by Jenna Ryan
“Do that,” Kate lied with only a faint tremor, “and the bounty on me will go down by half. Anna Perradine likes her prizes intact.”
“That’s bullshit,” he said but sounded unsure.
“Shoot me and find out,” she retorted. Turning toward him as she spoke, she tried to loosen the rope around her wrist. “Anna’s unstable.” Which Kate realized too late wasn’t the smartest thing to say. “She likes to maim and kill on her own terms. You disfigure me, she might decide to replace me with you.”
Nesty’s sallow skin mottled. “You talk too much, lady.” He gave her a shove. “Now just march yourself into that graveyard over there and carry right on to the crypt. I had it built for Papa after he died on account of him being so mean and ornery. I figured he might turn into a zombie and climb out of his coffin, but even as a zombie he’d never get through two feet of solid stone.”
Desperate, Kate dragged her feet. “Zombie or not, if he actually did get out of his coffin, Nesty, he could be waiting right now for someone to open the door so he can escape.”
Nesty sneered. “Do I look dumb? There’s a window with bars on it. I check inside every day. Ain’t seen hide or decomposing hair of him since the night he killed Mama then put a gun in his own mouth.”
Kate twisted harder on the rope as the old crypt took shape through the fog. She was searching for something to say when he shoved her again.
“Go on and look,” he instructed. “There’s enough light left for you to see what’s what.”
“Nesty, I—”
“Go and look,” he bellowed and snapped his rifle up. “Maybe you’re no good to me dead, but it’s you who’ll be dead, not me, and I don’t think you wanna die.”
His point, Kate conceded, and she fought the icy shivers that chased themselves over her skin, peering through the rusty bars.
“Nothing’s moving,” she said. “But there are a lot of shadows where a man could hide.”
“Papa ain’t a man. Never was.”
Kate ordered herself not to panic. There had to be a way to get past Nesty’s insanity.
Fallen leaves rustled behind them. The fog twined around her like a funeral shroud. Taking a deep breath, Kate swivelled to face him. Before she made it halfway, she heard a thwack followed by a thud.
She had no time to run or even gasp as a hand snaked out of the fog. Strong fingers grabbed her by the hair and twirled her up against a hard body back to front.
“Hey there, Kate,” her captor said softly. “Long time, no meet. And wouldn’t you know when we finally do it can only be for a few fleeting moments.”
She wrenched her head sideways just far enough to see Nesty lying unconscious on the ground and the profile of the man holding her. “Toy boy Troy,” she said through her teeth. “Hospital worker, gigolo and murderer all rolled into one.”
“Very good, Kate. You notice faces. We figured you would.” Chuckling, he used a large black Magnum to stroke her hair. “By the way, I like the toy boy reference. Well, minus the fact that the label implies I’ve been hitting the sheets with witch bitch Anna Perradine. So far, thankfully not. You, on the other hand, would be my pleasure, and I’d indulge most happily if the big boss wasn’t climbing all over me wanting you dead.”
Everything inside her froze. “The big boss being Leshad.”
“Yes and no. It’s a complicated arrangement.” He kissed her cheek and made her shudder. “An extremely complicated arrangement, as things with Leshad tend to be.”
Forcing herself not to panic outright, Kate stilled her struggles. “I assume we’re alone. Surely you have time to fill me in. I get that you latched onto Anna and used her to find me, but I don’t get why.”
“Complicated,” he repeated. “You’re right about Anna, though. She was all over the media telling anyone who’d listen about the blundering trauma surgeon who let her son die. My take, pretty Kate? Kid got what he deserved courtesy of whoever pumped the bullets into his chest. But what can you do? A mother’s love and all. She had to blame someone, and since the perp was nowhere to be found, you bore the brunt of her maternal rage.”
“You’re an educated man, aren’t you?”
“Made it through high school and two deadly dull years of college. Never worked on the streets, knew how to shoot. I got lucky one summer, met a few key people, got myself some serious training and here I am with you. Jimmy’ll be doing a happy dance in New Orleans tonight. A drunk dance, but who am I to judge, long as I get paid?”
