Necessary Ends

by Tina Whittle

  “No. But even if I did, there’s nothing to have here. It’s all less-than-lethal.”

  “But—”

  “We don’t have time to argue about this.”

  He shook free and headed for the door. He didn’t wait for me, and I didn’t give him a chance to. He grabbed the keys to the utility cart and his radio. “Jonathon, do you read?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m headed your way. Local PD responding with a ETA of eight minutes, GSP scrambling a roadblock and clearing 75.”

  “Affirmative. I’m in pursuit.”

  “Sir? Did you say…?”

  “Seaver out.”

  Trey shut the door and jogged toward the cart parked next to a stack of firewood. He threw me the keys and got into the passenger seat. “You drive. I’ll track the Ferrari and monitor the radio. You—”

  “Trey!”

  He stopped talking. “What?”

  “Look at me.”

  He exhaled, looked me straight in the eye. He was bleary-eyed, taut like razor wire, but he was in there. I could see him clearly. And he wasn’t hesitating about having me along at all.

  I hopped in and cranked up the cart. “Hold on tight.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Trey might have had lousy mantracking skills, but even he could follow the Ferrari. It left huge scrapes in the manicured grass, like the rake of giant fingernails. The kick-up of white grit revealed where it had almost gotten stuck in the sand trap. After that, the tracks took a sharp turn to the right and ran parallel to the edge of thickly wooded rough, disappearing in the distance. From the looks of the untrimmed kudzu, there was no way even a four-wheel utility cart was getting through.

  Trey waved his hand at me. “Stop!”

  I slammed the brakes. “What?”

  “Do you hear the engine?”

  I listened. The Ferrari was audible from half a mile, but now I heard nothing. No engine, no sirens, no traffic. Only the light hiss of the rain and our own breathing.

  Trey checked his phone. “The signal is gone.”

  “How? I’ve got a hotspot on my wrist.”

  “The navigational system has blackout areas up here. This could be one. Regardless, it’s not tracking the car any longer.” He pointed off to the right, to where the tracks disappeared. “They found a path around, somewhere down there.”

  “We could follow. Or we could cut through on foot.”

  Trey got out of the cart. “Through. And then head left toward the ruins.”

  He started off into the trees. I followed. Camouflaged by the shifting fog and thick foliage, we moved silently, our footsteps dampened by wet pine straw. I had my .38 in one hand, the pepperball-loaded pistol in the other. And my brain kept pummeling me with one thought: what in the hell are you doing, Tai Randolph?

  I knew what Trey was doing. He was showing up. It was what he did. The call came, and he went, his entire mindset condensed to that one Pavlovian reaction. But why was I out here? And why did it feel as natural as breathing?

  We threaded through the tangled green kudzu, briars catching on my jeans. These woods felt ominous, like the forests children were warned to avoid in fairy tales. The dread intensified when I spotted the crumbling walls of the ruins looming rust-gray through the trees.

  Trey stopped, held up a hand. I stopped too. I heard voices then, muffled but close. Quint and Portia.

  “—but bringing them to the set wasn’t enough,” she said, “oh no, you had to bring them here too!”

  “I didn’t have a choice! They wanted—”

  “I don’t care what they want! They’re lowlife scum! And there you were prancing around, kowtowing to them like they were royalty!”

  “Listen, just put down the gun—”

  “Shut up!”

  We were at the edge of the woods, the stone-paved garden path leading to the rear entrance of the ruins, each step slick with wet moss. The rain had grown harder, a steady patter. Trey didn’t seem to notice. Every ounce of his attention was directed beyond the brick walls to where Portia and Quint were arguing.

  “Let me fix this,” Quint pleaded. “I fixed it last time, didn’t I?”

  “You didn’t fix a damn thing. Nicky didn’t go to jail, did he?”

  “That was Macklin’s fault, not mine!”

  “No, it’s never your fault, is it? Whose fault is it that you started gambling again, you want to explain that one?”

