With Extreme Pleasure (21 page)

C
ady stayed in the bedroom only long enough to make the calls, then crept back to the main room to listen. She didn’t trust King to tell her everything Jason Malling said, and she needed to hear it all.

She’d been right in guessing that it would take a couple of hours to get a response to a trespassing call. She’d thought about adding “armed” to the description of the intruder they were holding, but had kept that part to herself.

Possessing a weapon would be a violation of Malling’s parole, meaning he’d be stuck behind bars if the troopers discovered the gun. Depending on the terms of his release, he could be stuck behind bars for leaving New Jersey.

She crossed her fingers that didn’t happen. They needed him to pay his fine, leave Pennsylvania, and report back to Tuzzi. That was the only way McKie could follow and catch him in the act of making contact.

She climbed into the main room’s recliner that sat closest to the hall. It gave her a clear view of the far side of the kitchen—at least the part above the shelves serving as a half wall between the two rooms.

She couldn’t see the table or the sink, but the stove, refrigerator, and back door were all visible. And she could hear every noise King and Malling made, as well as every note being sung by the chorus of creatures that seemed to have surrounded the house.

“Here’s what I want to know,” King was saying. “What exactly are you after? Why blow up the Hummer? Why run us off the road and smoke us out of our room? What is it you want? To scare Cady into next year, because that much you’ve done, boo. That much you’ve done.”

She frowned. Did King think her weak for being scared? Was Malling going to think her weak? Did she really give a shit if he did?

Malling finally answered. “I don’t know why you think I’m going to tell you anything.”

“Well, because right now, you’re looking at being charged with trespassing. I’m keeping the gun and the explosives off the table. But if you don’t talk, I can put them right back on. Make sure they’re the first thing the Staties see when they walk through the door.”

Cady winced at the string of expletives that came out of Malling’s mouth. She had to hand it to King, though, hitting the other man where it hurt without ever lifting a hand.

That’s all it took for Jason to capitulate. “What do you want to know?”

“You can start with everything.”

“I was born a rich white kid in Westchester County.”

“Uh, not that everything, jerk. Start with the break-in at the Kowalski house.”

“That shit’s all public record. Get a library card. Or take your ass down to the courthouse or wherever you have to go to see it.”

Cady heard a loud thud, and assumed King had slammed Jason’s gun onto the table.

“How did you know about the flash drive?”

“Kevin told us.”

“That Cady had it?”

“No. That it existed. That it was stashed someplace safe.”

“And you assumed she had it.”

“We didn’t assume anything, bro,” Malling snarled. “Except that Kowalski was lying. Trying to scare us off or talk us into letting him live. Couldn’t do it. He took out Ryland. He had to go down.”

“And you made that happen. Being judge and jury and all.”

“Us being Ryland’s brothers. An eye for an eye.”

“Kevin Kowalski was somebody’s brother,” King said, and Cady’s eyes welled. “A real brother, blood and birth, not your fraternity bullshit.”

“You calling it bullshit shows what you know.”

King paused as if gathering his thoughts, then asked, “Why start looking for the flash drive now?”

“Because I just got out, dickwad.”

“I thought Tuzzi had other runners doing his work.”

“That work, yeah. Not this.”

“Or maybe he realized the flash drive did exist once Tyler found the folder on Cady’s laptop.”

Malling snickered. “That was so sweet, Renee realizing her new roommate was the bitch who fucked up everything for Stacia Ashton.”

“Tuzzi’s girlfriend.”

Cady assumed Jason nodded, since she didn’t hear anything but the legs of King’s chair scraping over the floor as he scooted back.

“Stacia’s whole future went up in flames when Nathan was convicted.”

Cady couldn’t sit still anymore. She lunged out of the chair and burst into the kitchen. “And you don’t think my family’s life went up in flames when your bro,” she said sarcastically, “killed mine?”

“Like I said. An eye for an eye.”

“And what about Deshon Coral?”

