Killing Bliss (35 page)

One down, three to go.

* * *

Bliss drove down what looked to be a deserted road, about a quarter mile past the sign at the entrance to Star Lake, and pulled the car into a bushy area that he hoped would hide the car until he could get back to it.

He turned the ignition off, and rested his head back. Damn. His balls were sore, and his face hurt like hell, wouldn't stop bleeding. She'd gouged him good. Probably infected him with some kind of disease. Stupid bitch.

He suddenly trembled as if he were cold, which he wasn't, and his gut rolled. Beauty...

Jesus. Why in hell hadn't she done what he told her to?

His chest was tight, and he felt sick to his stomach, like he was going to throw up.

You killed her, you stupid fuck. Why in hell did you do that?

The rant in his head, equal parts red-hot rage and frustrated regret, made him close his eyes.

He put his head back, tried to catch his breath. Didn't know what the hell to do with the split in his brain, the thickness in his chest. He reminded himself she was nothing but a dime hooker, not the angel in a devil's body she was when he was a kid, not the girl who made him ache in places he'd never ached before.

He pounded his fists on the steering wheel, then forked his fingers roughly through his hair.

He wondered how many times Vanelleto had had her, and he couldn't stop the roar that poured from his throat.

All his fault. All of it. Him and that dumb-ass Wart. If she hadn't told Vanelleto about him and Beauty in the barn, Beauty would have come around. Things would have been different. He'd fucked her good that day; she was his.

Now she was dead.

And Wart and Vanelleto were still alive. It goddamn well wasn't right.

He rubbed his crotch, tried to ease the painful throb in his balls, and rolled down the window. Maybe some cold air would clear his mind.

He figured he'd walk through the trees and undergrowth straight to Star Lake without anyone being the wiser.

But now that Beauty was gone, he needed an ace in the hole, and for that, Wart would do fine. He smiled for the first time in hours.

Yeah... by the time Vanelleto arrived, he'd have little Wart trussed up like a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey.

Vanelleto didn't come through? He'd slice her up the same way.

Chapter 23

Cade gave up on the idea of sleep. If it weren't so miserable outside, he'd run, but in the mess called weather out there, it'd be a one-way ticket to pneumonia. He tried to read, then tried to write, but nothing worked, so he poked the fire for the hundredth time and paced the cabin.

His time with Addy left him edgy, unable to focus. Saying what he'd said, when he said it, was a big mistake. He should have waited until the threat posed by her friends coming to Star Lake was over, until he'd proven her as innocent as he believed her to be. If ever there was a classic case of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Addy being in the Bliss home that night was it.

He also had to find Josh Moore. He owed that to Susan, and as he'd finally come to admit, he owed it to the boy—and himself.

For the third time in as many minutes, he pushed the curtain back and looked outside in the hope Mother Nature had done an about-face. No luck. He glanced toward the resort office. The soft light over Addy's drafting table—situated by the living room window—was on, making the shadow of her head and shoulders, lowered as she flipped the pages of a magazine, only a grayish outline through the sheets of rain.

Obviously, she was no more inclined to sleep than he was. Small damn comfort.

"Shit." He went to the door and grabbed his windbreaker from the hook on the right. If not a run, a walk would have to do. He needed to get out of here before he exploded.

He shrugged into his jacket and went outside.

Standing on the top step under the cover of the porch doing up his zipper, Cade scanned the deserted resort. Through the blackness of the rain, it looked desolate and bleak. The property was poorly lit at night. There was only a light on the toolshed and another where the driveway turned around a stand of trees, going from there to the main road maybe two hundred yards or so. Neither light was high on the wattage scale. He knew there was a couple in the far cabin at the end of the property, but their lights were out, as were Stan and Susan's. The rest of the cabins sat empty and unlit.

Walk a few feet in any direction and you'd be traveling blind.

Resigned to a short, dark, and very wet stroll, he was about to take the first step, then stopped abruptly.

Something moved on the road leading to the resort, and Cade's breath hitched. Addy? Maybe in the same tense state as himself, out for a walk? He glanced toward the office, where her silhouette was still visible on the blind.

Not Addy.

Cade inched back, deeper into the shadow of the porch overhang. For a second, there was only the sound of the downpour on the cedar shake roof, the hiss of wind through the willow on the lake.

Then a snap—a crunch on the gravel.

Unable to see clearly through the rain, he gauged the noise as coming from the cabin across from his. Cabin Twelve.

Narrowing his eyes, he peered through the gloom in time to see a shadowy figure take the two steps leading to the cabin's door and enter without a sound. Cade waited a minute or two, but no lights were turned on.

Had to be Vanelleto, determined to keep a low profile.

Cade went back into his cabin, retrieved the Glock from his bedside drawer, and stuffed it in his pocket.

He'd been looking for a diversion, and now he had one, a chance to meet and greet the mysterious Gus Vanelleto.

Seeing no reason not to take the shortest distance between two points, he went across the gravel and grass separating his cabin from Twelve, the element of surprise squarely in his corner.

He guessed Vanelleto wouldn't bother to lock his door, and he was right. He opened the door and stepped into the room.

In the cabin, there was barely enough light for shapes and outlines.

