Relative Strangers

by Joyce Lamb

  Margot retreated to an easy chair in the corner and lit a cigarette with hands that had steadied. She'd changed into black leggings and a snug, white T-shirt.

  Meg watched her sister brush at a piece of tobacco that clung to the hem of her shirt and felt fury begin to build. She latched onto it, used it to slap back the grief. "How can you just sit there and smoke?"

  Margot straightened her back. Putting the cigarette out, she was careful not to be as fierce about it as she wanted to be. "You don't know me very well," she said. "Please don't make snap judgments about the way I handle a situation."

  Meg could have hit her. The desire almost propelled her across the room at her sister, but she turned her back to clamp down on the violent urge. It wasn't Margot's fault that Slater Nielsen was a murderous bastard. She had made bad choices, and now she was paying for them. They both were.

  Bracing on the sill, Meg pulled in a shaky breath. Fatigue hummed through her system. It was difficult just to hold her head up.

  "I don't blame you if you hate me," Margot said.

  Meg let her breath out, closed her eyes.

  "I mean, I've made a mess of things," she went on. "I guess I got stupid for a moment, thinking I could be happy, thinking Beau and I could—" She choked.

  In the reflection of the window, Meg saw Margot press im-patient fingers against her eyes.

  "Christ, I'm pathetic," Margot said.

  Meg gripped the windowsill so hard her knuckles ached. "What do you want me to say, Margot? That it's okay that you were so easily manipulated? It's not okay. People are dead. Good people." Unlocking the window, she jammed it open, and a chill wind rushed into the room. "How far is the drop?"

  When she got no response, Meg turned to see that her twin's emotional moment had ebbed. In its wake was the toughness that Margot had let slip.

  "I'm only human," Margot said, crossing to her. "I didn't have the opportunities that you had. I know you don't think that's a good enough excuse, but I didn't steal the food out of a starving kid's mouth or snatch a little old lady's purse. I stole from rich, insured people. I know it's not right, but you act like every time I emptied a safe, I slashed someone's throat. Well, / didn't kill anybody. I did what I did to survive. If I hadn't started working for Slater, I probably would have become a prostitute. And maybe in your eyes, I am a whore, because I slept with Slater and he gave me things, not in re-turn like you think, but because he wanted to."

  Elbowing Meg out of the way, she slammed the window shut. "It's three floors, so don't even think about jumping."

  She paced back to the bed, still furious, her fists clenched at her sides. "Damn it, I'm a decent person." She rounded on Meg and jabbed a finger at her chest. " You might not think so, and, twenty years from now, my kid might not think so, but damn it, I don't deserve what's happened to me any more than you do. The only crime I committed that cost anyone anything more than cold hard cash was trusting someone who I thought cared for me. And not caring for him as much as I

  cared for someone else. So get off my back."

  Margot headed for the dresser and the pack of cigarettes. She lit one with jerky movements, meeting her sister's green eyes as smoke curled around her head. Meg was giving her a strange look.

  "What?" Margot snapped.

  "Your kid?"

  Her eyes teared up. "Yeah, I'm pregnant. Ain't that the pits."

  Bracing a hand on the wall, Meg rubbed the tips of her fin-gers under the knot at her temple. Ryan would have enjoyed being an uncle. He would have been a good one. Attentive and encouraging. Supportive. Her head swam, and she closed her eyes until the dizziness passed. Then she went to the bed and began pulling on the jeans and polo. They had to do something. They couldn't just sit and wait until Slater Nielsen got ready to kill them.

  "Did Slater give you a weapon?" Meg asked, sitting down to tug on her Nikes, which were still wet.

  "No."

  "All those times you played jewel thief for him, and he never gave you anything for protection?"

  "I didn't need protection," Margot said. "I was a thief, not a killer." Her face softened as Meg stood and seemed to grow more pale. "Why don't you sit down? You don't look good."

  Meg sank back onto the bed. "We have to get out of here," she said more to herself than to Margot.

  "The door is unlocked. Slater never locked me in."

  Meg, disbelieving, went to the door and tried the knob. It turned without resistance. Facing Margot, she asked, "Does your former boss keep a gun in the house?"