Jason looked away, shook his head. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. Stupid fuck should’ve learned how to drive.”

“That’s it? No remorse?”

“I needed you to stay put, not go running across the country. He was hired to do that. Not to get himself killed.”

“And the smoke bomb?” King asked.

“What smoke bomb?”

“You saying you didn’t send a smoke bomb to our room to make sure we were on the street when Deshon came driving by?”

“Maybe Deshon sent it.” Jason slumped back, tossing his head to clear his hair from his eyes. “Maybe Kowalski stirred up more shit and has more enemies. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

King glanced over at her, looking as worn out as she felt. “The cops on their way?”

She nodded. “You’re keeping his phone, too, right?”

“You can’t do that.”

“Since you were stupid enough not to use a prepaid throwaway, I can do anything I want.” He tossed it to Cady. “When our friend shows up tomorrow, let’s make sure he gets that. Who knows what his people can do with the information stored in the memory.”

Jason groaned. “Fuck. That information falls into the wrong hands, I’m dead meat.”

Cady made a big production out of dropping the phone down her shirt. “Maybe one of your brothers will swing by and rescue you.”

C
ady leaned against the Hummer, waiting for the black sedan they had seen turn off the main road and onto the Kowalski property to reach the house. This was it. The end of the line. She prayed she was doing the right thing. Prayed, too, for King to finish his phone call to his cousin and join her.

She didn’t think she had it in her to face Fitzwilliam McKie alone.

The Pennsylvania State Police had shown up close to midnight last night and taken her and King’s statements before taking Jason Malling away.

As he’d told her he’d do, King had kept the explosives, the gun, and the cell phone Malling had with him. Those three things were sitting on the hood of the Hummer.

Cady wasn’t exactly thrilled by the proximity of the gym bag, but King assured her that if someone as stupid as Jason Malling could haul it around without blowing himself up, she’d be fine until McKie retrieved it.

What she wasn’t as fine with was McKie retrieving Kevin’s flash drive. She’d been holding onto it, carrying it with her, a talisman she’d kept close for almost a decade.

Giving it up was not as simple as putting it into the government agent’s hand. In fact, she wasn’t sure King wasn’t going to have to pry it out of her cold dead one first.

He seemed to sense her tension as he joined her because he leaned close, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“So ask,” she said, irritated by the gesture that seemed so patronizing, even more irritated because she knew he knew that would be her reaction, and was using it to distract her.

“What’s with the hair?”

“My hair?” She reached up a hand, checked that it was still there. “What about it?”

“It’s just all over the place. Like it doesn’t know where to go.”

“This style critique coming from a man with a big bald spot?”

He gingerly tested his stitches. “Give me a month, boo. You won’t know it was ever there.”

“While we’re critiquing, what’s the ‘boo’ crap? Are you trying to scare me?”

He laughed, kissed the top of her head again. “You like cupcake or princess or pumpkin better? I can’t be calling you chère all the time.”

She huffed. “I don’t see why not.”

By then, McKie was rolling into the driveway toward them. He stopped several yards away, shut down his car’s engine, opened the door, and got out.

He shrugged out of the overcoat he’d been wearing, tossed it into the front seat, then shrugged out of his suit coat, too, and did the same.

By the time he got to where they were standing, he’d loosened his exquisite silk tie and the top button of his pristine white dress shirt.

At Cady’s side, King chuckled. “You look like a man ready to relax, boo.”

McKie held up both wrists. “All that’s left is the cuffs. If this information you’ve promised pans out? I’ll roll ’em up right here.”

“Get ready to strip to your skivvies then.” King reached behind him, handed over the gun, then the phone, then the gym bag. “This is going to blow you away. Literally, if you’re not careful.”

Fitz gave King a look, then checked the ammo and safety on the first and tucked it into his waistband. He slipped the phone into his pocket after a quick scroll through the contact list that had him both nodding and shaking his head.