"Who the hell are you?" The voice was low, cold, and completely calm. Cade knew the cabins were all pretty much the same, a bedroom and bath, and a living room with the cooking area separated by a counter. The voice coming through the dark told him Vanelleto was behind the kitchen counter.

"The name's Harding. Cade Harding."

"You lost?"

"No. I'm a friend of Addilene Wartenski."

Vanelleto greeted that announcement with silence, then Cade heard movement and water running from the kitchen tap. His eyes more accustomed to the light now, he saw Vanelleto take a drink of water, then turn and put the glass in the sink, obviously in no hurry to resume their conversation.

Leaning casually against the counter, he said, "Must be some kind of friend if you know that name."

"Good enough to not want to see her get hurt."

Vanelleto crossed his arms. He had a predator's stillness about him, and if he had any nerves, none were in evidence. "How long has this friendship been going on?"

"When I think that's your business, I'll tell you."

"Which means not very long. And that means you know more than it's healthy for you to know."

"I'm healthy enough." Cade reached under the shade of the lamp he knew sat beside the chair inside the door, found the switch, and turned it on.

Vanelleto eyed him impassively.

"Seems to me it's your—and Beauty's—health we need to worry about," Cade said, straightening away from the lamp. If he expected a response to his use of Beauty's name, he didn't get one.

In the dim light from the lamp, the two men faced each other, assessed each other. Vanelleto, in black jeans and a black shirt—expensive black shirt, Cade noted—eyed him with the fixated absorption of a cobra.

The scar on Vanelleto's face cut a jagged swath from the front of his earlobe to under his jaw. Rough and uneven, as though the skin had been torn wide open and never stitched, the scar marked a lean, dark-skinned face that without it, and the square jawline it accented, might have been labeled pretty. In height and weight, the two were evenly matched, Cade noted, but Vanelleto's body, more tightly wired than his own, emanated a promise, or threat, of speed and lethal agility.

Cade gestured at the scar. "Belle's handiwork?"

Vanelleto's eyes, black from where Cade stood a few feet away in the dimly lit room, centered on his, more curious than alarmed. "The Wart has been busy. You sleeping with her?"

Cade let his question slide off, recognized the technique, a question for a question. "She told me part of her story, not all," he said, studying Vanelleto's hard jaw and say-nothing eyes. He'd met his share of men like Vanelleto in his time, sat in the cold gray confines of an interrogation room with them, where the game of self-protection played out for the highest possible stakes—freedom. It was a game Cade was an expert at. "I was hoping you'd fill in the blanks," he added easily.

"Can't think why I'd do that."

"Addy says you're innocent. All of you. She thinks Bliss killed his mother."

"And you believe her."

"Shouldn't I?"

Vanelleto snorted, raised an eyebrow, then shook his head slowly. "Jesus. You're a goddamn cop." The idea didn't seem to bother him; it seemed to amuse him.

"Was a cop."

"When it comes to cops, I don't believe in the past tense."

Cade left a shaft of silence in the room. "You don't have a choice, Vanelleto." Cade lifted his hands. "Here I am. And considering you're not going anywhere until Bliss and Beauty get here, it's as good a time to talk as any."

"Yeah? And what would we have to talk about?" Vanelleto's tone shifted lower and his expression flattened.

Cade didn't like it. He met his cold, assessing gaze, and asked the question that most needed to be asked. "Josh Moore. Where is he?"

"Never heard of him." He pushed himself away from the counter, moved toward Cade. "Now if you'll get the hell out of here—"

"You've heard of him, all right. Josh is the boy who disappeared the night Belle Bliss was murdered. His grandmother hired me to find him."

His remark was rewarded with the barest flicker of an eyelash.

* * *

"This place got cable?"

Addy, startled, spun to see a tall, muscular man standing in her doorway, looking at her as if she were roadkill.

"Can I help—" Her heart slammed against her chest, and she shot to her feet, stumbled backward until her shoulder banged into the wall.

The man scanned her from her sock-clad feet to her still-damp hair. "You grew up good, Wart. Who'd have thought it?"

Jesus, it was Frank Bliss. She was so stunned she couldn't find her voice.

His face was bloody, and he touched one side of it carefully. When he pulled his hand away and looked at the blood on his fingers, a dark, angry look claimed his handsome face. A face Wart would never forget. A face that brought the past back with such a rush her knees buckled.

"Shit." He held out his bloodied hands to look at them, his brow furrowed in frustration. It was as though the sight of his own blood negated her presence in the room.

One cheek had four long gouges in it; some of the blood was dry, more oozed from the slashes to seep down and drip from his chin. Pushing some of his long blond hair back behind his ear, he said, "Where's your bathroom?" He barked. "I need to clean up."

If he thought Addy cared, he was wrong. "Where's Beauty?" she demanded.

His mouth turned down. "I guess you could say her and I had a little misunderstandin'." Again, he touched his bleeding face. "I dropped her off"—his lips turned up in a parody of a smile—"a few miles back. Now, where the hell's the bathroom?" He pushed away from the door and headed toward her.

"What do you mean you dropped her off?" If her stomach muscles got any tighter, they'd snap. She had the wild urge to run and never stop. Instead, she pushed herself away from the wall and faced him.