With Extreme Pleasure (20 page)

C
ady paced the small kitchen while King plugged in and booted up her laptop. She’d put away the few things they’d bought—coffee, cream, and sugar; eggs, bacon, and milk; two big potatoes to bake along with butter and sour cream; and the steaks King had chosen for their dinner.

After breakfast in Rosingsville, the small town where her grandmother had kept a post office box for years, they’d stopped for the groceries. It was clear from the reception they’d received at both the diner and the store that word was out—someone was at the Kowalski house.

Cady figured it was best to have King stop at Denton Hardware before they started the drive to the farm. James Denton, the store’s owner, had agreed to look after the place after Josephine’s death. Cady ran inside to let him know she and King were using the place for a few days.

It hadn’t occurred to her until talking to him that her parents could very well have told him she was no longer allowed access to the property. Fortunately, they hadn’t. He’d been nothing but pleased to see her, and equally pleased to hear she’d found the place in good shape.

Once she and King finished their errands and were back on the road, she realized the trip to Rosingsville was the first time in ages she hadn’t been treated like a pariah by people who had known her in the past.

It gave her hope that she could make a new life for herself away from the place where her old one had fallen apart—or she could do so as long as she closed this final chapter with a big fat “the end” to Nathan Tuzzi.

Whether or not that happened might actually hinge on information she’d had with her all this time—information she’d never dreamed was anything more than Kevin’s unfinished term papers or article drafts.

She wanted to kick her own ass for not having the guts to dig into what he’d given her. But reaching back into that time of her life wasn’t something that came easily. Those good years spent as a family only reminded her how bad things had been since, how much she missed Kevin, how if she hadn’t been so stupid…

“I believe we have struck the mother lode,” King said, blowing a long low whistle that cut into her thoughts. “If only Fitzwilliam McKie were here to celebrate the moment.”

“What is it?” she asked from across the room. She did not want to know. She did not want to see. Asking from a distance was a compromise.

King was still looking at the computer screen, paging through Word documents, toggling windows to scroll down Excel spreadsheets. “It’s sure not term papers or news articles. At least not any articles he’d finished. I’m thinking he was compiling research to write the big one that would get him noticed by editors other than those on campus.”

“Research on what?” She did not want to know. She did not want to see. She did not want to be reminded of what she’d lost or that she’d done nothing with Kevin’s gift.

“Come over here and look,” King said, holding up a hand and gesturing her close.

“No.”

He turned then. “No?”

“Just tell me.” She shook her head briskly. “I don’t want to see.”

“Cady, this is what you’ve wanted to happen for eight years. This is what you need to rip Tuzzi a new one. Kevin had the information all along. Buyers, suppliers, transactions. Phone numbers. Bank accounts. Names and addresses. This is Tuzzi’s network right here. Top to bottom.”

She heard what he was saying, but she still didn’t want to see. She still didn’t want to know. And now she couldn’t move. So why if she couldn’t move was she crumpling to the floor?

T
he sun was just setting when King headed out to the garage. He pulled the chain hanging from the overhead socket and the single bulb above popped on.

He stood there for a moment between the old riding mower and the brand new Hummer H3, as if caught between his world and Cady’s, when up until now he’d been thinking their worlds were one and the same.

Realizing this little side trip of an adventure was coming to an end had changed that. At least he assumed it was coming to an end. All they had to do was let McKie know what they’d found in Kevin’s files.

So far, neither one of them had made the move to do anything of the sort.

He’d come out here to make sure the supplies in the back end of the SUV were secure and make room for the rest of their things since it looked like they’d be packing up soon.

And Cady, well, she’d retreated to the safety of the bathroom’s big claw foot tub, supposedly for quiet time to let what they’d discovered about Kevin sink in.

It was pretty obvious neither one of them was ready to face the fact that once they made contact with McKie, things between them wouldn’t continue on as they’d been.

They wouldn’t have any simple reason to stay together.

From here on, things got hard.

As he opened the back of the Hummer, King found himself shaking his head. Cady’d had it in her possession for years. The smoking gun needed to squash Tuzzi’s network like a bug. He still couldn’t believe it.

