Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (44 page)

Liar.
“Mason, please. I . . . I need water.” She croaked the words, as if parched and afraid, kneading the cushion to stay focused.

He released her and stepped to the kitchen from the huge living area, continually cutting his eyes at her. No words, just watching. He returned and set a napkin and a drink on the coffee table. “Alcohol makes the experience sweeter.”

As he sat to join her, she replied, “
Spasibo
” in Russian.

“
Pozhalujsta
,” he said. “You’re welcome.” His pause melted into a grin. “Very good, Callie.”

Her paranoia about Russian mobsters had not been paranoia. The long-time stalker she’d imagined, no, sensed in spite of naysayers had just wooed her instead of shooting her in the back of the head.

He wasn’t simply someone’s hit man.

As her heart pummeled her ribs, she feared he’d notice the heavy beats with her half-exposed chest. Her head sent klaxon messages to run, but instead, she sipped the drink, both feet square on the floor. “So, which bastard relation to Leo Zubov are you?”

“Georgy,” he said, allowing a slice of his accent to show. “Nephew.”

“I see.” She nodded calmly, while her insides whirled in an uproar. “The family must put a lot of trust in you.” Glancing around the living room, she looked toward the kitchen, across remnants of the evening’s gala scattered across counters and tables. “Especially to invest so much money into you, this house, the parties, the Jag . . . this vendetta.”

She rested her gaze on him and held it. Waiting.

With enough police work over time, cops amass experience. They talk to people, and if they luck out and land a great field training officer, they learn to read nuances. If she focused on Jeb, Mason would win. She had to keep the focus on her, to buy time. If she kept him mentally distracted, she might tap his impatience, and hopefully he’d make a mistake.

A small window, but therein lay her edge.

“The family,” he said and spat.

“They never sanctioned you, did they?” she said. “Do they even know you’re here?”

Mason snatched her wrist, sending her glass flying. “I do what I want.”

Damn!
He was a lone wolf.

There weren’t any henchmen. No accomplices. No contract on her.
Shit!
Jeb was probably somewhere in the fucking house. She fought the urge to jump up and run room to room.

He was Russian and hated her. But without the family behind him, what drove him this friggin’ hard?

“But you rented this house months ago,” she said, channeling control with every shred of effort she could muster. Her eyes couldn’t help but dart around the place. Jeb might be within earshot. She yearned to scream his name.

While Mason held her wrist, his other hand ran up and down her arm, rougher this time, in and out from under her bodice, sending shivers. He grinned seeing the goose bumps. “When you moved to Middleton, I came south. I followed you once to your beloved Papa Beach’s house. I liked Edisto with its beaches. A working vacation. And it was close enough to you.” His strokes turned into a clench on her other wrist, and he shook her once. “You thrilled me moving here. And the fun began! Like an omen.”

She winced at his tight hold. “I threw you by planning to install motion sensors, didn’t I?”

“Yes. No more picking your new locks, though I welcomed the challenge each time. Would have been a shame breaking out a window. The cheap locks that agent put on the Beechum house were worthless, with Pauley too stupid to change them. But no matter,” he said, his accent slipping between words. “I tired of the game. I’ve been picking locks since I was ten.”

Her fingers grew numb. “Papa Beach was not a game.”

He clenched stronger.

“You killed my uncle. Yes, I killed your Papa Beach.” He glared. “It hurts deep inside when people whom you care about are taken away. You needed to feel the same pain.”

“You took the coins to feign a burglary.”

“And your stupid Peters found them in the trash where I threw them.” Mason sneered. “He played his own game after that. I just took advantage.”

She fisted and tried to pull free. He held firm. “You overpowered Steve Maxwell to stack charges against Peters,” she said, “so he’d get charged with Papa’s death.”

“Stupid handyman should have stuck to building mailboxes.”

Yes. He should have
. “You bastard. You ran my father into a tree!”

“The goal was both your parents, but alas.” He released her and widened his hands. “He gave me such an opportunity on that road. All those trees.”

“Why now? Why not in Boston, or even Middleton? Why wait two years?”

He smiled. “I wanted you to feel like your world had returned to normal. So I could ruin it once again.”

