Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  He was silent for a long time before he said, “Yes.”

  “And Bert and Sheila had to go into the witness protection program because they’re going to testify?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not really quitting the DEA, are you?”

  “I’ll probably take a desk job. Allison won’t share custody unless I do.”

  I sighed. “I guess all that talk about your joining Sheepshanks, Sheepshanks and Sheepshanks was just that—talk.”

  He grinned. “I wouldn’t mind helping out with the more interesting cases. That way, maybe I can keep you from getting yourself killed.”

  I bit my lower lip. Geoff was still at large. Keeping me from getting killed might turn out to be a major challenge.

  “My brother murdered Lillian.”

  “I know,” Tucker said.

  I blinked. “You know? How?”

  “The autopsy report came back. He gave her enough morphine to stop her heart, and his prints were on the bag. He was grandstanding.”

  “What about my IV bag?”

  Tucker paled, or at least seemed to, in that early morning light, still dim and thready. “Drain cleaner,” he said. “He wanted it to hurt. Chances are, the rat poison in the chow mein was his doing, too. He probably made the pitch-call himself, then paid some kid to carry the box.”

  A prickly shiver went through me. “He wasn’t trying to cover his tracks in the nursing home or the hospital. Geoff’s a nurse. He would have known about drugs that wouldn’t leave a trace, and he’d have had access to them.”

  Tucker nodded slowly. His eyes burned into my face. “Have you seen him since that night at the casino, Moje?”

  I glanced toward Lillian’s grave. “He was at the funeral. I caught a glimpse of him in the news clip.”

  “You’re still in a lot of danger,” Tucker said, at some length. “I can arrange for you to disappear.” He must have seen the objection brewing in my face. “Just until we nail your brother,” he finished.

  “You may never get him, Tuck. He’s a psychopath, and psychopaths are—”

  “I’ll get him,” Tucker said grimly. He paused. “You’re not going to cooperate, are you? By hiding out, I mean.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve spent my whole life running from things. I can’t do it anymore.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to let you help,” Tucker said.

  “Guess so,” I replied.

  CHAPTER

  19

  T he wheels of justice, as they say, grind slowly. I was questioned endlessly, in the tiny Cactus Bend police station, before finally being released into Tucker’s custody, like some errant teenager after a joyride. My Volvo waited in the lot behind the cop shop, blissfully reporter-free. By midday, Senator Clive Larimer had been arrested on federal drug charges, along with some related killings, and every journalist in Arizona was probably camped either outside his office in Phoenix or at the gates of Casa Larimer.

  I was starved, but I was also still wearing my nightshirt and bathrobe, so my dining choices were limited. We settled for drive-through.

  My cell was kaput, since I hadn’t charged it recently, and given the fact that news travels fast, especially when it’s bad, I figured Jolie and Greer were probably pretty worried by now.

  I borrowed Tucker’s phone.

  Jolie answered on the first ring, with a breathless, “Hello?”

  “It’s Mojo,” I said.

  “It’s Mojo,” Jolie repeated, in a muffled voice, probably talking to Greer.

  I glanced at Tucker, who was driving with one hand and holding a hamburger-with-everything in the other. “I guess the story about Barbara Larimer’s shooting has probably broken by now,” I began.

  “Nothing’s been said about that,” Jolie answered, “but your uncle is all over the news. No wonder he looks like a walking dead man—he’s under arrest for drugs and murder and his wife is—”

  “Dead,” I finished, when Jolie’s voice fell away.

  “Tell me you weren’t involved,” she said, after a moment or two of recovery. “Greer and I have been trying to get in touch with you since last night. Your cell phone is shut off or broken or something, and we went to your apartment, but—” She stopped, drew an audible breath. “Do you have any idea how petrified we’ve been?”

  I swallowed a mouthful of double-deluxe all-beef with cheese. “What do you want first? Whether I was involved, or whether or not I caught the clue train and figured out that you might be stressing a little over my general well-being?”

  “Involved,” Jolie said tersely.

