Craig smiled. He really was scarier when he smiled—the way his mouth curved up and showed a little bit of teeth, the way his eyes went blank for an instant, as if he needed the time to figure out how they should look when he was smiling. “You can’t blame a businessman for expanding into new markets. And, yeah, since Sean found out about my auto-parts sideline, I thought it couldn’t hurt to have something to hold over him.”
Sophy shifted, the plastic line biting into her wrist. Zeke had done his best to make the position comfortable, but some things just weren’t possible. “Instead, you created this mess. If Davey hadn’t hooked up with Maggie, he wouldn’t have confided in her. He wouldn’t have been arrested with her, and she wouldn’t have any information to use against you. She wouldn’t know Craig Kolinski even existed.”
From the doorway came another snort as Jimmy glanced over his shoulder. “She’s got you there.”
Craig gave him a look that would have turned Sophy to jelly, but the big guy shrugged it off. She wondered what kind of hold Jimmy had over Craig, to be so sure that after today’s business was done Craig wouldn’t put a bullet in him and Zeke, too.
It seemed everyone was expendable in his world.
Sophy was expendable. In all her life, that thought had never really occurred to her, not even during the incident at Christmas with the men after Miri. Her family and friends loved her, but really there wasn’t anything so special about her that would mark her as off-limits from senseless death. Daisy and Dahlia would find someone else to love them. Her family would grieve for her but move on. Someone would keep Hanging by a Thread open, move another business in or let it stand empty.
She would never get married. Have babies of her own to love. Chase them all day and curl all night in Sean’s arms. She would never know if he knew she loved him, or if he loved her back. The whole lifetime of experiences she’d been looking forward to, erased in one day by a pathetic egomaniacal excuse for a human being.
“Do you know the history of this plantation?” Craig asked after a while.
She didn’t bother answering, since he obviously knew or he wouldn’t have brought it up. Besides, the history seriously creeped her out.
“Rumor is, it’s haunted. Do you believe in ghosts, Sophy?”
“I believe there are far worse evils in life than the afterlife could ever offer.”
He was good at ignoring insults. “The last of the Howards to live on this property were an old couple. Their grandson spent summers here, then moved nearby when he got married. Turned out, he was studying at Grandpa’s side, learning to track and hunt and kill people for the pure pleasure of it. Grandpa died, and grandson carried on the family tradition until his own death. They say the front yard out there was a virtual cemetery, filled with old skeletons and newer corpses. How many bodies was it they found?”
Through clenched teeth, Sophy replied, “More than forty.”
“A killing grounds. As soon as it became clear I was going to have to take care of Maggie myself, I knew this was the place to do it. Years from now, when they find more remains, maybe they’ll think it was some of the family’s victims they missed.”
DNA, dental records and possibly fingerprints, at least for Sean and Maggie, would prove otherwise. But with an inward cringe, she didn’t point that out. Dear God, she didn’t want to hear that he intended to cut off their heads and hands and boil their bones clean or something.
He shook his head with enough admiration to turn her stomach. “Not many people get to take care of their problems on an honest-to-God killing grounds.”
Fierce cramps made her hope she didn’t lose her breakfast. She hadn’t even liked being on Fair Winds the few times she’d visited, when the Howards were alive and in residence and the old man’s and Mark’s secrets were still safely buried. She’d had no problem even then believing the ghosts of long-unhappy residents roamed the house and the grounds.
Thankfully, after that sickening comment, Craig scraped his chair back and went out onto the porch, Jimmy trailing behind. Once the slamming of the screen door settled to silence again, Zeke turned from the window. “Sorry about this.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
He went into the kitchen and returned with two bottles of water, one with a long paper-wrapped straw. So thoughtful. He set the one with the straw in front of her, then took the chair to her right, facing the door.
She could duck her head just enough to take a drink of water without putting too much pressure on her shoulders. It was cold and washed away some of the cotton fear had formed in her mouth. “Do you really have a daughter?”