She’d been wise all along to watch over her shoulder for Russians. Her police skills
hadn’t
left her. “You won. Congratulations. Now drive away, Mason. You’ve made your point. Take your Jag and disappear. There’s no evidence against you.” She’d go to jail for Pauley’s murder sooner than lose Jeb. “It’s my word against yours, and nobody—”

He shot to his feet and yanked her up against his chest. “You fail to truly see the man who stands before you.”

His creepy stare sent a chill writhing up her spine, but she had to continue this demented game. “So tell me about him,
Georgy
.”

“I’d rather show you.” A wry smile crept across his face, but he gave her the barest brush of a kiss. “Tomorrow I’ll brag to my family that not only did I kill your husband, but I fucked his wife, the woman responsible for the death of Leo Zubov.”

Ringing filled Callie’s ears, intensifying. A shadow blocked all light as her husband’s assassin slammed his mouth on hers and grew hard against her belly.

Emotion exploded in her head with memories of the second story collapsing, sparks and flames shooting into a night sky. Shrapnel ripping her arm. Jeb screaming.

Mason pushed her off balance and fell harshly atop her onto the sofa. As he weighed her down he raised her skirt, groping her outer thigh enough to bruise. His fingers crawled to her inner thigh, squeezing.

John. In how many ways have I let us down?

Mason repeatedly grabbed at her flesh under her dress, mashing, kneading.

She reached, prying, searching to snare a digit to disable his hold. Unable to grasp one, she shoved at him. His weight only pressed heavier, whooshing air out of her lungs. With a spasmodic jerk, her eyes flew open as he harshly fondled her pubic area. But she couldn’t roll out from under him. One arm lay wedged under her, and he pinned the other back. She mashed her eyes shut again when Mason bit her neck.

Jeb healed after the fire because of you
.
He’s a grown man because of you
.
Don’t give up your life when he needs you most
.

Mason’s crushing vise on her breasts snatched her back to attention. She couldn’t fight against his strength, so she said the first thing that came into her head. “You’re a sick, twisted, pathetic misfit that your family cast aside.”

The ardor faded, his stare a cross between hurt and disdain. “I don’t need family sanction,” he fired back. “I’m showing
them
how to get their damn balls back.”

He rearranged his clothes and went to the bar. Callie lay breathless, grateful to inhale deeply.

He lifted a bottle of Scotch. The bottle neck clanked on a glass as he poured. “Damn soft traditionalists. I showed them in Boston, and I will show them here. Then minds will be changed.” He swung his arm. “An entire family disposed of, except for the old woman.” He took a drink. “And I might just conclude with her, in her husband’s bed. She’s doable.”

Callie’s head spun at the image of her mother’s rape. She pushed upright against the arm of the sofa. The cavalry wasn’t coming, and her comments would drive the evening. Or so she hoped. She had to hope. “You’ve proved your point, Mason. It’s about respect.”

“Don’t insult me, Callie. I’m no fool, and we’ve got all night to play.” He downed the Scotch. “Bad for business, they said.” The glass landed heavy on the bar. “Bullshit. It sends a message to kill a cop—to kill his family. It delivers a warning!”

His eyes weren’t glazed, but they showed the drink. He ambled back toward her, empowered.

As she leaned back, he dropped to the sofa and chucked her under the chin with a knuckle. “Taking your husband, burning your house, all of it sent you packing, Callista Jean Morgan.” His countenance darkened. “But the family didn’t agree. They will approve this time, though. With your family gone, I can step into a respectable role with mine.”

She desperately glanced at the windows, praying for an observer, a beachcomber. But the view lent itself strictly seaward. “Let me see my son, Mason. I’ll do what you want, just let me see Jeb.” Callie undid her belt, slipping it through her hand as it snaked to the floor in an enticing promise. “Then do what you will.”

Frustrated, he pulled her to her feet. Taking her by the wrist, they walked down the hall to the locked bedroom door between the hall bath and his master suite. Breath held, she restrained herself from plowing past Mason to open the door herself.

Jeb lay on the bed, eyes closed.

“Jeb.” Callie rushed to his side. It took everything within her to freeze long enough to watch his chest for movement.
Thank heaven, he’s breathing
. She opened his eyelids, felt his forehead. Drugged. She felt his body, doing a cursory check for injury.

