He gave her a half-smile. “I’m, um, disappointed too.” He held out his arms to her.
She walked into them. “We’d probably be awful parents.”
“No way, we’d be amazing.” He wrapped his arms around her.
She looked up at him, blinking back tears, trying to smile. “It could still be positive. Until I get my period, I’m holding out hope.”
“Sure,” he said. “Because, you know, the scientific test is probably wrong, but your highly changeable bodily functions, those are accurate.”
She glared at him. “You did not just say that.”
“What?” he said.
“You just implied I’m being irrational,” she said.
“Um, sorry?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“No, I am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you, and you’re not irrational. You’re a very intelligent and capable woman, and I am in awe of you.”
“Better,” she decided, looking him over.
“Oh, I’m good at groveling,” said Liam. “Had a lot of occasion to grovel in my life, in fact.”
She laughed.
“I can grovel better than that if you need more groveling,” he said.
“I don’t need groveling.” She eyed him. She hugged him again.
His arms came around her, warm and strong.
She liked being close to him.
Later, she was lying in bed awake because they’d decided to go to sleep early, since they’d need their rest before the big sting operation the following day. Of course, she couldn’t sleep.
It was too hot up here to snuggle against Liam, and she glared up at the fan and thought that this had to be the last breath of summer, anyway, that it was practically October, and how could it be this hot still?
Liam was asleep, damn him.
She turned onto her side, and then onto her back, and then onto her other side, trying to settle.
She couldn’t.
Suddenly, she had a thought about her interview with Persephone. The girl had said that they had to leave, had to drive so that Lola wouldn’t find them, which meant that Worth must have been in the same location as Persephone had been. Dawson’s theory about Worth being at the location where Destiny had been kept, it was right.
Then she had another epiphany.
Quentin Worth.
They might not be able to question Quentin Worth about that location, but they had recovered his cell phone, and they could easily trace the locations where the cell phone had traveled.
So, if Worth didn’t show up for whatever reason tomorrow, all hope was not lost.
Relieved, Dawson rolled over and slipped instantly and effortlessly to sleep.
PHINEAS Slater gazed blandly through the glass at his visitor. He was supposed to call him Jimmy, because that was the name he’d put on his approved visitor list, and that was the credentials that had been faked to get the man in here to talk to him. But Phineas knew the man as Tyler.
Tyler clutched the phone receiver to his ear, waiting for Phineas to do the same.
Phineas picked it up. “You came.”
“The bite of the bee will be waiting for you,” said Tyler. “Where it stings, it can only fell one person before its stinger is gone. But his swarm is nearby, and if there are few enough, the swarm may sting those few many times.”
“Right,” said Phineas. He cleared his throat, trying to think of how to word this. “Does, um, the queen bee understand that there are people trying to, uh, pull off her wings if she gets too close?”
Tyler hung up the phone.
Phineas cringed. Maybe that wasn’t clever enough. As codes went, it wasn’t exactly difficult to parse.
Tyler got up and walked off.
Phineas puzzled over whatever Tyler had said. He thought he understood it. He grimaced.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DAWSON was pacing in the lookout tower. It was a cylindrical structure made of concrete, hollowed out in the middle. The roof had long caved in.
There were numerous towers like this along the coast. They’d been constructed during World War II, and many of them were in good repair and were open to tourists. Those had spiral staircases built into the middle and tourists could climb up to the top.
This one, however, had been neglected, and it was falling down. She’d selected it because she believed that it could possibly be a place where Slater had buried bodies, but also because she knew that the aesthetic of crumbling buildings seemed to appeal to both Worth and Slater.
It was light enough inside the tower since the roof was gone. The bright, warm fall sunlight bathed her, Liam, and Slater, who was leaning against the wall, scratching his nose. His hands were shackled together, so he had to lift both of them to do this. His feet were shackled together, too.
They’d been in the lookout tower for over an hour now, waiting.
Nothing was happening.
And now, Dawson had just gotten a text from Captain Moore, telling her about a visitor that Slater’d had the night before.
Dawson was livid. Who authorized Slater to get a visitor the night before he was part of an important sting operation? Whoever the hell that was, Dawson was going to get him demoted.
“You warned her off,” said Dawson.
“What?” said Liam.
Dawson handed off her phone to Liam. “Read that text.”
