Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (100 page)

“I’ll figure it out. Once you drop me off, you’re home free.
Not your problem.” She figured he was worried about what it might mean for him.
“As long as you don’t know where I went, or who I contacted, you can get away
from this. Just get me across the lake.”

“No problem. Unless, that is, somebody spots the car. I
tried to get a piece from my uncle, but he wouldn’t give me one. That makes me
unhappy.”

She wondered what his real reason for coming to Tahoe was
and what he’d actually done in Mexico. There was a lot about Marco Cruz she was
curious about.

Feeling like shit, thinking being hit by a couple of
bullets—even only ricochets—wasn’t a good thing, she looked over at this guy
who’d saved her and said, with both sincerity and a bit of sarcasm, “Well,
whatever else happens…on this day, you’re my hero.”

He glanced askance at her, eyes tight, and said,
“Everybody’s a hero on a good day, but nobody’s a hero every day. Don’t get used
to it.”

She smiled. Hard not to like this guy, whatever he was.

As they approached the half-dozen casinos on the South
Shore, Sydney said, “You should take the Lake Parkway loop. It probably didn’t
exist when you were here last. It’ll get you past the slow traffic at the
casinos.”

They went around back of the Montbleu, the newest of the
hotels. Then she had him get off on the Pioneer Trail, avoiding Lake Tahoe
Boulevard traffic altogether. It was longer but safer, the road most used by
locals.

He asked, “This house you’re going to safe?”

“The owners are very private. I come over every now and then
to check to see it’s not been messed with. I don’t broadcast when I do that.”

“How far?”

“A mile or so before you get to Tahoe City,” she said. “It’s
past The Pines.”

“Neighbors who might pay a visit?”

Babysitting her a little. But she was thankful. “The house
sits back in the trees by the lake. No close neighbors. It’s very secluded.”

As they headed down a back road behind the State Line
casinos, he said, “How deep is my uncle involved in whatever this is?”

“Half the people in Tahoe are knee deep in it one way or
another,” she said.

She watched him as he checked every truck and car, rode the
mirrors constantly, and tried to keep from getting bottled up. When they
approached the busy intersection of 89 and the 50, he slowed, pulled off, and
waited a bit until the lights were turning in their favor, then he shot through
and headed up the western side of the lake toward Camp Richardson.

Sydney had been so isolated since getting let go from the
DA’s office that appreciating somebody who might understand what she faced was
hard to resist. But she couldn’t drag him any further into this, much as she
might want to. What the future would be, once he hooked back up with his uncle,
was another story.

They headed north up 89, past Camp Richardson and past
Emerald Bay, the traffic not nearly as heavy as around the South Shore. But
there was little room to run if somebody was parked along the road waiting for a
red Mustang convertible. Then, past Emerald Bay, it thinned out.

“We close?” Marco asked.

“Just up ahead.”

“It has a feeder road?”

“Yes. You can go down with lights out. I’ll tell you when
we’re close”

7

Shaun Corbin couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d shot at
least fifteen goddamn bullets at the woman and she still got away.

You goddamn fool. You botched it. She got away. Thorp
will have you killed for this
! Now he was in the crisis of his life
.
He’d made a big, big mistake. His whole thing was that he would get her before
his cousin brought in a pro. It’d make him a hero. This greatest of all ideas
he’d ever had—killing Sydney Jesup so his cousin would finally accept him as
worthy—now looked like the stupidest idea he, or anyone, had ever had. Hitting
the steering wheel and dash with his fist, he knew he’d made the biggest screwup
of his miserable life.

“I didn’t kill her!” he yelled to a deaf universe. “She was
right there! Right there and she got away!”

I’m a fucking dead man.

He was horrified, astounded. “I had her right there, right
in front of me, and I missed.” His stomach—a swamp polluted with an acidic
compound of alcohol, speed, and fear—felt as if it would eat through the walls.

Corbin sat numb in his truck in the Barton Memorial Hospital
parking lot looking at his laptop for all the damn medical centers around the
lake. There had to be twenty of them or more. And medical-care places all over
South Lake. More in Incline. Urgent cares and a Kings Beach Wellness Center.
Jesus!
She could be anywhere. And no sign of that red Mustang.