He imagined she was having a hard time believing it, too. Realizing that if she’d looked at what Kevin had given her, instead of shying away because of the hurt, she would never have become one of Tuzzi’s victims.

He’d tried to tell her not to beat herself up, but she hadn’t wanted to listen to anything he said. He didn’t blame her. Not really. All the stuff going on in her head? She had to work it out for herself.

He just hoped she’d remember he was here. That she would come to him when she was ready. She didn’t have to talk. She didn’t have to take off her clothes. He just wanted to hold her, to let her know he was here, that he’d be here for her as long as she needed him to be.

He just wasn’t sure he was ready to tell her that he loved her.

Love wasn’t an emotion he had real experience with. He loved his crawfish and sunshine. He loved his bayou country home. He loved his cousin, his cousin’s wife. He loved being able to do anything he wanted with his life. He loved that he had a life to do something with.

But none of those loves had crawled into his chest, used a pick ax to carve a permanent spot, then sent out roots to choke and cling and suck his will from his bones.

Not the most romantic way to describe what Cady had done, or at least what it felt like she’d done, but then he wasn’t much of a romance kinda guy. He just happened to be the one who had let her.

The fact that he had was a big part of why things post-McKie weren’t going to be easy. The girl he’d thought about putting on a bus or into an airplane he now wanted to put in his truck. He wanted to buckle her in and lock the doors and tie her hands to keep her there.

He just didn’t know if that’s where she wanted to be.

He pushed that train of thought aside and retrieved the gun he’d stuffed in the coffee can of nails. He placed that one and his own on top of his sleeping bag, then dropped to his back with a flashlight, looking beneath the rear of his truck at the tires and suspension.

Not that he’d driven this newest model far enough to wear the newness away, but he wasn’t one to hit the road unprepared. Tires, fluids, belts, and hoses. All had to be checked. And since they did, maybe while he was doing it he could figure out what to do about Cady.

He was getting to his feet when he heard her walking around outside the rear of the garage. He tensed, then realized tensing wasn’t the way to make the conversation flow.

And so he took a deep breath…and came to his second realization.

The footsteps he heard did not belong to Cady. They were too heavy. Too hesitant.

He knew from Cady that James Denton, the caretaker, had to shoo away the occasional trespasser—whether vagrants looking for shelter from the elements or kids looking for a little lovers’ lane action.

He was in no mood to deal with either one.

It was the cell phone buzzing like a mosquito that put him in a different mood altogether. This time when he tensed, he did so with good cause, straining to hear the conversation. He picked up a few words, two of them—Cady and alone—being the only ones that mattered.

His trespasser was not a vagrant or a kid. It was someone who’d come after Cady. Someone who knew only the two of them were here, or else thought he was out of the picture and she was on her own.

King froze, wanting to warn Cady but having no idea if he’d walk out of here and find one man armed with a cell phone, or several armed with more firepower than his two guns.

Quietly, he reached for both weapons, tucked them into his waistband at his sides, leaving the tails of his work shirt hanging loose over them.

Then he grabbed the Maglite he’d been using while under the SUV, and made his way along the far side of the Hummer to the shed’s wide open door.

The voice had come from the back of the small building. King ducked into the darkness away from the lights spilling from the windows of the house.

He gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust before he began creeping toward the spot where he hoped to find their unwanted visitor. And where he hoped to find him alone.

Pressed to the back corner of the building, King held his breath, listening, the weight of the Maglite in his hand a different sort of comfort than the handguns at his sides, a weight that could also serve as a weapon.

He moved just enough to peer down the back wall, and saw just the one guy he’d hoped for. The intruder hadn’t heard him, and King understood why. The wind had picked up in his favor, whooshing through the trees surrounding the homestead, limbs scraping noisily against limbs.

From his one-eyed vantage point, King could also see Cady through the kitchen window and the door he’d left open. Meaning the trespasser, busily texting on his phone, his gaze switching between the house and his cell, could see her, too.

It was then King noticed the gym bag at the guy’s feet. He thought back to the first night he and Cady had shacked up in Jersey, and the explosion that had demolished his Hummer.

