Dirty (37 page)

He moved around in front of me and stood there waiting.
 
I risked my first up close look.
 
He was tall, like Bob.
 
Twelve or fifteen years younger than his well-educated brother.
 
Gray peppered his dark hair.
 
His skin looked pale as if he hadn’t seen the sun in a very long time.
 
But the worst was his eyes.
 
He had that wild-eyed look of true psychosis.

Definitely not good.

“Your brother Bob is a friend of mine,” I said hurriedly in spite of his warning and with obvious tremors in my voice.

“Bullshit,” he growled.

Great, a cynic.

“You don’t believe me?
 
Call and ask him yourself.”

He shook his head.
 
“I’ll know everything I need to in a few minutes.”

Crouching in front of me, he used his free hand and his mouth to tear off a length of duct tape.
 
He apparently carried the nifty roll in the pocket of his overalls.

We’d just gone from bad to worse.

“I just want to talk to you, Luther.”
 
The fight or flight instinct kicked in but I knew better than to move just then.
 
He would kill me and no one would ever find the body.
 
I should have told Hobbs what I was up to. Shit. Shit. Shit.

He slapped the tape around my right ankle and secured it to the chair.
 
Not once while he did this did his attention deviate from me.

My heart sped into warp speed...my blood pressure moved into the stroke zone.
 
I couldn’t just sit here.

He manacled my right hand, tore off another piece of tape with his mouth and this time—thank God—he glanced away for a single moment.

That’s all the time I needed.
 
I reached under my skirt with my left and grabbed the .32 resting against my thigh.
 
I always carried back-up for times like this.

When his gaze flew back to mine I had a bead right between his eyes.
 
I tried not to think about the fact that this man was a bona fide assassin and I was, well, just a PI.

“I only want to talk, Luther.”

He released my hand and stood.
 
I did the same, though my one ankle was secured to a frigging chair and a loose piece of the silver tape hung like a cheap bracelet from my wrist.

Luther laughed, his Glock still leveled on me.
 
“You think I’m afraid of you and your puny fucking gun?”

He reached behind him and pulled out a 357 Magnum.

Admittedly, my .32 did look a little puny next to the Magnum.

With both his weapons aimed at me he said, “You’d better shoot, bitch, because otherwise I’m going to send your sweet little ass straight to hell.”

“Don’t shoot, Luther,” I pleaded.
 
Okay, I wasn’t beyond begging for my life.
 
I didn’t want to die.
 
“I’m Jack Mercer’s daughter.
 
I just need to talk to you.”
 
As soon as I’d uttered the words I wondered if that had been a mistake.
 
My father had been a judge on his case...

“If you’re fucking lying to me I will kill you,” he warned.

“I’m telling you the truth,” I said, and to my credit my voice didn’t shake this time.

He moved backwards to where my purse sat.
 
Slowly, afraid to make any sudden moves, I leaned down and freed my ankle and pulled the tape loose from my wrist.
 
He didn’t seem to care.
 
Now that was confidence.
 
I resisted the impulse to examine my shoe for possible damage.
 
I couldn’t imagine why I’d thought he would be impressed by my designer footwear.

Luther had my wallet open.
 
He looked from me to what was probably my driver’s license and back.

“It’s a shitty photo,” I offered with a pathetic attempt at humor.

He tossed the wallet back into my purse.
 
“What do you want?”

Relief rushed through me, forcing out the breath I’d been holding.
 
“Can we put down our weapons?”

He walked over to the nearest table, which was already cluttered with a week’s worth of leftovers, and placed his weapons on the table.
 
He turned to me and I suspected that he wanted me to do the same.
 
I briefly wondered if I should shoot him to save myself or if this reprieve would last long enough for me to state my case.

Deciding on the latter, I walked over to the table and placed my anorexic .32 next to his big ass 357.
 
I stuck out my hand.
 
“Nice to meet you, Luther.”

He stared at my hand for about a minute before he finally took it.
 
He shook it once then studied it again as if he’d never seen one quite like it before.

I let him take his time.

When he looked up I almost jumped.
 
He no longer had that wild-eyed look about him.
 
Now, other than his bizarre manner of dress, he looked fairly normal.

He hitched up his ragged overalls, which he wore without a shirt and, if I had my guess judging by the small hole near the crotch, without any underwear.
 
And he was barefoot.
 
Very strange indeed, even for Texas.
 
His fingernails and toenails were in bad need of attention.
 
Long and yellow.
 
Another shudder quaked through me.
 
Before I could stop it the music from the old Burt Reynolds movie
Deliverance
started playing in my head.

“What do you want?” he growled.

“Can we sit down?”
 
I would prefer him not so close to his weapons or the door when I brought up the subject of Disposable.
 
I might need to make a mad dash to escape.

He sat down on a box next to a beat up old couch.
 
I decided to drag over the chair he’d secured me to.
 
The couch’s upholstery looked suspect at best.
 
At least the chair was vinyl.

I crossed my legs which, at this point, he appeared to be taken with.
 
“I need to talk to you about an old case called Disposable.”

Any headway we’d made disappeared faster than a puff of smoke in a tornado.

Psycho mode took over again, his eyes told the tale.

“Wait,” I rushed to assure him, “I’m not here to cause trouble I just need some information to stop it from happening again.”

His gaze narrowed.
 
“You talking about the Sanchez murder?”

I didn’t know if he had cable or not but I was surprised, if not impressed, that he kept up with current events.
 
