Lethal People: A Donovan Creed Crime Novel (36 page)

To me, he said, “Do I want to know why their pants are sopping wet?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” I said.

“You got any dry clothes they can wear so they don’t ruin the jet seats?”

Quinn and I gave Darwin our camouflage blankets and watched him wrap them around the two waifs. I remembered the two thousand dollar suit and tie Joe wore last week at the cemetery and thought,
You never feel the splinters on the ladder of success until you’re sliding back down
.

Darwin took Joe and Grasso back with him to Washington, and Quinn and I took one of the company’s Gulfstream jets back to headquarters.

This time, we both slept the whole way.

When I got back to headquarters, I kept my promise to Garrett Unger and let him go back to his wife, knowing in a week or so the police would arrest him along with Arthur Patelli, the guy who torched Addie’s house.

CHAPTER 51

“
I
t was the suit, man. I swear to God, she loved the suit.” This was Eddie Ray, telling his story about the girl he met in sporting goods. “Words can’t describe her.”

“You were probably drunk,” said Rossman, and the others laughed. The old friends were hanging at Da
ff
ney Ducks, the neighborhood watering hole. Eddie Ray had grown up and lived his entire life—forty-six years—within five miles of this place.

She’d been shopping for a birthday present for her dad. A fly rod. It couldn’t be just any rod, had to be the best. Eddie Ray was so stunned at her beauty, he’d just stood there without saying a word. She’d said, “That’s a great-looking suit you’re wearing. Is it an Armani?”

“Laugh all you want,” he said to his drinking buddies, “but I’ve got a lunch date with her tomorrow.”

“Tell us where,” said Lucas, “and we’ll all give her a ride.” He made an obscene gesture with his hands and hips.

More laughter.

“She ain’t like that. This is a high-class broad. Seriously.”

The blond beauty had asked about his suit, and he couldn’t just stand there and say nothing. Eddie Ray had choked up the courage to say, “I’m not sure of the label, but I got it at the JC Penney’s.” She’d nodded, impressed. Things were going good, so he tried for a joke. “But it cost a hell of a lot more than a penny!” he’d said, then added, “Pardon my French.” It hadn’t mattered about the profanity. “I like that,” she’d said. “You’re funny.”

Now, back at the bar, buying a round of drinks for his skeptical buddies, Eddie said, “I’ll take a picture, and you can judge for yourself.”

“Make sure you get the front end,” said Rossman. “I’ve always wanted to see lipstick on a pig.”

“I’ll take a picture, all right,” said Eddie Ray, “and when you see it, you’re gonna shit!”

They’d talked a few minutes, and he’d picked out the best rod in the store for her. She’d been impressed by his knowledge of the sport. He’d asked her name, and when she said, “Monica,” he said, “I knew a girl named Monica once, back in high school. Real pretty, she was.” Monica had smiled a sly smile and said, “I bet she was your girlfriend,” and he’d winked and said, “You’d win that bet for sure.” They’d laughed, and she’d said, “You probably had lots of girlfriends in high school if you had that cool mullet back then,” and he’d modestly said, “No more’n my share, I expect.” Then he’d told her about being on the football team and how he blew out his knee that last season, and by then they were checking out and he couldn’t help but give her the employee discount, meaning, he bought the rod and let her reimburse him, which she did with cash. Cash he was now blowing on drinks for his friends.

“Hold up,” he said to his friends. “I can only do the first round. I gotta save my dough for my date tomorrow.”

She’d been so grateful for the discount, she felt she should do something to repay him. “Have dinner with me tonight,” he’d said, wondering how those words had escaped from his mouth. She’d said, “Hmm. I can’t have dinner, but if you feel like driving to the city tomorrow, I can meet you for lunch.”

Eddie left the bar early to get himself together for the big date that promised to change his life.

The guys kept drinking and talking, and Lucas tried to take bets on whether or not Eddie Ray’s lunch date would show up tomorrow. No one was taking. They decided Eddie Ray had been the victim of a great-looking broad who was playing him for the discount.

They were wrong.

When Eddie Ray got to the restaurant and asked for Monica, he was handed a small envelope by the hostess. Eddie’s knees went weak, and he had a sinking feeling in his heart. It was a classy rejection, he thought, but a rejection just the same. Of course, there was always a chance she’d gotten tied up with something at the last minute. If so, she wouldn’t have known how to contact him.

So there was a glimmer of hope, Eddie decided. He took the note, walked to an empty chair, sat down, and tried to fight the feeling of rejection that had permeated his life since the day his knee blew out.

The note said she’d ordered a private lunch for them in suite 316.

Eddie raced to the elevators and pressed the button. He didn’t care if it seemed too good to be true. He’d seen several movies where the gorgeous party girl wants to get away from her life and winds up humping the pool boy or the maintenance man. Eddie wasn’t kidding himself; he knew this wasn’t going to be the start of a lasting relationship.

