Deadly Pursuit (24 page)

The cold air hit with a blast as she slammed the door shut and headed toward Jerome. Though the doorway’s overhang threw his face into shadow so that his eyes and the whole top half of his face were all but invisible, she could tell one thing:

He wasn’t smiling.

“Good morning.” Keeping her chin up, she hoped that the flat, disaffected look in his eyes—somewhere between Hannibal Lecter and
Night of the Living Dead
—was a figment of her overwrought imagination.

Then he smiled and she knew her nerves had been playing tricks on her. ““S’up?”

Her mouth was watering and she felt the familiar hum in her hungry veins but she tried not to sound too anxious or desperate. “Do you have some Oxy for me?”

“Depends.” He shrugged. “You got my money?”

She patted her skirt pocket—she’d dressed for work, of course. “Got it.”

That smile widened and so did her feeling of disquiet,
but then, without another word, he turned and walked to his car, gesturing for her to follow. She did.

Was … was that it, then? Was he just going to sell her the shit? A wave of relief hit, bubbling up in an inappropriate giggle, and she choked it off because this wasn’t a done deal yet.

But her mouth was all but dripping now, her heart racing with excitement, and she could almost feel the familiar crunch between her teeth, almost feel the rush of—

“Oh,” he said.

Oh? What
oh?

At the driver’s side of his car now, a disappointing ten-year-old-ish Toyota Tercel with fancy hubcaps and not at all the drug-dealer-mobile black SUV with tinted windows that she’d imagined, he snapped his fingers as though he’d just remembered something and looked over his shoulder at her.

“I almost forgot. Did you get that information we talked about?”

Marian’s heart stopped.

Okay. Okay, so this was a slight setback, true, but she’d expected something like this and had her explanation ready. “Umm … No.”
Stop wringing your hands, fool. It’s a dead giveaway.
“It’s not that I don’t want to do it or anything, but if I get caught—”

He backhanded her.

One minute she was talking and he was nodding and being a good listener, and the next her head was whipping around, her ears were ringing with a throbbing pain that shot out the top of her head, and her mouth was filling with the coppery taste of blood.

Had he … had he just hit her?

The panic was just knotting in her belly, just starting
to coalesce and grow, and the dots were connecting that, one: here was a violent black man twice her size slapping the shit out of her; and two: they were in a deserted alley where he could do anything imaginable to her and get away with it; and three: her children were here and she’d been the idiot who’d brought them; and four: how would she hide the mark that was probably blooming on her face right this second, assuming she lived to tell the story; and five:

Did this mean he wasn’t going to sell her the shit?

All this ran through her mind and was adding up to a whole boatload of
Titanic-sized
trouble steaming her way when he backhanded her again, confirming that he really had done it the first time.

Screaming now, she tried to break and run but he was too quick and grabbed a hunk of her hair near the crown and swung her around by it until the Tercel’s trunk cut into her belly and doubled her over.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit, shit, SHIT.

She struggled, but trying to break free was useless and she felt those huge fingers tightening, ready to rip her scalp off at any second. Terrified sobs rose up from her tight throat.

Jerking her head again, he spoke in her ear. “You want your kids to hear this?”

“Please don’t hurt me,” she cried. “I have money and I—”

Another jerk, this one accompanied by a “Shut the fuck up,” and a thrusting thigh between hers, widening her stance.

She shut the fuck up, midsob.

And then she started sobbing again, harder now. Not that. Please, God, not that.

“Please.” Tamping down her hiccuping wails, she
tried to talk, but the hand that wasn’t holding her hair was sliding under the front of her skirt now, exposing inch after inch of her legs to the icy air. “Please don’t do this. Please, please, please—”

“Shut. The fuck. Up.”

She stopped talking but kept sobbing, making a pathetic and choked mmm-mmm-mmm sound, because that one hand, the one that was the real problem, was now sliding between her and the trunk, groping between her legs with searching fingers as though there was gold to be mined. Only the thin layer of her panties protected her from his invasion and that was no protection at all.

“Please.” Opening her mouth was a mistake because it let loose a whole big strand of spit that embarrassed the one tiny part of her that wasn’t scared.

