Sting (34 page)

“Where are you going?”

“To check the shed and garage around back. Same rules apply. Lay down on the horn.”

Jordie waited until they disappeared around the back corner of the house, then came out from behind the car door and started for the house. She told herself that they might have missed a clue as to where Josh could be now, but her real reason for wanting to inspect the place herself was Shaw's evasiveness. What hadn't he wanted her to see?

She pushed open the front door, then paused on the threshold and surveyed the front rooms with dismay. She walked through them quickly and went into the kitchen where she remembered her great-aunt serving her and Josh Christmas cookies and punch.

She was appalled by what she saw now. Had her brother's mental state deteriorated to complete and total madness? How could he possibly live in this filth? Did he even recognize it as squalor?

Realizing that investigators would soon be summoned to collect evidence, she didn't touch anything, not that she would have. The bathroom was more sickening than the kitchen.

The sight of the disordered bedroom filled her with despair. When Josh had finally been released from his year's stay in the hospital, he was welcomed home with a newly decorated bedroom. Their mother had hoped that the surprise would boost his spirits. It hadn't, of course.

The comparison between that bright, newly outfitted bedroom to this sad chamber was an allegory of Josh's tragic and inexorable decline.

She returned to the kitchen. Through the window, she saw Wiley emerging from what appeared to be a work shed, while Shaw was bent down looking beneath a ramshackle pier. He would be upset with her for not obeying the rules.

She returned to the front porch and went down the steps. There she paused to look back at the house's façade and wondered why it had fascinated Josh. What about it had intrigued him enough to make him want to return? It wasn't pretty. It wasn't that large. The design was—

Suddenly she was struck by an incongruity.

Two gabled windows, symmetrically placed, jutted from the sloped roofline above the porch, but the house didn't have a second story. Or did it? Had she missed the stairs?

Puzzled, she went back inside, but it was as she'd thought. There wasn't a staircase where normally one would ascend from the living area to the second floor. She knew there wasn't one in the back of the house, or off the kitchen, because she would have seen it.

Standing in the center of the floor between the living room and dining area, she made a slow pivot. Taking in architectural details she hadn't paid attention to before, she noticed a narrow doorway in the corner of the dining room, concealed by its fit into the paneling and wainscoting.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

She should alert Shaw.

Instead, she went over to the door and pushed it inward.

The smell hit her. Hard.

She covered her nose and mouth, as much to stifle her sob as to keep her from breathing the odor. Swallowing fear and dread, she gave the door a firmer push. It opened wider to reveal a steep staircase. “Josh?” Breathing swiftly through her mouth, she called again, “Josh? If you're up there, please come down.”

There wasn't a sound except for the beating of her heart.

Above her, sunlight shone in through the two windows so she could see to climb the stairs. The higher she got, the brighter the light became. It filled the attic at the top of the stairs with inappropriately cheery light, because the only thing in the space was a black body bag, zipped closed, lying on the floor.

“Oh, Jesus. Oh no!” She slumped against the doorjamb, covered her mouth again to stifle her keening sounds, and stared at the bag. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping against hope that when she opened them, it would be gone.

It wasn't, of course.

She should alert Shaw.

But she owed Josh this one final penitence.

On rubbery legs she walked to the bag and knelt down beside it. Her hand shook as she took hold of the metal tab and unzipped the bag all the way down, then spread it open.

She screamed. Or would have.

Except that a hand was clamped hard over her mouth from behind and an eerie, overamplified, horribly distorted voice said, “Guess who?”

A
s Shaw and Wiley walked from the pier back toward the house, Wiley mopped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. “I was afraid we'd find his body or a grave in one of those buildings.”

“Crossed my mind.”

“Your side hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“There's blood on your shirt.”

Shaw seemed not have heard that. He was distracted, his brow creased with concentration. “You called this in?”

“They're on their way. We gotta keep them from trampling those tire tracks. If we get a cast, maybe we can type Josh's car.”

