Relative Strangers (29 page)

Her knees weak with relief, she went into the bathroom and wet a towel. Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, she wiped blood from Meg's face. At her temple, she discovered a nasty bump. "Oh, baby, this is not good," she said.

Meg's eyes fluttered open, and she stared up at the ceiling, disoriented.

Margot touched a knuckle to her sister's cheek. "Hey." Meg's gaze shifted to her, and Margot tried to give her a re-assuring smile. "You're okay. Everything's okay."

A long moment passed before Margot realized that the stare Meg had fixed on her was vacant. "Meg?"

"They're both dead."

Margot flinched, and the knot in her stomach tightened. "Who?"

"Dayle and Ryan." Meg braced herself on her elbows.

"They killed Dayle and Ryan," she said. A shudder shook her, and she sagged back to the bed. Rolling her head away from Margot, she curled her fingers around the corner of the pillow. "They're gone."

Margot was back in Beau's house, stumbling around with his blood on her hands, so racked by grief she could barely walk. The grief she had felt then was just as intense as what she felt now, but another emotion accompanied it. This one had teeth. Vengeance.

"We're going to get even," Margot said, leaving the bed. She paced to the foot of it and back again. "I don't know how, but we're going to rip his fucking heart out. That
bastard."

Meg's eyes slid closed. "It won't matter."

Margot leaned over her sister. "Did you hear what I said? We're going to make him pay." Her voice rose. "Are you lis-tening, damn it?"

Meg didn't move.

"Don't do this to me." Margot glared into her sister's pale face. "I want you to get up. Get up right now."

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

Margot went to the dresser and found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Her fingers were clumsy as she put a cigarette between trembling lips and lit it. "You're next, you know," she said in a shaking voice. "He's going to put a gun to your head and make me watch while he pulls the trigger. He might even torture you a little first. It's all about payback. Is that what you want? Is it? Answer me, damn you." She put the cig-arette out. "Damn it, I'm not going to let you give up. You're all my kid has going for it."

Grasping Meg by the shoulders, she hauled her into a sit-ting position. Then, locking her hands under Meg's arms, Margot half-carried, half-dragged her across the room and into the bathroom.

"You're not broken," Margot said as she maneuvered her sister into the shower stall. Pinning her against the wall, she grasped Meg's cheeks with one hand. "Do you hear me? I re-fuse to let you retreat this way. Catatonic will not cut it, Meg." She waited for a response but got none.

"Goddamn it."
She fumbled with the cold water.

When the water struck her, Meg jerked. But Margot held her and directed the water onto her. She felt her sister begin to shudder, felt her own shaking. Felt everything start to come apart inside her. First, Beau. Then, Holly. And now . . . when would it end? When would it be over? Would her child ultimately become a victim as well?

"Do you think this is what I wanted?" she asked on a hitching breath. "All I ever wanted was for someone to treat me right." She clamped her eyes shut against the tears. Damn it, she couldn't afford to cry. "Before Beau, Slater was the only one in my whole pathetic life who tried to make me happy. I didn't want to see that it was bad because I desper-ately wanted for it to be real. God, I was a stupid,
stupid
kid."

Opening her eyes, she looked at Meg, whose teeth had begun to chatter. Sorrow tore through her. "I can't get through this without you," Margot said. "Are you hearing me? I can't get through this without you."

It took her a moment to realize that Meg had focused on her. Easing her weight back, Margot was suddenly self-conscious as Meg leaned her head against the tile. Margot touched her sister's hair, tried to offer comfort, but Meg lifted her shoulder against the contact. She pushed weakly at her until Margot released her.

Covering her face with trembling hands, Meg slid down the wall. At Margot's feet, she rested her forehead on her knees and took several deep, gasping breaths.

Margot shut off the water. Silence filled the bathroom, marred only by the trickle of water down the drain. She reached out to touch her sister but paused with her fingers an inch above her shoulder. Her throat tightened, and she pulled her hand back. "I'm sorry. I know it doesn't help."

When Meg raised her head, her eyes were dry. The dull pain in them seemed to Margot far worse than hysteria, far more volatile.

"What are we going to do to make him pay?" Meg asked.

"It's the partner of Turner Scott," Ryan said, nudging the dead man's arm with the toe of his shoe. He and Nick had stum-bled over the body tossed onto the beach a few paces from where they had slogged through shallow water to shore. They'd left the boat, dark and silent, anchored several yards out.

"Shot in the chest," Nick said.

Ryan choked back the need to be sick and lowered his head.

"You all right?" Nick asked.

"Damn it."

"Want to rest a minute?"

Ryan clenched his jaw against the terror that they would come across Meg's body disposed in a similar manner. His stomach heaved, and he threw up in the weeds.

"Let's rest," Nick said.

"No! I'm fine."

"Ryan, you're about to collapse."

"I'm fine," he repeated, and took a deep breath. "Let's find the house."

But Nick was pivoting away from the path leading inland. "What's that?" he said, pointing. "Out there on the water."

Ryan squinted against the dark. "Lights."

"A shitload of lights. It's got to be the feds."

"Excellent. Let's go."

"Hell, no. We're waiting for them," Nick said.

"I'm not waiting," Ryan wheezed. "Meg doesn't have time for this."

"I'll coldcock you if I have to, pal. We don't even have a decent weapon."

Ryan jerked his chin at the stun gun Nick clutched in one hand. "What do you call that?"

"I sure as hell don't call it decent."

"Keep it handy anyway," Ryan said, plowing into the underbrush.

Nick, whose only other choice was to abandon his friend, followed.

Chapter30

After the shower, Margot forced Meg to stand still for an in-ventory of her injuries. Myriad bruises and welts flared in red, black and blue along her arms, legs and back, and Margot worried about cracked ribs and internal injuries.