“Relax,” he said, still stroking. “I don’t fuck crack hos and I don’t fuck hopped-up soccer moms either. I want you to go to work today. Nod if you understand me.”

She nodded, ignoring the resulting pain in her scalp.

“I want you to get that information without getting caught. Feel me?”

She nodded again.

“And I want you to bring it to me today. Got it?”

She nodded.

“Don’t fuck with me,” he warned.

Those hard fingers clamped down now, squeezing and mashing the most sensitive part of her body, hurting with a pain worse than childbirth. Her sobbing took on a higher-pitched quality but she couldn’t move at all because moving only worsened the agony.

“Are you planning to fuck with me?”

She frantically shook her head.

“Because if you fuck with me, I’m going to show up at your house on Grand Vista Avenue—”

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Lord Jesus, he knew where she lived? “—and I’m going to break down the door and I’m going to fuck you. And then I’m going to blow your brains out against your nice walls—”

The images were all right there, flashing before her eyes. She saw this monster on her quiet street, contaminating it. She saw him storming into her house with the gun he surely had. She felt, pressing against her ass, the unforgiving weapon he’d use against her before he killed her—

“—and I’m going to look around for a few more brains to blow out. Are we on the same page here, bitch?”

She nodded.

Done with her at last, he let her go with a final thrust that had her forehead banging against the trunk with a loud and cold
thunk
that unleashed stars before her eyes.

Bewildered by this sudden freedom, she edged away from his car and turned to see him sauntering to the driver’s side with a smirking face and tented jeans.

“You better get going.” Holding his left arm up, he tapped his watch. “Tick-tock. You don’t want to be late for work, do you?”

Desperation fueling her fear, she pivoted, ran to her SUV and hurled herself into the driver’s side. Slamming and locking the door—locking, heh, right, like that would keep the monster out if he wanted to come in—she twisted at the waist to look at the kids, who were both okay but kicking their feet, growing restless.

Bethany took one look at her face and started crying.
Veronica looked at Bethany, grabbed Bethany’s pacifier and stuck it in Bethany’s mouth.

Bethany stopped crying and Veronica returned to her Cheerios.

Marian continued to sob.

She was pulling out of the alley when a terrible thought hit her, one more to add to her growing list of terrible thoughts.

Jesus, God, how was she going to get through this nightmare?

Jerome hadn’t sold her the shit.

“Coffee?”

Dexter Brady watched Kareem go to the coffeepot over on the wet bar and fill several mugs. They were in the corner of Kareem’s spectacular vaulted living room, which was in Kareem’s spectacular house, which sat on a couple of well-manicured and spectacular acres. It really was amazing what the owner of a few auto-customizing shops could do with a few extra bucks. To hear Kareem tell it, all this was the legitimate result of his legal endeavors.

Sure. And Dexter had three twelve-inch dicks.

“This isn’t a social call,” Dexter told him.

A hint of amusement flickered across Kareem’s face. “Just being polite.”

A polite sociopath. Wasn’t that nice?

Dexter eyeballed Kareem’s attorney, Jacob Radcliffe, who sat on the buttery brown leather sofa. Mercenary bastard. Beside Dexter sat Assistant U.S. Attorney Jayne Morrison, because there were procedures to follow and she had to be involved in this little stop-by-and-say-hello questioning. Having it here at
Kareem’s house was just for fun because, hey, the coffee downtown was nowhere near as delicious as the shit Kareem served.

They all waited, tense and silent.

Finally, after much stirring and adding of sugar and cream, Kareem sauntered back to the sofa and sat. Checked the fall of the razor-sharp crease in his slacks, crossed his legs, sipped, and waited with that poorly hidden glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

Kareem liked the hunt. Oh, yes. He preferred to be the hunter, true, but he didn’t mind being the hunted every now and then, just for kicks. Distributing drugs and playing cat and mouse games were mother’s milk to Kareem here. They got his juices flowing and made him tick. They completed Kareem.

And Dexter was going to take him down if it was the last thing he ever did.

“What do you want, Brady?” Radcliffe clutched his own mug and had the nerve to look annoyed. “My client doesn’t have much time and you already questioned him.”

“He came to see how many kilos he could spot lying around in plain sight,” Kareem interjected before Dexter could answer. “Isn’t that right, Dex?”