  “If you’d just listen—”

  “Now we’re back where we were four years ago—with me scrambling to clean up your mess.”

  I got a chill. Up ahead, Trey shot me a questioning look over his shoulder, brow furrowed. I nodded to let him know I’d heard. Yes, Quint had “fixed” things. And I knew what that meant, knew it as surely as the sun was rising. Trey knew it too. I watched him drop his shoulders, face forward again.

  “Things are different this time!” Quint’s voice was insistent. “Addison can be eliminated. There isn’t a jury in the world that would let Nicky go after a second wife kicks the bucket. Everybody thinks he relapsed—hearing gunshots, overdosing himself, trying to set a barn on fire. And then I could retain control of his estate and—”

  “What about Oliver?”

  “He won’t talk—his fingerprints are all over the financials, and he knows it.” Quint’s voice turned desperate. “Look, I learned my lesson. You want a divorce? Done. You want off the show? Fine. I’ll rip up your contract. Just don’t do this.” His voice softened. “We’re a team.”

  “We were a team. Then you started screwing Jessica instead of working her!”

  “That was working her!”

  “No, that was you being you. And I’m tired of you.”

  “Babe, listen to me, put down the gun and—”

  “Get up.”

  Trey moved forward. I fell in behind. The argument grew more intense—Portia threatening, Quint trying to talk her down—and I knew the protocol humming in Trey’s head: save the hostage. He’d do it even if the hostage was someone as despicable as Quint Talbot. It obliterated even his reflexive need to control and protect me. He’d smothered that back at the check-in station, when he’d handed me weapons and keys. And yet there was something predatory about him now—rain-soaked, rifle in hand, eyes narrow and focused.

  Once we reached the bottom of the steps, we took cover behind the rose arbor. Through the leaves, I could see Quint on his knees, Portia with her LeMat aimed at him. She was panting and dirty and wet, her hair wild about her face, but she held the gun as steadily as Luna did, with the same merciless resolve. I remembered her pretend ineptness in the shop and cursed silently. She’d been planning to take him down even then. I could almost hear her defense: It wasn’t premeditated! I only had the gun because I was doing character research! I never planned to kill anybody!

  A red blotch bloomed on Quint’s forehead, a fresh wound, and he had to keep blinking the blood and rain from his eyes. He raised his hands, palms out. “Killing me won’t stop them! They’ll come for you next!”

  She laughed. “No, they won’t.”

  “They will! You think that was Nicky they were gunning for at the house? No. They were there for me! And if I don’t—”

  “That was me, you fucking dimwit! I’m the one who tried to kill you!”

  Quint’s response was an incoherent noise of disbelief. Portia laughed again.

  “With your own gun too, the Sig Sauer. Poetic justice, I decided, a lovely bit of thematic retrofitting. But killing you with Luna’s gun…well, that’s almost as beautiful. Now get back on your feet and get back to the car.”

  Quint was slow on the uptake. “You were the one who shot at me?”

  “Yes, babe. I was. And I’m going to do it again, this time point blank.”

  “But why?”

  “Because it is the onl
y way to get out of that goddamned contract!”

  Quint seemed flabbergasted. “That wasn’t my fault! They wouldn’t let me release you!”

  “You should have tried harder to convince them.” She tightened her hands around the revolver. “Get up. Now!”

  “And what are you going to do after you shoot me, run?” Quint’s voice grew bitter. “You couldn’t stand it. You have to be seen and heard and loved and adored. You couldn’t hide if your life depended on it.”

  “I won’t need to run. I’ll claim self defense. You already killed once, and you were going to kill again, sadistic fuck that you are.”

  “Nobody will buy it.”

  “Oh, they’ll buy it. Because I’ll wrap it pretty as Christmas morning.”

  Quint dropped his voice, begging now, but Portia wasn’t relenting. Trey pointed to the arched opening to their left, a good spot providing both cover and concealment. I nodded, and he held up three fingers, dropped to two, then one. He crossed the grass soundlessly, and I followed as he moved left of the arch. I took position on the opposite side, peered through the cracks in the brickwork at the drama playing itself out within.