"How's your wrist feel?" Margot asked as she removed Meg's watch and examined where its silver band had made shallow cuts in her flesh. "Do you think it's broken?"

Meg focused on the watch in Margot's hand. "That's yours."

Margot frowned as she flipped it over in her hand. She'd never seen it before. "No, it's not." Setting it aside, she went back to her examination. The knot on her sister's head trou-bled her more than anything, and she could tell it hurt like a son of a bitch every time Meg moved her head.

As Meg secured her robe, Margot told her to sit on the bed while she fetched aspirin and water from the bathroom. "You probably have a concussion," she said, handing them over.

Meg swallowed the pills and didn't respond.

Margot looked into her twin's shell-shocked eyes and felt hatred for Slater, ugly and potent, slide through her stomach. It was bad enough what he'd done to Beau. But this . . . "The bastard won't know what hit him," Margot said.

>

Meg left the bed in favor of the window. It was dark outside, the grounds illuminated by several spotlights. A healthy wind blew through the trees that dotted the yard, and she watched them bend, snap straight, then bend again as another gust struck them.

Taking jeans and a green polo shirt from the closet, Margot dropped them on the bed. "Why don't you get dressed?"

Meg nodded but didn't move.

Margot retreated to an easy chair in the corner and lit a cigarette with hands that had steadied. She'd changed into black leggings and a snug, white T-shirt.

Meg watched her sister brush at a piece of tobacco that clung to the hem of her shirt and felt fury begin to build. She latched onto it, used it to slap back the grief. "How can you just sit there and smoke?"

Margot straightened her back. Putting the cigarette out, she was careful not to be as fierce about it as she wanted to be. "You don't know me very well," she said. "Please don't make snap judgments about the way I handle a situation."

Meg could have hit her. The desire almost propelled her across the room at her sister, but she turned her back to clamp down on the violent urge. It wasn't Margot's fault that Slater Nielsen was a murderous bastard. She had made bad choices, and now she was paying for them. They both were.

Bracing on the sill, Meg pulled in a shaky breath. Fatigue hummed through her system. It was difficult just to hold her head up.

"I don't blame you if you hate me," Margot said.

Meg let her breath out, closed her eyes.

"I mean, I've made a mess of things," she went on. "I guess I got stupid for a moment, thinking I could be happy, thinking Beau and I could—" She choked.

In the reflection of the window, Meg saw Margot press im-patient fingers against her eyes.

"Christ, I'm pathetic," Margot said.

Meg gripped the windowsill so hard her knuckles ached. "What do you want me to say, Margot? That it's okay that you were so easily manipulated? It's not okay. People are dead. Good people." Unlocking the window, she jammed it open, and a chill wind rushed into the room. "How far is the drop?"

When she got no response, Meg turned to see that her twin's emotional moment had ebbed. In its wake was the toughness that Margot had let slip.

"I'm only human," Margot said, crossing to her. "I didn't have the opportunities that you had. I know you don't think that's a good enough excuse, but I didn't steal the food out of a starving kid's mouth or snatch a little old lady's purse. I stole from rich, insured people. I know it's not right, but you act like every time I emptied a safe, I slashed someone's throat. Well, / didn't
kill
anybody. I did what I did to survive. If I hadn't started working for Slater, I probably would have become a prostitute. And maybe in your eyes, I am a whore, because I slept with Slater and he gave me things, not in re-turn like you think, but because he wanted to."

Elbowing Meg out of the way, she slammed the window shut. "It's three floors, so don't even think about jumping."

She paced back to the bed, still furious, her fists clenched at her sides. "Damn it, I'm a decent person." She rounded on Meg and jabbed a finger at her chest. "
You
might not think so, and, twenty years from now, my kid might not think so, but damn it, I don't deserve what's happened to me any more than you do. The only crime I committed that cost anyone anything more than cold hard cash was trusting someone who I thought cared for me. And not caring for him as much as I

cared for someone else. So get off my back."

Margot headed for the dresser and the pack of cigarettes. She lit one with jerky movements, meeting her sister's green eyes as smoke curled around her head. Meg was giving her a strange look.

"What?" Margot snapped.

"Your kid?"

Her eyes teared up. "Yeah, I'm pregnant. Ain't that the pits."

Bracing a hand on the wall, Meg rubbed the tips of her fin-gers under the knot at her temple. Ryan would have enjoyed being an uncle. He would have been a good one. Attentive and encouraging. Supportive. Her head swam, and she closed her eyes until the dizziness passed. Then she went to the bed and began pulling on the jeans and polo. They had to do something. They couldn't just sit and wait until Slater Nielsen got ready to kill them.

"Did Slater give you a weapon?" Meg asked, sitting down to tug on her Nikes, which were still wet.

"No."

"All those times you played jewel thief for him, and he never gave you anything for protection?"

"I didn't need protection," Margot said. "I was a thief, not a killer." Her face softened as Meg stood and seemed to grow more pale. "Why don't you sit down? You don't look good."

Meg sank back onto the bed. "We have to get out of here," she said more to herself than to Margot.

"The door is unlocked. Slater never locked me in."

Meg, disbelieving, went to the door and tried the knob. It turned without resistance. Facing Margot, she asked, "Does your former boss keep a gun in the house?"

Ryan and Nick crouched in the weeds just beyond the landscaped grounds of Slater Nielsen's palatial home. Gun-shots sounded from the direction they had just come.

"Feds made land," Nick said.

"Good," Ryan said. "Hopefully, all the guards are on the beach trying to hold them off."

There didn't appear to be any activity outside the house, though harsh lights seemed to illuminate every inch of the yard. Ryan focused on the windows, trying to detect activity beyond them. "Let's go in."