Cut Throat (19 page)

“Who is this? Hello? Hello?”

Someone sobbed. He heard it as clearly as he heard the catch in his own breath.

“Cat? Catherine…is this you?” “Sorry…so sorry.”

The hair rose on the back of his neck. Something was wrong with her voice. He could barely hear her, let alone understand what she was saying.

“Cat! Is it you?”

He heard a slow intake of breath, followed by a low, agonized moan, then one word.

“Yes.”

His belly rolled. What in God’s name was wrong? “Catherine, are you—”

“Wilson…”

He stopped. “Yes, I’m here.”

“Chihuahua…Hotel Uno,” she mumbled. “You’re in Chihuahua, Mexico?”

She exhaled the answer, making it sound more like a hiss than a word.

“Yesss.”

“At a place called the Hotel Uno? Is that where you’re staying? Do you need me? Are you all right? Talk to me, damn it.”

“Your message…”

Wilson heard her cough, heard her labored breathing, and knew she was hurt. He’d never felt so helpless or so scared in his life.

“What about my message, honey? What are you trying to say?” “…said you wouldn’t know where to find…body. At Hotel Uno.” “Tutuola?”

“Dead…and so am I.”

The phone went dead in his ear. “Catherine? Cat?”

She was gone.

Wilson remembered the angry message he’d left on her machine, ranting about being kept in the dark about what she was doing and that he wouldn’t even know where to find her body. So now he did, and it didn’t make him feel a damn bit better.

“Oh hell,” he said, and headed toward his office, turning on lights as he ran.

He grabbed the Rolodex from his desk and began shuffling through the cards, looking for one in particular. The moment he found it, he yanked it out of the file, then reached for the phone.

A few seconds later, the number he’d called began to ring. Only then did he glance at the clock. It was twenty minutes to five in the morning.

He could hear the phone ringing at the other end. It rang and rang until the machine kicked on.

“This is Mike Simms’ residence. Leave a message after the beep.”

“Mike! Mike! It’s me, Wilson McKay! Wake up and answer your goddamned phone.”

He kept yelling, demanding his call be answered, but still nothing. He was just about to hang up when he heard someone pick up the receiver.

Mike Simms was a professional gambler with a penchant for pretty machines, but it was his skill as a chopper pilot that Wilson needed.

“Fuck, Wilson…do you know what time it is?”

“I need your help,” Wilson said.

Two years ago, Wilson had helped bring down the man who’d broken into

Mike’s home and stolen some valuable art. They’d become friends during the process and had kept in touch on a haphazard basis. Still, Mike wasn’t the kind of man who forgot the favors he owed.

“What’s up?” Mike asked, and Wilson could practically hear him rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“I need to get to Chihuahua, Mexico, ASAP. I’ve got a friend in trouble.” “Shit, boy, you don’t ask for much.”

“I’ve never asked you for anything,” Wilson said. “But I’m asking now.” Mike sighed.

“I keep the chopper out at Martin’s Airfield. Know where it is?” “Yes.”

“Meet you there in an hour.”

“Forty-five minutes,” Wilson said, and hung up.

Wilson was dressed in under five minutes. He stopped at his office on the way to the private airport, left LaQueen a brief message, then took what cash he had on hand from the wall safe.

He was waiting at the airport when Mike drove up. Obviously Mike had been on the phone himself, because his chopper was fueled and ready

when he arrived. Within fifteen minutes, they were airborne.

The fire department was at the estate, but there was no city water service at this location. Once the tanker truck had been emptied, there was no more water left with which to fight. The firemen stood helpless, watching as the burning roof collapsed inward, sending a shower of sparks up into the night sky. It was too bad about the house, but it was, after all, empty. It had been for sale for months, and the Realtor’s sign was still stuck in the yard.

It wasn’t until the Realtor arrived and got out of his car on the run, screaming a name, that they began to realize they had more to worry about than a burning house, but by then, it was far too late.

It was mid-morning the next day before the ruins could be searched. As the Realtor had claimed, they found a badly burned body in what had been the living room, buried beneath charred rafters and rubble. Their initial search located empty liquor bottles scattered all over the floor near the body. The arson investigator was sick with an intestinal flu and had to keep running outside to throw up. He gave the place a quick once-over, saw the bottles and the candle holders lying near what was left of the furniture and deemed it an accident related to drinking. It was a fireman who found an empty gun. A few minutes later, they found a handful of empty shells that had clearly come from two different weapons. At that point, the fire scene became a crime scene.

Meanwhile, the Realtor had furnished a name for the victim.

Solomon Tutuola was still going to spend his retirement in Chihuahua but with a slight change of address and six feet under.

Eleven

The sun came up at their backs, but Wilson was blind to the beauty of the land below them.

Mike had figured out in the first ten minutes that Wilson wasn’t about to talk about anything—not the friend who was supposedly in trouble, or the reason he was going after her instead of calling the authorities in Chihuahua to have them look after her themselves. It seemed obvious that this was one of those times when the less he knew, the better off he would be. He’d filed his flight plan and dealt with refueling stops, pretending not to notice that the closer they got to Chihuahua, the tenser Wilson became. Hour after hour, they flew in a southwesterly direction. When they were less than ten minutes out, Wilson suddenly decided to start talking.

“I don’t have any right to ask this of you, but I’m not asking for myself.” “Ask away,” Mike said.

Wilson nodded. “Okay then, this is it. When we get to Chihuahua, will you hang around until you hear from me? I don’t know what shape Cat is going to be in, but from the little I know, I don’t think it will be good.”

Mike arched an eyebrow. “Cat?”

“As in Catherine, okay?” “Just asking,” Mike said.

