When the Devil Comes to Call (A Lars and Shaine Novel Book 2) (13 page)

Shaine stepped over Nikki’s body, getting an unfortunate glimpse of his bare upper thighs. She sat at the computer and logged in to an online flight booking website.

She was distracted. Alone in a room with an already defenseless Nikki, Shaine knew she’d never have a chance like this again. But confronted with the perfect scenario, she started making excuses.

She and Lars were so close to getting back to life as usual, why would she risk it? But really, what about their life was usual?

She found herself at a moment she always imagined with her own father—the day she had to break away. Killing Nikki would mean the end of her relationship with Lars. She knew that. No way it could be any other way.

At eighteen and more worldly than most girls her age or even her age plus a decade or so,  she felt like she could step over the threshold into adulthood by doing one simple act. She envied the other girls who faced choices like leaving for college or taking off with an unreliable “bad boy” boyfriend, or heading out to Hollywood to try acting. Life decisions, not death decisions.

And she had no idea if she would be ready to live on her own. The training Lars had given her proved useful and even lifesaving on their little vacation, but they weren’t job skills she could put on any resume. And with two million waiting in the bank when they got home to an island paradise, was it worth it to throw that away and probably end up working at a fast food joint here on the East coast?

Nikki wheezed and shifted his body, not quite ready to get up, but coming out of the dark.

How much more pressure would it take on the same well-trodden bruise to do him in? The man was in perilously ill health, inches away from the cliff. She could give him another tap on the skull and Lars would assume his blow had done it. She doubted Lars could even feel that guilty given the man’s age. He had to know hitting Nikki in the skull was dangerous business.

Shaine contemplated the idea that she could kill Nikki by her own hand and get away without Lars ever knowing.

She could return to Hawaii an adult, and spend the shit out of Nikki’s money, each twenty dollar bill she used would be like another bash to his skull.

Shaine hit print on the flight reservation. Two business class tickets leaving at twelve thirty tonight. Fuck the cost, they were rich now. Only one more thing to do.

Anthony answered his cell phone, half a bowl of granola and yogurt still on the kitchen counter in front of him. His milk spiked with two scoops of protein powder.

“Yeah?”

Bruno on the line.

“He’s not here, Bruno. Left about twenty minutes ago.”

Bruno sounded like he was in pain, like he spoke every word through gritted teeth.

“You didn’t tell me to follow him. I thought you were taking care of him earlier. What happened?”

Bruno told his tale of woe and broken fingers.

“Why don’t you let me handle it?”

Bruno gave his movie trailer reason—this time, it’s personal.

“So what now?”

A question back.

“Yeah, she’s still here.”

Instructions.

“You got it. I’m on my way.”

Lars turned onto Long Island proper, Massapequa bound. The fiery anger in him had died down, but he still wanted to shoot someone. He just wasn’t sure Earl Walker Ford was the right someone. He hadn’t felt that way since he stood on Mitch the Snitch’s front lawn. He didn’t like the feeling then and he sure as hell didn’t like it now.

Lars followed the instructions of the calm-voiced lady on the Mercedes’s GPS. He expected the voice to be German, instead got what he assumed would be the voice of the receptionist at the gates of heaven. Her voice in the Long Island rain was as close as Lars would ever come to that waiting room. He already had a spot reserved down south, where it’s warm at least.

Even if Ford turned out to be the wrong man, he would end up as the man in front of Lars’s gun. He’d be the work to earn Lars two million, because he never took money he didn’t earn.

***

Shaine returned to Nikki’s office with her gun. Her first thought had been to stomp his head with her heel until the old man stopped breathing for good. Couldn’t he take the fucking hint from his own lungs? Time had run out.

She decided to use the gun on the off chance there might be any crime scene forensics crap going on. She wanted the extra blows to match the two he’d already gotten, and in the same soft spot. All she had to do was finish what Lars and Bruno had started.

