Sweet Dreams Boxed Set (184 page)

Professional beggars – that’s what they were. They wouldn’t work as long as the government paid them so well not to.

Chapter 41

“The Professor says take care of both of them,” Bones Griff whispered in Earl Perkins’ ear as they sat side by side on the metal bench in the prison yard at Pelican Bay.

Perkins was being paroled in twenty-four hours. Not so much paroled, but released, since they couldn’t make the charges against him stick. On appeal, the defense discovered the prosecution had withheld evidence during discovery. The judge had no choice but to overturn the conviction.

Perkins was the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in the world. No doubt he was guilty of the crime, a contract killing ordered by Anson Stark. Sometimes, Griff thought the loopholes of the law were a glorious thing.

“I don’t wanna get jammed up the minute I get out,” Perkins fretted. He was only doing a dime on voluntary manslaughter anyway, because they couldn’t prove the murder for hire.

He was the best man with a knife Griff knew.

“The Professor ain’t asking, dude,” Griff returned, thinking the man was a dumb son of a bitch if he thought he could cross Anson.

“Shit, Bones, you know how it is. I gotta stay clean for a – ” He interrupted himself when Bones reached out and lifted his shirt, pulled at his prison trousers, exposing the jagged scar on the right side.

Bones said nothing, just stared with that accusing look, the one that reminded you of your obligations. Bones would’ve made a good drill sergeant, Perkins thought.

Goddamn!

“A blood oath, a blood price,” Bones murmured, although the verbal reminder wasn’t necessary. Perkins was one of the lucky few who’d been selected to enter into the inner circle of the gang. Not all the
Lords
were so fortunate.

The Professor had carefully appointed the men who had the skills he needed to keep the organization going both inside and outside the prison. Or in Perkins’ case, to perform a particularly nasty job. “You don’t want the Professor to think he made a mistake backing you,” Bones cautioned. “That would be a stupid move.”

The two men sat close together in seclusion, with other
Lords
surrounding them in a wide perimeter. If the guards noticed, no one appeared to care.

“Shit, no, man!” the smaller man said, shifting uneasily on the bench as he gazed at the other inmates in the yard, at the guards high up in their towers with their heavy ammo.

“You gotta get rid of the bitch doctor,” Bones emphasized. “Threats didn’t work, the attempt at the Rosedale home was a bust. Fuckin’ new gang bangers. They always do sloppy work.”

Bones swiped at his nose with a finger. “The Professor don’t want another failure. Be quick, be clean, and be efficient. You can do whatever you want with her so long as she’s dead and her body disappears. Completely. No traces back to Anson and the
Lords.”

Perkins nodded slowly, catching on to the bonus Bones had just flung him. A slow smile creased his scarred face. “Anything I want?”

Bones laughed aloud. “Just be sure nothing leads back to us.” His face grew sober. “She’s screwing with our business, Perkins, losing us a lotta green. Take care of it.”

“And Cole?”

Bones shook his head like a parent over a wayward child. “Damn idiot. If he’s still alive, just make it quick. He’s too dumb to understand what he did. He’s on the street, should be easy to make it look like an accident. Overdose, hit and run, whatever. Just don’t botch it.”

Perkins nodded in satisfaction. The task would be a snap and put him in Anson Stark’s good graces.

Finally! The idiots were satisfied with the latest merchandise. He’d chosen a girl – young, healthy, and fairly new to the street, a perfect choice. He’d earned twenty-five grand for the job.

A sly smile lifted his thin lips as he remembered.

He hadn’t actually gotten the money in cash, but he had made a tiny dent in his debt to the Moktu Casino. Couldn’t give up the day job, naturally, but maybe they’d let him visit the casino once in a while.

Not often, not yet. Just occasionally. He was making progress.

He smiled and emptied his water bottle, moved away from the work station at the same moment his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He crossed the room, hurried down the stairs, and took the back exit. He stepped outside into the alley where he couldn’t be overheard. “Yeah?”

“Got another job,” the voice said cheerfully. “I think you’re getting the hang of this new occupation.”