  Portia shook her hair from her face. She was soaking wet, her pants slathered in mud. “Get up.”

  Quint’s reply was garbled. Portia cursed, her chest heaving. She obviously didn’t want to shoot him in the ruins. She had a different scenario playing out, one that involved him back at the Ferrari, but he wasn’t budging. And she was recalculating.

  I glanced at Trey, who caught the question in my eyes. He nodded, positioned his weapon at low ready. I stuck the pepperball gun in the back of my jeans, wrapped both hands around the .38. I waited for the nervousness to spike, for my hands to start shaking. But my grip remained steady, and not a single shadow darkened my vision.

  Trey’s voice cut through the damp air like a whipsaw. “Put the gun down, Ms. Ray!”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Portia raised her voice. “Is that you, Trey? Behind the wall there? Tai too, I suspect.” She exhaled theatrically. “I was wondering when you two would show up.”

  “The police are on the way, Ms. Ray. Put down your weapon.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I still have to shoot my maggot of a husband.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Hurt him?” She spat blood and barked a laugh. “No. I don’t have to. But I want to.”

  Quint’s voice was hoarse. “She tried to kill me! She admitted it! She pretended to be drunk last night and let everybody see her making out with the prop guy! She wants it to look like I had reason to hurt her! She’s been planning this—”

  “Shut up, Quint.” Portia’s voice remained mild even as she got louder, an actor’s trick. “You there, Trey? You listening? Because I’m about to make your day.”

  “Ms. Ray—”

  “Quint killed Jessica.”

  Quint sputtered. “I did not!”

  “And he tried to blame Nicky for it. Because with Jessica dead and Nicky locked up somewhere—jail, institution, it didn’t matter where—my darling husband would control his entire estate.”

  “She’s lying!”

  “And it worked. For a while. He did get control of Nicky’s money. But it’s all gone. And I’m through covering for him now.”

  “Shut up, Patsy! It was all your idea!”

  Her voice went shrill. “Don’t call me Patsy!”

  Quint had moved from desperation to fury—he’d take Portia down even if he went down with her. Trey absorbed the information, but he already knew the truth. Not Macklin. Not Nick. Not nameless syndicate thugs. Quint. He flexed his fingers around the handle of his weapon.

  Portia raised her voice. “Did you not hear me, Trey? Quint’s the killer you’ve been looking for all these years, and I have him on the ground in front of me with a gun at his forehead. But he has lawyers, a whole team of them. They’ll get him off on some technicality. Some other cop will make a tiny mistake, and he’ll walk free. You know how that goes.”

  Trey’s expression wasn’t calm anymore. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw clenched. I chanced a quick look through the bricks. Quint was on his knees, Portia in front of him, the antique revolver aimed at his forehead. I couldn’t tell which barrel she had primed and ready to go, but it didn’t matter—Quint wouldn’t walk away from either.

  Portia was on a roll. “You’re not a cop anymore, Trey. You don’t have to save the day. You can walk away, and we can all wash our hands of this lying, thieving, murdering—”

  “Stop talking,” Trey said.

  “I’ll claim self defense. You saw the video. He had a gun. He was desperate, crazy with jealousy. His scheme falling apart around him. I was lucky to get away, lucky to survive.” Her voice was gentle, cajoling, a siren’s song. “Remember the day Jessica died? Remember how it felt to watch her mother sobbing in the courtroom?”

  “I said, stop talking!”

  Trey’s breathing had gone shallow. He tilted his head back against the bricks, and I knew the inside of his skull was a neurochemical traffic jam, vengeance and justice and rules seething and colliding. And I understood, I really did. I remembered his crime scene sketches, remembered my own dark nights, every time I’d ever felt helpless or hopeless or betrayed…

  I readjusted my grip on the .38. Unlike the pepperballs, it could execute. Neatly and precisely.