When she got back to the office Nikki was moving. She crept slowly around the edge of his desk and saw him trying to do a sort of push up. He let out slow, moaning complaints about whatever pain he felt. A long line of drool made it from his lip to the floor and it stretched as he tried to push himself off the floor.

She tried to remember where he’d been before he started moving around like a newborn calf. If Lars made it back here and saw him on the other side of the room, he might have suspicions. Her plan was to not even let Lars come inside. When his car made it back to the house, she’d be waiting with their bags ready to head to the airport. No tearful goodbyes.

If he asked, she left the office after she made arrangements and hadn’t seen Nikki since. After their scuffle, she didn’t have anything to say to him.

Solid backstory. Only he needed to be dead to make it work.

Shaine turned the gun around in her hand, positioning the butt of the gun like a hammer. She knew her aim had to be dead on. If there was a sudden cluster of new bruises, her lie wouldn’t hold with Lars.

Nikki made it up to one knee. He put a hand on the corner of the desk, more wounded animals sounds droning from his weak lungs.

Shaine steadied herself, reset the grip on her gun and tried to find the exact center of her target area on his temple. Lars’s hit had broken skin and she saw a darkened clot of dried blood as her bulls-eye.

Keep your eye on the ball, girl
, she told herself. The one thing her dad taught her. Softball in the backyard. Of course when she wanted to try out for the team, he said no. Too public. Too exposed. Back then she didn’t know why he was so paranoid. Started thinking he was agoraphobic. Still, it’s not like it meant she had to be, too. Now she understood. The running. The constant shadow of death on his shoulder. All orchestrated by this man. This millionaire. This wheezing sack of shit.

Shaine focused on the target. She brought her arm back for the swing. The cold steel of a gun touched the back of her neck.

“Let’s take a ride,” Anthony said.

Lars parked across the street from Earl Walker Ford’s house. The misting rain continued as the sunset dimmed the sky and turned the fine droplets of water on the ground to crystals that would eventually become a sheet of ice. He got out into the cold, gun in his hand and tucked into the pocket of his coat. He crossed the street at a light jog, avoiding the front walk and the lights tracing the curve of paving stones and heading for the side of the house. Lars moved quietly as close to the house as he could go. With the weather hovering only slightly above freezing he knew he didn’t have to worry about anyone else in their yards to see him, but nosy neighbors still liked to look out of windows no matter what time of year.

He passed under a set of darkened windows, a tiny shed attached to the house Lars thought may contain the water heater or some yard supplies. He moved around to the back of the house. A nice deck, glass doors and a light on in the kitchen, but no people. On the far corner he saw a window with the light on. Lars moved closer, peering in. An office. Looked like a man’s space. Slightly cluttered, an autographed football on a shelf, no color beyond wood.

And at the desk—a large black man on the phone. His target, Earl Walker Ford, presenting the back of his head as tempting a target as Lincoln watching a play.

Lars’s hair became soaked from the drizzle, the beading water on his jacket turned to fat droplets that ran down his sleeve and dripped cold water on his wrist above his gun. He kept his feet moving, wanting to do a full three-sixty around the house before going in. With no time to prepare, this was the least he could do to make sure he wasn’t walking into a disaster.

When Lars came around to the front of the house he had to duck behind a large evergreen bush when the front door opened.

Three women came out being hustled by Ford.

“Earl, what in the hell is going on?” the woman Lars assumed to be his wife asked. The two others were younger, late teens or early twenties. Daughters. Looked exactly like their mother.

“I don’t know but you have to go,” Ford said.

“Dad, I thought you said it was over,” the taller girl said.

Her sister completed the thought. “You said it was a false alarm.”

“I’ll call you when it’s safe,” he said.

His wife stopped, ground her heels in and refused to be pushed along into the family car any more. “Earl, if it’s not safe then you come with us.”

“You know I got a job to do.”

“You do your job nine to five, Monday through Friday, in an office. This isn’t your job.”