The bag came next. He dropped to his haunches, scuffing his fancy shoes in the dirt, and opened it, sorting through the components inside that when assembled and ignited would leave a hole in place of half the Kowalski farm.

“The boy meant business,” McKie said, zipping the bag and punctuating his words with a long low whistle as he stood. “But I’m not stripping. Not yet.”

King turned to Cady. Fitz followed suit and did the same. Both men waited patiently, expectantly, and her hand began to sweat. She reached for some way to deflect the inevitable.

“Did you find Malling?”

McKie nodded. “Right where you said he would be. He paid his fine this morning, called for a cab, then took off on foot when he found out he’d be waiting till noon.”

Even more stupid than she’d thought. “You heard his call?”

Fitz’s only response was to cock his head.

“Where is he now?”

“Exactly?”

She gave a quick nod, still avoiding, not yet prepared. She didn’t know if she’d ever be prepared.

As she looked on, Fitz pulled what she’d thought was a phone from a holster at his waist. It was a phone, but it was also a PDA-sized PC with an antennae capable of picking up wireless her laptop hadn’t even known was out there.

He used a stylus to scroll through several windows, then turned the screen so that she could see the coordinates on the map. Malling had already left Pennsylvania, was in New Jersey, and all too soon would be in Trenton at Tuzzi’s front door.

If that was where he was going.

Cady assumed the boss would want a firsthand report of failures as well as his minion’s success. “Do you have what you need now? Since you know where he is and can follow him, will that give you what you need? When he makes contact with Tuzzi?”

Fitz shrugged, swiveled the screen back around. “We’re at level wait-and-see. Having a lock on him helps, but it’s no guarantee.”

“Having more would help?”

“Having more that’s solid? It would close the deal.”

Cady sighed. King nudged her. “C’mon, chère. You know it’s the right thing to do. For you. For Kevin. For your folks, even if they’ll never know.”

She hung her head, stared at her fist. “I’m not as noble as you’re trying to make me be.”

“Oh yes you are,” he said, and before she could change her mind, she opened her palm, offering her whole world to Fitzwilliam McKie.

He didn’t say a word, but took the drive and plugged it into a port on his mobile PC.

Cady leaned against King and the SUV because her knees felt like rubber and her stomach wasn’t doing well holding down the eggs King had scrambled for them at dawn.

She studied the expression on McKie’s face as he pulled up Kevin’s documents and read through the lists of names, dates, transaction amounts, and other information her brother had obtained no doubt through questionable means.

But she couldn’t read anything of what he was thinking, and he’d hadn’t said a word while studying the data. What was he waiting for? Didn’t he know what it had taken for her to give up her last connection to her brother?

She couldn’t help herself or stand not knowing a moment longer. “Well?”

He closed up the PC and returned it to its leather holster. And then he gave her a bigger grin than she’d known he had in him. “I’m still not stripping.”

Cady deflated. After all of that? “It’s not enough?”

“Oh, it’s enough, Cady. Trust me that it’s enough. I’m just not much for going commando in public.”

King whooped. “Then that’s it, yes? We’re done here. It’s over.”

“It’s close enough,” Fitz said, leaving an opening King couldn’t resist.

“Close enough. But it’s not government work, is it, boo?”

At that, McKie winked, and headed for his car.

“A
re you ready for this?” King asked, looking out over the same lake where she and Kevin as kids had been sure their fishing hooks would snag the bones of dead bodies, where instead they’d caught bite-sized crappie and thrown them back, where they’d waited for water nymphs to drop their fishing lines into the air and try to catch them.

Was she ready for this?

Oh, what a loaded question. Five words that sounded so simple, but were weighted down with so many years of guilt and pain and anger and loss. Fitz had the flash drive, and when Cady’s laptop went into the lake, she would no longer have anything of Kevin to hold onto.

No, that wasn’t true. She’d have her memories, the same ones that brought a smile to her face even now, a smile that was no less joyful because of the tears she couldn’t hold back thinking of the brother she’d loved.