He didn’t mention the woman from the cemetery and to be honest I wasn’t even sure she’d made headlines yet.

“Yes, the Sanchez murder.”

He shook his head.
 
“Someone’s pulling your leg, lady.”
 
He glanced at my legs again.
 
“It ain’t the same thing.”

“I agree.”
 
I let my right hand slide down my shin and rub as if I’d just gotten a muscle cramp.
 
He liked that.
 
Summoning another dose of courage, I ventured on, “But I want to stop the man who got away with it ten years ago.”

His gaze collided with mine once more.
 
“I don’t know nothing.”

Time to take the kid gloves off.
 
I sat back, letting my skirt slide further up my thighs.
 
His lower jaw just sort of hung slack.
 
I fully expected him to drool any second.
 
“I think you do, Luther.
 
I think you know exactly who killed DEA Agent Warren Rayburn as well as those two big shots, Masters and Reagan.”
 
I braced for most any kind of reaction.
 
“Was it you?”

Dead silence hung in the air long enough for my heart to reach the point of imminent arrest.
 
I was definitely getting too old for this shit.

“No.”

I blinked.
 
No?
 
“Did you know the shooter?”

He studied my legs for a bit, then looked me dead in the eye.
 
“I don’t know shit.”

One step forward, two steps back.
 
Damn, I needed Donna’s psych prowess about now.
 
I considered that avenue and it didn’t take more than a second or two for me to realize the best approach.
 
The only problem was it could get me dead.
 
I thought about what Dawson had said last night, but I had to do what I had to do.

“You weren’t good enough for the job?” I suggested.

Fury blasted from his eyes.
 
“Damn straight I was good enough.”
 

I felt myself start to shake inside and I clenched my jaw to stop it.
 
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.

“Then why didn’t you get the job?”
 
I swallowed, wet my lips.
 
“Were you afraid to take such a high profile job?”

“Fuck no,” he snarled.
 
“Any pussy could have done it.”

Confusion momentarily pushed aside the other emotions.
 
“Really?
 
It’s that easy to kill two suspects on the courthouse steps in broad daylight?”

He snorted.
 
“The job I was offered wasn’t about killing those two.”
 
His strange eyes, a mix of brown and gray, stared deep into mine.

My instincts set on edge.
 
“Who was it about then?”

“You.
 
I was supposed to kill
you
.”

My pulse tripped.
 
Okay.
 
Hank had told me that a hit had been ordered on me, but somehow it felt colder coming from this guy.
 
Especially since I knew he could have accomplished the mission if he’d chosen to.
 
I wasn’t sure even Warren Rayburn could have stopped Luther Fraley if half the tales about him were so.

“But you didn’t follow through.”
 
Was Luther why Rayburn was dead?
 
Had he killed Rayburn instead of me?
 
My heart rate leapt into overdrive.

Luther moved his head side to side. “I would have.
 
A job’s a job.
 
I had a certain reputation to maintain.
 
No offense.”

I managed a tight smile.
 
“None taken.”

“But I had to make a call first.
 
To the Judge.”

“My father?”
 
A new kind of confusion took charge with this turn.

“I owed the Judge.
 
I would’ve been rotting in prison if it wasn’t for him.”

The murder charge.
 
My father had dropped the case.
 
“I see,” was all I could think to say.
 
Whatever technicality my father had used would have been on the up and up, but some part of me abruptly wondered.
 
How could the two men I’d looked up to my entire life suddenly seem less than perfect?

Luther shrugged.
 
“I couldn’t do it without talking to him first.
 
You were his only kid.
 
I knew he wouldn’t like it.”

I choked on a sound that couldn’t be called a laugh.
 
Kept my mouth shut.
 
Let him talk.

“He called in that marker.
 
Told me to do whatever necessary to protect you.”

Emotion crowded into my throat but I swallowed it back.
 
This was the reason everything had changed.
 
This was why my father never seemed to trust me or my judgment after the divorce.
 
Fear had driven a wedge between us.
 
He had known that Luther could have killed me if he’d wanted to.
 
And all this time I’d been certain he was disappointed in me.

“Since I’m still breathing, I take it you agreed to his request,” I said, hauling my attention back to the matter at hand.
 
This was definitely not the time to let my focus wander.

“I did what I could.”

I stilled.
 
“What does that mean?”

“I was supposed to protect Rayburn too.
 
But his situation was out of my control.”

I tensed at the possibility of what his words meant.
 
“My father asked you to protect Warren Rayburn?”

Luther nodded.
 
“But it didn’t work out.
 
The Judge never mentioned it again so I figured we were square.”

I felt my head move up and down.
 
“I’m sure you were.”

Those bizarre eyes examined my face long enough to make me uncomfortable before saying, “If I was you, I’d let this one be.”

Now he sounded like his brother.

Right now, everything I’d done felt pointless.
 
I was no closer to clearing Rayburn’s name and I sure as hell had no evidence against Brooks.
 
But I couldn’t give up.
 
“I can’t.”

Our gazes locked in a kind of silent battle of wills, each trying to read the other.

“What do you want from me?”
 
The fingers of his right hand twitched and I wondered if he was considering whether or not he should kill me anyway.
 
Just now, from his vantage, it probably seemed like the easiest thing to do.

“I need anything you remember about Disposable.
 
No one will know it came from you.”

He laughed, an out of practice, bitter sound.
 
“No problem.
 
I don’t know shit about it.”