He felt sick to his stomach. Why in hell had he thought this
was the greatest move ever? He would have to check them all and do it fast. She
wouldn’t go to her condo. She wasn’t stupid. And who the hell was the guy who
picked her up? A boyfriend? Or some random asshole? At least the fool drove a
car you couldn’t hide.

I need to find that damn car, Corbin thought.

How bad had she been hit? He’d seen her limp. He hoped she
died but doubted she would. Not with his stinking luck. He knew, to keep up the
search, he’d have to take a hit of speed, but he was still too drunk.

Out loud, in a self-hating voice, he said, “You don’t get
her, you’re a dead man. You moron. You were drunk. Jesus, what’s the matter with
you?”

He put his head back on the headrest for a moment. He’d
actually attempted to kill her, to jump in and make himself a hero to his damn
cousin. The king of kings. Now it seemed like the stupidest decision he’d ever
made in his life. He hated his obsession with trying to please his cousin. He
hated the man yet couldn’t escape the need to get his acknowledgment.

And Oggie, as his asshole, big-shot buddies called Ogden
Thorp, would not react well to this. Thorp was the most powerful man in the
Sierra Nevada, and the man had always had a very low opinion of him. Even when
Shaun had gotten his PI license, nothing really changed. He was still the gofer.
The pimp for the big parties, bringing in high-class pussy.

Killing Sydney Jesup had seemed like such a great idea. It
all started when that lowlife bastard Gary Gatts, the supplier of party drugs,
the guy who had the skinny on everything and everybody, told Corbin what was in
the works. A pro was coming in to take care of the former investigator because
she was still causing problems and had sullied the name of the Thorps. It was
literally an historic kind of deal, Gatts had said. The Thorps had been killing
their enemies since the Gold Rush and Indian days.

It came up in some casual conversation when Corbin was up to
Gatts’ Mountain View Restaurant to get himself resupplied with his medications
of choice. Gatts was the Grand Central terminal for drugs coming up from Mexico.

They’d sampled a little, gotten high together. Then Gatts
had started running his mouth.

Corbin couldn’t remember how, exactly, but the Jesup woman
had come up. “Don’t worry about that bitch,” Gatts had said. When Corbin
pressed, Gatts went off on how it was already a done deal. They were bringing in
some guy from New York. A guy Vegas used from time to time. Gatts didn’t say how
he knew, but Corbin had learned long ago that when Gatts said something, it came
from the horse’s mouth.

They were both pretty baked that night when Corbin got his
biggest idea ever. He’d save his cousin the money and get the job done. And the
more he’d thought about it over the next few days, the more brilliant the idea
sounded to him. Finally, he’d be taken seriously.

How many times had he imagined walking into his cousin’s
Incline Village estate, saying, “Got the bitch!” and Thorp would be shocked,
surprised, and finally have no choice but to acknowledge him.

Now, as the last remnants of the miserable day slipped away,
night covering the lake, he went over the shooting again and again in his mind.
She was twenty feet away! He’d unloaded a whole clip!
Then he thought maybe
Gatts was just setting him up and knew it would get
him
killed. He tried
to think of something he’d done to Gatts.

“Jesus, you fucking drunk asshole,” Shaun Corbin said of
himself. At times, he despised himself more than anybody on the stinking planet.

He took a sip from his whiskey flask, lit a cigarette with a
shaky hand, and thought of what to do next. Failure wasn’t an option. Failure
was a death sentence.

And he knew he didn’t have much time. His cousin was down in
Vegas making some huge deal. Big boys. Silicon Valley types and Chinks all
looking to put money in Tahoe. And his uncle was busy buying, stealing, grabbing
properties all around the lake. And next weekend was the big party of the year,
the Great Gatsby Gala.

Then he thought about the pro they were bringing in.

I gotta find out when. I gotta finish this first. Or it’ll
be me the bastard comes for.

First thing he needed to know was when his cousin was coming
home from Vegas. The only other person who might know was the top girl on the
string Corbin ran, Kora North. Thorp had a thing for her. She was to be his Miss
Daisy at the big Gatsby gala.

