Drew appeared less shocked than confused, while Carson’s face showed smug satisfaction. Ham, his instincts rusted over the past few days but nowhere near entirely gone, blinked in surprise. He reached into his jacket pocket, about to produce his evidence, when Carson snarled, “Easy there, partner. Take your hand out. Slow and easy. And it better be empty.”
“I’m getting my phone, that’s all. May I?” At Carson’s nod, Ham withdrew the cell phone, slowly, carefully and without threat. “There, see? Just a phone. I’d like to play a message for you, if I may.”
“Play away,” Carson shrugged.
“This is a message from my friend, a cop I went to college with. He’s high up, well connected, and indebted to me. I asked a favor of him, to give me some background on some of you people. Here’s what he had to say.”
Ham punched the button that connected him to voicemail, hit the speaker and let the words reverberate throughout the cabin. Their attention was less than riveted as he rambled on about what little he’d found, of how little importance, until the disembodied voice announced his final and weary conclusion.
“…so that’s about it, Ham, nothing much there to give you. I’m sorry about that, I wish I could have been more help. Although, by the way, you could have made it a lot easier on me and saved me some time if you’d told me that Carson King’s real last name was Thornton and that he’s Drew’s nephew. Getting that information from his service records is what took most of my effort, what with that being illegal and all. Anyway, I’ll keep at it. If you could give me another day, maybe I can turn something up. Give me a call and you owe me a drink, Hold The Mayo.”
Nobody moved for what seemed to Ham to be an interminable forever until Charlie approached Blake, gently took the cup from his grasp, set it on the console, and leaned her head against his shoulder. Though no sound emerged, her slightly shaking shoulders betrayed her tears.
Blake wrapped an arm around her shoulder even as he smoothed her hair and whispered in her ear. Whatever he may have said—and it took quite some little time—it did little to ease her mind, which became apparent when she pulled back and spat, “That’s horse shit, Dad. And I don’t want to hear it. Not here, not now, not ever.” Blake grinned lopsidedly at her but made no additional comment beyond that semi-sad look.
Simultaneously, two voices broke the mood. Carson snapped at Blake, “What did you just tell her? I demand to know” at the same time that Drew shook her head and sadly inquired of Ham, “You can’t believe that shit, can you? How could you? How could you break my heart like that?”
Pointing her own gun at the used-to-be ghost trainee leaning against the door, she barked, “Come on, you’re kidding, right? Me? Related to this piece of shit?” Her laughter was anything but humorous as she added, “Christ, I don’t think so. But fuck you, Ham, fuck you very much, for asking.”
Ham pictured himself as looking at least as confused as he felt, though if that were the case he’d have to be drooling. Using the back of his hand for a quick wipe of his chin, he verified a lack of moisture. More confident and assertive now that he knew he wasn’t a literal drooling idiot, he stammered, “Uhh…Umm…Excuse me…I…What?”
“God, Hamburger, how long have we known each other.” Throwing up her arms in frustration and angry emphasis, she demanded, “What the freak is it with you? Besides the obvious, I mean.”
“She’s lying,” Carson protested. “I’m her brother’s long lost illegitimate son. The wayward bastard, as it were.”
The snort that escaped Drew was the antithesis of polite discourse. “You fucking nit. You fucking jerk. You fucking fuck! My brother’s dead! Tell them, Ham.”
Ham nodded but before he could add verbal confirmation, Carson explained, “Yeah, four years ago. St. Louis, car crash. Dear old dad. I never knew. Not until a year ago when Drew came over to Hawaii and sought me out. Isn’t that right, Auntie, dear?”
Drew started to swing her gun into play, a rapid re-aim at Carson’s forehead. Before she managed to raise the weapon more than half way, Ham lunged, swiped her arm downward, and with a vise-like grip held her wrist immobile, effectively holding the weapon useless as well.
Carson jumped back the few inches available behind him and swung his own gun up and over toward Drew. “Don’t try it. You wouldn’t like the outcome.”
Lindsey reached out and gently took the pistol from Drew’s hand. “I’ll hold on to this for the time being,” she announced. “Until we get this under control.”
