Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (103 page)

“Well, your time frame to make the right decision just got
shorter. Word went to Vegas. You know how things work in that world. They want
this shut down real fast.”

“Which means?”

“Which means they’ll send somebody to shut it down. Marco,
this woman has no future. The guy who shot her has no future. And you, you don’t
get smart, won’t have a future either. And that puts me in a spot. I’m not
asking you anymore. I’m telling you. You got to get smart fast. Go see Gatts,
goddamnit. Maybe he can get you thinking straight.”

“Why’s Gary Gatts so important?”

“Don’t worry about that. He’s in the know. He’s got his
inside information chain all around the lake.”

“Give me at least tonight,” Marco said. “I’ll talk to Gary.
Then, when I understand things better, I’ll work this out.”

“Good. Now you’re making sense. Damnit, I love having you
back. I got big things in store for you, and you deserve something good after
all you been involved in. Keep me updated. I can shield you for a short time. Do
the right thing. It’ll pay off big in the end. Marco, you’ve been down the wrong
road, and you know what’s that’s all about.”

Cillo crushed out the second cigarette with the toe of his
shoe, then gave Marco a quick half-hug. “You and me will be sittin’ pretty.
Let’s get this behind us.”

He walked away, heading back through the trees to the museum
parking lot.

13

Marco waited until he saw the car lights and heard the
engine. Then he headed back to the boat, jogging past the Baldwin Beach picnic
area and Taylor Creek. He saw the headlights of two cars swing from the highway
toward the parking area. He got on the phone as he jogged and told Sydney to
crank up the engine.

When he reached the old dock, he climbed down in the boat
and she headed fast out into the lake, no longer hugging the shoreline.

“I take it that didn’t go well,” she said.

“Not real well,” Marco said. We’re going to have to talk. My
uncle says the powers that be are aware of the situation, and that means they’ll
send somebody to clean it up. It could get ugly real fast. You need to get the
hell out of here.”

“He know who had the shaky trigger finger?”

“No. But he mentioned a guy I used to go camping and hiking
with. One of the group. Says he’s the guy who knows everything around here. Gary
Gatts. You know him?”

She gave off a dark chuckle. “GG. He’s the supplier of
choice for party drugs. Works for the Mexican distributors. He wants you to talk
to Gary—that sounds like a setup to me.”

“He wouldn’t do that. He really wants me to get clear of
this. Big plans.”

“You and Gatts buddies in the past?”

“Not exactly. We ran in the same hiking, camping group. I
always knew Gatts would find his place in the world.”

“Now what?” she asked.

“We’ll talk about that back at the house. I’m getting into a
really bad mood. I don’t like being shot at, pushed around, and given
ultimatums. Never works well with me. But then, I don’t like going around deaf,
dumb, and blind, either.”

He glanced at her and saw a thin smile. “Don’t think for a
minute I’m a candidate looking to join your crusade to save the Tahoe Basin from
evildoers. Not my thing. I’m way past that.”

“What is your thing?” she challenged.

“I want that shooter who put bullet holes in my car, messed
up my day, and put me on the run. Once I settle that, I’m done. And you need to
get the hell out of here. I mean now. Tonight.”

“No. I’m not going anywhere until I find out who shot me. I
need to know that more than you do.”

They stared at each other. On some level, he understood that
if he took a step in that direction, his involvement was going to get sticky.
But she was a big, added problem. Still, she had a point. If the shooter was
some rummy, that might change things for her. She could maybe get out without
being tracked down if she was no longer seen as a threat. Still, she wasn’t in
good shape and might be a drag. He liked to move fast.

“You know where we can find Gary Gatts? This Mountain View
restaurant of his?” he asked.

“Yes. Up past Markleeville,” she said. “I don’t know where
he actually lives. I just know that’s the rumored transition point for party
drugs. I also know he’s got connections and would be hard to bring down.”

“I like to move fast,” Marco said. “Maybe you can stay at
the Shaw house while I’ll go up tonight, have a little talk.”