  “Affirmative on that,” I answered.

  “Holy shit,” Jolie said. “I was afraid of that. Greer, she was involved.”

  Muttered exclamations from Greer.

  Jolie cut back to the chase. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine.” I looked down at my bathrobe. “Jolie, I remembered. I remembered everything—about that night, I mean.”

  “Tell me, damn it!”

  Another sidelong glance at Tucker. I told my sister about the night my parents were murdered, sparing no details. After all, she was a forensic biologist and soon-to-be crime scene tech. She could deal.

  “Lillian must have thought you did it,” Jolie said bleakly, when I’d finished the grisly tale. “That was why she snatched you and ran. And why she refused to tell you whatever she knew.”

  “That’s my guess. We’ll probably never know for sure.”

  “So why do I feel that this isn’t over?”

  I sighed. “Geoff is still on the loose. He was Barbara’s accomplice, Jolie. He took the fall for her because she paid him to do it. I was right—he killed Lillian, and he tried to do me in, too.”

  A call-waiting blip sounded on the cell phone. “Gotta go, Jolie,” I said quickly. “There’s a call coming through for superagent, and it might be important. I’ll be home in a little under two hours.” I clicked the pertinent button and answered, to give Tucker time to put down what remained of his hamburger.

  “Tucker Darroch’s phone,” I said.

  A chill bounced up to the satellite and back down, hitting me square in the solar plexus and radiating out from there. I knew exactly who was calling before she said a word.

  “This is Allison Darroch. Is My Husband Around?”

  It is not good when people capitalize an entire sentence. I winced and handed Tucker the cell, miming Allison’s name as I did.

  A muscle bunched under Tucker’s right temple. “Hello,” he said. A spattering of anxious words reached my ears as, roughly, yada-yada-yada. I watched the color drain from his face as he listened. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Keep the kids where you can see them, and for God’s sake, try to stay calm. If you panic, they will, too.”

  He rang off, dropped the cell phone onto the console and hit the gas so hard that my cheeks almost blew back to my earlobes.

  “What is it, Tucker?” I asked, when he didn’t volunteer anything.

  He didn’t look at me, and when he did answer, there was no inflection at all in his voice. “There’s no school today, so Daisy’s dance class held a dress rehearsal for their recital on Friday night. One of the other kids—Daisy’s best friend, Gillian—went missing. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Gillian’s just—gone.”

  “Maybe she only wandered off?”

  “They’ve searched the whole area. No sign of her.” He was silent for at least a mile. “She’s only seven, Moje. And it could have been Daisy.”

  I moved to lay a hand on his thigh, then thought better of it. “But it wasn’t, Tucker.”

  We zoomed on, zipped through Phoenix, up the 101, taking the Tatum Boulevard exit and continuing north. Tucker was in no mood to talk, at least, not to me. He had me dial a couple of different numbers on his cell phone, and he had plenty to say to the law enforcement agencies on the other end.

  “I need to borrow your car,” he told me, whipping into the otherwise empty park
ing lot at Bad-Ass Bert’s. Tucker had left his own rig at the cemetery in Cactus Bend, so I wouldn’t have to drive home, and another agent had agreed to bring it as far as Scottsdale later.

  Both of us had forgotten about Geoff by then.

  Tucker was scared sick for little Gillian, and so was I.

  I tried to concentrate on some kind of normal order of business. I needed a shower and clothing suitable for daytime, and so I focused on that, as much as I could. As I got out of the car, I recalled that Rotika had given me two boxes full of Lillian’s things.

  “It’s yours as long as you need it,” I said, hopping a little because my bare feet were stinging as they made contact with the gravel. “But there’s some stuff in the trunk—”

  Tucker popped the trunk and started to get out.

  “I can do it,” I said.

  “You’re not even wearing shoes,” he answered.

  Tucker carried me piggyback to the stairs leading up to my apartment, then schlepped the boxes that far. His harried glance strayed once, up to the door. “Maybe you should come with me,” he said.

