Ryan’s truck.”

  Cami gasped. “Lola Elizabeth Tam. What in the hell has—”

  “Mom. Don’t start.” She looked to Vlad. “She’ll be fine sitting with Harrison.”

  “Ain’t no need to mess up Ryan’s truck,” Barney said. “I took the liberty of calling in my guy to get rid of ’em.”

  Ryan shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Damn it, Barney.” He stared at the man. “I told you not to.”

  “Too bad. I don’t want you doing it.” Barney nodded to Ian. “My guy should be here any sec—”

  “Hey, y’all. Anyone home?” a woman, whose voice oozed sex and dripped warm maple syrup, called from the foyer.

  “Speak of the devil,” Barney said. “In here, Mel.”

  Mel? Ian quickly glanced over his shoulder as a young woman—who could have doubled as Farrah Fawcett in her famous 1970s swimsuit pinup—strolled into the room carrying a large leopard print tote bag, accented with hot-pink trim.

  She tossed her thick dark blond hair over her shoulder and looked from Steven’s body then to Barney. “The car and boat…I made money off them. But if you want me to take care of all this, it’ll cost you.”

  Ian cleared his throat. “You took care of the car and boat?” Christ. This was too much. How could this beautiful, young woman have the type of resources that she could not only make a car and boat disappear, but dead bodies, too?

  “I did,” she said, then offered her hand. “Melanie Scarlet.” She glanced to his wound and bloody towel, then shoved her hand into the back pocket of her tight jeans. “No need for formalities, I suppose. My price is ten thousand a piece.”

  “Mel,” Ryan said, his tone censuring.

  She tossed her hair and glanced to Ryan, then shrugged. “You pay me minimum wage to scoop ice cream. A girl’s gotta live.”

  “I pay you more than minimum wage. And since when did you go from chopping cars and boats to moving dead bodies?” He hardened his eyes and glared at Barney. “I don’t like it. I could throw the bodies onto my boat and dump them in a marsh.”

  Mel looked at her manicured nails, which had been painted bright pink. “But my daddy’s swamp is better.”

  “She’s right.” Barney shifted his one eye to Ian. “Her old man’s a recluse. He owns a few acres of mostly swampland. Park rangers don’t go out there, it’s far from kayaking and hiking trails and the crazy son of a bitch has his mobile home and swamp rigged for Armageddon. Ain’t nobody who knows him fool enough to go out there. Well, except Mel.”

  “Daddy might be crazy, but he loves his little girl,” Mel said with a g
rin. “Besides, it’s nothing for me to pay him a visit during the night. Everybody knows he’s like a vampire and sleeps all day.” She pulled a large roll of thick black garbage bags from her tote. “So, are we doing this or not?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “We’ll handle it.”

  “Ryan, let her.” Lola set the pail on the floor. “It sounds like she knows what she’s doing. Plus the doctor is going to be here soon. We need the bodies gone and the blood cleaned up before then.”

  Ian looked from Ryan to Mel. “Ten a piece is fine,” he said, not caring about the money. “What do you plan to do with them once you reach this swamp?”

  She flashed him a smile, and took out two shower caps and a pair of latex gloves. “Gator bait,” she said, then slipped the caps over her boots. She sauntered across the room carrying the bags, then pointed to Hudson. “A little help, honey?”

  While Hudson, Vlad, Barney and Ryan helped Mel bag both bodies and remove them from the house, Lola mopped the kitchen and hall floor. Harrison came into the room, stepped over the pail Lola had been using, and carried the laptop and phone to the table.

  “Find anything?” John asked.

  “The phone’s an older model and it’s not hooked to a cloud, meaning any pictures Steven had taken aren’t hanging around in cyberspace. I think the cell belonged to Steven’s dad. The last six calls were made to Stateville, all of them about a month ago.”

  John removed the towel from his arm. “Doesn’t fit. Steven was released two months ago.”

  No. The timing didn’t fit at all. “What about the computer?” Ian asked.

  “Again, it’s an older model and there’s hardly anything on it. I did find a CORE file. In it were the names and addresses for you, Dante, John, Hudson and Owen. No mention of Rachel or anyone else. The only other file that stood out was labeled, Moody. In that file were eight addresses, but I don’t know who they belong to and he didn’t indicate what they were for. But, I was able to check his browsing history. Moody is currently doing time at Stateville. I can find out why, but I’d rather hack into the prison’s system files from my computer. This one is too slow.”

  “More revenge kills?” Lola suggested, as she rinsed the mop. “We should check it out when we’re back home.”

  “Agreed,” Ian said, hoping to God David showed up soon. He needed the bullet out of him. “Anything else?”

  Harrison nodded. “Going through his history, I found that Steven had run a search for Jordan Marquette, Everglade City, this rental unit, the Everglades, Key West, South America…I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he planned to go after he was finished here. He bookmarked water routes through the Everglades to the tip of Florida, along with bareboat charter companies located in Key West.”

  “Bareboat?” Dante asked.

  “Meaning, no crew.”

  Ian pulled the towel away from his wound and noticed the bleeding had slowed. “He’s not going anywhere now. Destroy the phone and the computer, but write down the addresses from the Moody file.”

  He wasn’t sure what he’d do if they discovered Steven had killed the people who lived at the addresses listed in his files. As it was, the detectives who would end up working Elaine Weir’s and her fiancé’s murder cases would assume Steven was on the run. As for Jordan Marquette’s murder, unfortunately, the Fort Lauderdale PD wouldn’t be able to solve that one. CORE had the evidence that would link Steven to Marquette.

  Damn, they’d really broken a considerable number of laws.

  What concerned him was that he didn’t care. If anything, Steven had opened his eyes and made him realize he could stretch and bend the law to suit his needs.