  “Trey?” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No. It’s all…and I can’t think…I can’t…”

  “Yes, you can. Look at me.”

  He turned his face in my direction, and he let me see all the way in, to the deep well of anger. Grief and pain burned there too, helpless before the wild howling unfairness of it all. Yes, he wanted Quint dead. He wanted to do it himself, but letting Portia take the shot would be satisfying enough. Quint would be dead either way. She was right—he was not a cop anymore. He had no rulebook now, no guiding protocol. He was on his own.

  Except that he wasn’t.

  “We came out here to stop this,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “So let’s stop it. The right way. You and me. Okay?”

  He didn’t reply. But he did take a deep breath in, let it trickle halfway out. He peered through the brickwork for a final assessment of the situation. Then he pulled his rifle into ready position, muzzle down, finger alongside the barrel. I did the same. The adrenaline narrowed my vision and dampened the ambient noise, but I wasn’t afraid. There was only the moment, simple and clean. Only the response.

  I heard a familiar sound in the distance. Sirens. Portia heard too, and her arms straightened and locked as she extended the gun.

  And that was all it took.

  Trey whirled around the corner and fired three rounds, then flattened himself against the wall again. Portia screamed. Quint bellowed. I heard the sounds of scuffling as a shot rang out, then the clatter of the LeMat hitting the bricks.

  Trey moved into the open archway. I trained my sights on the tangled couple rolling around on the grass, coughing and gagging as the pepper overwhelmed them. Trey covered his mouth with his sleeve and ran toward them, just close enough to kick the gun in my direction. I scooped it up fast, the sting of the capsaicin making my eyes water even from a distance. The wail of sirens intensified, and I spotted the strobe of blue lights as three cruisers ripped across the lawn and slid to a stop.

  Trey still had the rifle out. He had it aimed straight at Portia, on her knees, moaning and choking. Quint hunkered behind her, retching violently.

  “Where’s my Ferrari?” he said.

  Portia told him.

  And then he emptied the entire magazine into them.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  The wrecker arrived r
ight before noon. I stood next to Trey as it rumbled down the grassy lane. I left him just long enough to get an update from Finn, who’d arrived on the premises with a flurry of paperwork. Trey never took his eyes off the wrecker, though. He was still watching it when I returned.

  “What happened?” he said.

  I took a deep breath. “It’s hard to piece together with Quint and Portia throwing blame all over each other, but here’s how I understand things. When the Jaguar was stolen, Portia panicked. She told Quint they had to make a run for it, and he agreed. But neither of them planned on taking the other with them. They both saw this getaway as a solo act. That’s why they both came armed.”

  “Quint killed Jessica.”

  “Yes. That much is clear.”

  Trey had his arms folded, eyes on the wrecker. “How did Macklin get involved?”

  “Macklin and Quint went to the same underground poker game.”

  “Of course. Macklin had a history of gambling.”

  “And prostitutes. Expensive hobbies. He and Quint got into similar problems with the same people, and they decided to work together and split Nick’s money once Quint managed to get control of it. They came up with the idea that Macklin would smuggle Quint onto the property during his first check that day.”

  “How?”

  “In the trunk of his cruiser. Then Quint killed Jessica, left for the production company—”

  “Through the backyard and into Chastain Park.”

  “Yes, just like you suspected Nick had done. Portia was waiting for him there with a car.”

  Trey didn’t react. “And Macklin?”

  “He drove around until the deed was done, then went back for his second ‘gut check’ and pretended to catch the killer in the act. That way both he and Quint would have an alibi. And Nick wouldn’t, or so Quint thought. He thought Nick was off golfing by himself. He didn’t know Nick was having an affair with Addison, that she would alibi him. And nobody predicted that you’d show up too quickly for Macklin to properly stage the scene. He did a pretty good job, though, of making it look like Nick had done a bad job with it. But then he had to clock himself in the head and pretend to chase the pretend assailant, which wasn’t exactly part of the plan.”