  “You know that won’t fly,” I replied. “I’d only complicate matters between you and Allison and, besides, I’m not dressed for search-and-rescue. Guess I’d better get my house key before you leave, though.”

  Tucker gave a reluctant nod of agreement and started past me, headed up the stairs.

  I grabbed his arm. “Just give me the key, Tuck,” I said quietly. “You don’t have time for this.”

  He stopped, looked up at the door again, sighed and pulled out the Volvo keys, which he’d automatically stuffed into the pocket of his jeans.

  “The leopard skin one,” I told him.

  “Figures,” he said, with a grin so faint and so full of despair that it twisted my heart. He worked the key off the ring, handed it over and kissed me quickly on the mouth. “Call your sisters,” he ordered. “Have them come and get you.”

  Jolie and Greer knew my ETA. They’d be arriving any minute, and I told Tucker so.

  Reassured, he sprinted back to the Volvo and sped off.

  I watched him go, said a little prayer that Gillian would be kept safe and found quickly and went upstairs.

  The place was stone silent.

  I stood on the threshold for a moment, trying to sense whether anyone was there or not. There’s usually the slightest quiver in the air, when there’s another person present.

  No vibes.

  I put on my Sponge Bobs and carried the boxes upstairs, one at a time. When Jolie and Greer arrived, we’d go through Lillian’s belongings together, laugh a little and probably cry a lot. It would be a sort of informal, just-us tribute to her memory.

  I set the cartons in the middle of the living room, started a pot of coffee brewing and grabbed a shower. Afterward, dressed in shorts and a tank top, I felt presentable again.

  Poured myself a coffee, doctored it and wondered what was keeping my sisters.

  I dug my cell out of my purse, remembered the battery was D.O.A. and plugged the thing in to recharge.

  Speculating that Jolie or Greer might have left a message on my voice mail, I picked up the landline, heard the tone indicating I’d missed some calls and keyed in the access code.

  There were three hang-ups, then Jolie’s voice came on. “Moje, it’s me,” she said. “Listen, there’s been sort of an incident and—well—we’ll be a little late. Just don’t worry, okay?”

  Sort of an incident?

  Just don’t worry?

  Jolie brought it home. “See you soon.”

  Click.

  I stared at the receiver for a few seconds, wondering if this was some kind of passive-aggressive payback for running off to Cactus Bend the night before in my pj’s and giving my sisters some anxious moments.

  I punched in Jolie’s number hard enough to make some of the buttons stick.

  “Hi,” chimed a recorded voice, when I opened my mouth to demand an explanation, “this is Jolie Travers. I’m not available right now, but please leave your name, number, and a brief message. If it’s appropriate, I’ll call you back.”

  “Mojo Sheepshanks,” I said irritably, “480-555-4956. What the hell do you mean by ‘sort of an incident’? That could be anything from a flat tire to a gunshot wound, and you damn well know it!”

  I crashed the phone down hard.

  That’s when I remembered that I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. What I needed was a jolt of caffeine. That would rocket me back into the world of relatively civil people.

  Coffee always wakes me up.

  This time, it made all the muscles in my body go limp.

  I studied my cup, frowning. Had I brewed decaf by accident? Not very likely, since I’d never bought the stuff in my life. I’d read those forwards on the Web about how they used embalming fluid to take the pizzazz out of the java.

  No way, Juan. I was only planning to be embalmed once, and not in the immediate future, either.

  A fog rolled in, clouding my brain. I seemed to be wandering in a dream sequence, only I was awake. Wasn’t I?

  I rubbed my temples with the fingertips of both hands.

  Sniffed the coffee.

  What did caffeine smell like?

  Wooziness overtook me.

  Disjointed thoughts queued in my head and kept changing places. The intracranial version of the maypole dance.

  Then I felt a sudden rush of relief.

  Of course.

  I was simply tired.