Oh, Kevin. I’m so so sorry. I shouldn’t have been so stupid. I should’ve had my head in the real world and known no good would come of Edie’s silly prank. All of this happened because I was too wrapped up in myself to think straight. I have no one but myself to blame.

But even as she had the thought, she heard Kevin chastising her. He was the one who’d taunted Tuzzi with what he knew. And Tuzzi was the one who’d pulled the trigger. Yes, she’d been the catalyst that brought the two of them together, but blaming herself for how things had played out between two hot-headed young men was insane.

She cradled her backpack to her chest as King cradled her body against his. “I don’t know. I mean, I do know. I am ready. I’m just afraid to think of what happens now. This is all I’ve known for so long. Letting it go means I have to find something else to hold onto.”

He tightened his hold where his arms were wrapped around hers, but he didn’t say anything in response. She wasn’t sure that she wanted him to. He might tell her to hold onto him. He might say she needed to stand on her own.

He might tell her any number of things she didn’t want to hear, or wasn’t ready to hear, or would die if she had to hear. He was so much more pulled together than she’d managed to do for herself in twenty-nine years.

The truth was, she had to work out this new chapter of her life on her own. She knew that, which she supposed was one positive mark in her favor. And King, having done the same to get where he was, knew it, too.

“You were right.”

“About which of many things, chère?”

“That I should’ve looked at what Kevin gave me. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

“Sure you do. You were sad. And you were scared.”

“Scared about what?”

“Scared that if you looked at it you would quit being sad. That you’d find something that knocked him back to being human instead of this martyr you’d made him. Or maybe the further time got from his death, it became easier not to look because you didn’t want to open wounds that were healing.”

Everything he said resonated so purely.

“How come you know so much?”

“Because I’m an old fart.”

“You’re not old.”

“I don’t know much of anything either.”

“It doesn’t seem that way. You’ve known what to do every time we’ve turned around.”

“Ah, well, that’s experience, boo. As many times as I’ve been around the block? I damn sure better know when and where to turn.”

“Maybe I’ll be as wise when I’m as old as you.”

“Hey, now. I’m the only one allowed to say I’m old. But it’s experience. You know that. And what you’ve been through should be more than enough to keep you turning the way you need to for the rest of your life.”

“God, I hope so. I can’t go through this on a regular basis.”

“If McKie follows through on his promises, you won’t have to worry about Nathan Tuzzi ever again.”

“Making my next life crisis a piece of cake.”

“You’ve got to get beyond this one first, and I don’t see you letting go of that backpack.”

He’d buy her a new one, he’d told her. He’d promised her a new laptop, top of the line, all the software she could ever want, a webcam for taking pictures should she get a wild hair and sign up at a dating Web site.

She’d hit him then, and meant it.

“If it would help, I’ll be happy to do the honors,” he said, reaching for her bag.

She shook her head, stepped closer to the edge of the rocky outcropping overlooking the private lake. “I have to do it. I won’t be the one letting go if I don’t.”

The distance between where she stood and the water below was nothing, but it seemed like such a long way down. She knew it wasn’t. She’d jumped from here and cannonballed in, sinking almost to the bottom dozens, maybe hundreds, of times.

More than once Kevin had landed on top of her, and she’d sputtered her way to the top for more air, adrenaline bursting into her veins like rocket fuel.

She’d known exactly how far it was to the top, how long it would take, how much of her remaining breath the trip up would steal from her lungs.

But she’d been scared to death every time, thinking she’d never make it. Just like she was scared to death that she’d never make it now.

She hooked her fingers through the carry loop on the top of the backpack and began to spin, turning faster and faster, the weight of the bag pulling at her skin, her bones, her muscles, stretching her arm longer and longer, a rubber band, a bungee cord, extending out over the water.

And then she let go. She straightened her fingers, and the loop slid off, and the backpack went sailing. King caught her before her momentum sent her flying off the rock, too.