  Ryan and Nick crouched in the weeds just beyond the landscaped grounds of Slater Nielsen's palatial home. Gun-shots sounded from the direction they had just come.

  "Feds made land," Nick said.

  "Good," Ryan said. "Hopefully, all the guards are on the beach trying to hold them off."

  There didn't appear to be any activity outside the house, though harsh lights seemed to illuminate every inch of the yard. Ryan focused on the windows, trying to detect activity beyond them. "Let's go in."

  "Ryan, wait—"

  Ryan rounded on his friend. "Look, Nick, you can sit here on your ass and wait for the FBI to do their thing or you can help me get Meg the hell out of there. We have no clue how much time she has or if she's not already dead. So which is it going to be?"

  Nick swallowed hard and nodded. "We're going in."

  "We'll go through the back. And watch for guards. They might be trying to secure the house."

  Slater Nielsen was in his office, and when Meg and Margot stood in the doorway, side by side, he smiled at them from beside his desk. Margot had told Meg moments before where he had stashed her gun.

  He gestured them in. Meg felt Margot close behind her as she moved into the office. Meg's gaze never left his face. Even as she charted the various routes to the middle drawer of his desk, she registered that he wasn't quite what she had imagined. He wasn't young and dark and brooding. She had not expected salt-and-pepper hair, bushy eyebrows and startling blue eyes.

  He indicated a leather sofa. "Have a seat," he said.

  Meg would have preferred to stand. The battered state of her body was going to slow her down enough without having to waste precious time propelling herself off the furniture first. Her knees didn't give her much choice, however. Margot stayed behind the sofa.

  "I trust you're well?" Slater asked Meg.

  She wanted to kill him, just smash his head against a wall until it was mush, until she could squeeze its contents through her fingers. The desire didn't surprise her, but it dis-gusted her that she had sunk to his level, that she was al-lowing herself to be so ruled by emotion that right and wrong no longer seemed to matter. All that mattered was that Ryan and Dayle were dead and this man was responsible.

  "Slater—"

  He had only to look at Margot to silence her, then re-turned his attention to Meg. "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Ms. Grant. Whatever you need, just ask. I'm sure your sister can tell you I'm a gracious host. Can't you, Margot?"

  Margot didn't respond.

  Walking behind his desk, he settled onto the leather chair, which creaked under his weight. Meg began calculating the odds of getting him away from the desk. "Sit down, Margot. Next to your sister," Slater said.

  Margot hesitated.

  "Do it, or I'll make you regret it, and you know how good I am at that."

  She obeyed, casting a sideways glance at Meg, who didn't acknowledge that she had heard the subtle threat. Her gaze, hard as stone, was fixed on Slater.

  "Twins indeed. Striking." Opening the middle drawer, he rummaged through it. "We're going to play a game, ladies."

  "Slater—"

  "Shut up, Margot." He said it without a trace of hostility. "It's a simple game. Few rules. I'm going to set you both free.

  If you can make it to the outer rim of the island without get-ting caught, you're free. I will be your hunter." He smiled at Meg. "See how reasonable, how accommodating I can be, Ms. Grant?"

  "What'
s the catch?" Margot asked.

  "It's minor. Very minor." He spread manacles connected by a two-foot chain on the desk. Next to them, he placed the gun he had taken from Margot's purse earlier.

  Margot's breath hissed between her teeth. "You're fucking kidding me."

  His cold blue gaze didn't stray from Meg, who stared at him with hatred in her eyes as she adjusted her plan for Margot's gun. "You'd think your sister would know me better, Ms. Grant. She's known me for twelve years, and she has no idea that I'm deadly serious."

  He picked up the manacles, the chain rattling, and tossed them. "Do the honors, Margot."

  Margot caught them as if he had thrown a dead animal at her.

  "Just to let you know how reasonable I am, I'm giving you a head start," Slater said.

  "He'll wait until we're almost to the edge of the grounds," Margot said, her voice shaking. She'd heard of this particular game of his but had not believed it until now. "Then he'll shoot one of us. He'll use the trail of blood to hunt us down."

  He glared at Margot. "I'm getting impatient with you, Margot."