The roar of his rising blood pressure flooded Dexter’s ears and he felt the heat under his skin, the fury. “Good guess, but no. I’m actually here to tell you the good news.”

Kareem opened his mouth wide in an exaggerated yawn and added a stretch. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Did your agents raid a crack house this morning? Get a gram or two off the streets and make the world a safer place?”

Dexter forced a smile but his face was burning
now, so hot with anger he was surprised his flesh didn’t peel off in curled strips. “You remember that shooting in Seattle we talked about? One of our special agents was killed?”

“You consider that good news?” Kareem asked.

Dexter ignored that. “Couple things I forgot to mention before in all the excitement.” He paused so Kareem could sweat it out a little. “Jackson Parker was involved in that shooting. You remember your old friend Jack, don’t you? He ran the undercover op on you that led to the whole”—Dexter waved a hand—“money-laundering thing. This ringing a bell?”

There was no amusement in Kareem’s face now, and the boredom also seemed to have evaporated. Was this a crack in Kareem Gregory’s legendary control?

“Get to the point,” Kareem said.

“Oh, don’t worry about your boy Jack. Another agent was killed but Jack is fine.” Dexter let just a hint of smugness creep into his voice now and, for good measure and knowing it would kill Kareem, allowed himself a tiny satisfied smile. “He’s alive and well and well-protected. Anxious to testify and put you back behind bars where you belong.”

Kareem blinked.

“Jayne.” Jacob Radcliffe interjected, no doubt trying to prove his worth. “Is there some reason my client needs to be subjected to this silly cat and mouse game in his own house on the day before—”

Jayne showed complete disinterest at this whining. “Special Agent Brady has some questions. As a courtesy to your client, we’re asking them here rather than dragging him down to the office. If you don’t like it, we’re happy to drag …”

Radcliffe lapsed into an impotent silence.

“Well.” Kareem stood like he wanted to wrap things up and move on to the important part of his day. “Thanks for the news flash. If that’s all—”

“That’s not all,” Dexter told him.

He thought of the dead agents, the waste and the wide path of destruction this one man had carved throughout his sorry, too-long life. Then he thought of what a pleasure—what an orgasmic, ball-busting, out-of-body experience pleasure—it would be to put this man behind bars or, better yet, in his grave, where he belonged.

Dexter leaned in so he could see every flash of emotion on this bitch’s face, every pore and every bead of salty sweat. Kareem stilled as though he knew something terrible was coming and wanted to brace for it.

“Here’s the good news, which we kept out of the press. The shooter was killed.”

Kareem’s eyes widened a fraction. Just a hair, but it was enough.

This was why they’d withheld the information this long. Dexter wanted another bite at the apple. He wanted to see Kareem’s eyes dilate with fear and he wanted to see it in the house Kareem could lose if he wasn’t careful. He wanted to get this slippery motherfucker and he planned to keep nipping at his heels until he did.

“And guess what she—yeah, it was a she; what a surprise, huh?—left in her car?”

Kareem didn’t bite.

“Her
weapons.
Isn’t that great? A whole bunch of them, too.” Dexter counted off on his fingers. “A rifle with a scope, a silencer. Oh, and we recovered a nine-millimeter. And guess what kind of pistol Ray Wolfe
and his wife were killed with? What—no guess? I’ll tell you anyway: it was a nine-millimeter. Small world, huh?”

Kareem stilled, his face frozen into stone.

“Your time here is up, Brady.”

Radcliffe stood like he was the bouncer or some shit, but Dexter didn’t budge. He was here to see Kareem’s reaction to this news and by God he was going to see it.

“Don’t worry, Jakie, I’m almost done.” Dexter waved a hand and kept his gaze on Kareem, whose skin was slowly turning ashen. “So we thought we’d run a ballistics test or two on the gun and see if it’s the same one. And if it is—and I
think
it is—we’ll have a connection between the contract killing of one federal agent and the accidental killing of a second agent. And then—and here’s the really good news I want you to know, Kareem—all we’ll need is one tiny connection to whoever hired the killer and we’ll have the basis for all kinds of new charges. Meaty stuff, too. Murder, conspiracy … much more exciting stuff than money laundering. Carries longer prison sentences. I thought you’d want to be the first to know.”