Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) (28 page)

Morrison loaded the duffel
bags in the back of his Navigator and took to the road. Cowgirl didn’t climb
aboard with him. As their plan called for, she followed closely in her own
ride.

As he drove, Morrison played
out the scenario in his head.

Then he went through an
elaborate series of what-ifs.

You couldn’t ever plan for
everything. But you had to master the most likely variations. You couldn’t afford
to be surprised by them, not when the stakes were so high.

Up there on that cleared
plateau, Mike’s two other big black Navigators were parked in front of the
garage alongside Laura’s cute little white BMW.

In any other circumstance,
he would never have elected to split the money at Mike’s place. But in this
case, he didn’t really have a choice.

He checked his rear-view
mirror. Cowgirl was right on his tail. As was Harris, two hundred feet further
back. The wily old fox was pushing his way through the cloud of dust they had
just raised.

Morrison parked behind one
of the SUVs and hit the button to open the hatch. Then he looked up. The drapes
in Laura’s room were waving as if somebody had just retreated behind them. He
kept gazing silently at the window. Then a few seconds later, as if drawn by
his stare, he saw a pale figure emerge tentatively, clutching at the side of
the drapes.

Laura.

Their eyes locked briefly.
Even from his position down there, he could smell her fear. Her anguish. Her
desperation.

Before he got out, he put
a hand under the flap of his shirt, behind his back.

Just to check.

Then he opened the door
and sprung to his feet.

*

“My God, that’s a real
thing of beauty,” Harris said, eyeing the bulging duffel bags at the back of
the Navigator.

“Stop drooling and give me
a hand, will you?” Morrison said.

“Of course,” Harris said.
He looked like a six-year-old who had just been asked to carry Santa Claus’s toy
sack.

Morrison and Cowgirl took
care of the other two bags.

Mike was waiting for them
on the stoop. He led them all to his office.

The blond guy was already
sitting on a sofa in the room. When he saw him, Harris immediately addressed
him. “Hey, buddy, take a hike, will you?”

“He works for me. This is
my house. He stays,” Mike said.

“He’s got nothing to do
with this money,” Harris said.

“Just pretend he’s not
here,” Mike said.

Harris turned to Morrison.
Mike did the same.

Morrison just shrugged. “Stop
squabbling, guys. We have a serious pile of money to split. Let’s get to work.
The asshole can stay, I don’t care.”

Harris smiled. The blond
guy’s eyes threw knives at Morrison, but otherwise he remained silent.

Mike cleared off his desk,
which didn’t take too long. He had only a laptop and a few magazines scattered
about.
Guns & Ammo
plus a few military mags. Worthless rubbish as
far as Morrison was concerned, but he wasn’t there to discuss Mike’s reading
material.

Cowgirl and Harris each opened
a duffel bag. Morrison bent down to take care of the third one. They spilled
out the stacks of money on the big tabletop. Then they set about forming five
equal piles. While this process went on, absolute silence reigned supreme in
the room as if some mystical, quasi-religious event were taking place.

When they were done, they
all stared at this mountain of money for a while. Blond asshole included.

They were all speechless, each
of them privately contemplating what they were going to do with all this dough.

Mike broke the silence. “I
don’t know how you made her cough up all that money, Morrison, but I have to
say I’m impressed.”

Morrison shook his head. “Sanford
didn’t cough up anything. Turns out she only had an indirect involvement in this.”

Mike frowned. He hadn’t
expected this. “Who stole the money, then?” he asked.

“Her secret boyfriend.
Steve Perkins.”

Mike arched his eyebrows.
“Perkins? He’s boning Sanford? Wow! That’s the best one I’ve heard in a long
time,” he said, shaking his head.

“
Was
boning her,” Morrison
said. “I don’t think they’ll be a couple anymore. Secret or not.”

“Perkins, eh? Son of a
bitch. I thought the guy was squeaky clean,” Mike said. “That’ll teach me, I
guess. I bet the good people of Acton would be shocked to hear that.” He nodded
toward Harris. “Your pals at the chamber of commerce would have a heart attack,
right?”

