Authors: Shannon McKenna,E. C. Sheedy,Cate Noble
Tags: #Fiction, #Anthologies (Multiple Authors), #Erotica, #Contemporary, #Romance, #Adult, #Suspense, #Anthologies
Baddest Bad Boys (14 page)
Earl rolled his eyes, and looked pointedly at Kelly.
“Mineral water with a twist of lemon,” the woman said brightly.
Earl slapped the drinks on the bar and turned his back on them.
“They pride themselves on service, I see,” Kelly murmured.
Robin tried to smile, but her face wouldn’t work. “Looks like it.”
“I should have mentioned this before, but I’m a pretty decent mechanic myself,” Kelly said. “On older cars, anyway. My dad was a mechanic. If you like, I’ll take a look at it for you.”
Robin looked at her, startled. The woman was so pretty, with the bouncing blond ponytail, the delicate features. She didn’t look like a mechanic. She looked like a china doll, in forest camo and polar fleece.
Kelly laughed. “Yes, that’s one of the reasons I went into sales. No one took me seriously as a mechanic. But I’m good, really. Just one thing.”
“Yes? And what’s that?”
“My tool chest is in the van,” Kelly explained. “And I’ve got a torn rotator cuff. Could you help me haul my chest over to your car?”
“Oh, sure. What a question,” Robin said.
Kelly beamed. “Great. So let’s just—”
“What the fuck are you doing in a dive like this?”
Robin spun at the harsh voice. It was Jon, glowering down at her.
The impulse to yank Robin off that bar stool, clamp her under his arm and carry her out of that stinking bar was almost overwhelming.
“How did you find me?” Her voice was accusing.
“Saw your car. And the cashier tipped me off. Stalled?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Robin said crisply. “It’s covered.”
Damn. What he wanted to say was stuck in his throat. He had to get her someplace private, to pry it out somehow. Make her understand.
“I’m helping her with the car,” said the woman next to her.
Jon turned his attention reluctantly to the delicate-looking pale blonde. “You?” he asked. “Helping her how?”
“She’s a mechanic,” Robin said.
A secretive smile curled the blonde’s lips. “Strange, but true.”
He could give a flying fuck about the blonde’s mechanical ability. He wanted to talk to Robin. But the woman showed no sign of disappearing. She grabbed an egg, cracked it, and peeled it.
“Forget the car, Robin,” he pleaded. “Let’s just go get a beer somewhere. Not here. We need to talk.”
“We’ve said it all. I think we should stick to the original plan.”
He scowled. “We had an original plan?”
“Remember? When it’s over, it’s over? What plays in Vegas?”
“That wasn’t a plan,” he barked. “That was a starting point.”
“And now it’s an end point,” Robin said. “We’ve come full circle.”
Desperation clawed from within at the stone wall in his throat.
Robin broke eye contact. “Damn it,” she whispered. “Don’t, Jon.”
“Do you want me to call someone?” the blond chick asked. She shook salt on her egg, took a bite, watched them avidly as she chewed.
Robin shook her head. “I’ll just go wait by my car.” She glared at Jon. “Do not follow me. Or I will scream, and make a spectacle.”
She hurried out. Jon stood there, feeling empty and gutted. The blonde reached over the bar to get herself a slice of lemon. Her sleeve rode up, revealing—what the hell? At first glance, it seemed a crocheted bracelet. Dots and lines, curling spirals…cuts and burns.
Decorative scarring. A weird chill shuddered down his back.
She dropped her lemon into her water. The sleeve slipped back down. Surreal. He could see it on a punk rocker, a Goth. But not her.
“She seems special,” the woman said, her voice sugary with false sympathy. “I can see why it’s hard to let go.”
He stared coldly into her fake smile. None of your business, you nosy bitch. He let his vibe say it. Professional necessity had put some checks and balances on his natural tendency for bluntness.
“Have a nice evening.” She dropped a twenty on the bar, and left.