  Margot fumbled with the handcuffs, wrapping one around her slim wrist and snapping it shut. The metallic zipper-click was sharp in the silence. She held the other end out to Meg.

  Meg didn't take it.

  Margot, searching Meg's face with a worried frown, sensed Slater's impatience and feared what he would do if ei-ther of them defied him. She slipped a cuff around the raw flesh of Meg's left wrist.

  Meg met her twin's gaze, saw the fear raging in her eyes.

  Slater cleared his throat, a broad smile curving his lips when they looked at him. "I would say, 'Let the games begin,' but this has been nothing more than a game from the start." He grinned at Margot. "And you lost."

  "Not yet I haven't," she said.

  "Even if you get out of here alive, you won't have the one thing that you cared enough about to fight for—Beau Kama. Even if you survive, I win." His smile was hard. "But then, you've known since I had your lover killed that your chances of surviving are slim. And yet, you insisted on running. Just look at the cost." Holding up a hand, he ticked off fingers as he spoke. "Your lover. Your friend in Green Bay. Your sis-ter's friend. They're all dead. And why? Because of you, Margot. Because you're too weak to face up to your mistakes and take your punishment like a good child. Stand up."

  Margot stood, then looked down at Meg when she didn't do the same. Meg was staring at Slater Nielsen. "Your sister's friend," he'd said. Dayle. Or did he mean Ryan? Her vision blurred, wavered, turned white. She closed her eyes, thought that her brain was shutting down again in self-defense. But when she opened her eyes, Slater Nielsen's smiling image was clear.

  Meg rose next to Margot. The chain linking them rattled, and she heard a clock chime somewhere in the house. With each chime, the pressure in her chest made her lungs feel like they were in spasm. She had nothing to lose. Not one thing.

  Slater smiled. Happy. The man was happy. "Well, I sup-pose this is it—"

  Meg lunged across the desk, dragging a surprised Margot along with her. Slater didn't have the time to blink before she smashed a fist between his eyes. He reeled back. Margot shouted her name.

  Meg scrambled to her knees on the desk, fumbled for the gun. She felt Margot yank on the chain at her wrist.

  Meg leaned sideways, bracing all of her weight against Margot's. The metal cuff bit into the abraded flesh of her wrist, strained against abused tendons, but she ignored it as the fingers of her free hand grazed metal.

  Slater drove a fist into her shoulder, knocking her back, to-ward the edge of the desk. Meg clung to the chain for support, her balance precarious at the desk's edge. She saw a flash of his manicured nails as he clasped the butt of the gun. She kicked at his hand, but he jerked it back, then aimed it at her chest.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Meg saw Margot freeze, both hands wrapped around the chain. Meg's own fingers were slippery on the taut links that kept her from toppling backward off the desk. She didn't breathe as Slater's finger twitched on the trigger.

  "Don't," Margot said between clenched teeth.

  Slater's gaze slid from Meg to Margot. "Watch me."

  "I'll tell you where the emeralds are," Margot said.

  "Too late." He closed one eye as if to take careful aim.

  "I'll do anything. Whatever you want. Forever."

  "This isn't about what I want, Margot. It's about making you pay in a way that will haunt you for the rest of your pitiful life." He wet his lips, narrowed his eyes. "I know you care for your sister."

  "You're wrong."

  "You're shaking with it. I've never seen you tremble, Margot. Not like you are now."

  "Then what are you waiting for? Do it."

  He glanced at her in surprise.

  Margot let go of her end of the chain.

  Meg fell backward off the desk and landed on her back on the hardwood floor. Rockets of pain went off in her head. She lay stunned for a moment, then pushed herself to her knees. Fire flashed through her chest, stealing her breath. If a rib had been cracked, it was broken now.

  Slater Nielsen hauled her to her feet, and she staggered against him. She noticed that there was no resistance on the other end of the chain and that double doors leading into a dark garden stood open.

  Ryan and Nick hugged the wall as they crept down a hall at the back of the house, exchanging winces every time a floorboard creaked. The guards already knew they were in the house. Ryan had faced one down right after he'd eased into the kitchen through the window he'd broken. He'd used a long shard of glass to defend himself, felt the gush of the man's warm blood over his hand. Now, he tossed aside the dishcloth he'd used to wipe away the blood as he rounded a corner onto the next landing of stairs, Nick just behind him.