A pulse bumped wildly in Kate’s throat. “Paid to dispose of me?”
“That’s the deal. I off you, drop a calling card next to your body and pfft, I’m in the wind.”
“Drop a calling card,” she repeated carefully. “But you already did that. The night you blew up the apartment building.”
“For the record, the blowing up thing was me being a tad overeager. As for leaving a card, I don’t count my chickens until they’re stone cold.”
“But I found one in my coat pocket the night of the explosion. It’s Leshad’s calling card, according to Crucible.”
“Not one of my favorite people, Crucible. However, facts is facts, Kate. I didn’t give you a card or anything else that night. Although I will cop to dropping one the night I blasted your car in Chinatown.”
Okay, so the card sender remained a mystery, Kate reflected. Did it matter? One way or another, toy boy was going to kill her and make her yet another of Leshad’s victims.
“I’ll be quick,” he promised. “The goth deal’s just a look. I’m not into pain and suffering. I only want my money. And, of course, not to wind up dead myself.”
Kate scrambled through her mind for some way to stall him. The best she could manage was, “What’s your name?”
But it made him pause and earned her another chuckle. “Not Troy, that’s for sure.” He feathered the gun over her ribs. “Oh, what the hell. You have a right to know the name of the person who’s going to off you. It’s Hazzard. Roy Adelbert Hazzard. Blame my mother—and a well-to-do uncle whose money she coveted very badly—for Adelbert.”
Kate’s brain was functioning in disjointed spurts. One of them whisked her to St. Mark’s. “I saw you in the hospital the night Phoebe Lessard disappeared. You and another man. I assumed you worked there, but you were after Phoebe, weren’t you? For Leshad?”
“Partly. Largely. First things first, however, nail on the head. You saw me that night, Kate. Big oops. You saw what you weren’t supposed to see. It should have been a quick in and out. Finish off the Lessard woman, cab it to the airport, board our respective flights, end of affiliation. It blows, but the hell of life is it’ll bite you anywhere and everywhere it can.”
“Phoebe escaped before you could kill her.”
“Yes. And that’s when the nightmare started. I mean really started. I had Jimmy bugging the crap out of me to get you done and gone, and that meant Leshad was all over him, which is never a good thing. So when I missed you with the car explosion, I went a little crazy and took out the so-called safe apartment building.”
It surprised Kate that his muscles would go rock hard. With tension?
“I started seeing the fucking doll after that night. His butt-ugly face was always somewhere close by, watching me, leering at me. Sometimes it’d be far away then it would zoom in fast like a camera lens. Jimmy says it’s not Leshad’s doing, but what does he know? He grew up in Alabama. There’s no voodoo in Alabama.”
“You believe in voodoo?”
“I’ve spent time in Louisiana. You pick up on things. Beliefs, ideas.” His breath began to hitch and he swallowed convulsively. “Okay, enough with the gabfest. It’s time to end this. I think I might be seeing more than stones on the wall of that crypt, and I don’t know how hard stupid over there cracked your lover on the head.” His voice sounded as tight as his muscles now. “I’m sorry about this, Kate.”
He dug his gun into her side. She wasn’t sure when he’d slid his arm across her windpipe, but s
he knew it was cutting off her oxygen supply because spots were starting to appear.
Out of options and definitely out of time, all she had left was panic. She snapped the back of her skull into Hazzard’s forehead and at the same time brought her foot down on his instep.
Unfortunately, all that drew was a curse and a rough twirl so she was pressed up against the stone crypt.
“Don’t tempt me, lady,” he snarled. “Just don’t you fucking do that again unless you relish pain.” His breath began to heave. His eyes bored into hers. “The doll’s here,” he said tight-lipped. “He’s right next to us. I’d know that ugly, wooden puppet face anywhere.”
Snatching her roughly from the wall, he made her look. “You see him, don’t you.” Shaking her, he said, “Don’t you.”
It wasn’t a question, and although Kate nodded, she saw nothing. “I think so,” she lied. “I’m not wearing my contacts.”