He stared after her morosely. Every guy in the place ogled the woman’s ass, showcased in tight jeans. He turned, stared at the liquor bottles on the wall. Considered that option. Dismissed it. No point in it.
Everything about that fake, snotty blonde just served as a poignant foil for everything that was so intensely special about Robin. She was so natural. Sincere and direct and real. He’d never been with a woman so sweet and funny. Who made him feel so alive. Switched on.
And he never would again.
The realization electrified him, and a wave of cold accompanied it. A premonition of loss, a neck-prickling shudder of naked fear.
Shit. Here he went, with the random freakouts and anxiety attacks again. He needed to eat a pill, maybe. Just chill the fuck out.
He slid off the stool, and his eyes fell on the heap of eggshells the blonde had left on the bar. Blue. Delicate, robin’s-egg blue—
Robin’s…egg…oh. Holy. Fuck. Fear slammed into him like a hollowpoint bullet. He launched off the bar stool and bolted.
Robin stumbled over the curb, dug for a tissue, honked into it.
She wiped her eyes, and looked for Kelly. It seemed too good to be true that this lady would step out of the woodwork and fix her car.
“My van’s parked around to the side,” said Kelly’s musical voice.
The girl’s smile was so bright. As if fiddling with some stranger’s car late at night in a convenience store parking lot was just the coolest thing ever. Then again. Maybe Kelly was just an extremely nice person, and she, Robin, needed a swift attitude adjustment, right in the heinie.
“Um, yeah,” she said. “Are you sure you want to bother with this? I mean, I can just get a room, or—”
“No bother! Just help carry my chest and it’ll be no problem!”
Robin followed. It occurred to her to ask Kelly to park her van by the car, but the suggestion felt snotty and ungrateful, so she let it go.
The parking lot on the side was deserted. Kelly made for a van that was parked there, chattering all the while. The woman wrenched open the side of the van and climbed nimbly into the dark interior.
Robin peered in. It looked like the van was rigged with a bunch of electronic equipment. “What is this stuff? Is this a surveillance van?”
“It’s for my boyfriend’s work,” Kelly explained. “He’s in law enforcement. You get ready to grab the handle on the box, OK?”
“You want me to do it? You shouldn’t strain your shoulder at all.”
“It’s fine. Just reach over and grab that side, and pull…”
“Sure.” Robin reached for the box, saw Kelly’s foot take a swift step forward. She looked up, saw the woman’s wild, grinning grimace.
Crazy flashed through her mind, and the club whipped down—
Crack, white sparks, disbelief. A long, sinking fall. Then nothing.
Jon skidded to a stop by Robin’s car and looked frantically around. Christ, where was she? It had only been a couple of minutes!
Headlights switched to the side of the store. A van peeled towards the exit. He barely made out the blonde behind the wheel. She saw him.
Tires squealed. He bolted after it, memorizing the plates. The laws of physics decreed that he’d never catch up, but still he pounded along, screaming. He got his big break when the van jerked to a stop to avoid plowing into a logging truck. A final spurt of adrenaline fueled his leap.
He grabbed the luggage rack, groped one-handed for the door handle. Locked. The van weaved, braked, swerved, trying to buck him off. He swung and flopped. Groped for his gun, clawing it out of the shoulder holster. He smashed the window. Blood spattered, flew. A gunshot blasted. Fuck. The crazy bitch was shooting at him.
She was screaming. He hung grimly on, and braced his legs as best he could against the vehicle. “Pull over or I’ll shoot!”
“Filthy pig!” she shrieked. “Pig! Pig!”
She yanked the wheel around. They careened off the highway, over the shoulder, juddering down the long, sloping embankment. A wall of brush approached. Terribly fast, slow motion, sure death.
They hit. He flew, smashed into dark and scrub and thorn.
A thread of grim purpose kept him tethered to himself. He clawed his way to consciousness, blinked back the blood in his eyes. Struggled towards air, space. Branches scratched, bit. Light filtered down from the streetlight at the highway junction, just enough to assess the scene.