Slater was still scratching his nose. He’d been sanguine most of the trip, mostly silent. He spent most of his time gazing up at the sun and seeming to bask in it.
“Why would you do that?” said Dawson. “I thought you were angry with her. Did you forget that?”
“I’m angry with everyone,” said Slater, shrugging.
“She killed your son. Do you remember that conversation we had?”
“I don’t like her,” said Slater.
“How does this help you?” said Dawson. “How does warning the ‘queen bee’ do anything to make your situation better?”
“Nothing makes my situation better,” said Slater blandly. He glanced at Liam. “Isn’t that right, Liam? Isn’t that what you told me? That I was going to rot in prison and that I should just make peace with that?”
“So, what? You suddenly decided to be Destiny Worth’s best friend?” said Dawson. “The amount of planning that went into this. The—” But she broke off, because she didn’t need to do this in front of Slater. She wasn’t even angry at him. You couldn’t be angry at him. This was just how he was. She was angry at herself, however, for thinking that she understood him, for thinking that she could trust him to unified with them against a common enemy.
“What does the other stuff mean?” said Dawson. “What’s the swarm? What’s the bite of the bee?”
Slater shrugged again.
Dawson threw up her hands. She stalked out of the lookout tower and yelled, “Abort! Abort mission. We’re blown.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
PHINEAS thought that Haysle was going to say something about the way he had his shirt tucked in. No one tucked in prison shirts. It exposed the elastic of the pants, which weren’t exactly fashionable. He’d done it so that he could hide the syringe that Destiny had left him.
His shirt had a front pocket, so he could have stored it there, but it would have made an obvious bulge. His pants didn’t have pockets.
He kept thinking that Dawson was going to notice it or that Liam would. He couldn’t believe that neither of them had.
He’d cocked things up with the thing about the queen bee, it was true.
Ah, well.
Most of the army of police officers had cleared out of the scene right away, but he’d been hauled into the back of the transport vehicle, guarded, while Haysle and Liam spoke at length to another police detective.
Eventually, that guy took off as well, and Phineas was glad, because this was making things more even here, getting it down to a few people who could be taken down. There was Haysle, there was Liam, there was t
he driver of the transport vehicle, and there were two other guards, who’d both travel with him in the back of the vehicle.
The guards did not have guns, because it was considered too dangerous to have them in close proximity with him in the back of the transport vehicle. He had taken too many guns from too many cops, and they weren’t playing that game with him anymore, more’s the pity.
Both of the guards were, however, armed with billy clubs, and Phineas himself was shackled hand and foot.
If he tried to take these guards down now, Haysle would draw her gun and then she’d shoot him. She’d have no qualms in shooting him. There were also possibly snipers.
But Phineas thought that was a bluff.
Even they were there, they’d probably left by now.
One fucking syringe. When he’d gotten in touch with Destiny, he’d really expected a bit more than this, but he could almost hear her saying, You’ll figure it out, Finn.
Then he heard the best news he thought he could have heard, which was that Haysle and Finn would follow the transport out, which meant that he could wait.
And it was better to wait.
If he was in the transport, with the door closed, that meant he had two people to deal with at once. He’d have to act fast, of course, if he wanted the help of the swarm, and he didn’t know if he could chance making it work all on his own.
So, he waited.
Finally, they were ready to go. He was pushed into the back of the transport. It was set up to take more than one prisoner, so it was lined with two benches in the back. There were metal hooks on the floor, and one of the guards secured his ankle shackles to the hook.
The other one closed the door.
Phineas waited. He was starting to feel an itchy feeling of excitement, not unlike before a kill. It wasn’t quite as exciting, of course. It wasn’t sexual. But his heart was pounding blood and life through his limbs, and he felt boundless and strong and invincible.
The transport’s engine started.
Still, Phineas waited.
Then the car lurched forward.
One of the guards was sitting next to Phineas.
The other was across from them both. They both were gazing forward, a resigned look on their faces. It was a long drive back down to the prison. They were both likely bored.
Phineas slowly and carefully untucked part of his shirt.
Neither of the guards even noticed.
Phineas closed his fingers around the syringe. He removed the stopper from the bottom and the plastic that kept it from depressing the plunger. That made a noise.
The guard next to him heard it and turned to him.
Phineas brought up the syringe and jammed it into his neck. This was the difficult part, because if he didn’t get the needle in exactly the right spot, he wouldn’t be able to knock the person out, but he was practiced. He’d done it many, many times.