“We’ll discuss it when we get back. You have a trust in your
uncle, and I understand that. But it’s a trust built a long time ago. Things
change. You uncle is probably not the man you thought you once knew.”

“Maybe. That’ll be my problem.”

“No, it’ll be our problem, at least until we find out who
the shooter is. Look, I know this world better than you do. I’ve worked it for
three years with the sheriff’s department and two with the DA. I know every
scumbag, every would-be mogul, and the current affairs. It’s a very beautiful
world until you pull up the covers and look beneath. We’ll talk.”

Marco sat back and she headed out deep into the lake, then
north. He didn’t know exactly how to react to her. She was pushy and
authoritative and that was okay, but she had an agenda, and he had to steer very
clear of that.

14

Sydney felt Marco had made some kind of decision and wasn’t
telling her about it. They drifted up the lake toward the Shaw house.

“Cillo knows what’s going on, doesn’t he?” she asked, really
hoping for a different answer, and also hoping she could get to know this guy.
If they were going to end up working together—and she had no idea if they
would—she needed to understand him better. And part of her really wanted to,
which surprised the hell out of her.

“Like I said, he’s maintaining he’s in the dark.”

She wanted to know every detail of what Cillo had said, but
she sensed Marco was struggling, in a dilemma. “Look, you can walk, but I need
to know where I am in all this. Did Cillo really have no idea who the shooter
was?”

“It seems to me you have something in mind or you wouldn’t
be here. We need to be straight with each other.”

“Two-way street.”

Marco nodded and said, “Tell me again why you’re still
hanging around in harm’s way?”

“I already told you.”

“Not really,” Marco said. “You have some kind of plan. You
aren’t that naive, idealistic girl in Mexico. You’re a hard-nosed investigator.
You’re shot up and still you’re in a boat on the lake with somebody out there
looking to finish the job. What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

She looked off for a moment, then turned back to Marco. Time
to come clean if she expected him to trust her at all. “You’re right. I have
something in mind.”

“It involve me now?”

“I don’t know yet and, right now, neither do you.”

“Try me. Because this is going to deteriorate fast. I’m not
a happy puppy.”

Sydney took a deep breath and let it out. “Thorp and his
lawyer, Richard Rouse, live next to each other on the waterfront at Incline
Village. The lawyer—Tricky Dick is how he’s better known—is rumored to be the
power behind the throne. My witness, Karen Orland, the girl who drowned, she was
in the party circuit for a time and one of his favorites. She knew a lot. All
about the sex and drugs, the videotapes of important people having fun, the
garbage. But those Incline estates are over the border on the Nevada side of the
lake. I worked for the DA in South Lake, in California, and couldn’t get any
cooperation from Nevada where those guys were concerned.”

“Get to where you are now, what you think you can do about
this.”

“Rouse has this office that’s built to withstand anything
short of an atomic bomb. Karen thought the way they manipulated people—got
support for what they were doing—was because of the dirt Tricky Dick has on just
about everybody who matters. And that he keeps it in that office in a safe.
Since we could never get any Nevada authority interested, I wanted to get
associates on the California side. Those parties that Thorp has are drug and sex
festivals, but nobody’s ever attempted to bust one of them. In fact, the local
police and sheriff’s departments on both sides of the lake provide much of the
security.”

“Sounds a little like Mexico. A place I left and am in no
hurry to go back to. I see where you’re headed, and I’m not interested.”

“I know.” She paused a moment, then said, “But while we’re
being open, I’m curious about what you did in Mexico that got your records
sanitized.”

“It won’t matter.”

“Satisfy my curiosity.”

“I had a partner who got ambushed and killed. I went after
the guys who did it. End of story.”

“I hardly think that’s the end of the story. I didn’t ask
about that. I asked about how you managed to get out of prison and then home
free with a new lease on life.”

“It’s the end as far as I’m willing to talk about it. Look,
I have a very good idea where you’re headed, and there’s no way in hell I’m
getting into your crusade against these guys, justified as it may be. You’re way
over your head. Not happening. Here’s where I am with all of this: I picked you
up; the guy who shot you came after not just you, but me.”