Without breaking stride, Shaw looked toward the house. “See that it's done quickly, then let's get everybody out of sight. We should lay an ambush. Didn't look like he cleared out for good, did it? He left clothes behind. His glasses.”

“Maybe he didn't leave of his own volition,” Wiley said. “Maybe he was removed.”

“By Panella, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe,” Shaw said thoughtfully. “But nothing indicates that a fight took place.”

“Hard to tell. The place is a shambles.”

“I know, but…”

“What?” Wiley prodded.

“I don't know. Something keeps bothering me.”

“Heat's bothering me,” Wiley mumbled, blotting his forehead again. “What's bothering you?”

“I can't quite pull it up.” He slowed. Wiley paused with him. Shaw said, “The first time I talked to Panella was on Saturday afternoon. Called him on Mickey's phone to begin the negotiation of a new deal. That was around two o'clock.”

“Okay.”

“That same afternoon around three thirty, Josh shipped Jordie a cell phone.”

He turned to stare hard at Wiley, but Wiley got the impression that Shaw wasn't seeing him at all, but rather a puzzle with one vital piece missing.

Suddenly Shaw said, “Those devices are easily obtainable off the Internet.”

“Pardon?”

“That's what you said. Earlier today.” He whipped his gaze back to the house, then his long strides started eating up the distance back to it. By the time Wiley caught up to him, he was pushing through the back door.

“What are you thinking?” Wiley asked as he followed him through the kitchen and into the dining room.

“Josh wasn't hedging his bet when he mailed that phone. He
knew
Jordie was alive. An hour and a half earlier, he'd heard her shout through the speaker of the phone.”

By now they'd reached the porch. Shaw drew up short and, in the instant that Wiley saw the empty driver's seat, Shaw said, “Oh, fuck me.” He drew his pistol. “Search the house,” he shouted as he leaped over the steps, landed hard on the ground below, and took off running.

Wiley spun around and ran back into the house. The first thing he noticed was the opening in the corner of the dining room. He ran toward it, saw the staircase and bolted up it.

Nearly gagging on the smell, he topped the stairs and saw the open body bag on the attic floor.

Inside was a badly decomposed corpse. The eyelids were held open with toothpicks. The skeletal right hand was holding a pistol. On the left, a diamond ring glittered from the pinkie.

It was Billy Panella.

J
osh had clouted her over the head with the butt of his pistol. Close to losing consciousness, she'd been unable to protect herself when he pulled her hands together in front of her and secured them with flexcuffs. She'd barely swallowed the nausea rising in her throat before he stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth to prevent her from shouting for Shaw and Wiley.

He had dragged her down the staircase with such haste she'd almost stumbled over him. She wished she had. Of course, he might have shot her right then, ending her life before Shaw even knew she was in trouble.

Shaw.

The blow had left her dazed, her vision blurred. When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Josh grasped her bound hands, pulled her through the living room, down the steps, and across the clearing in front of the house. He then plunged into the thicket.

They'd been thrashing through it for several minutes now. Dizzy and disoriented, Jordie had glanced over her shoulder as she lurched along behind her brother, but already her view of the house was blocked. It was as though the hostile terrain had swallowed them. Shaw had warned her of the swamp's hazards the night he'd taken her.

Shaw.

It was as though she wasn't gagged and had spoken his name out loud, because Josh said, “That numbskull Mickey Bolden sure could choose his sidekicks, couldn't he? He picked a
cop
? Or is this Shaw Kinnard character FBI? Treasury?”

When and how had Josh discovered that Shaw wasn't a hit man and kidnapper?

“Doesn't matter what kind of cop he is,” he continued. “He ruined everything on Friday night. What really hacks me, I never got my advance back from big fat Bolden.”

Her mind was beginning to clear, but nothing Josh was saying made sense.

“Hurry, Jordie.” He picked up his pace, roughly tugging her behind him. “No time to waste. Soon, he and Wiley will discover Panella's rotten corpse. Won't that be a surprise? Sure as hell came as a shock to you, didn't it?”