“He’s right there.” Hazzard shook her again. “Swear to me you see him.”
He had her by the scruff now, and even with his gun gouging a hole in her right kidney, she could move.
Aiming for his crotch, she bent her knees and brought her balled hands up between his legs. When he buckled, she yanked free, whirled and delivered a solid kick to his groin.
She saw his teeth, his arm and his gun a split second before he clipped her on the side of the head and sent her tumbling to the ground.
She thought she might also have spied the vague outline of a face on the crypt wall, but she was falling at the time and terrified. Hazzard would shoot her if she didn’t keep moving.
So she rolled. Over the mound of a grave, behind a crumbling headstone and, she hoped, out of sight in the still drifting fog.
A bullet zinging off the face of the stone suggested she hadn’t rolled far enough, fast enough. And Hazzard wasn’t gone enough to shoot at the crypt rather than her.
Or so she thought until a second bullet ricocheted off the stone wall.
Gunshots filled the air after that, too many of them to be coming from a single weapon.
“Kate!”
Jolting, she almost jumped out from behind the headstone. Nolan held her in place by clamping a hand onto her neck.
Not dead, was her relieved first thought. Bleeding, was her horrified second thought.
“Blood’s not mine.” He untied her wrists while she kissed him and checked for entry wounds.
A volley of bullets blasted through the fog. Reassured that he wasn’t about to collapse, Kate risked a look into the graveyard. “Toy boy Troy is Leshad’s hit man, Nolan. His real name’s Hazzard. He came to the hospital and posed as a worker so he could kill Phoebe Lessard. I saw him. He saw me. That made me a threat. Leshad doesn’t like threats, and neither do his hit men if they’re smart, which Hazzard is. After the failed murder attempt at the apartment, he latched onto Anna, used her anger and her resources to track me down.”
“Which he was able to do after Nesty saw one of Anna’s embittered TV interviews,” Nolan said. “He contacted her, and the rest is history.”
Dipping lower, Kate pulled him down. “Whose blood is on your jacket, Nolan? Please don’t say Duffy’s.”
“Duffy’s fine, story’s long.” Gripping her arms, he turned her to face him. “I need you to go away.”
Panic flooded in, but she shoved it back. “I can’t leave you alone with Hazzard.”
“Yes you can.”
“Nolan—”
“You can,” he repeated, his eyes on hers, “because you’re a doctor, and if you don’t, a man could die.”
Her heart chattered. “You said Duffy wasn’t hurt.”
“He isn’t. This man has a beard and a limp, and he works for Alistair Perradine.”
“Well, why on earth should I care about a man who…” She heard the click and closed her eyes. “You saved Alistair’s life way back when. He sent someone to watch out for you as payback.”
“Anna’s hatred knows no bounds, and Alistair knows his sister-in-law. She trashed both of us the night Frankie died. So, yeah, payback.”
Kate ducked when more shots rang out. “Where’s your injured champion?”
“Behind the big oak at the edge of the woods. His name’s Firko. Half the shots you’re hearing are his. Hazzard got him during the first round of fire. He’ll bleed out in ten minutes if one of us doesn’t get back there.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Your logic sucks, Nolan.” Grabbing the sides of his jacket, she kissed him. “If you die, I swear I’ll find a way to bring you back so I can kill you myself.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. Go.”
After a small hesitation, Kate complied, winding a serpentine path through the fog.
Bullets whizzed past her. At first, some of them seemed to be coming from the tree ahead. But they stopped abruptly, and when they did, suspicion kicked in.
If she hadn’t already been so close, and the fog hadn’t grown so thick, she might have spotted the lie in time to backpedal. But Hazzard sprang from the trunk of the oak and had his gun pressed to her throat before she could blink.
“You’re dead, doc,” he breathed.
Kate barely had time to grit her teeth. She heard the close-range blast and jerked, but the pain never came, and, to her shock, she didn’t go down.
The hand Hazzard had clamped to her neck loosened. The gun fell away from her throat. For a brief moment, his eyes locked on hers. Then they slid past her to the crypt.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “That damn doll’s face is gonna be the last thing I see. Wouldn’t you fucking know it….”