  I’d lived a lifetime in the last twenty-four hours, without sleeping, and now it was catching up to me. I’d just lie down—yes—and grab a few winks. When I woke up, Jolie and Greer would be there.

  Or Tucker, bearing good news. Daisy’s little friend—Gillian, wasn’t it—had been found safe and sound. It was all just a big mistake. Little girls didn’t really disappear from dance rehearsals in the middle of the day, surrounded by dedicated parents.

  Of course they didn’t.

  I yawned, smiled and padded out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into my bedroom. I tossed back the covers and sank into the soft, soft mattress.

  I would have sworn somebody tucked me in.

  Lillian?

  It would be nice to think that, I reflected. I tried to open my eyes and find out, but the lids felt heavy as manhole covers.

  I slept, deeply and dreamlessly.

  If the phone rang, I didn’t hear it.

  If anybody knocked at the door, ditto.

  I was completely out of it.

  Still, the faintest sound awakened me.

  The room was in twilight, but I had no idea what time it was.

  I stretched.

  Sat up.

  Swung my legs over the side to stand.

  And hands grasped my ankles, from underneath the bed, as soon as my feet touched the floor.

  In the first instant, I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

  I used to scare myself with that scenario, when I was a very little kid. Before the murders. I’d always thought I’d scream, and someone would rush to my rescue, but now, even though I opened my mouth, all that came out was a garbled squeak.

  I struggled.

  The hands were strong—they gave a powerful wrench and I plunged to the floor, banging my right shoulder, still healing from the scissors wounds. Hyper-pain spiraled through me.

  I still couldn’t scream.

  The hands released me, and the monster crawled out from under the bed, grinning.

  Geoff.

  I kicked violently, rolled onto my side, my knees—get away, get away—but he threw me down again.

  “Bad dream, little sister?” he drawled.

  “Help!” I whispered.

  “All alone,” Geoff singsonged. “All, all alone.”

  “Damn you,” I croaked, fighting again. “Let me go—what are you—?”

  “I told you there was a way into your apartment,” Geoff said, in that same crazy, nursery-rhyme m
eter. “I told you.” He smiled vacuously. The lights were on, the dogs were barking and nobody was home. He put a finger to his lips, and I was reminded of Barbara, pretending there was some nice surprise in the offing when what she really planned was to pump bullets into the two people in the world I loved and needed most. “It’s under the bed,” Geoff went on, almost conspiratorially. “A sort of crawl space. All you have to do is stand on the bar downstairs and push the vent grating out of the way, and there it is. The secret passage.”

  I tried to squirm away, but he took another grip on my ankles, harder this time, his fingers biting deep into my flesh.

  “I happened to be in the bar one night,” he droned on. “Right downstairs from you, Mary Jo—so close—so very close—and I noticed the vent.”

  “Wh-why are you doing this?” I gasped. “What have I ever done to you?”

  Geoff’s blankly handsome face assumed an expression of perverse indulgence. “You were born,” he crooned. “My mother slept with that baboon—I heard them sometimes, in the night, and I wished they’d both die. Then I pretended it was only a bad dream. It worked—I could pretend she wasn’t letting him touch her. Until you came along, that is. Mary Jo, the living proof.”

  I started to tell him he was nuts, but since that was clearly established, it would have been redundant. If I was going to survive—and even though my chances weren’t great, I fully intended to come out of the experience alive—I couldn’t afford to waste my breath stating the obvious.

  “Married people sleep together,” I said carefully. “They have babies.”

  I tried to sit up and, to my surprise, he let me.

  Geoff got out to his feet, covered in dust bunnies. He reached down, caught me by my sore arm, and yanked me upright.

  “Not my mother,” he said, spitting the words into my face.

  I decided to push him a little. It was an instinctual thing, not even a distant cousin to common sense. “You were there that night, in the trailer. The night of the murders. You didn’t try to stop Barbara—you were in on the whole thing.”

  Geoff smiled at the memory. From his expression, he might have been recalling a family picnic, or an especially good Christmas, instead of the savage slaying of his mother and stepfather.