  "Watch it!"

  Ryan pivoted at Nick's warning, but it was too late. A second guard slammed him back against the wall, sending knives of pain into his shoulder. Aiming a gun at Ryan's temple, the thug growled, "Don't move."

  Before he could do more than that, Nick jumped him from behind, nailing him in the neck with the stun gun. After the thug dropped, Nick gave Ryan a sick smile. "Think we're doing okay without a decent weapon, don't you?"

  Ryan scowled, cradling his throbbing arm. So much for painkillers. "Let's just find Meg and get the hell out of here."

  A shout sounded from another part of the house.

  Joyce Lamb

  "I'm afraid I taught your sister how to pick locks a little too well, Ms. Grant," Slater said, sounding more amused than angry as he maneuvered Meg through the French doors and into the garden.

  The cool night air turned the sweat on her face clammy. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that Margot had freed herself and run, had left her behind to deal with Slater alone.

  "Margot!" Slater called as he scanned the garden. "Are you watching?"

  He rested the cold barrel of the gun against Meg's head. Her effort to jerk away was feeble. "Stay with me now, Ms. Grant," he said, then raised his voice. "I'm going to kill your sister, Margot, unless you show yourself."

  Only the wind moved.

  Lowering the gun, he uncocked it. "I guess she wasn't bluffing when she said she didn't care." He smiled at Meg. "It's rather chilly out here, isn't it?"

  Meg would have smashed her fist into his face again if she'd had the strength. "Fuck you."

  His brows arched. "I'm shocked. You seem like such a refined woman. Principled, too, I learned from my very thorough research. Did you really refuse to take your father's money once you got to college?"

  She didn't answer as she considered her chances of wresting the gun away from him.

  "Don't even think about it, Ms. Grant. You're hurting, and I could kill you before you got anywhere near it." He steered her back into the house, the chain dragging on the floor.

  Inside, he released her to pull the doors closed. "Tell me something. What will become of your father's hard-earned money, the apparent bane of your exis
tence, once you're dead?"

  "Go to hell."

  "Feisty. Like Margot." He gave her a melancholy look. "For twelve years, I was everything to her. Did you know that? I gave her whatever she wanted. And she betrayed me."

  She tried to take a deep breath, but agony sawed through her chest, cutting it off. "You betrayed her first when you tested her."

  "Oh, I see. I should have trusted her, and she never would have cheated on me. I find that hard to believe. Whoops." He caught her arm as her knees buckled.

  Meg shook him off, forcing strength back into her legs. The chain hung heavy from her wrist, and she began to rotate her hand, tangling the links around her fingers. She needed to keep him talking. "You should have let her make her own decisions. You don't have the right to manipulate people."

  "Your father manipulated you, didn't he?"

  "Don't compare yourself to my father. There's no resemblance."

  "Are you sure about that?"

  She raised her chin, aware of an eerie thump-thump-thump in her ears. "Positive. He was a decent man, and you're a monster."

  He cracked a smile. "A monster. I like that. I'm protecting my interests, and that makes me a monster." He glanced upward, his eyes narrowed. "Interesting. We have uninvited company arriving in a helicopter." Still holding her with one hand, he fished a cell phone out of his jacket and pressed a button. "What's going on?" he snapped. He listened a moment, his fingers tightening on Meg's arm. "Why didn't someone call me? . . . How long ago? ... I don't care what you do. Just take care of it." He flipped the phone closed, put it away. "Idiots. I suppose I don't have any choice now but to get this over with."

  Meg swung the chain at him like a whip. It lashed across his face, and he threw a hand up in surprise and pain. As she turned to bolt, he dove after her, caught a hand in the back of her shirt, and jerked her off her feet.

  She landed on her back on the Persian rug. Through a red haze of agony, she saw him aim the gun at her chest. She kicked out at his legs, incensed that this was how she was going to die. Alone. Betrayed by her only flesh and blood. Helpless.

  And then his face exploded in a bloody cloud.

  He collapsed and shuddered, a moan gurgling up through his throat before he lay still.