Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 (29 page)

50

Herby
Lubbock’s office went up in a fireball that sucked the air straight out of the closet and straight out of Victoria’s lungs. Flames chewed into the bottom panel of the door, finding quick purchase on the old wood, lighting up the inside of the closet like a campfire in the woods and ratcheting the heat up forty degrees in half as many seconds. Oily petroleum smoke curled up through the gap under the door, fouling what little air was left in the cramped space.

Victoria jerked an armful of coats off the bar above her head and threw them down in front of the door, smothering the flames and cutting off the influx of smoke, but that wouldn’t hold the fire back for long. She had to get out! Nothing that Laroy or the peckerwood could do to her would be worse than burning alive! She had to move! Right now! She grabbed the doorknob, turned it and gave it a shove, but the door didn’t budge. She pushed harder. Still no movement. Her heart accelerated, feeling like a flock of birds beating against her ribcage. She stepped back, put her shoulders against the wall and snapped a kick into the door’s thin central panel, mindless of the noise she was making. The kick only shivered the door in its frame a fraction of an inch. Furiously, her panic growing by the second, she kicked the door again and again with the same result. The effort left her panting and out of breath, gagging on the smoky air.

Victoria wilted against the closet’s back wall and pressed the coat sleeve over her mouth again, but it didn’t help. The coats at her feet began to smolder, adding the stench of burning wool and nylon to the gasoline and wood smoke. She knew she didn’t have long, already her vision was tunneling and her mind was spinning toward unconsciousness. In a final act of desperation, she grabbed the bar above her head, lifted herself off the ground and kicked out with both feet like a kid on a swing, driving her heels into the center panel.

Her broken toe shrieked like a molar being ripped out without Novocain, but wood cracked and her heart leapt in her chest. She did it again. Another crack! But she was growing weaker by the second, the smoke choking her down. She swung herself up and out again, like a trapeze artist going for the big leap, and slammed her heels into the panel. A splintering crack split the panel! Desperately, she did it again. And again. Finally, with a sharp crack that sounded more like a gunshot than breaking wood, the panel popped straight out of its frame.

She dropped to the floor and stuck her head through the narrow gap to find that a chair had been wedged under the knob! That’s what the peckerwood had dragged across the floor. As flames whipped up around her, she reached through and shoved the chair loose, sending it clattering to the floor, then stood and grabbed the doorknob from the inside. It was skillet-hot, blistering her hand through the bandage that covered her palm, but she barely felt it in her panic.

Victoria flung the door open on an inferno.

The heat almost knocked her down. Every surface in the room was engulfed. The desk was a bonfire, the walls and bookshelves curtains of flame, but the worst of it was Herby himself. He had been doused in gasoline. Flames rose from his scalp like a road flare, leaking a greasy column of smoke that smelled like burning chorizo. She jerked her gaze off Herby and looked toward the open hallway door, fifteen feet away. Fifteen feet that was a wall of fire. She’d never make it! She’d be burned alive. And what if she did reach the hallway? It, too, was on fire, a corridor of flames. Her eyes leapt to the window behind Herby’s desk. Eight feet away. It was her only chance…

Victoria turned and jerked a parka off of the rack behind her. It was big enough for three of her, more tent than coat. She spun it around, held it up in front of her face and charged out of the closet, heading straight at the window.

The pain was instantaneous. Fire licked up around her legs, singeing her toes and calves like raw chicken as she crossed the space like a bottle rocket, leaping at the last moment, the parka held up over her head.

She hit the window head on, crashing through the glass and diving over the lintel like a swimmer coming off a low-board, her arms wrapped around her head. She hit the patio headfirst then somersaulted end over end, her elbows and knees ratcheting off the bricks, ending in a heap, still entangled in the parka. But she didn’t shrug the coat off; she just lay there under it, sucking greedy breaths through the musty fabric, too weak to move.

Unfortunately, the crash of breaking glass had not gone unnoticed. She hadn’t been lying on the bricks for more than a half-minute when the coat was ripped off of her by Garland Sutton.

