Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1) (21 page)

The woman he’d slept with, she knew his name. But she wasn’t a local. It didn’t ring true that she’d fall in with someone like Williams. And the only other person he’d given his name to was….

Victoria Palmer. The woman at Green Acres. The woman who’d worked with Cassandra at Lady Luck. She’d been so nervous, so eager to get rid of him. She’d told him Cassandra was dead.

He sat up straight.
Williams was there
. As soon as the thought came to him, he knew it was true. Roy Williams had been there, hiding somewhere. He could almost recall a hint of the man’s sweat lingering in the air as he’d stood in Victoria Palmer’s apartment, fingers running along the pages of his book. The book Victoria said wasn’t hers. The one she said came with the apartment.

What were the chances of finding his book—not even his best-selling book—in an apartment on Temperance owned by a woman who’d known Cassandra? Unless it wasn’t her copy. It was Cassandra’s. It had to be.

She’d known he was alive. She’d read his books. Why hadn’t she ever tried to contact him?

He shook his head. It didn’t matter. It’d all be explained when he found her, when he talked to her. And the key to that was Roy Williams.

The panel hidden behind the bookshelf in Palmer’s apartment.
Had he been there? Had he been next door, listening in? Had he watched through the peephole as Eddie went past?

He put his back against the wall and pushed himself up, the booze tingling at the corners of his mind. Not drunk, just smoothed out. He’d walk it off on the way back to Green Acres.

He turned his back towards the street, took out his gun, checked the magazine. He was going to get an answer out of Roy Williams one way or another. No injury, no contract, and no partner was going to get in the way of that. He had a chance to make everything right, to erase the mistakes of his youth.

And he was going to take it.

He pulled his jacket around himself and took off down the street.

Leone’s people were at the train station. Not wearing red—they weren’t casino staff. But they were conspicuous enough in their grey coats and black hats. Four of them altogether. Dom watched them from an abandoned newsstand half a block away. They were grizzled, bulky. Not soft-faced security guards, but true syndicate thugs. Even the tourists went quiet as they moved past to board the train.

Dom chewed it over for a few seconds, but there was no way around it. She couldn’t sneak past them and she couldn’t take all of them out. Not without more ammo. And she didn’t like the idea of going toe-to-toe with men like that in a public area.

So there it was. She had to walk halfway across the city. She sighed, turned away from the station, and got going.

She’d spotted three more groups of syndicate thugs by the time she was halfway to St Reynold’s Church. They strolled down the street like they owned the place. Which they probably did. Each time, she ducked into an alley or an abandoned shop and waited until they’d passed. But sooner or later she was going to be spotted. She hoped Eddie was being careful. The bloody idiot was always reckless when his blood was up.

As she crept inside a ransacked market, hiding from yet another group of searching thugs, her gaze fell on a public off-station comm terminal near the checkout counter. Though the rest of the shop was torn to shreds, the standby lights were still on the unit. She slid onto the stool and touched the screen. The terminal came to life, flashing a welcome message at her from behind the smudged fingerprints on the old-tech screen.

She nearly stood up again and left, but she needed to make contact with the Feds at the outpost before they started getting antsy. Since she wasn’t going to be getting back to the
Solitude
anytime soon, now was as good a time as any to make the call.

She steeled herself and slid her cash card into the machine’s slot. It blinked her current balance at her—for the love of Man, how much had Eddie taken to gamble with? She could picture those chips now, sitting back in the Crimson Casino, pocketed by one of Leone’s staff. Hell. She wasn’t going to be seeing that money again.

Grumbling to herself, she accepted the charge and punched in the Fed outpost’s comm code. The machine deducted 450 vin for the off-station call and made the connection. She brought the handset to her ear as it picked up.

“Dominique Souza, stalker, for Lieutenant Pine,” she said.

The receiver’s voice came back distorted. “This call isn’t coming from your ship, Miss Souza.”

No shit.
Who the hell did the Feds hire to take their calls?

“No, sir. This is a public terminal. Please connect me to Lieutenant Pine.”

A crackle. “Very well. Stand by.”

Dom drummed her fingers on the comm terminal’s casing and kept an eye on the window. Through the dirty and broken glass she watched a homeless woman in a heavy tattered cloak hurrying away. A moment later, three syndicate men strode past, talking to each other in low voices. Dom kept still and quiet until they’d passed.

“Miss Souza,” Pine’s whiny voice came down the line. “It’s a little late to be giving your report, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

She checked the time. Nearly four a.m. local time. And yet outside everyone was carrying on as they had since she’d arrived. A tiredness had settled into her bones, but not the kind of tiredness that brings sleep. The kind that only brings more tiredness.

“Sorry, sir,” she said. “Time is difficult to keep track of with the light discipline.”

“I’m disturbed by the reports I’ve been receiving from Temperance. I understand there have been firefights with local syndicate members.”

“Yes, sir.” She paused. “It was unavoidable.”

“I doubt that very much, Miss Souza. Temperance is in a delicate state. If I wanted chaos, I would take a company of marines down there myself.”

It was all bluster. Pine had no authority to initiate any sort of invasion or declare martial law over the station. But it made her uneasy to hear him make the threat. Men who wanted others to think they were powerful sometimes did stupid things to back up their boasts.

“That won’t be necessary, sir. The situation is under control.”

“You are close to apprehending Williams?”

“I believe we will be able to locate and isolate him in a matter of hours, sir.”

He made a noise like he didn’t quite believe her. “If you are unable to complete this contract, the Federation will have no choice but to revoke it and grant it to another stalker.”