“Shot your Shelby,” she added, with a touch of sarcasm.

“That’s right. So I’m real unhappy about that. I’m not going
to be happy until I settle it with him. I’m in this for that and that alone. And
it doesn’t sound like it’s connected to your vendetta against Thorp. It sounds
like some lone guy you pissed off. You accept where I’m at, we can work
together. If not, we need to part ways.”

“What if he didn’t act on his own? What if he’s part of a
bigger thing, whether it’s Thorp or someone else?”

She steered toward the Shaw house from deep out in the lake.
They were cruising at a slow speed, lights still out. The moon was partially
covered by some thin clouds.

Marco studied her a moment. “That isn’t my problem. He
wasn’t coming after me, per se. He was after you, and I got in the way. I’ll
settle with him for that.”

“How did you handle it in Mexico?”

“You don’t give up.” He shook his head, then said, “I had
plenty of contacts. I took a leave. Slipped into Mexico. Part of my family is
down there. I got some help, tracked the killers, settled the issue. The
troubles I got into later weren’t directly connected to that. I can tell you
that I spent some very bad months in a prison near Mexico City. I wouldn’t have
survived if a relative hadn’t made contact with friends in the prison. I got
protection from a powerful clique. Then, well, I got out.”

“That the part you can’t talk about.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m good with getting the shooter. I’ll
deal with the other part once I find out who he’s connected to, or if he’s on
his own.”

They pulled into the boathouse and were just starting to
talk about going up to Markleeville, getting a room, and then seeing Gatts in
the morning, when she fell—her leg buckled getting out, and she missed her step.
She went down against the side of the boat and the ladder. Had he not grabbed
her, she would have gone into the water. He helped her to her feet.

“Muscles cramped up,” Sydney said. She massaged her leg and
headed up to the house slowly, with Marco’s hand on her arm for support.

“Hey,” he said, “you need to rest everything for a while.”

When she realized she wasn’t really doing as well as she had
thought, that the pain meds had fooled her a little, she acceded to the
necessity of settling down, maybe getting a little sleep.

“I want to go with you to see Gatts,” she said. “Let me get
some rest for a couple hours.”

He did a perimeter check, then, in the dark, they ate peanut
butter sandwiches with blueberry spread and drank some milk with it, thanks to
what he’d taken from the doc.

She grew very tired around midnight and took the guest room
on the main floor. He chose a recliner in the living room. It gave him the best
surveillance of the grounds and the house.

***

Marco was up every hour checking the grounds, worried that
more people knew about her relationship with the Shaws than her doctor friend.
For a time, he sat out on the deck and stared at the darkness of the lake,
trying to get a clear understanding of the mess he was in and where it might go.

He could go up and try and find Gatts without her, but he
didn’t much like the idea of leaving her in the condition she was in. Plus, if
she found him gone, what would she do? Then there was the issue of whether he
would take the Shaws’ vehicle. He didn’t want to drive his around. Adding to it
all was the problem of his uncle—if Marco couldn’t respond positively, and soon,
what would he do? Questions and no immediate answers.

We’ve got to talk to Gatts,
he thought, getting up.
He went into the bedroom to see how Sydney was doing, and she was in a deep
sleep. Marco frowned. It was almost midnight. He went back outside to check the
perimeter again. He started wondering if her fall had been faked.

But then he thought that was a stretch. She could have
really hurt herself, hit her head, and that would have pretty much put her out
of business. He knew she wouldn’t have risked it.

15

That Sunday night, four hundred sixty miles southeast of
Tahoe in a penthouse suite at the Desert Towers high above the Vegas Strip,
Ogden Thorp ignored his lawyer, who was at the back of the room trying to get
his attention.

Thorp was busy displaying his investment dream to a small
gathering of wealthy investors, some of the richest and most powerful men in
gaming and hotels. Two of them were CEOs of Silicon Valley tech behemoths. Also
in the mix was a Chinese billionaire who claimed he had relatives who helped
build the transcontinental railroad’s western section, and that many who died
had been dumped into Lake Tahoe.