Then he thought about suicide bombers strapping explosive vests to their chests. Or drivers with no intention of committing suicide slamming their Mustangs into tow trucks four times their size for the cause.

The cause that was standing at the back door even now.

He had to move.

He stepped around the corner at the same time he brought up the Maglite and turned it on, aiming it into the trespasser’s eyes and blinding him. “Dude. Private property. No trespassing. You gonna try to convince me you didn’t see the signs?”

The kid was too old to be, well, a kid. Late twenties, at least. The age he figured fit most of Tuzzi’s thugs.

Cady’s age.

Though pale, he was clean cut, looking like he spent his days at a desk on Wall Street, his lunch hour at the gym, his nights on the town. But he had another look. An anxious way of holding himself as if he hadn’t been able to shake the tension of being a bitch behind bars.

King didn’t want to rouse the younger man’s suspicions by coming right out with his. Best to treat the guy as a local scouting a spot for a party and cut away his false confidence when on better footing himself.

If this was who King thought, the one
not
the brains of any operation, that shouldn’t take long.

“I saw them, yeah.” The kid looked at his texting screen. “But no one’s usually here…”

“And somehow that makes ignoring them okay?” King flicked the light from the guy’s face to the bag near his feet. “You bring enough booze to share?”

The kid’s laughter was forced. “I just came to see if the coast was clear. Friends of mine. They’re bringing the booze.” He gestured with the phone he still held like a lifeline. “I can give them a call and make sure they bring plenty.”

“So what’s in the bag?” King aimed the light back in the guy’s eyes, and nudged the toe of one boot at the duffel.

“Stop! Don’t!”

“Or what? It might break?” He paused, added, “Or maybe blow up?”

“It’s just that…it’s not my bag, ya know?” he said with a lazy shrug that wasn’t lazy in the least, but stiff, and worried, and…scared.

King would worry about being scared stiff later. “And you don’t want me getting it dirty.”

“Yeah. The guy I borrowed it from can be a real ass.”

“Maybe you need better friends. Jason.”

Jason Malling’s head whipped up, his hand shot to the small of his back. King had his gun pressed to the center of the man who’d-made-the-last-few-days-a-living-hell’s chest before he could draw his weapon.

“Hands where I can see them, Jason. Up against the wall, both of them.”

“How did you know—”

“How did I know who you were? Because you’re stupid enough to think I’m as stupid as you are.”

“What?”

“Exactly.”

King slid the barrel of his weapon up to rest beneath Malling’s chin, reached back, and pulled the gun he’d been going after from his belt. “Carry on the side, boo. Faster draw.”

“Who are you?”

“Just someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Cady?” He’d heard her come out the back door, and he wanted her close and safe. But he kept his eyes on their trespasser.

“What’s going on?” she said, walking up behind him but smartly keeping her distance.

“Cady Kowalski? Meet Jason Malling. Better yet. Meet Jason Malling’s gun.” He waved her near, gave her the handgun, showed her how to hold it, and where to aim. “Safety’s off. If he moves, shoot him.”

A
fter patting down their intruder, confiscating Malling’s gun, phone, and the gym bag he’d borrowed to haul around his crap, King escorted the convicted felon to the kitchen and tied him to one of the chairs.

The fact that King was also a convicted felon didn’t influence him to cut the younger guy any slack. He’d served time for a crime he didn’t commit, while Malling was still committing, and obviously hadn’t wised up at all since the first time he’d been caught.

He’d been out, what? Less than a week, and here he was headed back to do hard time. All King had to decide was whether to turn him over to the Staties or to McKie. The explosive device he had with him might even be enough to perk up Homeland Security’s ears.

“Is this the same stuff you used to blow up my Hummer?” While Malling looked on, King emptied the contents of the gym bag onto the table. Wiring. A timer. Detonators. Blocks of C4. Multiple blocks of C4. Enough to make sure Cady and half the farm went up along with the house.

That was the rest of the reason King wasn’t influenced to be kind to this piece of shit. Malling was outfitted to take out every living thing in a city block.