“Right,” Harris said, “but
nobody’s gonna hear about this, Mike.”

“Of course,” Mike said.
“Of course, I’m not stupid.”

Morrison took the floor
again. “Bottom line, we now have a total of eleven million two hundred thousand
here,” he said, pausing for effect. “That’s eight million plus a forty percent
penalty. Divided in five equal parts, that’s two million two hundred and forty thousand
dollars each. Mike, I’ll leave you Tommy’s cut. I trust you’ll keep it for him
until he gets out.”

Mike nodded. “Of course,”
he said.

“Good. So everyone agrees
with the split?” Morrison asked.

He looked around. Everyone
nodded. All was good.

Morrison turned to Harris
and Cowgirl. “All right then,” he said. “Let’s take a pile each and go our
separate ways.”

That was the first dangerous
milestone.

The moment when the big
pot of money suddenly started to dissolve.

If anyone wanted to make a
major claim, that’s when it would happen.

Everybody in the room knew
that.

They all kind of eyed each
other. Blond asshole included.

But nothing happened.

Harris, Cowgirl and
Morrison each grabbed a duffel bag and filled it with their share of the money.
Then everybody left the room.

As they walked down the
corridor, Harris turned to Morrison. “Do you have anything else lined up?” he
asked. “’Cause I’d sure like to get back in business with you.”

“No, I haven’t got
anything just yet,” Morrison lied.

“When you do, let me know,
OK?”

“Sure,” Morrison said.
“Sure.”

They all reached the
foyer. The blond guy looked like he wanted to show he was not such an asshole
after all. He opened the door and held it for them. Cowgirl pushed through the
doorway with the duffel bag slung on her shoulder, followed by Harris.

As for Morrison, he stopped
short of the door and dropped his bag on the hardwood floor.

He had now arrived at the
second dangerous milestone.

This one a lot more
dangerous than the first.

“I left something in my
room,” Morrison said. “I’ll go grab it before I leave.”

“Sure,” Mike said. “Go
ahead.”

Morrison trotted up the
creaky staircase to the second floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blond
guy close the front door.

Staying there was
dangerous.

He knew that.

The presence of Harris and
Cowgirl had acted as a shield. It would have been tricky for Mike and the blond
guy to attack them all. Not impossible but a lot more difficult.

Now that his friends were
gone, Morrison had become a much easier target for them.

As he made his way
upstairs, he felt like one of these divers that left the security of a steel
cage to go swimming among the sharks. Nothing could be happening. But then
again, a massive flash attack could materialize in the blink of an eye and
leave you dead.

Under normal
circumstances, he would never have stayed behind alone.

But he didn’t have a
choice.

He could not abandon Laura
to her fate.

When he reached the landing,
he saw that the master bedroom door was open a crack. Laura then realized it
was him, and she threw the door open.

He rushed up to her.

She still looked as bad as
the last time. Battered and scared. But at least now, he could see a glimmer
of hope in her face.

“Prepare a few things for
you and your baby. We’re leaving soon,” he whispered.

The suddenness of the move
took her by surprise. A brief moment passed before she could react. Then she nodded
and whispered, “OK, I will do that.”

“Everything will be fine. Just
get ready and stay in your room, lock the door and wait for my signal. All right?”

She nodded. “All right.”
Then she looked him in the eye and said, “Thank you, thank you so much for
doing this.”

She made a move to retreat
back to her room, but he held her hand. “Wait, there’s something I want you to
take.”

He put his hand behind his
back, under the flap of his shirt, and retrieved a gun he had tucked under his
waistband.

“Take this,” he said.

He still hated guns with a
passion. But sometimes you didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t enter the lion’s
den unarmed. Mike and the blond guy didn’t share his scruples. And he was on
their turf.

Laura took the gun. She examined
it closely.

“You know how to use this?”
he asked.

“I think I do.”