He fell as if brought down by an implosion—just dropped where he stood while blood puddled around him.
Kneeling quickly, Kate felt for a pulse.
“Is he dead?” Nolan emerged from the fog and let his shooting arm fall.
Kate shook her head. “You got him low in the left shoulder. That was an amazing shot.”
“Not so amazing.” Kicking Hazzard’s gun away, he stepped over the man, crouched and, hauling her against him, kissed the top of her head. “I had a clear line to his skull and a lot of anger inside me. My bad, his lucky day.”
“Depends on your definition of ‘lucky.’ He didn’t do what Leshad wanted. Judging from what he told me, nonfulfillment of a contract is not a good thing.”
“Leshad’s down a hit man. That’s all I care about right now.” Nolan set a knee on the ground. “Do me a favor, Kate, and don’t let Firko die. I need a moment to turn the Hazzard twins into one person before I do the same here.”
“You have a concussion, Nolan.” She ran her fingers through his hair before she stood. “You know what that means.”
“Yeah. It means I saved your life, so you’re not going to use that word around anyone else in the medical profession.”
“Nolan…”
“Not anyone, Kate.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” he kissed her knuckles “—like all red-blooded males under ninety, I’m terrified of needles.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“There I sat,” Duffy said in disgust. “Singing Disney songs and digging up dirt on the Lessard family—a rather witchy band of females as it turns out—while Nolan was getting himself whacked on the head and old Nesty was marching you into a graveyard at rifle point. I should be flogged.” But he brightened when he saw Kate filling the kettle. “If that’s for tea, I’ll have a great big mug.”
“I think you’re being awfully hard on yourself, Duffy. This thing with Leshad isn’t your fight.”
He flapped a hand. “No excuses. I messed up. Now, I want you to explain to a confused old codger why you and me, two relatively uninjured parties, are twiddling our thumbs in an abandoned church while Nolan, who’s probably concussed, and Alistair Perradine’s watchdog, who came this close to dying two hours ago, are currently hauling Nesty and Leshad’s hit man to the local lockup?”
Kate switched on the hotplate. “We’re h
ere because, as you’re perfectly aware, Nolan gets cranky when someone dares to suggest he shouldn’t do a thing he’s determined to do. Plus, the police chief’s out of town, the deputy’s extremely ploddy and Nolan’s better with a gun than we are.”
“Amen to that.”
“You can also add in the fact that a watchdog in Alistair Perradine’s employ is duty-bound to see his job through to its conclusion. Which won’t be until any and all threats against Nolan have been removed to the satisfaction of his boss.”
“A fortuitous situation for all, I think.” Duffy hunted up a mug with Alfred Hitchcock’s trademark profile etched into the white porcelain. “It’s not Leshad’s calling card silhouette, but the idea’s there.”
Kate selected a Jekyll and Hyde mug. “I get a stronger sense of Jack the Ripper than I do of Hitchcock from Leshad’s card. There’s fog in the blurred lines and, hello, silhouette-man is wearing a top hat and pointy collar that makes me think of a cloak. What I’m wondering is why I’m scaring myself half to death conjuring images of a faceless killer when said killer’s henchman is en route to the local lockup?”
“Excellent question.” Duffy switched to a Captain Hook mug. “Let’s you and me watch The Thing and not discuss it.”
“Right, because there’s nothing guaranteed to take a person’s mind off an overlord murderer than the prospect of a monster growing inside another person.”
“Exactly.” His eyes twinkled. “I think MacReady was infected in the end.”
“Oh, get out.” But she laughed and let him draw her into the old vestry.
He’d set up a lumpy sofa, two ottomans and a flat-screen TV against an unadorned wall, which still showed the outline of a cross.
“This was a Sunday school back in the day.” He pulled the chosen DVD from a cloth bag. “I came here every week. Church felt ancient even then. Cobwebs in the rafters, smell of damp in the walls and floors. And not a piece of wood in the place that didn’t creak like the hinges of an old coffin.”