  And get away with it.

  Cami peeked around the corner and gaped at her daughter. Lola had already cleaned the floor and was now wiping down the kitchen counter and cabinets.

  “Let me help you finish cleaning,” she said to her daughter.

  “I’m almost done, Mom. Trust me.” Lola cleared her throat and looked away in disgust as she dumped the pail’s dirty water into the sink. “You wouldn’t have wanted to help.”

  Both pride and sadness dimmed Cami’s normally bright blue eyes. She met Ian’s gaze, fortunately without accusation, but understanding. “How are you holding up?”

  “Doc’s here,” Ryan called, and entered the kitchen with Vlad. “Barney followed Mel to help her put the bags on the boat. He said he’d come by in the morning, unless you need him tonight. Are we ready for Hudson to bring the doctor inside?”

  Lola finished rinsing the pail, then quickly began washing the sink. “I think I got it all,” she said and, grabbing the pail, rags and mop she’d used, started for the laundry room. “We need to burn this stuff once the doctor is gone.”

  “Send him in,” Ian said. While he waited for David, he watched Lola leave, then glanced around the room, his gaze touching on Vlad, Harrison and Ryan. In that moment, a plan, one that he’d considered for several years but hadn’t been sure he could execute, turned into a solid business model. One that would give him the power to expand CORE outside the boundaries of the law he’d painstakingly upheld for most of his career, and help clients who preferred…discretion.

  When Lola returned and moved next to Ryan—standing closer than what he’d consider proper or necessary for a partner—he realized who would serve as his Southern-based counterpart. And how she could help him take CORE…above the law.

  Chapter 19

  Ryan Monahan’s House, Everglade City, Florida

  Saturday, 12:42 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

  RYAN FINISHED FEEDING Sadie, then grabbed two beers from the fridge. He headed down the hallway and stopped outside the partially opened bathroom door. Steam drifted from the shower and into the hall. Although he had been tempted to join Lola, he’d sensed she had needed space. While he’d been impressed with the way she’d shot into action after Steven had been killed, she shouldn’t have had to clean up the blood, brain and tissue matter by herself. He would have helped mop and scrub the evidence away if he hadn’t been loading the dead bodies into Mel’s truck. He raised the beer bottle to his lips and took several swallows in an effort to stop himself from imagining Lola washing the blood from the floor, the tissue—

  “Ryan,” she called. “The shower’s all yours.”

  He took another drink, then entered the bathroom just as Lola stepped from the shower, a towel wrapped around her. “Brought you a beer,” he said. “If you don’t want it, I can get you something else.”

  She took the bottle from him, then drained half of it. “Sorry.” She shrugged. “I was thirsty.” Her gaze touched on his wet head, then moved to the floor. “Where did you shower?”

  “There’s actually a master bedroom with an attached bath on the other side of the house. It’s in rough shape and next on my home improvement list.”

  She exchanged the beer for the brush he’d left on the counter for her, then ran it through her long hair. “And my clothes?”

  “In the washing machine.”

  She met his gaze in the semi foggy mirror, her eyes holding gratitude. “Thank you. But I plan on burning them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know that anytime I put them on, I’ll end up thinking about tonight. Plus, I don’t want to wear anything with Steven or the other man’s blood on it. Even if the clothes are clean, they’ll be dirty to me.”

  He hadn’t considered that, but understood. “I’m going to assume you don’t want something to eat.”

  “God, no. All I want to do is crawl into bed and try to erase tonight from my mind.” She gave him a hesitant smile. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind helping me forget…even for a little while.”

  He would love to take Lola into his bedroom and make love to her. But he didn’t want to just be a…distraction, or the guy who helped her move past the memories with a round or two of hot sex. He wanted her to want him, period.

  Damn it. He shoved a hand through his wet hair, then took another drink
of his beer. “Sure, if that’s what you need,” he said, because even though he knew she was using him, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to touch her.

  Last night’s shower sex had been hot, raw and passionate. Lying next to her in bed, holding her as they’d drifted off to sleep had been just as great, only on a different level. Intimate came to mind. He didn’t usually sleep well with a woman in his bed. There was always that nagging thought in the back of his mind that said, “How are you going to get rid of her in the morning?” Only he hadn’t wanted to come up with an excuse to push Lola out the door. Bottom line, he liked her too much, knew their time together was limited, and wanted to take advantage of every moment he could spend with her.

  In less than two days, he’d met a woman he was not only attracted to, but a woman he easily trusted and could see himself…what? Marrying, making babies, growing old together…

  Maybe he should be grateful all she wanted was sex. Keep it to the basics and be glad he wouldn’t have to worry about all the bullshit that went along with relationships.

  After all, the mission was now over. She could leave at any time.

  That thought should settle well since he’d never seen himself as the type to settle down. Only it didn’t. He didn’t want her to go. Not yet. Just a few more days and—

  She slammed the hairbrush against the countertop, then faced him. “On second thought, I’m tired.” She moved past him and walked across the hall into his bedroom. “I’m going to get dressed, text my mom and see how Ian’s doing, then go to bed…on the couch.”

  Not a chance. He followed her into the bedroom and hauled her to his chest before she could reach for her bag. “You’re not sleeping on my couch or texting your mom.”

  She struggled against him. “I’m not sleeping in the guest room with the snake.”

  “No, you’ll be sleeping with me.” He cupped the back of her head. “Where you belong.”

  “Not going to happen, and I do want to check on Ian.”

  “You know damned well Ian’s fine.” Dr. Adams, had quickly removed the bullet lodged in Ian’s side and had said the wound was superficial. The bullet had torn only muscle and tissue, not one vital organ. “Quit with the excuses.”