He stopped and turned suddenly. “Using an electrolarnyx was a stroke of genius if I do say so myself.” He removed it from his rear pocket and held it up to his throat as he said, “Even Mickey Bolden was fooled into thinking I was Panella, and you know what bosom buddies they were.”

Jordie recoiled.

“What's the matter? Don't like the sound of it?” Laughing, he replaced the instrument in his pocket. “I'll keep it as a souvenir of my stint playing Panella. It wasn't easy, you know, keeping the cell phones straight, which to answer as Panella, which to use when I was myself. Talk crude and tough like Panella would. ‘Kill her, already!' Then 'fraidy cat Josh.” He changed his voice into a falsetto. “‘I'm so scared. Is Jordie okay? Please save my sister.'”

The last of the fog was lifting from her brain, and things were becoming horrifyingly clear. Josh, not Panella, had plotted her death. He was the one who'd bargained with Shaw to end her life.

He rambled about Panella somehow discovering that he planned to turn informant. “I had no idea he knew about the house, but he barged in early one morning. He got rough and threatened me with the most disgusting methods of torture. You wouldn't believe what he threatened to do to me if I didn't tell him everything I'd already told the feds about our fraud.

“But I didn't feel the least bit bad about betraying him. Why should I? I'd done all the brain work. When it boiled down to it, he was nothing but a smarmy front man with capped teeth.”

This wasn't the Josh who pitched fits, had panic attacks, and blubbered when frightened. This Josh was calmly detached, and he was terrifying. Frantically she looked behind her again, but the thicket through which they'd just come appeared undisturbed except for a cloud of microscopic insects.

“Anyway, back to that morning six months and thirteen days ago, there he was, holding me against the wall, choking me, growling and snarling, being Panella. He didn't expect cringing, hysterical me to shoot him in the belly. I'm not that good a shot. I went for mass. You should have seen the look on his face.”

He turned his head and showed her a gross imitation of it before continuing on.

Shaw and Joe Wiley would discover her gone and come looking for her. She just had to live long enough for them to get to her, because she knew with certainty that Josh's intention was to kill her. He wouldn't be confessing all this if he planned to let her live.

How much time did she have? How long would it take for Shaw to find her? Would she ever see his face again? His scarred, severe, beautiful face.

Josh was telling her that he hadn't had time to dispose of Panella's body before he was due to tender himself to Uncle Sam. “I had no choice except to bag him up and leave him here, and actually, since I got back, he and I have had some interesting conversations.” He giggled. “Of course I did most of the talking. He just laid there, staring up at me. For a change he was forced to listen while I ranted. I loved it. He really stunk up the place, though.”

She scanned the surroundings for something she could use to defend herself. Even if the ground were strewn with potential weapons, her hands were bound and Josh was giving her no time to stop. Each time she stumbled or slowed down, he nearly pulled her shoulders from their sockets, jerking her along.

He was still talking. “After I killed him, I went to his house and made it look like he'd left in a hurry. Everyone jumped to the conclusion that I knew they would, that he'd successfully skipped the country. All I had to do was cool my heels for a while, let things settle down, gradually alter my appearance for the day I would escape.

“I took a risk by coming back here, but I didn't want to miss all the fun. The fallout from your getting whacked, that is. I planned on hiding out here to enjoy the hubbub, the media coverage. But, thanks to Bolden's humongous screwup, things took a turn and put me behind schedule on disappearing for good.

“I've perfected becoming invisible, you know,” he said, continuing in that frightfully normal, conversational tone. “Nobody sees me because I don't want them to. Which is how I was able to go to the redneck bar unnoticed. I nearly came unglued last Friday when Bolden called and told me you'd walked into the very bar where he and Kinnard were having a drink. That is not your kind of place, Jordie. How'd you happen to be there?”

He looked back as though expecting her to reply. She made pleading sounds against the gag.