“Anyway…if you would refuel and file a flight plan…you know…be ready at a moment’s notice…”

Mike frowned. “Absolutely. And if you’re in trouble, I’m—” “I’m not the one in trouble…yet.”

“Come on, Wilson. I’m not afraid of anything. I keep my mouth shut, and you know it.”

Wilson’s eyes narrowed as he glanced out. He could see the city below them. His gut was in a knot, and his thoughts were racing. Cat was down there—somewhere.

He couldn’t get the sound of her voice out of his head, and he didn’t want to think about what he might find. An involuntary shudder ripped through him as he took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly.

“Look, Mike…it isn’t about being afraid. It’s about being smart. You just play it by the book, and if anyone asks you what you’re doing here, just tell them you’re waiting for a fare.”

Mike started to argue, then saw the look on Wilson’s face. “So…you’re just a fare?”

“Right.”

He grinned. “Then if you’re just a fare and I’m just picking you up, you

better know I’m expecting a damned big tip for the ride.”

The humor was unexpected. It made Wilson grin; then he gave Mike an easy punch on the arm.

“I owe you a hell of a lot more than a tip for this,” he said. Mike shrugged it off, then pointed. “There it is.”

Wilson shifted his gaze. “It” was a small landing strip, obviously not international-level accommodations.

“The airport?”

“One and the same,” Mike said, then flipped a switch on his headset to contact the tower for landing instructions.

Within minutes they were down. Mike watched Wilson undo his seat belt, then reach for his jacket.

“You sure you don’t need someone at your back?” Mike asked.

Wilson nodded. “I’m sure. Here…this is for refueling, and get yourself something to eat. I’ll be in touch soon.” He tossed a handful of hundreddollar bills in Mike’s lap.

Mike shuffled the bills into a neat stack and then stuck them in his pocket.

“I’ll be waiting for your call,” he said, watching as Wilson crossed the tarmac and disappeared into the airport.

In a cab on his way to the Hotel Uno, Wilson didn’t want to think about how many hours had passed since Cat had called him, or what she’d gone through to be able to tell him that Tutuola was dead.

Along with the ride, the taxi driver seemed bent on giving him a touristguide spiel that was nothing short of comic. Still, Wilson couldn’t fault him, because the man spoke better English than he did Spanish.

At any other time he would have enjoyed the ride and the scenery—even the oddball driver. The day had turned out to be clear and sunny, although the air was cool, but joy was not on his mind. He was scared—damned scared.

He couldn’t help but think about how cold it had been back in Dallas when he left, and how far away from home they were. Even after he found Cat —and if she was still alive—it wasn’t as if he could take her directly to a hospital and get treatment for her. He knew from the way she’d sounded over the phone that she was in bad shape, which meant wherever he took her, questions would be asked. He needed to get her as far away from here as he could before Tutuola’s body was found. Even now, it might be too late—for everything.

The thought hurt his heart in a way he would never have believed possible. Just knowing that Catherine Dupree might have gone off and left him behind in this world made him physically sick. For the first time since he’d known her, he was beginning to understand what had driven her to waste so many years of her life seeking revenge. If he walked into her room at the Hotel Uno and found her dead, he would be deeply inclined to send the person responsible straight to hell—in pieces. However, in this

instance, she had already beaten him to it.

He glanced out the window, swallowing past the knot in his throat and willing himself not to panic. After all, she was as unpredictable as the cat for whom she’d been named. If fate stayed true to form, she might only have used up her third life, which meant there should still be six left to go.

Damn the woman. He hadn’t meant to fall in love with her. He didn’t want to care what she’d done to herself, but it was too late. He cared. God, he cared so much he ached.

He was in such a state of confusion that the taxi driver was pulling into the hotel parking lot before Wilson realized they had arrived. All at once, he panicked. How could he do this? She hadn’t told him what room she was in, but he wanted to play this low-key. If she was hurt bad, she wouldn’t answer the phone, and they weren’t going to tell him her room number outright. He wasn’t sure what to do first, and then he saw her car. She might have left a clue in there, he thought.

“Let me out here,” he told the cabbie.

The driver hit the brakes and put the car in Park. He was about to get out and open the door for Wilson, but Wilson beat him to it. He handed a pair of twenties to the man, who grinned broadly at the overpayment and quickly drove away before the Americano loco could change his mind, leaving Wilson to see if he could spot anything through the windows of Cat’s vehicle that might tell him what room she was in. But when he tried the door, to his shock, he found that the car was unlocked.

He opened the door quickly, then froze. Even from where he was standing, the first thing he saw was the dried blood—on everything. On the

steering wheel, the floor-boards—all over the front seats. He reached toward a dried smear, then stopped and straightened back up, taking long breaths of air, trying desperately to counter the nausea. When he had himself together enough to dare a second look, he found something even more disturbing. The keys were still in the ignition. He couldn’t imagine what shape she’d been in to abandon her things like this.

“Oh, God, oh, baby…what did he do to you?” he muttered.

In desperation, he began tearing through the papers in the front seat, as well as some that had fallen onto the back floorboard. He spotted a handful of papers on the passenger seat that had the hotel name on them. It didn’t take him long to find her room number. Room 204.

Finally…the answer he needed.

He took the keys out of the ignition and pocketed them after he shut and locked the car. Within seconds, he was inside the hotel, then running up the stairs. He exited one level up and began moving down the hallway at a fast clip, counting room numbers as he went. It wasn’t until he looked down that he realized he was also following a trail of blood drops on the carpet runner. His trek took a turn at the end of a long hallway. His heart was hammering, his gut in knots. He paused for a moment, reading the signs, then took a quick right before he found her room.