Talk about overkill. “Are you paying your bomb maker by the hour? Or by how much of the Northeast he wipes off the map?”

Malling sat with his hands tied behind him, his torso roped to the chair, his ankles tied to the chair legs. It was hard for him to look anywhere but down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How far away were you planning to be before you set this off?” King asked, picking up one of the bricks of explosive material. “Because I gotta tell ya, boo. I’m not so sure anyone in Rosingsville would’ve made it out alive.”

Cady had been standing near the back door, but now she came close and laid her hand on his arm. “Can you not treat that like a football please?”

“No worries, chère,” he said, though he set about packing everything back into the bag. “Jason here had some prep work to do before this stuff would do any damage.”

“I’d just as soon not see it being bounced around. It’s bad enough knowing it’s here,” she said, crossing her arms and pacing the kitchen behind him. “And thinking about what could’ve happened.”

Straining forward against his bonds, Malling lifted his head just enough to snarl. “You would’ve been in little pieces if it had, bitch.”

King knocked him across the face. “How about some respect, asshole?”

“Fuck you. And fuck her.” Malling spat blood. “She got all up in something that wasn’t her business, and we’re going to make goddamn sure she never forgets.”

“We? You got an army out there backing you up?”

“Fuck you,” Malling said, and this time he spit at King instead of the floor.

King heard Cady move, so he didn’t. He waited, staring down this asshole until the kid lost his cockiness and looked away first. Then King took the wet paper towel Cady handed him and wiped the saliva from his neck.

“Tell me something, boo.” He gestured with the now dirty towels. “Does the man giving you orders expect you to get the job done, or did he choose you because you’re a stupid expendable prick?”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Malling grumbled, his head still down.

“I’m talking about all the times you’ve screwed up.”

“I haven’t screwed up once.”

“And that’s why you’re sitting here tied up in Cady’s kitchen? Because it was part of your master plan?” King looked over to where she stood with her hands at her sides curled over the lip of the stove.

She hadn’t said much at all since he’d handed her the gun and told her to shoot if Malling moved. She’d seemed calm enough then, her grip on the weapon controlled, and calm enough now—her only show of nerves during his manhandling of the bomb.

He had a lot of answers he wanted to beat out of this boy, and he didn’t think Cady would object, but having her here to see and to listen, a witness to his interrogation, would hamper him. He’d hold back, take it easy for fear she’d somehow be hurt by what Malling revealed.

Gesturing for her to follow, he picked up the loaded duffel and carried it to the bedroom. Once there, he handed her his cell phone and the card he’d carried in his back pocket since that night in the hospital cafeteria.

He tapped a finger on the phone number, and went with his gut. “Do me a favor. Call McKie. Tell him that in a couple of hours, he can find Malling being held on trespassing charges in the Rosingsville substation.”

“Trespassing charges?” She looked from the card to his face, her eyes wide. “What about the gun and the bomb and trying to kill me? Kill us?”

“I’m going to let McKie handle it. If I try to explain all of that to the Staties, we’re going to be stuck here for the investigation, and what happened in Cushing Township will come up, and I’ll never get back to Louisiana. I figure Malling can pay a fine for ignoring the signs, and McKie can take it from there.”

“It’ll take the Staties a while to get here. You want me to call them, too?”

He nodded. “Tell McKie to be here in the morning and we’ll give him Malling’s stuff along with the flash drive.”

At that, she balked. “I can’t do that.”

“You can. You need to.”

She turned away, moved to stand in front of the window. “Kevin told me to hang onto it. To keep it safe.”

“You’ve kept it safe for eight years.”

But he knew this wasn’t about her doing what her brother had told her. It was that doing what her brother had told her had caused her a lot of unnecessary grief.

If she’d opened the files after Kevin’s death, not ignored them, not shied away, Malling wouldn’t be sitting in the kitchen, and the evidence Kevin had collected would’ve put more of Tuzzi’s runners behind bars.

He walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “Now you need to put it to work for you. You need to let Kevin finish what he started and take Tuzzi and his bastards the rest of the way down.”