He held the cell phone pressed to his ear with the hand that had the broken finger and the savaged thumb nail. A quiver started in his belly and wormed itself lower. He felt the sudden tightening of his bowels as they cramped, threatening to loosen. Fuck, don’t let him crap himself.

He’d been expecting the call, but even so, the fear gripped his gut with intense pain.

“You still there?” the disembodied voice asked.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he muttered.

His jaw clenched as he squeezed  his butt cheeks. He pushed down the spasm. “Which ones?”

“Check your phone for details.” The line went dead.

He clicked the attachment and widened the view. The requirements were simpler this time: 2A-LKDD12-1RP11P.

Two A-negative, liver, kidney, delivery date 12-1, regular place, eleven p.m.

Chapter 42

Cole Hansen was dreaming of his childhood. He was five and had crawled up onto the dining room table to reach the shiny, sparkling object perched on the top of his mother’s antique cabinet. He wasn’t supposed to play with anything inside or beside the armoire – which was a fancy way of saying old cabinet with fancy glass doors.

But nobody said anything about on
top
of, which Cole figured was sort of okay. The object that had caught his eye looked like a toy, a little boy’s toy, red and gleaming and shaped like a fire truck.

It had to be meant for him, didn’t it? Although he’d never gotten such a magnificent present before, little boys’ wishes were powerful. Everything else in the cabinet was dishes or crystal glasses or delicate-looking statues of girls and birds. This object was new, and definitely something made for a little boy, something designed for him to play with.

It was a no-brainer, he thought.
No-brainer
was something he’d heard his dad say once, the last time Cole had seen him. Cole liked the sound of
no-brainer
and smiled in his sleep, turning onto his side on the narrow cot in Dr. Jones’ garage.

He didn’t hear the click of the side door to the garage, nor the soft, steady tread of Rebok CrossFits on the concrete floor. The figure crossed to the back door of the house and fiddled with the knob.

Candy from a baby.

Hidden in his slumber corner, wrapped inside a sleeping bag piled with more blankets against the chilly October night, Cole was a lumpy shadow beside the Toyota parked in the big garage. Another soft click and the man entered the laundry room of the house in Rosedale.

Candy from a baby.

Upstairs Frankie Jones slept lightly. She was too far away from Cole and the figure downstairs to hear anything like Cole’s faint snoring – or clicks.

In his dream, five-year-old Cole placed a stool on the table and stretched on tippy-toes as far as he could, grabbing for the toy fire engine on top of the cabinet. Suddenly he overreached, teetered precariously, and plunged to the floor, his small feet smashing through the delicately etched design of the armoire’s glass doors.

The crash was like the clap of doom.

Cole jerked awake.
A dream, just a dream.
No one coming to punish him, although the grown man felt the urgent need to empty his bladder in much the same way that the five-year-old Cole had wet his pants. Listening to the calm, dead silence of the garage, eyes adjusting to the gloom, Cole stood and padded on sock feet to the laundry room door.

It stood ajar.

That wasn’t right. He distinctly remembered Cruz pushing hard to shut it. Wary, he crept into the laundry room and through the kitchen. Everything was gray shades and odd shapes. At the foot of the stairs, he waited a long moment before climbing slowly upward.

He hesitated on the third step, legs shaking unsteadily. Doc wouldn’t be happy if he woke her up.

The crash and tinkle of broken glass woke Frankie immediately. She rolled off the double bed and crouched on the opposite side from the bedroom door. Reached under the bed for the baseball bat –
thanks, Dad, for the safety tip
– and gripped it with both hands, hunkering low and hidden from sight.

The man entered the room with a swift kick to the bedroom door.
Damn, why ruin a perfectly good, unlocked door?
Frankie tightened her grip on the bat.

The figure scanned the room for long moments, adjusting his eyes to the darkness, examining the bed where she’d just lain a few moments ago. From her position on the floor, Frankie watched the feet of the intruder tread toward the bed, heard the soft pop-pop-pop of a silenced gun killing her pillow.

Cautious steps approached the bed. Through a thin veneer of calm, she thought of the age-old question: what do you bring to a fist fight?
A knife.
What do you bring to a knife fight?
A gun.