A faint flush colored his face. “Yeah.”
“She must be so proud of her daddy. But, of course, she doesn’t know you kill people for a living, does she?”
“She thinks I’m in insurance. It’s not so far off.”
“What? You ensure your greedy, crazy whack job of a boss doesn’t get in trouble for killing everyone who gets on his bad side?”
His head turned away, Zeke muttered something. Sophy couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like, He doesn’t have a good side.
A few silent moments and long, cool drinks later, Zeke asked, “Where’d you hide the girl?”
Because Sean had found Daisy and turned her over to someone who would keep her safe, Sophy didn’t mind answering. “In a cabinet.”
“You did it pretty quick. What alerted you?”
“Three men in jackets in this heat?”
He chuckled and leaned back in the chair. They’d all shucked their jackets as soon as they’d hustled her into their SUV. The air-conditioning had been blasting so high that she’d started shivering before they’d gone more than a block. Granted, not all her chills had been temperature related.
Outside a breeze blew, earning a sad jingle from a broken set of chimes hanging in the corner of the porch. Ordinarily she found the sound soothing, even when storm-driven winds were jangling them wildly, but this one just sounded lonely. Eerie.
“What do you think Holigan will do?”
Sophy wanted to hug herself tightly to chase away the shiver growing inside, but she had to settle for giving Zeke a level look. “He’ll find a way out.”
Jimmy, she was pretty sure, would have laughed. Craig would have smiled his ugly threatening psychopath’s smile. Zeke returned her look for a long moment before standing up and walking away.
Dear God, please let him find a way out.
* * *
“Are we ready?” Ty gazed around the room before looking at Sean and nodding.
Unashamed that his hand trembled, Sean picked up his phone and called Craig. The police department’s air-conditioning didn’t seem to be working very well. The air in the room was thick, stale and warm enough to make sweat pop out on his forehead.
Pete Petrovski, Tommy Maricci and AJ Decker, the chief of police, sat on the left side of the table; the chief investigator for the sheriff’s department, along with three deputies, occupied the right. At the far end was Special Agent Baker, dressed to confuse but cool and controlled as ever.
Each ring of the phone in Sean’s ear grated on his already-raw nerves. By the time Craig answered, he needed a drink, a smoke and the ability to reach across the distance and strangle the son of a bitch.
“Hey, bubba, how’s it going?”
Grinding his teeth, Sean replied, “I’ll have Maggie out of here in a few minutes. Now what?”
“Took you a while.”
“Yeah, well, who knew you can’t just walk in, pay the bail and walk out with the prisoner?”
“No, you can’t. All that paperwork to process, and then they take their own sweet time with the release because they can. Okay. You know where Fair Winds is? Old place out of town where the serial killer lived?”
Some part of his brain registered surprise—Copper Lake had its own serial killer?—but the rest of him didn’t give a damn about anything but Sophy. “Fair Winds? Yeah, I know.”
Moving silently for big, armed men, e
veryone except Petrovski and Baker cleared the room, as Ty had told him they would. By the time Sean got out of the station, they would already be making their way through the woods at Fair Winds, setting up position.
“Okay, we left the gate open for you. Come on out, and go past the big house to the little one on the right. Jimmy’s on the porch. You can’t miss him. He’s a big guy. There’s plenty of parking—it’s a freaking plantation just like in the movies—and we’ll trade women.” Craig paused, then added, “Don’t do anything stupid, Sean. Don’t force me to do something stupid.”
“Yeah, sure.” Hanging up, he repeated the instructions to Petrovski, who passed them on to the others by radio. “Can we go?”
“Not yet,” Special Agent Baker replied. She didn’t fidget, tap her nails or toy with the big black sunglasses on the table in front of her but simply sat slumped in the chair as if the effort to straighten her spine was beyond her. Not a posture he’d ever seen her in, but until now he’d only seen her as an efficient DEA agent, not a snotty-nosed, meth-head moron. Did she feel anything while waiting to pass herself off as Maggie? Adrenaline? Fear? Nerves?