“Hey, hey!” Gordo objected. “Give it here. You shouldn’t be handling those things. You could get hurt.”
“Not to worry,” Lindsey smiled. “I’ll be okay. You keep your hands free, we might need them.”
Drew wriggled in Ham’s grasp, twisting away, turning to plant a quick—and pretty darned effective—jab into his solar plexus. As Russ and Gordo both rushed forward, Carson pushed between them, weapon swinging back and forth, one to the other, before coming to rest on the side of Russ’ head. “I’ll shoot him. No skin off my back.”
“I got half the money,” Russ reminded him.
“So you’re going to pay? You’ve changed your mind?” At his and Blake’s nod of affirmation, Carson laughed. “Yeah, right. I believe that, sure I do. So I say, ‘great, let’s head on back, make out the check, and Drew and I will be gone, and no hard feelings, see you around.’ Is that what I’m supposed to do? Or to be? That completely stupid?”
“Well, how would you like us to handle it?” Blake asked. “There’s not much more we can do than to say we’ll go ahead with the deal. Naturally, we’d want guarantees that you’d never be back.”
“Naturally. What kind?”
“Of guarantees?” Blake looked at Ham and shrugged. “This is your area of expertise, is it not?”
“I also believe it’s your responsibility,” Russ informed him, “given several unfortunate things. One, that you were paid an obscene amount of money to keep Blake alive, two, that you were the fool that brought Carson into this, and three, that Drew is smarter than you are. A lot smarter, obviously.”
“God damn it,” Drew exploded, “I have completely, totally, royally fucking had it. I am not related to this boil on the world’s butt, I am not an extortionist, and I am not smarter than Ham!” She took a deep breath and tried again. “Well, not a whale of a lot smarter. But that’s not the point. The point is, this punk is screwing with you, he’s somehow set this up, and if you ask me, he could only have done this with Martina. He’s a moron, whereas she’s quite, quite bright, if not thoroughly brilliant. It was her plan from the start, I’m guessing, with her pulling every freaking string along every freaking inch of the way. His strings, my strings, all of our strings. Especially you, Ham. I think she counted on you being so blinded by Charlie’s charms that you’d be a rather easy mark. It looks from where I stand that she was dead on, too. You horny idiot,” she spat.
Ham let her rant, let her fume, deny and accuse as he inched his way back toward the exit and away from Blake. He may have been charmed by Charlie, he acknowledged, he may even have been lax—well, he had been, on both counts, he admitted—but he was going to make up for his errors and stupidity now. Before the bullets began to fly, if fly they must, he would at least move far enough out of range from Blake, Russ and Charlie that they’d be kept out of the direct line of fire. And then, maybe with luck, just a little bit of God sent blessing, he could take out the shooter before he—she, them—took out Blake. And yes, Charlie. What happened to him, at this point, was the least of his concerns. Except that he wanted to be conscious when he assured himself that Blake, Charlie and Russ would survive this ordeal.
Oddly, Carson had ignored Ham’s weapon, presumably certain that he’d get off the first shot. While that may be the mark of an accomplished assassin, it was also the mark of an overly confident, too arrogant conspirator. And from such mistakes do missions fail.
While he could believe this might be true of Carson—after all, he wasn�
��t familiar with the details of his service record, Carson may have more than exaggerated his feats—he found it more than surprising coming from Drew. If she were truly a member of the cabal, threatened now with being taken, she’d surely have stripped Ham of his weapon, and before the conversation had even begun. She would have done so, and with some excuse that would obviate her involvement if at all possible. Then, and only if, he believed her would she have allowed him to again go armed.
But should he believe her, that was the question. Ham knew Drew’s brother, or had known him. He’d been almost twelve years older than Drew and much more than twelve times more of a jerk. So while he could believe that her brother would father and abandon an illegitimate child, he found it much more difficult to believe that any woman would actually agree to procreate with him in the first place. So how could he have...?
And it clicked. Literally fell right into place in front of his tightly shut eyes. “Lindsey, how old is your dad?”
“He’s dead. Died when I was nine, he was thirty. Why?”