Shit.
Her intruder had brought a gun and all she had was a lousy baseball bat. Somebody really wanted her – or maybe Cole? – dead.

Suddenly from the doorway, she saw a bulky shadow fling itself on the man with the gun. A loud grunt, a groan, and the discharge of a weapon. She stood cautiously, bat raised, and watched the two figures grappling on the floor, a tumbling of arms and legs and desperate grabbing for the gun.

Getting as close to the fighting men as she dared, she poised to slam the bat into the man’s head – God help her if she hit the wrong one.

While she hesitated, the gun discharged with another quiet pop and one figure went lax.

The other person snatched up the weapon and ran out the door. She heard him tromping noisily down the stairs.

Frankie reached the inert figure.

“Cole! Oh my God!” The ex-con lay unmoving on the bedroom floor, a red circle blooming steadily on his chest and dripping onto the hardwood floor.

Chapter 43

Frankie heard feet thundering all the way up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom, accompanied by Cruz shouting and cursing.

“Thank God, thank God,” she mumbled, tossing the baseball bat on the bed and bending over Cole’s body.

“Why’s the damn front door open? What’s hap – ” Cruz stopped in the doorway, taking in the bloody scene, the evidence of a struggle, the unconscious – or dead – body lying on the floor.

For a split second, his heart had stopped, his mind frozen with fear.
It wasn’t Frankie’s blood.

“Get my medical bag downstairs by the entry door,” Frankie snapped, not looking up as she applied pressure to the wound high on the left side of Cole Hansen’s chest.

Cruz blinked once, spun around, and returned seconds later with the bag.

“Take my place,” she ordered, her pale, mobile face cool as ice, hard as a slab of granite. She hurriedly washed her hands in the bathroom while he, woozy and light-headed, maintained pressure on the already blood-sodden towel.

Kneeling beside him, she opened the medical kit and snapped on latex gloves. She pushed him back and lifted the towel. The wound oozed steadily. “Good, no spurting. I don’t think he hit an artery. Maybe, if we’re lucky, no major organs were damaged either.” She frowned, thinking. “Although I don’t like how close the bullet is to the heart.”

He exploded. “What the hell is going on? Why haven’t you called 911?” He knew the emergency responders would’ve already been on scene if she’d called them first. But she hadn’t.

She’d called him, and all she’d said when he picked up his cell phone was, “Emergency. My house STAT!”

When he began to ask questions, she’d simply yelled, “Effing get here,” and dropped her phone. He could hear her muffled words through the connection while he dressed and raced across town – a twenty-minute because he floored it. No freeway traffic this hour of the morning.

Sometimes Frankie’s words were soft and pleading – “Come on, hang in there” – often shrewish – “Wake up, you mother-effing idiot!”

Even in a crisis she censored her swearing. The discovery was a paradox that almost made him smile. The proper Dr. Jones cursing like a sailor while simultaneously curbing her coarse language. Wryly, he reminded himself there was nothing to smile about.

“Why didn’t you call 911?” he repeated as she poured an orange liquid over Cole Hansen’s shoulder and probed the wound with her gloved fingers as delicately and gentle as a mother testing a child’s splintered palm.

Her eyes were closed as if, Helen-Keller-like, she could learn more by touch than sight. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she replied after a moment. “If I called 911, we’d have at least four to six emergency technicians here, fussing around Cole.” She opened one eye. “I’m an MD. Don’t you know I can handle this?”

“Oh.” He sat back on his heels, then narrowed his eyes, taking in her still one-opened and very steely eye. She lifted the other brow, giving her face an almost comical look.

He gestured toward the patient, who groaned softly.
Good, the jackass wasn’t dead.
“And I suppose the bullet wound – if he should live, mind you – will go unreported?”

Frankie sighed deeply as she reached for a scalpel. “See that bottle on the dresser? Grab it for me.”

Cruz grabbed the bottle.
Vodka? In her bedroom?
But he wasn’t going to question her when she was wielding a surgical knife about.

She doused her instruments and the wound with the vodka and cut an X-incision around the entry point, which caused a spurt of bleeding. “Staunch that,” she ordered.