He felt enough of all three for the whole damn town. So many lives at stake, all because Craig had an unholy fondness for money and power and control. Sean had loved him like a brother—hell, better than a brother. How could he have not seen the evil in him? Had it always been there, hidden, controlled, looking for an outlet, or had something changed him in the past fourteen years?
God, he didn’t care. He didn’t give a damn about anything at the moment beyond getting Sophy back, telling her he loved her, that he could live anywhere as long as he got to live with her. If she could forgive him for bringing danger into her life, he would spend the rest of his making it up to her.
The minutes ticked by slowly, the silence adding another layer of tension to the air. He stood, paced, stared at the clock. His gut was knotted, the muscles in his neck and shoulders and hands tight enough to hurt, needing release. Decking Craig would be a nice start, and beating him within an inch of his life would be a nice finish.
Something must have been passed over the radio because Petrovski stood up, adjusting his earpiece. “Time to head out.”
Baker stood and smoothed out the baggy clothing, not even so much as a twitch of her nose betraying the fact that the clothes Maggie had been wearing when she was arrested stank to high heaven. Together with Petrovski trailing them, they went out to the Chevelle, parked a few yards from the jail entrance. Petrovski went on past to his own vehicle a couple spaces away.
A few turns, and they were headed north on River Road. Sean couldn’t remember how far out the Howard place was. They hadn’t liked commoners setting foot on their property except for the few they’d employed, and even Declan and Ian had admitted the old man kind of spooked them.
But after a few miles, a small sign announced Fair Winds, and the dirt road showed signs of recent traffic. It ran straight to the river before turning right, where Petrovski pulled to the shoulder and shut off his engine to do his job of managing communications. Another right turn led Sean into the driveway. Elaborate wrought-iron gates stood open, revealing a house right out of Gone with the Wind set in the middle of a huge lawn. It should have looked like the last place a serial killer would practice his hobby, but something about it felt right. It was creepy—dark in spite of the sun, chilly despite the heat. Being here made his skin crawl, and he swore Baker felt something similar as she hastily folded her arms across her middle.
“Park beside that damaged tree,” she instructed, “with the passenger side angled a bit away from them.”
Sean did as she instructed, left the engine running and started to open his door, but her hand on his arm stopped him. Her touch wasn’t like ice cubes against his skin, he registered with some surprise.
“I already told the officers—that guy Zeke in there? He’s ours. Don’t try to take him out.”
Sean stared at her. “An informant?”
“No, a special agent. He’s been undercover with Kolinski for nearly a year.”
“Gee, that would have been nice to know sooner.”
She made no apology. “We try to keep that information to ourselves. We don’t want a dead agent because someone couldn’t keep a secret.”
When she removed her hand, he drew a deep breath, got out of the car and walked toward the cottage. As soon as the car door slammed, Baker was supposed to crawl across into the driver’s seat, just in case “Maggie” needed to make an escape.
Jimmy the goon watched from the porch before saying something to the people inside, then he came down the steps, a shotgun resting comfortably in his arms. He wasn’t actually pointing the gun at Sean, but it wouldn’t take him more than a few seconds to rectify that.
“Why’d you park down there?”
“Where’s Sophy?”
“Where’s Maggie?”
“In the car.” He gestured as Jimmy stared hard that way. At that distance, with the tinting on the Chevelle windows, it was just possible to see someone moving in the front seat, fiddling with the stereo would be his bet.
Sean stood in the feeble shade of a sugar pine, sweat collecting in the hollow of his spine and trickling down to soak into his waistband. His arms hung limply, just a little away from his sides. When he dared move his gaze, he caught glimpses of outbuildings, more manicured lawn, the straight rows of pines that had survived Fair Wind’s timber operation and the tangled woods. Ty and the others were out there somewhere, but where?
Well hidden but close enough, he hoped to God, to do their job.