He pointed to the safety
catch and the release for the mag. “You hold the butt with two hands,” he said.
“And you don’t squeeze the trigger. You just gently pull on it.”

“OK,” she said, taking all
that in.

He tried to make himself
as reassuring as he could. “You won’t need it,” he said. “But if you ever do,
it’s there.”

She looked up at him. “Be
careful,” she said. “They’re crazy down there.”

Morrison shrugged. “Don’t
worry, I know all about them.”

Laura retreated to her
room and disappeared behind the door.

Morrison crossed the hall
and dove into the blue room. He picked up the book he’d brought back from
Johnson’s and left there. Then he stormed out again.

As he went down the creaky
staircase, he prepared to put his spin on things.

But when he caught a
glimpse of the foyer, he realized it wouldn’t be necessary.

Mike had done it for him.

The bastard was standing
in the middle of the place with a smug smile on his face.

Morrison went down the
last few steps under his arrogant stare. Then he stopped at the foot of the
staircase and looked around him.

But there was no
mistaking.

His duffel bag was gone.

It was a scenario Morrison
had considered but didn’t think was very likely. Mike was impulsive, he knew
that. And greedy, of course. Still, he didn’t think his associate would be that
aggressive.

He had been wrong.

“Hey, where’s my money?”
Morrison said.

“
Your
money?” Mike answered
with that scumbag smile.

Whatever his previous
thoughts had been, Morrison knew he was now on the fast track.

“Yeah, my money,” he said.
“Without me, there would be none of it.”

Mike shrugged. “How were
you gonna leave anyway? I’m taking back the Navigator and now Harris and
Cowgirl are gone. You can’t walk all the way to town with a big bag like that.
It would be like asking people to mug you. Better leave it here. In safe
hands.”

While this was going on, Morrison
made sure not to lose sight of Mike’s hands. For now, they hung loosely at his sides.

“We had a deal,” he said.
“Go get my bag right now.”

“Pffft. In your dreams.”

Where was the blond guy?
Morrison needed to have them both in the same room.

“Then tell that blond asshole
to bring it here,” he said.

“I don’t think you get it,
Morrison. That money is mine now.”

Oh, he got that all right.
He just needed to stall this. At least for a moment.

“You’re making a big
mistake, Mike. This is not gonna end well for you.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you
gonna do about it, Morrison?”

Mike started to move his
right hand. His shoulder rose a bit. His torso pivoted slightly. The same move gunslingers
did in the old Western movies.

A gun. Shit, this is going
too fast.

Morrison had no choice.

He did the same.

Only faster.

He threw his right hand to
his back and grabbed the second gun he had tucked under his waistband. While he
did this, he saw Mike’s eyes register surprise.

“Stop moving,” Morrison
said, the barrel of his gun aimed at Mike.

Mike already had the gun
in his hand, but it was still pointing at the floor. Mike ignored his warning.
Shit.
He continued to move.

Morrison had no choice. He
fired a shot.

The surprise grew bigger
in Mike’s eyes as a red blotch appeared on his shirt. Mike continued to raise the
gun toward him.

Morrison fired a second
shot.

Another blotch appeared on
Mike’s chest and the surprise exploded in his eyes.

At that moment, Morrison
had become vulnerable. Mike was pointing his gun at him and was ready to fire.
Nothing stood between them.

But Mike’s hand started
wobbling.

Before he could press the
trigger, the gun fell from his increasingly shaky hand, and he collapsed on the
floor with a last low grunt. As dead as a man could be.

Morrison immediately
turned to the hallway.

“Mike?” he heard the blond
guy call out from another room. “Are you all right?”

Morrison didn’t say
anything. Obviously, the blond asshole had expected his boss to come out on
top.

Let doubt creep into his
mind.

Let it bore a nasty hole.

After a few seconds, Morrison
yelled out, “Come out in the hallway with your hands on your head and I won’t
harm you!”

He wanted the blond guy to
hear him, but Laura too. To reassure her.

The blond guy’s answer
came back quickly enough.

“Go to hell, Morrison.”