The man’s eyes widened, and then he slumped over. It was amazing how quickly it worked.
The other guard was on his feet.
The transport was traveling over rocky ground, and it wobbled from side to side.
The other guard stumbled.
Phineas seized the billy club out of the belt of the unconscious guard.
The other guard righted himself. He was going for his billy club now.
Phineas was on his feet. He smacked the other guard hard, right on his cheekbone. There was a cracking noise.
The guard howled. His skin broke. There was blood.
The smell of it hit Phineas’s nostrils and suddenly he was excited in every sense of the word. He brought the club down onto the man’s skull again. And again.
The guard went down on one knee, sputtering.
Phineas brought down one more blow, and the man went still.
Now, Phineas retrieved the key to his shackles and freed himself. He strode up to the front of the transport and banged. “Driver, stop this vehicle now, or I’m going to kill these guards!”
DAWSON barely got her car stopped. “Why is the transport stopping?” She swerved into the shoulder of the road they were on—which wasn’t much of a shoulder, since it wasn’t much of a road. It was full of potholes and grass growing through the cracks in the asphalt.
She snatched up her handheld radio and contacted the station. “Send back every unit you can!”
Turning to Liam, she put the car in park. “Stay in the car, got it?”
“What’s going on?” said Liam.
She got out, drawing her gun.
The driver to the transport was getting out, too. “I don’t know what’s going on back there,” he called to her. “I think—”
He crumpled to the ground, his head exploding in red gore.
Belatedly, Dawson registered the gun shot, echoing through the air. She looked around, sighting everything with her own gun.
“Drop it, detective,” rang out a voice.
Dawson did not drop her gun. “Identify yourself,” she snapped, turning in the direction of the voice, pointing her weapon at it.
“Now,” yelled the voice.
Dawson squeezed off a shot. She was shooting at nothing. It was stupid.
There was an answering shot, and the driver’s side window of her car shattered.
She shrieked, shrapnel from the mirror embedding itself in her cheek and shoulder. She staggered away from the car. “Okay, okay, I’m putting it down.” She set down her gun and stood up, raising her arms over her head. She couldn’t play chicken with Liam’s life. Or… if there was something small and undetectable in her womb, she had to protect that, too.
Liam opened the door to the car.
“Liam!” she shrieked. “Don’t.”
“I think I should get down,” he said to her fiercely.
Two people appeared, coming out from behind the surrounding foliage on either side of the road. Dawson had never seen them before. It was a man and a woman. They both had guns.
The woman came for her. “Into the back seat of the car,” she said.
Dawson backed up until she collided with her car.
The man went to the front of the transport and got the keys from the ignition. He took them to the back and unlocked it.
Slater, blood spattered on his face, utterly free of his shackles, jumped down onto the ground. He looked back and forth between the man and the woman. “Tyler and Monique, huh? You guys constitute a swarm?”
“Our numbers are depleted,” said Tyler. “You’re lucky the police even came out here after that stunt you pulled.”
“Whatever,” said Slater, sauntering over to the car. He opened the door on the opposite side from Dawson and slid into the middle of the seat. “Come on, Haysle. I want you on one side and Liam on the other.”
Liam peered back from the front seat. “Is this happening? He can’t be escaping again. The escape plot, it happened already.”
“This time, we’ll all be together,” said Slater, smiling at Liam. He patted the seat next to him. “Back here, tiger. I missed you. Haven’t you missed me?”
Liam gritted his teeth.
“Into the back,” said Tyler, gesturing with his gun.
“And hand over your cell phones,” said Monique, holding out her palm.
Cell phones. Damn it. Dawson had not told anyone about her theory of tracing Quentin’s phone.
But someone would think of it, right?
All anyone would have to do is trace Quentin’s phone, and this would be over.
“Phone,” said Monique.
Dawson yanked it out and handed it over.
Monique tossed it over her shoulder. “Into the car.”
Dawson took a deep breath. She got into the car. Her thigh pressed against Slater’s thigh. He grinned at her, a too-wide wolfish grin that made her heart beat stumble in trepidation.
Would someone figure it out?
* * *
Find information about the final book in the series, book four, here.
Thank you so muc
h for reading!
Blood Indulgence: a serial killer thriller (Phineas and Liam Book 3) Page 18