The bang of the screen door jerked Sean’s attention to the cottage. Craig stood on the porch, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, the other guy—Zeke, the DEA agent—a step behind him. Craig wore the pistol in the shoulder holster easily, as if it were as much a part of his outfit as the tie. He stepped down, hands on his hips. “Can you believe this place, bubba? Isn’t it freaking incredible? I might have to buy it for myself. I hear the owner’s three or four years old. A few toys for her, a few mil for her mom, and I’ll own a piece of history.”
“Yeah, what if her mom doesn’t want to sell?” Sean asked sourly because he still couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see the greed and the evil in Craig. He could remember all the help Craig had given him. All the hard work they’d done together. All the good times and bad times they’d shared. But knowing what he knew, looking at him now, there should be something. Some warning. Some feeling. But mostly all Sean felt was anger and sadness and disappointment.
“You give up too easily, bub. There’s always some way to get what you want if you want it bad enough. If she doesn’t want to sell, then she needs to be persuaded that it’s in her and her kid’s best interests.”
Sean’s gut twisted tighter. Do anything, hurt anyone—Craig didn’t care as long as he got whatever his latest whim was. “I want to see Sophy.”
Craig came a few feet closer. “I want to see Maggie.”
Sean filled his lungs with searing-hot air. None of the men knew Maggie, and according to Ty, her appearance could go through some amazing transformations depending on the status of her drug use. A few weeks clean could change haggard and bone-thin to well rested and well fed. Her skin cleared up, her hair lost its greasy lank look, and her nervous habits went away. Hopefully, they’d think the time in jail had straightened her out some.
He waved, and slowly the car door opened. Special Agent Baker pushed herself out, tugged at her clothes and shoved one hand through the silky black wig she wore, a perfect imitation of all three Holigan girls. With the sunglasses covering half her face, even Sean could have mistaken her for his sister on first glance.
She walked haltingly, unsteadily, veering to one side, overcorrecting to the other. If Sean didn’t know better, he would think she was the most awkward person alive or was under the influence of her favorite illegal substances.
When she got to the halfway point, Sean called, “Stop there, Maggie.�
�
She obeyed, her feet kicking up puffs of dust, her body swaying slightly until she corrected her balance. Keeping her head ducked, she folded her arms over her stomach, her left hand tucked underneath her right elbow, right on the spot where she’d clipped her weapon onto the jeans.
Sean looked at the men, searching for any sign that they suspected it wasn’t Maggie. Even Zeke, the DEA agent, either didn’t recognize his fellow special agent or was way too slick to let even a hint of surprise show.
“Why’d you stop her?” Craig demanded.
“I want Sophy. You bring her out, she goes to the car. When she’s there, Maggie will come over here.”
Craig’s look was chastising. “I can’t let people dictate terms, Sean. You’ve worked with me long enough to know that.”
Long-ago advice from his grandfather popped into Sean’s head. He’d been having trouble with some kids at school, foul, loudmouthed boys who’d kicked his ass repeatedly when he hadn’t taken their insults in silence. Don’t say nothin’, his grandfather had told him. Don’t argue, don’t stoop to their level, just don’t say nothin’. Trust me, it drives people crazy.
And so he said nothing, just stood there and waited. Jimmy brushed away a fly buzzing around his head, then looked from Sean to Craig and back again. Craig stared, waiting for him to flinch, and Sean stared back, determined not to flinch.
“Remember what I said about not being stupid?”
Sean said nothing.
Insects hummed. The sun’s heat intensified. A boat chugged past on the river. Sean’s heart was pounding in his chest, every beat louder, harder, faster, until finally Craig swore, swiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Jeez, man, you can be so damn hardheaded. Zeke, bring her out.”
The DEA guy went into the house while Sean and Craig continued their staring contest. An ache throbbed in Sean’s temple, the kind that sent a wave of nausea through him and made just holding his eyes open hurt. She was all right; she had to be. God couldn’t make him come back here, deal with his family and fall in love for the first time in his whole damn life, then take her away from him.
Undercover in Copper Lake Page 21