“Well, looky, looky,” he said amiably, staring at her down the barrel of a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun. She recognized Garland from the TV interviews he had given during the civil trial that had netted Abby Sutton three million dollars and Valentine a lifetime of recriminations. On TV, Garland had looked like slick-talking preacher with his hard eyes, shiny hair and silk suits, but he didn’t look much like a preacher now. His jeans were dirty, his hair was wild and his eyes were bloodshot. The only thing clean about him was the gleaming barrel of the chopped-down shotgun.

Victoria wilted against the bricks. She had faced death multiple times in the last three days, but in that moment she knew that her luck had finally run out.

“What the hell is going on?” Laroy Hockley called out from the far end of the patio, out of Victoria’s sight.

Garland kept his eyes on her. “This bitch was hiding in the closet,” he said in his deadpan, east Texas drawl. “She went flying out the window when I lit the place up.”

“What? A woman?” Laroy asked, his voice coming closer.

“My guess is she’s a hooker. A little afternoon dee-light. You know ol’ Herby.” Garland winked at Victoria, but his eyes were as ruthless and empty as the shotgun’s bore. “What say, honey, you a working girl?” he asked, his eyes skimming over her from head to toe, lingering on the good parts. When his eyes stopped on her face again they held the naked, predatory gaze of a rapist.

Victoria made no reply, but her heart thudded into a higher gear. She took in a deep. shuddering breath and then another and another, pumping oxygen into her brain, trying to clear her head as she balled her fists and drew her knees in tight. Garland Sutton would have to kill her before she’d let him touch her.

Even as she prepared for the last fight of her life, Victoria was aware of the sound of footsteps padding down the bricks, coming nearer, but she didn’t take her eyes off Garland until Laroy Hockley appeared at the old man’s shoulder.

The skin around Laroy’s eyes went tight and his hands turned into fists but he didn’t say anything; he just stared down at her, the muscles in his jaw knotted.

“I say we take her back to my place and put some questions to her,” Garland suggested then winked at her. “She probably don’t know anything, but that’ll just make the questioning more fun.”

Laroy made no reply to that; he just kept staring at Victoria.

Laroy was dressed casually, in a pink polo shirt and faded canvas shorts. He had boat shoes on his feet and skintight elastic gloves on his hands. A pistol was clipped to his belt in a quick-draw holster. He looked like a yuppie heading out for an afternoon sail, except for the gloves and the pistol.

“Hello Victoria,” he said wearily.

“What happened to you, Laroy?” Victoria replied, the words coming in an unbidden rush. “What have you done?” She blushed at the plaintive tone of her voice, the disappointed note of a teenage girl. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t juxtapose the boy she had known with the murderer standing before her. Her memories of Laroy had been tarnished by the night he had gone too far, but much of the two years that they had dated remained precious to her. Years that had seen her make her first moves toward adulthood. Her first drink; her first openly rebellious arguments with her disapproving father; her first time with a man. All of those events had included Laroy.

Laroy didn’t get a chance to reply to her question.

“You know this bitch?” Garland asked in confusion.

Laroy nodded. “Victoria Justice.”

Garland’s face went through a comical series of changes as the name hit home. “You shitting me?” he said. “Justice? This is
his
wife? The lady lawyer?”

Laroy nodded again. “Felony Trial Division Chief Victoria Justice.”

A wide smile slowly spread across Garland’s face, revealing prison dentures as white and even as fence posts. “Well that might work out just fine,” he said happily. “I kind of owe that son of a bitch a murder or two. But first, I say we make her pull the train.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Laroy snapped.

Victoria could see the wheels turning behind Laroy’s eyes. The calculations. Figuring the angles. There were no painful remembrances, no compassion for old loves. “She could be worth fifteen million to us alive.”

So that was why Laroy was here with Garland: he was after the money.

Jesus, wasn’t everyone?

Garland thought about that then nodded slowly. “Why, that just might be the smartest thing I’ve heard you say all day,” he said. His eyes skimmed over her body one more time and her skin crawled. “Ain’t a female thing in this world worth fifteen million dollars, but I admit I’d pay a pretty penny for a taste of her myself.”