“How about your stepdad?”
“Barry? He’s…let me think…fifty-three, if I recall correctly. Plus or minus a couple of years, let’s say.” Her eyes narrowed with suspicion and she again demanded, “Why? Why are you asking me about my dad and stepdad?”
“Just curious. What does your stepdad look like? Or maybe you have a picture?”
“No,” she snapped, “I do not have a picture with me. And what he looks like is none of your damn business. How dare you question me? I’m not going to stand—”
Gordo handed over a small photo he’d pulled from his wallet. “Here, now, let’s not argue, it’s not a big thing. Here’s me and Barry at a job site about six years ago. He still looks the same and I guess he always will.” Gordo beamed with pride, “He really takes care of himself. I just hope I look half as good at—”
“You idiot!” Lindsey screamed as she grabbed for the picture.
Too late. Ham snatched it away from Gordo’s big paw with one hand and used the other to push Lindsey away. He was fighting for a glimpse, almost got it, before Lindsey let go her attempt to retrieve the photo and instead backed off.
Backed off just enough to bring the gun to bear, the one she’d taken from Drew. Backed off just enough to allow her arm enough range to extend and aim the weapon straight at Ham’s heart.
“Give me the picture, Ham. Give it to me right now.”
Drew used the momentary confusion to charge forward. She yanked the extra pistol she always carried—Ham cursed himself when he saw that, for he’d known that to be her habit for as long as he’d known her—and pushed up almost against him. Light glinted off the weapon, just enough for him to recognize, even in the one flash he caught of it, her lightweight, Bersa Thunder, a conceal carry, .22 calibre, only twenty ounces, little more than six and a half inches long. Small, but at close range it would do the job just as well as anything else.
“What are you going to do, Drew, shoot me?” he asked.
The ear shattering blast that rattled the windows in the cabin would have adequately answered his question if the searing pain in his left shoulder had not so informed him first. Had both of those failed, his body, flung around and smashed into the windowed wall, nose squished against its freezing pane, would surely have done the trick. Collecting himself, ignoring the blood gushing from his broken nose and more blood swelling around his shattered shoulder, he slowly swung back around and pulled himself up to his full six foot two inch height. He moved, slowly but threateningly, toward Drew as he growled, “Like I said, you going to shoot me?”
Drew hesitated but a second before she raised her pistol, the little .22, and took dead aim. The gun, as small as it might be, nevertheless reverberated with anger inside and throughout the cabin. Ham blinked, heated, frustrated, shocked…and stunned that he was alive.
She’d missed from that close? How could she miss from that close?
Maybe she missed because she was falling, a slow motion ballet performed right before his eyes, intended, he thought, for him alone, an audience of one.
Or was it he who was falling? Somebody was falling here. After he picked himself back up off the deck—the one that was rushing up to greet him—he’d have to check it out, determine the who, the why, the how. Most especially, determine who it was, somewhere aft and toward the hatch, who was gurgling a death rattle. A really annoying sound. Coming from behind him somewhere. If he could only see.
Except, he didn’t need to see, he realized. It had to be Carson. It could only be Carson. Drew must have shot Carson, not him. But why? To shut him up?
Who cares, he decided. More to the point, who the hell shot him, then, if it wasn’t Drew?
Even as the question flashed through his mind, Ham hit the deck, rolled over and came face to face with the barrel of a much larger piece than Drew had produced. Reacting instinctively, he bolted upright and just before Lindsey fired he ducked and lunged to her left. His moves failed to cause her to miss completely, but at least the bullet only grazed his arm. His right arm, he grimaced with disgust. Great, now both sides were injured and throbbing.
While the boom rang through the small room and threatened to blast away the windows that afforded them protection from a frigid death by arctic wind, Ham, refusing to acknowledge the pain, pulled himself up and rose with a furious determination to inflict mangled disaster—and with a fury and determination not felt since his days on the gridiron. With a UNLV Rebel yell, he attacked much as he had way back when, with total abandon and ferocity.
Way back when, of course, it was all for show. For show and for glory and girls.
This was for real.