“I
will
capture him, sir. I would advise other stalkers to stay out of the way, lest I mistake them for an enemy.”

She bit her tongue as soon as she said it, but it was too late. The words were already out. The pain in her jaw and the exhaustion in her bones and the fight with Eddie were bubbling away inside her, stirring up old angers.

Pine was quiet a long time. She scratched at the corner of an advertisement for a prostitute stuck to the comm unit as she waited for him to speak.

“One more thing, Miss Souza,” Pine said when he finally spoke. His voice was quiet now, serious. “I want no more altercations between you and Feleti Leone or his people.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“No, your best isn’t good enough. Mr Leone is a protected individual, do you understand?”

“Sir?”

“The Federation has placed significant value on Mr Leone’s life. He has been a valuable source of information. He is not to be harmed in any way. The same goes for his people.”

She wasn’t sure she was hearing him right. “Feleti Leone is a gangster and a racketeer and a murderer.”

“Feleti Leone is not your target, stalker. Penalties will be applied to your bounty if any more of his people are harmed. If Mr Leone is killed, your contract will be forfeit and further investigation will be undertaken to determine what other consequences will be handed down to you and Mr Gould. Do you understand?”

She ground her teeth. So now she had to tiptoe around a man who wanted nothing more than to see her dead. She couldn’t even defend herself without incurring this paper pusher’s wrath.

Pine cleared his throat. “Do you understand, Miss Souza?”

“Yes, sir. I understand. Feleti Leone will continue his fine service to this Federation for many years to come.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Keep me informed. I await your call.”

She replaced the receiver and scowled at the terminal for a minute. Of all the men to leave alive on this station, Leone was the worst. But that didn’t matter. The Feds wanted him alive, and she was the Feds’ dog. They told her to bark, she barked. Woof woof.

She kicked the comm terminal, stood up, and slipped back out onto the street.

25

Silence had taken root in the Green Acres apartment building, only spoiled by the scuffling of rats in the walls. Eddie crept down the hallway as quietly and as quickly as his injuries would allow. No need to spook anyone. He wanted to do this nice and calm and quiet. Take out Williams before he had a chance to fight back, before he could run. Take him out and make him talk.

And to hell with Dom. She’d insist on handing Williams over to the Feds right away. And he’d do that. But not before he had his answers. Not before he knew where Cassandra was.

He approached the door to Victoria Palmer’s apartment, but his eyes touched on the apartment next door. He paused. If he was right about that hidden panel leading into the next apartment, this would be the one. He edged closer, staying against the wall so he wouldn’t be seen by anyone looking out the peephole. He crouched and put his ear against the door. Silence.

He licked his lips. Calm and quiet. That was the way to do this. He examined the lock. Just a cheap pin tumbler lock, the same kind they always used in these kinds of budget apartments. He fished through his pockets and finally found a small set of lock picks in his shirt pocket. He knew he had them somewhere.

With a glance up and down the hallway to ensure he was alone, Eddie inserted a pick and a torsion wrench into the keyhole and quietly began to work. He was no master lock picker, but he’d had enough practice to be able to deal with this kind of cheap lock given enough time and patience. The time wasn’t a problem, but the patience was. His heart kept up a steady rat-a-tat inside his chest as he worked. He didn’t relish the idea of getting in another fistfight with Williams. The man hit like a meteor.

The last pin clicked softly into place and he felt the lock give under the pressure he put on the torsion wrench.
Here we go
. He drew his pistol, stood, and pressed gently down on the door handle. The door swung open a centimetre.

A copper stench hit him, almost enough to make him gag. Dark inside. He pushed his gun through the gap and shoved the door open with his shoulder.

A shadow sat in a chair in the centre of the room. Eddie’s gun snapped towards the figure. But it wasn’t Williams, it wasn’t big enough. Something black pooled beneath the chair. Eddie’s stomach turned at the smell. The figure wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. He was dead.

Eddie forced the nausea down and swept through the small apartment to the bathroom. A bloody wrench sat in the shallow bathtub, trailing red down the drain. No one else here.

He swung around and returned to the main room, still moving as quietly as possible. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness. He wished they hadn’t.

The man in the chair was shirtless, exposing a dozen cuts across his chest. His head dangled over the back of the chair so he was staring up at the ceiling. Someone had stuffed socks into his mouth and taped them in place with duct tape. Both knees were shattered messes of bone and sinew. Eddie couldn’t see exactly which wound had killed him, and he didn’t want to look close enough to find out.

Roy Williams had left his handiwork behind, but he wasn’t here. He had to come back eventually. Eddie went back to the apartment door, closed it, and flipped the lock.

Now he was all alone in Williams’ apartment with a dead man. Great.

Keeping his pistol in his hand, Eddie started rummaging. A selection of the finest in improvised torture implements were lined up on the single bed. He supposed the fugitive must’ve had more important things to do than sleep.

Come to think of it, how long had it been since he’d slept? He’d lost all sense of time. He should’ve picked up an upper when he was at the liquor store.

Eddie pulled open the wardrobe door and found a small brown suitcase and a duffel bag. The suitcase held a handful of shirts and trousers and jackets, mostly newly acquired by the look of them. He returned the suitcase to the wardrobe and unzipped the duffel bag.

“Well, hello, big spender,” Eddie whispered to himself. He reached into the bag and pulled out a bundle of ten thousand vin notes. He flicked through them. They were real, all right. And the bag was filled with them. No wonder Knox wanted to get his hands on all this. There weren’t many kinds of happiness you couldn’t buy with this much cash. The only thing you needed was a gun to protect it. Williams must’ve had the same idea, because a pistol sat on top of the pile of cash.