She stood in the crook of his arm and watched her Rock of Gibraltar splat on the surface of the water and sink like the stone it was. No fanfare. No heralding trumpet. No dramatic hesitation. It was there, and then it was gone.

She caught back a sob, clenched her hands beneath her chin, and watched the ripples spread in circles that grew and grew as if they would never stop. But they did, silencing, lessening, until the surface of the water was broken by nothing more than insects skating along the surface.

“Well?” he finally asked her after she’d taken a deep breath and exhaled.

“I think I’ll be okay. It’ll take some getting used to, not having all that weight to cart around.” She looked back over her shoulder, caught him looking down. “You’ll buy me something that’s not so heavy, right?”

“I’ll buy you anything, everything you want,” he said, and she turned in his arms.

“No. You can’t buy me anything but this. This one thing. Well, two things counting the bag, but that’s it. I’ll do the rest on my own.”

“It’s a deal,” he told her, hugging her close as they turned and made their way from the highest point of the outcropping hanging over the lake to the lower spot King had decided perfect for parking his Hummer.

Walking beside him, she drifted into a peace she hadn’t felt in far too long. She’d thought when looking up at him that he’d wanted to kiss her. She’d wanted him to, but now this was so much better, this companionship, this intimacy that was so much richer and required nothing but having him near.

When they reached his SUV, she opened the driver’s side door and gestured for him to climb in.

“Your turn,” she said.

He grinned from ear to ear. “This is going to be more fun than I’ve had in a while.”

“Hey. I resent that remark.”

“Than I’ve had in a while with my clothes on. How’s that?”

She didn’t say a word, made another sweeping gesture as if ushering him into a limousine. He ruffled her hair as he climbed in and started the SUV.

The H3 was packed with all the things Fitz had loaded in for them—things that were to see them through their adventure, things neither one of them ever wanted to see again.

They’d kept out the essentials, a change of clothes and toiletries for the road, but the rest of the supplies—the sleeping bags and cooler of juice bottles and camping gear, even the instant cold packs that had come in so handy—were reminders of the last few days.

So was the Hummer.

Cady had argued at first; what a needless waste, especially after the explosion and the accident and all the collateral damage—to the hotel where they’d stayed that first night, to May Wind’s B&B, to Jarrell Bradley’s tow truck, not to mention the loss of Deshon Coral’s life.

King had argued back. Dumping the Hummer wasn’t a waste if it kept him from spending another minute of his life remembering this nightmare of a trip—remembering anything except his time with her, he’d quickly amended when she’d come close with the fork she’d been holding.

And now here they were, about to feed the SUV to the fishes, sending it to the bottom of the lake where it would stir up all the bones she and Kevin had tried to stir themselves so many times. She smiled as she thought of her brother’s hook snagging a camp stove or lantern instead.

“Happy fishing, Edgar,” she said, and stepped away, watching as King wedged the garden hoe he’d sized and cut to fit between the front of the driver’s seat and the accelerator. The tires began spinning, burning, spitting out grass and dirt, the motor whining from being all revved up and restrained.

And then King shifted into gear, bailing out the door and rolling away from the vehicle as it lurched forward, picking up speed before sailing off the ledge of rock and into the air.

It hit the water with a sound nearly as loud as the explosion that had destroyed the first of its predecessors. Cady flinched, then watched the water gulp down the SUV in one big slow swallow.

Once the SUV had vanished beneath the water and the sputtering bubbles had stopped rising, she asked. “Well, boo. How are you going to get to Louisiana now?”

King chuckled. “I’ve got a plan in the works. It means spending one more night here. Think you can deal with that?”

After all that he’d done for her, she could deal with anything. She just wished she knew what she was going to do with herself, and if he was going to be with her while she figured it out.

She nodded. “I can deal. As long as your plan includes my laptop and something to carry it in.”

“That phone call to Simon this morning? I talked to a man who knows a man who knows his stuff. You’ll be able to web surf your little heart out.”