He rammed Lindsey into the helm, heard a crack as her head slammed on the dash and saw, with great satisfaction, her gun go flying across the bow. The pleasure turned to torment as he heard another crack, felt his own body fly forward and smack flush into the opposite wall. With a panic built of shock, he pulled himself up almost faster than he’d gone down, and spun around to discover the source of his distress. The hulking form of Gordo, tears of rage running unchecked down those craggy cheeks, stood staring at him, into him, through him. The big man was rooted in place, still half scrunched, still ready for attack, but clearly all thoughts of offensive ambition were gone.
“You hurt her!” Gordo whined. “Why’d you do that? What did she ever do to you?”
Ham took a second to calm himself, to take a deep breath, to make sure that his life’s blood still had enough volume to keep him going. Though he decided it did, he wasn’t sure he wanted it to, not if it meant the kind of ache wracking his body that he suffered at this too painful moment.
Through gritted teeth, he replied, “She’s in on it, Gordo. She shot Drew. What about you?”
“I didn’t shoot nobody.”
“I know that, Gordo, that’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking you if you were in on this extortion attempt along with your wife.”
Carson moaned, long, low, a ghost-like wail. Ham scooted over to his side and verified his breathing. He was, but Ham could tell it was near his last. He lifted Carson’s head, cradled it in his lap and lowered his lips toward his ears. “Why?” he whispered. “There’s not much time.”
Carson’s eyes sparked in momentary amusement before fading back to glass. “Why? Money, Ham. It’s what makes the world go around, or hadn’t you heard? You’re such a sanctimonious jerk. The original nowhere man, playing by the rules, content to be nothing, never looking, never trying, never going for it. A born sap.”
“Martina. Was she behind this? Did she plan it?” Carson coughed more blood than Ham would have expected from his wheeze. Not long now, he realized. “Just tell me, Carson, yes or no.”
“No,” he whispered. “She’s who she says she is.” His eyes blinked, so slowly that Ham feared the worst until he opened them again and fixed his gaze on something far away. “At least, I think she might be. I don’t know…”
Ham asked t
he one question he truly dreaded. “Drew?”
Carson’s lips twitched in an attempt at a smile. “No. False records. Lindsey’s stepdad. He’s great with computers.”
Ham leaned back against the wall, still holding Carson’s head, and forced his eyes up and around the cabin. Blake stood rigid, face ashen, still holding a confused and angry looking Charlie in his arms. Russ slouched against the helm, alternately shaking his head and blowing snorts of disgust. Mostly, he just looked furious. And judging by that look, Ham figured somebody was going to pay—and pay to the hilt. He just hoped he wouldn’t be the one to ante up.
Then Drew, on her side in a pool of blood. Eyes closed but breathing, easily, steadily, in and out, out and in. Good so far. Good. But for how long?
“Charlie, snap out it,” Ham ordered as he tossed her his phone. “Get on the cell and get us some help. Have them meet us at the dock. Blake, get this tug moving just as fast as this thing can go.”
“It’ll go faster if I untie the ski boat,” Russ pointed out. “Give me a few seconds, I’ll cut her free and follow you in.”
As Charlie searched for her phone and Russ lunged out the door, Ham forced his eyes back upon Carson. “How about Gordo,” he demanded. “And anybody else.”
“Gordo?” Carson smiled. “Are you kidding? Have you ever actually talked to him? He’s far too naïve, far too…too…what’s the word…hard to think…nice?...or timid, maybe, whatever. He would not have gone along, not even if Lindsey had told him to. He loves Blake even more than he loves her, I think. Besides…”
Whatever else Carson may have intended to say, his lungs cut him off. A cough started deep in his chest, a rattling moisture of bubbling blood. One long, slow death rattle and he was gone.
“Damn,” Ham snapped, “damn, damn, damn!” He scuttled over to Lindsey, who lay on her back, eyes wide with fear, but in no immediate danger. Unless from him.
He grabbed Lindsey by both wrists and despite the burning in his shoulder he hoisted her up, forcing her to face him. To face him and Blake and Russ…and her husband.
The Ghost of Truckee River (A Ham McCalister Mystery Book 1) Page 26