Holly Lin Box Set | Books 1-3

by Swartwood, Robert

  “Holly made contact.”

  He bolted upright in his seat.

  “What? When?”

  “Only a couple minutes ago. Her message was brief.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Los Angeles, though I know that simply because she said as much. The message didn’t last long enough for me to establish a location. The number appears to have come from a disposable. Nova, she confirmed what Erik said—her family is in danger.”

  Nova nodded, his gaze focused on the motel across the highway.

  “I think we already came to that conclusion.”

  “That’s not all. The people who took her want her to assassinate someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. The message got cut off before she could say. But it’s Los Angeles—it could be anybody. Although President Cortez of Mexico is flying in this morning for an event.”

  Nova remembered standing in a church in Colotlán and listening to Father Crisanto tell them about how the cartels had come for Alejandro Cortez because they wanted to punish his father. That had been right before narcos dragged the priest out into the street and murdered him.

  Nova said, “Cortez is the target.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Call it gut instinct.”

  “I can’t notify the authorities based on gut instinct, Nova. Besides, if President Cortez suddenly cancels his trip, the people holding Holly will probably kill her if Cortez is indeed the target.”

  “She’s probably dead either way. The least we can do is make sure her family stays alive.”

  The motel door opened, and the same two freelancers stepped out to light cigarettes. A moment later, a man appeared on the steps leading to the motel’s second floor. He had dark hair and wore a dark suit. He climbed the steps casually, not looking like he was in any hurry.

  Atticus said, “Nova, are you there?”

  “Hold on a second.”

  Nova leaned forward in his seat. With all the toys James had supplied them, Nova didn’t have a pair of binoculars.

  The two smokers noticed the man coming their way and shifted their bodies in a naturally defensive position. They were no doubt carrying. One of the men even reached behind him but didn’t pull out his gun.

  The man in the suit held his hands to the side and smiled as he said something to the two men. The two men glanced at each other. The man in the suit said something else, and motioned with his head to the motel room. One of the men stepped toward the room and opened the door, spoke to somebody inside, and then another man appeared.

  The man in the suit was now only a few steps away from the door. He still kept his hands held out at his sides. He glanced out at the parking lot, said something else, and the other men seemed to realize just how exposed they all were. The one who’d stepped out motioned the man in the suit inside. The man in the suit followed him into the room, and the two smokers flicked away their cigarettes before joining them.

  As the motel door closed, Nova said, “Someone new showed up.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Dark hair and dark suit. That’s all I could make out from this distance.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He just went into the room with the others.”

  Nova watched as the motel door opened again. The man in the suit stepped out, this time a bit more cautiously, scanning the parking lot and second level to make sure nobody was watching. He had a pistol in his hand and was unscrewing the suppressor from the barrel as he closed the door and started back toward the stairs.

  Nova said, “Shit.”

  He started the car but then immediately turned it off. He’d parked in a lot that gave him a great position to watch the motel but not a great position to reach the motel easily. That was because he hadn’t foreseen any need to reach the motel.

  Atticus spoke in his ear.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think the new guy just took the rest of them out. Let me call you back.”

  Nova grabbed his gun off the passenger seat and jumped out of the car. He ran down the embankment toward the highway and paused once his feet hit the macadam. The morning traffic was congested but not moving too fast. He spotted an opening and darted out, sprinting across the highway, ignoring the blare of horns that followed in his wake, and then he was racing up the embankment on the other side.

  The man in the suit was long gone. He’d appeared from around the side of the motel, so Nova wouldn’t have been able to see what vehicle he drove even if he’d stayed.

  Nova hurried across the parking lot and up the steps to the second floor. He kept the FNX-45 down at his side, concealing it the best he could. The last thing he needed was for somebody to spot the gun and call the police.

  He hesitated outside the door. Tried listening for any sound inside, but the noise of the traffic was too loud to hear anything at all. He reached for the doorknob but didn’t want to leave his prints. Besides, there was a chance the man in the suit hadn’t killed all the men inside. There was a chance the man in the suit hadn’t killed any of them.

  Nova squared up to the door, raised his knee, and kicked at the spot just beneath the doorknob.

  The cheap motel door gave way, and Nova entered with his pistol raised.

  He stood motionless for a beat, and then lowered the gun.

  All four men were dead. One was splayed out on the bed. Another was slumped at the table with several laptops open. The two smokers were on the floor. All of them had been shot three times each—twice in the chest, one in the head.

  The man in the suit was clearly a pro.

  Nova crossed over to the laptops. The video feeds coming through were from the cameras posted outside Holly’s mom’s and sister’s places. Another one of the computers only had audio; the men had planted listening devices in the homes as well.

  He stared at the screens for several seconds before he pulled out his phone and typed out texts for James and Erik.

  A new player showed up and took out the men in the motel.

  Dark hair and dark suit.

  Be on the lookout—he’s on his way to either of your locations.