He took out his phone. Tried to think straight, get his
brain into the moment. He felt lethargic and took another hit followed by a pull
on the flask, then lit another cigarette with shaky hands. Lately he found his
hands shook a lot. He managed to press in Kora’s number.

When she answered, Corbin said, “Kora, it’s me. Look, I’m in
something of jam. A big damn problem.”

“You’re a big problem,” Kora said. “I’m busy.”

“Don’t hang up. This is serious. This is life or death,
Kora. You got to help me out here. I got enough on you to send you up for five
life sentences, bitch, so listen to me.”

“Shaun,” Kora said, “piss off.” The bitch hung up.

Enraged, Corbin smashed his cell on the dash again and
again. When he calmed down, he knew one thing for certain: He had to find Jesup,
to kill her and that bastard who picked her up.

And he had to do it tonight.

8

Sydney told Marco where to pull off. He turned down toward
the lake, lights out, and then stopped in front of a padlocked gate. “You have a
key?”

“Yes. I’ll get it,” she said, starting to get out, but he
stopped her. “I’ll get it. Sit tight.”

“The post on the right. The cap unscrews. It’s underneath.
Old technology.”

Marco found the key and opened the padlock. He swung the
gate open, then slid back behind the wheel.

She said, “You don’t need to come in. I can handle things
from here.”

He didn’t respond, just drove on in, got out, and went back
to lock the gate behind them. When he came back, she had gotten herself out of
the car but was feeling a little wobbly. He grabbed her. “Easy. You need water.
There a house key?”

“Beneath the second bird feeder.”

“Whatever works,” Marco said.

The Shaw house was secreted in the trees along the water,
well hidden from the highway, guarded by thick stands of trees on both sides
shielding the place from any neighbors. There was a boathouse, a small dock, and
a detached garage.

He came back with the key. “Alarms?”

“Yes. Inside the door. Five, five, six, one, one.”

He opened the door and turned off the alarm as she waited,
leaning against his car and feeling like she might pass out.

“Who’s place is this?”

“Bernie and Meredith Shaw,” Sydney said. “He’s an Indie
filmmaker. His wife’s his producer. She acts in their films.”

He helped her inside. “How do you know them?”

“I was an adviser on a small project they did when I was
working with the sheriff’s department in Sacramento.”

“How’d the film do?”

“Straight to video.”

He started to escort her to a chair, but she told him to get
a towel from the kitchen. She didn’t want to mess up the furniture. There was a
nightlight in every room. It wasn’t much but enough so they didn’t have to turn
any lights on.

He came back with a towel, spread it on the chair, then
opened a bottle of water and gave it to her. While she sat and drank and tried
to get herself together, he went and quickly checked other rooms downstairs,
then up on the second floor.

“Where are the Shaws now?” he asked when he came back down.

“Some Greek Island…looking for a location.” She was
exhausted but already responding to the water. It was time for him to leave, if
he was going to leave. “I’ll be okay now,” she said. “I have a car, and my
friend is only a few minutes away in Tahoe City. You’ve gone way above and
beyond, and I really appreciate it.”

He gazed through the French doors to the porch that
overlooked the lake. “You know if he’s even home?”

“I’m sure he is, but I’ll make sure.”

She called, and when James answered she said, “You home
alone?” He said he was. “I need to come over. Be there in a few minutes. Keep it
to yourself.” She hung up before he could ask questions.

Marco said, “Ready?”

“I don’t need you to drive me over there.”

“When you’re in good hands, I’ll leave. No guns in the
house, are there?”

“There’s a gun upstairs in the master bedroom. A Beretta.
The bottom drawer of the nightstand next to the bed, in back of the socks.
Should be two clips. And, if you would, bring a pair of slippers from the
closet. My feet—I’m messing up the floor.”

He came back down a couple minutes later with the Beretta
and slippers.

“Great,” she said, reaching for the slippers. He pulled them
back. He had a wet towel over his shoulder. He cleaned her feet and then put the
slippers on.

“You don’t need to be moving around, bending down. At least
not until your doc friend gets you fixed up,” he said.