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Victoria said as she instinctively slipped into the familiar role of a prosecutor facing a felon. “Too many people have died,” she kept her eyes on Garland, making them hard. “You’ve left a blood trail that leads right to your door, Sutton. You’ll die on the table down at Huntsville.”

Garland laughed. “Your husband will be riding the lightning, not me. I—”

“Shut up, Garland,” Laroy said.

Garland’s expression went pinched and mean, but he snapped his mouth closed.

“Why are you here?” Laroy asked her. “Were you following me?”

“Why did you kill Herby?” she asked in reply, holding his gaze, not backing off. She had lived her life on both feet; she’d die the same way.

“This isn’t show and tell,” he said, “What are you doing here?”

Victoria shook her head. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

Laroy nodded. “But there are good ways of dying and bad ways,” he pointed out. “Tell us where the money is and I’ll make it quick.”

Raw rage slashed straight through the fear Victoria was feeling, blasting it away in the space of a breath.

“There is no money,” she snapped. “All you’re going to get out of this is a death sentence. I’ll make damned sure of that, Laroy.”

Garland laughed. “You’ll be in a box by sundown, pretty lady. But I’m gonna work you like a racehorse first. I’m gonna—”

“Shut up,” Laroy said, turning angry eyes on Garland.

Garland glared back and the shotgun’s aim drifted from Victoria to Laroy’s belly.

But Laroy wasn’t scared. He glanced contemptuously at the twelve-gauge and said, “We don’t have time for this old man. Lower that snake-charmer and hand me her purse.” Laroy pointed at Victoria’s handbag lying on the patio at Garland’s feet. She didn’t even remember carrying it through the window.

Garland took a long cud-chewing moment to think about that, but finally he nodded shortly.

“All right,” he said. “For now.” He lowered the shotgun, stooped and snatched up the purse. He handed it to Laroy.

Laroy popped open her purse and pawed through it for a moment, pitching her compact and makeup case, hairbrush and wallet to the bricks. Finally he just turned the bag over and dumped the remaining contents. Lipstick, comb, checkbook, baby lotion, loose change and her cell phone all showered down. Laroy toed the mess around, obviously looking for something and not finding it. Finally he looked up at Garland.

“We’re taking her with us,” he said and produced a set of handcuffs from his pocket.

“I’m not going anywhere—” Victoria began, but Laroy was fast. He ducked down, grabbed her elbow, flipped her over on her face and dropped his knee into her back, knocking the breath from her lungs. He pinned her to the patio, wrenched her right hand up behind her back, snapped on a cuff, and then repeated the procedure with her left.

Laroy stood and looked at Garland. “Take her to the car,” he said. “Gag her and put her in the trunk. I’ll light up the second floor and meet you in the alley.”

“Yowza, boss,” Garland said. “Anything else you want me to do? Shine your shoes? Shake your pecker for you after you take a piss?”

“Damn it Garland,” Laroy lost his cool again, “just take her to the car!” He turned, trotted down the patio and disappeared through the kitchen door without waiting for a reply.

“Prick,” Garland muttered at Laroy’s back then looked down at Victoria.

“Get on your feet,” he said and gave her a sharp toe in the ribs. When Victoria still didn’t respond quickly enough, Garland ducked down, grabbed the chain between the handcuffs and jerked her to her feet, almost wrenching her shoulders from their sockets. The old man was strong, Victoria noted as she bit back a yelp of pain. She was no lightweight, but Garland had hauled her up one handed.

“Move it,” he said and shoved her down the patio. He prodded her along with the barrel of the shotgun, jabbing her kidneys with every step. She paused for the briefest of moments at the kitchen door and looked inside. Smoke drifted out through the gap accompanied by the crackling sound of the growing fire. Garland wasn’t happy with the delay; he rammed the shotgun into her spine. Victoria stumbled and almost went down, but managed to regain her footing by doing a drunken pirouette, not an easy task with her hands cuffed behind her back. That’s when she saw a man coming over the privacy fence dividing Herby’s backyard from the one next door.