The van was tipped halfway over. A clump of flexible young firs had held it up. Windshield shattered. The impact had knocked his gun from his hand. He dragged himself towards the van. His leg buckled.
He held the side of the van for balance, leaving a wavering streak of blood on its surface. The side door was unlocked, but the crash had warped it. He wrestled it open. Couldn’t make out anything in the dark.
An icy blade of self-doubt sliced deep as the scenario played out: Detective Jon Amendola, charged with fatally attacking an innocent blond bimbette in a parking lot. What a crowning end to his career.
He dug out his car keys, shone the penlight on the keychain inside, and saw Robin crumpled against the back corner of the van.
His heart practically stopped. Her face was streaked with blood. She was cuffed and shackled. Scattered around was a hoard of cutting instruments. Scalpels, picks, cleavers, scissors, picks and tongs.
He climbed in. The van shook, threatening to tip. He crept over to her. Her pulse was strong. He gathered her up as if she were made of blown glass, scooted on lacerated knees over the traveling torture kit, and clambered out the door. The van bounced, swayed.
He cradled her against his chest, using his shoulders to batter his way out of the snarl of conifers. His eyes streamed. He set Robin gently on the ground, and groped for his phone—
Bam. The gunshot knocked him over Robin’s body and onto his face. His shoulder was numb, burning, ice cold. Jesus. What a brain-dead asshole. Getting himself shot by a bouncy blond psychopath with a fucking ponytail. He was dead meat, but the contrary bastard inside him who never knew when he was beat got up, staggering.
The blonde had a wild light in her eyes. She grinned, her teeth bloody and disarranged. The gun shook in her two-handed grip.
“You Geddes’s bitch?” He made his voice hard and taunting. “Were you his little helper? Like a fluffer on a porn set?”
“I wouldn’t expect a pig like you to understand.” The woman’s voice was high-pitched, wobbly. “I was his ultimate work of art. See?”
She yanked up her shirt. Her torso was covered with scars, in a swirling, hypnotic pattern, horribly similar to the bloody welts and cuts on Geddes’s other victims. Her nipples had been removed. Shiny flat scars remained. He didn’t like to imagine the state of her nether parts.
His gorge rose. He was looking at the Egg Man’s first victim. Alive, bugged out of her flipping skull—and holding a gun on him.
“He hurt you too?” he asked. “How long ago did he take you?”
“He didn’t hurt me!” she shrieked. “He saved me! He loved me! He was transforming me, like I was going to transform her.” She stabbed a bloody finger towards Robin’s supine body. The gun’s muzzle wavered in her hand. “You can bleed to death while you watch me do it!”
As if she’d heard, Robin shifted and moaned. In the instant that the blonde’s eyes flicked towards her, Jon’s body was in the air, leg flashing in a whip-swift front kick. Smack, the gun flew out of her hands. Her despairing shriek was like the cry of a prehistoric bird.
Grab the wrist, spin, torque and wrench. Crunch. She shrieked, her arm dislocated and broken. A punch to the point of the chin finished the job. She thudded to the ground. He swayed on his feet.
So his instincts had some basis after all, he thought numbly. The Egg Man had left the zombie bride behind to carry on his evil deeds.
He couldn’t believe he’d missed it. It seemed so obvious now. The last puzzle piece, the fragment that made the whole sick, bloody mess finally make sense. Geddes had an accomplice all along. It was a man-woman serial murder team. A classic scenario, and he’d missed it.
And Robin had almost paid the price for his stupidity. If she hadn’t already.
He stumbled back to her, and thudded to his knees. Made his fingers punch in 911, getting the cops, the EMT’s.
That done, he cradled her against his chest, and cried like a baby as he waited for the med techs to come and do their thing.
8
San Francisco, weeks later…
Jon peered at his watch. 4:20 A.M. Too late for a beautiful girl to finish her second waitressing shift of the day and head home in her piece of shit car to her piece of shit apartment.
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