  Forty

  Ryan was in a hurry that morning, even more than he typically was, racing down to the kitchen with his shirt half undone while he used the electric razor to get the spots he missed. He offered up a quick excuse—“Forgot I had an early meeting”—grabbed a granola bar from the basket on the counter, kissed both boys on the head and his wife on the cheek, and then, bang, he was out the door.

  The boys, sitting at the kitchen table, stared at the door for a couple seconds before diverting their attention back to their tablets.

  This was how the summer would go, she realized. Stacey Holbrook wasn’t going to offer to take her sons to the zoo every day. The boys may be out of school, but they wouldn’t do much more than play video games or mess around on their tablets.

  Well, not if she had anything to say about it.

  “All right, who wants to take the first shower?”

  Neither boy volunteered.

  She cleared her throat, loud and overdramatic, and the boys rolled their eyes at her.

  Max said, “Where are we going?”

  Matthew said, “Yeah, where are we going?”

  She crossed her arms meaningfully, furrowed her brow to try to make herself look stern.

  “Who says we’re going anywhere? Maybe we’ll stay home and clean.”

  The boys looked stricken.

  Matthew said, “Or … we could not.”

  Max giggled and took the final swallow of his orange juice.

  “Yeah, Mom, how about we go to the mall instead? Or the movies! The Rock has a new movie out, and Dad said he’d take us and that was weeks ago.”

  The truth was Ryan had wanted to take the boys to the movies—take all of them, Tina included, the whole happy family—but they simply couldn’t afford it. Even the matinee tickets were expensive these d
ays, and the boys would no doubt want snacks.

  No, they ultimately decided, the money could be better spent elsewhere—like paying off one of their credit cards, or at the very least trying to get the balance down to a more respectable amount—but how does one explain such a thing to kids? They didn’t understand credit card debt or interest rates or credit scores. All they understood was The Rock had a new movie out that their friends had seen but which they still hadn’t.

  Because Tina didn’t want to start an argument, she said, “We’ll see. Now, who’s showering first?”

  Both boys looked at one another, and shrugged simultaneously.

  Max said, “Why don’t you go first, Mom?”

  She smiled and answered dryly.

  “Why, aren’t you the thoughtful son.”

  He beamed back at her but then immediately focused his attention on his tablet. So did Matthew.

  She sighed.

  “All right, you’ve forced my hand. We’ll let fate decide who goes first. Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

  The boys groaned their annoyance, but they were grinning. They loved when decisions were made with the game.

  Matthew and Max chimed in together—“Rock, Paper, Scissors, go!”—and Max ended up trumping Matthew’s rock with his paper.

  Matthew blurted, “Best out of three!”

  Tina laughed and shook her head.

  “Oh, no. Fate has spoken. Go get yourself a shower.”

  Matthew groaned again, only this time it wasn’t in as much jest. He grabbed his tablet and started out of the kitchen.

  Tina said, “Tablet stays behind.”

  “But—”

  She cut him off.

  “No buts, mister.”

  Max giggled and shouted, “Mister No Butts!”

  After some more whining on Matthew’s end, he finally gave up the tablet and sulked away. She would try to keep an ear out for the shower because there was a good chance Matthew would get distracted by the computer in his room. One thing that could be said about her boys, they were great procrastinators. They got that from Ryan’s side of the family.

  A half hour later, Matthew thundered down the steps, his hair not totally dry, and he immediately grabbed his tablet and wandered off into the living room.

  Tina called out, “Max, your turn!”

  Max, playing video games in the living room, shouted, “I don’t need a shower!”

  Tina closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Gave it a moment, and called out again.

  “If you don’t head upstairs in the next five seconds, I’ll take every single video game in this house and throw them in the river.”

  An idle threat, maybe, but her tone was severe enough, and in three seconds Max was running up the steps.

  She had just heard the shower start when the doorbell started ringing. Not once or twice but several times.

  Ding ding ding ding ding.

  Matthew, in the living room, called, “I’ll get it!”

  There was something about the incessant ringing, especially so early in the morning—in their neighborhood where soliciting was illegal—that caused a finger of dread to touch her spine.

  She shouted, “Stay where you are!”

  Matthew was already up, halfway to the door, but he sensed the urgency in his mother’s voice enough to turn and head back to the living room.

  The doorbell had quieted, and now there came a banging at the door—bang bang bang bang bang—and her first thought was that it was somebody crazy outside, some whacko who might go away if ignored long enough, but then just as quickly she worried that if nobody answered, the person might never go away.

  She peered through the window in the side. A man stood on the doorstep, a tall black man in his mid-twenties, wearing khakis and a black T-shirt, a man Tina had never seen before. He pounded his fist against the door as he kept looking back over his shoulder.

  Tina shouted, “We’re not interested!”

  The man paused, checked the street once more, then stepped back to address her.

  “Please open the door. Your sister Holly sent me.”