He resumed walking and talking. “Never mind. It doesn't make any difference now. I went there Sunday night to check the place out. The loudmouth put me in such a foul mood. That was also the night when Wiley informed me of your rescue. Your
second
rescue. Foiled again. I decided Panella needed to surface, scare the shit out of everybody.
‘He's out there. I know it! He's gonna kill me!'”
he screeched, mimicking his own hysteria.

“The black guy? Hickam? He was dropped in my lap, so to speak. I acted on impulse, but it was brilliant. How about this?” He began limping. “I knew that would jog your memory, and you'd tell them that it had to be Panella.”

Then he
tsk
ed with regret. “But Hickam didn't die. I should have gone for mass then, too, but I'd done so well with that redneck, I thought a head shot would work. Oh, well, one can't have everything one wants.”

He was insane. How could she defend herself against someone who'd lost all touch with reality? And she was running out of time to think of a way. Just ahead of them was the bayou. On the bank was a small fishing boat, apparently his destination.

He pulled her over to it and yanked the handkerchief from her mouth. “Josh,” she gasped. “Please? Let me help you.”

“Help me? That's a laugh.”

“What is it you want?”

Cautiously he took a step back, but was still within a foot of her as he raised the pistol. “To disappear and never have to worry again about people gaping at me.”

“Nobody gapes at you.”

“Yes they do. You made sure they do. You pushed me into the fireplace and made me a freak show.”

Stall, stall, stall.
She tipped her head toward the boat. “You intend to escape in that?”

“No, silly. My car is parked just around the next bend. I can make it that far in this boat. You'll be dead, and I'll be long gone before they can catch me. But in order to disappear, I need my money.”

He waggled the pistol as though to remind her of it and that it was still aimed at her. “You're the only thing standing between my fortune and me. What's the password?”

“Password?”

He rolled his eyes. “We don't have time for you to play dumb. Give me the password. The second password. The one required to access the main account. ‘Jordan Bennett's password,'” he said in a ridiculously tony British accent.

“Josh, I swear to you, I have no idea what you're talking about.” She raised her bound hands in appeal. “How could I have a password into an account I know nothing about?”

“You cracked my security codes.”

“That's absurd. I wouldn't know how, or even where to start.”

He screwed up his face mistrustfully, then seemed to come to a conclusion. “You wouldn't, would you? Even if you'd had access to my computers, which you didn't, you're not smart enough to know how to do something that complicated.”

“That's right,” she said, grasping at that and hoping to appeal to his pride. “You're the genius, not me. I've never been as smart as you.”

“Not even close.”

“Because you're so intelligent, you must realize that you can't escape.”

He resumed his chatter as though she hadn't said anything. “What I'm thinking now is that if Panella was on to my betrayal, and he knew about this house, he must've gone in behind me and added that second password. He put it in your name, knowing how badly that would irritate me. Yes, that must be what happened.”

“No doubt you're right. But that's history, Josh. They'll find his body. The police will come and—”

“Not your worry. You'll be dead.”

“You don't want to kill me, Josh.”

“But I do, Jordie,” he said with exaggerated sincerity. “You made me a monster. You destroyed my entire life.”

She knew that to continue arguing with him would be pointless and probably would only provoke him into killing her immediately. “I know I made mistakes,” she said with contrition.

“Yes, you did. The biggest one being when you said, ‘I'm done.' Remember? There I am, manacled, being hauled away like a common criminal, and there you are, hugging me good-bye, tears in your eyes. Oh such a sweet, supportive, loyal sister. Aren't you wonderful?”

He sneered. “But wait. What's that you're whispering in my ear? ‘I'm done, Josh.'” He jabbed the pistol toward her. “You don't get to say ‘I'm done.' Not when it was you who ruined me. You'll never be
done
. Never!”

His voice had gone maniacally shrill. Realizing it, he composed himself and said with chilling nonchalance, “In a way, I'm actually glad Bolden botched it. I have the pleasure of killing you myself.”

“You're not killing anybody.”