He also knew that when a girl asks you to her hotel room, you don’t say no. She was practically promising him sex, probably after a nice lunch and some flirty conversation. As he knocked on the door, he thought,
In less than two hours, I could be banging the most beautiful girl on the planet Earth
.

Callie had other plans, of course.

“Come in,” she said. “The door is unlocked.”

Eddie entered the parlor area of the suite, noticed the flowers on the table, the champagne bucket, the flute glasses, the fresh-squeezed orange juice, the chocolate-covered strawberries. He could hear soft music coming from the bedroom. Callie stood across the parlor, leaning against the wall, dressed to the nines in a yellow sun dress, hands in her pockets, cutting an angle as practiced as any American model.

Eddie let out a low whistle.

“I gotta hand it to you, Monica. You do know how to set the mood.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering lunch. I hope that’s okay.”

Eddie Ray liked to order his own food, but what the hell, this wasn’t about eating. Still, she was probably some kind of model, skinny as she was, and he didn’t care much for chick food. He looked again at the champagne and the orange juice and the flowers. All this, he thought, and not one beer. What were the chances she’d order him a hamburger and fries, he thought. Zero, right?

Eddie Ray said, “Whatever you’ve chosen will be perfect, I’m sure.”

“I take you for a guy who likes his steak and potatoes,” she said.

Eddie’s face lit up, and he said, “Can I pour you a drink?”

“If you’ll join me,” she said.

They had one, and it was a sissy drink, but it wasn’t that bad. He relaxed on the couch, and she made him another. This one tasted stronger, and he was starting to feel the e
ff
ects of drinking without eating first. He figured he’d leave this part out tonight when he told the guys at the bar about his big date.

She smiled and said, “When you finish your drink, I’ll give you a kiss.”

“I’ll drink the whole damn bottle if you take o
ff
your dress,” he said with a wink, then wished he hadn’t.

“Why, Eddie Ray!” she said, but she said it with a laugh, so he guessed they were still okay.

“I was just kidding,” he said. He gulped down the rest of his drink, and she said, “Now, about that kiss.” Eddie couldn’t believe his luck.

Eddie Ray stood to collect his kiss and got about five feet before making a strange face and grabbing his chest. He took a couple of steps sideways and staggered into the wall.

She asked, “Are you okay?”

He looked at her and said, “I don’t know what’s happening.” He sank to his knees and fell on his side, his face contorted in pain at first, then agony.

Callie pulled a chair next to him and sat. “You don’t have much time,” she said, “so pay attention.”

Eddie had lost all feeling in his feet and hands. “What,” he gasped, “have you done?”

“I’ve poisoned you,” she said.

“But why?”

“I did it for Monica. She wasn’t your girlfriend, by the way. She was five years younger than you. Fifteen, the night you raped her.”

“What are you … talking about?” he said. He was having di
ff
culty speaking, but right now it seemed his voice was the only part of his body that was working.

“You were hosting a keg party at your house,” Callie said. “The party had moved to the front yard. Monica was walking home from a dance class at the high school. You knew her from the neighborhood and called her over. You grabbed her and raped her on your front lawn and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.”

“H-how do you know all this?”

“She was a bit snooty,” Callie said, “but she was a friend of mine. She had class. Unlike you.”

“Help me,” he said.

“Fat chance. Here’s my best o
ff
er. Give me the names of two people who ruined your life the way you ruined Monica’s. If you want justice, this is your chance. But speak quickly, because you’re about to pay for your sins in a permanent way.”

He named his coach and the kid from Woodhaven, the one who took the cheap shot on the football field a full second after the whistle had blown.

Callie wiped down any and all surfaces she might have touched, including the orange juice lid, the bottle, and the champagne bottle. Then she placed the champagne cork and flutes in her du
ff
el, along with the note she’d written that she fished out of his pocket.

Callie stopped for a moment, inspecting the room. Deciding it was sterile, she headed for the door, pausing only long enough to step over Eddie Ray’s shuddering body. She was done here, was tired of being Monica.

CHAPTER 52

K
athy Ellison had nearly finished walking her golden retriever, Wendy, around her neighborhood circle when she saw a hulking man standing beside a parked sedan directly in front of her. It was mid-morning, a beautiful sunny day, and theirs was a gated community in Marietta, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. Crime was virtually nonexistent in neighborhoods such as Kathy’s, where all houses were priced in the million-plus range.

Even so, the man standing in her path was so huge and his face and head so grossly disfigured, she stopped in her tracks some twenty feet away. Wendy noticed him, as well, or had picked up on Kathy’s fear as dogs will sometimes do. The hair on Wendy’s back slowly began to stand on end. She let out a long, low growl. Kathy decided the sensible thing to do would be to turn around and go home the way she’d come.

As she spun around, she heard the man call her by name. Kathy froze in her tracks, stunned, frightened. There was no reason for this monstrous man to know her name.