  Her dread instantly snapped into panic. She knew she should ask this man more questions—how did he know Holly? where was she?—but before she knew it she unlocked the door and pulled it open, and that was when she saw the gun in the man’s right hand, and her first thought was her sons, how all they wanted to do was see The Rock’s new movie, and now this man was going to kill them.

  But the man didn’t raise the gun, didn’t point it at her, and instead spoke in a calm, measured voice.

  “You and your boys need to come with me right now.”

  She thought, How does he know about the boys?

  But before she could voice the question, she heard the car coming their way, coming fast, coming too fast.

  The man heard it, too. He turned his head to the street and the car coming their way. Not just down the street, but swerving toward the house.

  The man lunged forward, pushing her back into the foyer, right as the car jumped the curb and tore over the lawn and crashed through the front door.

  Forty-One

  “Mom? Mom!”

  Matthew’s voice, mixed somewhere in the crush of noise—pieces of the house falling around her, the car’s engine ticking, blood thrumming in her ears—and the man was on top of her, shielding her with his body, and his voice was hot on her ear as he shouted.

  “Get out of here!”

  The next thing she knew the man rolled away, brought up his gun, and started shooting at the car. The driver attempted to open his door, but the car had smashed into the house too close to the wall, which meant the door wouldn’t open far enough.

  Tina didn’t see what happened next because she scrambled to her feet and swung her focus toward Matthew standing in the living room entryway, frozen, his eyes wide, tablet held at his side, and she screamed at him—“Run!”—and at first it didn’t look like he was going to move, stuck there as if hypnotized, but one of the bullets ricocheted into the wall only a few feet away from him, and like that he blinked and looked at her as Tina ran toward him, grabbed his hand, and yanked him deeper into the house.

  A volley of gunfire erupted behind them, the man who pushed her inside shooting at the driver and the driver shooting back, and now Matthew was racing beside her, running awkwardly because she wouldn’t let go of his hand, but that was okay, that was fine, she wouldn’t let him go, would never let him go, and she saw the back door ahead of them, the morning light shining through it, and the backyard was there, the swing set and sandbox the boys never used anymore, but more importantly, there was escape, and she was so intent on getting the two of them out of there when she suddenly remembered Max.

  She pivoted at the stairs, yanking Matthew with her, all at once regretting the decision—she should have let him go, pushed him forward toward the backyard, toward safety—but he was with her now, racing up the stairs too, and she could hear the shower still going in the bathroom, but she also heard Max’s voice, calling out to her, shouting mommy mommy mommy!

  “Where are you going?”

  She thought it was Matthew’s voice at first, though it was deeper than she remembered, much lower bass, and in her delirium she glanced down at him and saw he was looking back over his shoulder, and that was when she shifted her focus and saw the man on the first step, the gun at his side, his face awash in confusion.

  Before she could respond, bits of plaster exploded around the man, and an instant later she heard more gunshots and kept running, pulling Matthew along, faintly aware that the man was firing back at the driver while he hurried up the stairs after them.

  Max met them at the top of the steps, and he was soaked and naked, having jumped straight out of the shower when he heard all the noise, and she let go of Matthew so she could pick Max up with both hands, just scooped him up like he was a toddler again, and his weight slowed her down but she didn’t care and just kept running, straight for the master bedroom.
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br />   The man followed, walking backward up the steps, firing intermittently at the driver.

  The bedroom overlooked the backyard, and one of the windows was right above the patio, and though the overhang was slanted she knew it would be possible for the boys to squeeze through the window, and yes, she knew they might get hurt in their fall to the grass below, but it wouldn’t hurt like a bullet in the head would, and her thoughts were so jumbled she suddenly wondered what The Rock would do in a situation like this, how he would fight back against the bad guy, and she tried to open the window but it wouldn’t budge, no matter how much she pushed and pulled, and it didn’t occur to her until a few seconds later that it was locked and so she flicked off the locks and pushed open the window, fresh air blowing in on her face, Max now crying beside her, Matthew shouting something, and the bedroom door banging open as the man ran through.

  He saw what she was doing, stared for a moment, then slammed the door shut and frantically scanned the bedroom for something to barricade the door with, and it was the dresser that was closest, the dresser Ryan’s parents bought them when they moved into the house, and he shoved at the dresser, its legs tearing the carpet as it stubbornly moved closer and closer to the door, and she realized the dresser was the only thing that could save them, that could give them a few extra seconds, and so she ran over to help him, the little perfumes and candles on top of the dresser tipping over and falling to the floor.

  The driver attempted to kick the door open right as they put the dresser in place, and the driver started shooting at the door, bullets tearing through the dresser, and the window was directly across from the door, one of the bullets shattering the glass, and she knew that as long as the driver kept shooting there was no way they were going to escape through the window, no way at all.

  The closet—that’s where they needed to go, where they needed to hide, because it suddenly occurred to Tina that they weren’t going to survive this, that the driver would manage to burst through the door and would kill them all, even the man she didn’t know, the man who said her sister sent him.