“Yes,” Ford said. “It is.”
He had an appropriate amount of husbandly, fatherly and federal agent authority to his voice,
Lars thought. It worked on the women as they all got into a large SUV and drove away. Ford kept his phone to his ear as he watched them go.

Lars’s own cell phone rang.
Goddamn things.
Shaine thought she was being clever when she set “For Those About To Rock” as his ringtone, but the goddamn canon blasts were embarrassing whenever it rang in pubic and Lars had no clue how to set it back.

The good news was only two people in the world had his number. The bad thing was if either one of them were calling him now, something was wrong.

He quickly answered the phone and ducked deeper into the shadows, cupping his hand over his mouth to answer in a whisper. The display said: Shaine.

“What?”

“Let me tell you something, it’s not easy to dial a phone with all these broken fuckin’ fingers.”

Lars felt a chill deeper than the rain.

“How did you get her phone?” he asked Bruno.

“You mean how did I get her.”

“You touch one goddamn hair on her head . . .”

“Bet you’re feeling like you should have killed me right about now, huh?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you. Come meet me and I’ll let the girl go. A trade.”

A drop of freezing rain wedged between his collar and ran down his spine. Lars shuddered. “How do I know you have her?”

Bruno didn’t say a word, but Lars could hear the phone being moved, then struggling grunts of a female voice, then clearer, like a hand or a gag had been removed from her mouth.

“Lars, fuck these guys. They’ll kill us both if you come here.”

Bruno came back on the line. “A risk you’ll have to take, I suppose.”

“Awfully glib for a guy with one working hand, aren’t you?”

“I got a guy who gives me some really good shit for pain. Hospital grade. Don’t feel a thing. When you get here, we’ll play chopsticks together.”

“Get where?”

Bruno gave him a familiar-sounding address. Leo’s house. Scene of the crime.

“I’ll be there.”

“You got an hour.”

“I need more.”

“Okay. Ninety minutes. Last offer. I’ll try to keep myself entertained until you get here. I know a great little game I recently learned with fingers. And she’s got ten to play with.”

“I’m fucking serious, you piece of shit. You think what I did to your parents is bad? I will make you wish for a bullet. I’ll make you beg for one. I’ll make you—”

“Freeze!”

Lars heard the click of a gun being cocked.

“Drop the phone and your weapon,” Ford said.

Lars did, but not before hanging up his call. He didn’t want the FBI getting involved.

“Turn around.”

Lars turned. Ford stood there with water beading on his thin hair, gun outstretched in his right hand, phone pressed to his ear with his left.

Into the phone he said, “Yeah, I got him right here.”

***

Nikki nearly shouted hooray. Instead he spoke to Qualls in an over-excited slur. “You got him. We’re square, right? I delivered, right? My deal goes through.”

Qualls, the third party on the three-way call, calmed Nikki. “Yeah, Nikki. You’re all set. First thing Monday morning.”

“You gotta get me out earlier. I’m fuckin’ dying over here.”

“I’ve explained this,” Qualls said. “And listen, Nikki, you die before I pick you up and I’ll be pissed.”

“Y’know Qualls, I always hated the feds, but that was before I got to know any of ‘em personally.” Nikki sucked oxygen. “Now I know for certain—you’re a bunch of cocksucking jerks.”

“With the keys to your new life, you old bastard.”

“Yeah, my new life.” Nikki let out a single, raspy HA! “I kept up my end. Now you keep up yours.”

Qualls would be damn grateful when this decrepit old bastard moved off his docket. “Right, Nikki. You’re an honor to your country. Now hang the fuck up so I can talk to my agent.”

Nikki hung up.

“I’ll get him inside,” Ford said.

“Should have a team to you in fifteen, tops,” Qualls said.

“Hey, thanks for the call.”

“Sorry it had to be such short notice. How’s it feel to have him at gunpoint?”

Ford didn’t crack a smile, but stared Lars straight in the eye. “Better than sitting at a desk.”