“So you’ve seen him.” Mason grabbed her away and tugged her back through the doorway.

As they returned down the hall, she fought to peer over her shoulder to catch another glimpse of her beautiful child, but they rounded the corner.

Back in the living room, Mason steered her toward the sofa, shoulders back, stiff with determination. Seeing Jeb alive had energized her, rejuvenating purpose in her. The manicure scissors now palmed from her belt, her thumb rubbed against the metal. She inhaled, primed.

He turned to face her, impatience in his jerk of her arm. But with a thrust and upward swing, she aimed for Mason’s jugular. The scissors ripped skin long and deep before sinking off the mark into his jaw, instead jarring to a stop against bone.

Mason staggered back. The embedded tiny weapon reflected light off its grips.

His fingers stiffened at the touch of the steel in his face. Then he yanked the scissors free and tossed them across the room. “You bitch!” Blood drooled down his neck, wicking into his clothes.

He punched her in the face before she could react.

She crumpled to the floor. Blood streamed from her nose. Fighting to concentrate, she steadied herself against a desk and pulled up.

When his hand came away from his wound filled with blood, he growled. “I’ve changed my mind. First I kill your brat. Then I finish you.” He walked back toward the bedroom.

Callie ran after him and leaped. Her heel connected with his outer thigh above the knee. As she went down, Mason’s leg buckled, and the momentum carried him into the wall.

Callie scrambled up and scanned the room for a weapon. The kitchen’s bar and all its cutlery was thirty feet away. Too far.

Still, she spun to run in that direction, to draw Mason away from Jeb’s room. He tripped her. As she struggled to rise again, he grappled for a higher control of her left leg. She fought reflexes and let him draw her closer, then lashed out with a grunt and kicked his wounded jaw with her right foot. His guttural scream rebounded off the ceiling. She pedaled out of reach, her sandal slick with his blood. She scrambled to her feet and headed again for the kitchen, her only chance for a weapon.

But instead of following, Mason staggered back to the rolltop desk and shoved up the top.

Her gaze met his. She had no doubt what was hidden in that desk, and bullets traveled faster than she could. So she turned and bolted toward him just as he grabbed the weapon. In her tackle, the Glock flew loose.

Callie held tight to his body, using claws and elbows. With a downward drive, Mason’s elbow whacked her temple. Stunned, she sank hard on a knee, head spinning.

Mason stood, chest heaving, his once ecru shirt bright red. He scanned for the gun and spied it under the coffee table. “Let’s wake up your baby boy,” he said, panting between words, his enunciation blunted by the wound. “Your son’s earned the joy of seeing his mother splattered across the wall.” He moved his mouth, experimenting with the damage done. “I’d wanted it the other way around, but this”—he lightly touched his face—“changes things.”

The man’s body arched, hit from behind by a blur. As Mason fell to the floor, Jeb collapsed in a heap on the mauve and gold rug behind his captor, who fell face down with a smack. Mason slid and bumped into the coffee table, scattering glasses, bottles, and used cocktail napkins across the parquet floor.

The boy moaned, spent, unable to stand and attack again. “Mom . . .”

Mason rolled over and rose up to his knees. “Good final effort, kid.”

Her breaths heaving, Callie recognized that Mason could choose Jeb or her for his next offensive move. And he focused too long on her son.

Mason leaned over to retrieve the gun as she grabbed a half-empty beer bottle on an end table. With a swing fueled by two years of frustration, she rose up and smashed the bottle across his head. Glass busted, the butt end of the bottle propelled against the window, beer remnants spraying. The momentum took her to her knees, still gripping the bottle’s neck.

A roar erupted from the man as he cradled his head. Crimson ran from his scalp, the fresher red mixing with the darker on his ripped face. Primal Russian slurs poured from his mouth, spraying pink spit.

Mason spun and dove for her.

Callie braced her arm and thrust upward as the man’s momentum drove the keen edges of the jagged bottle into his windpipe.

He whipped an arm around her in a constrictor-like embrace as he fell. His fingers dug into her back while his other hand instinctively clawed at his throat. They rolled in a twisted, slick mixture of bodies and blood, him furious . . . her fighting in a frenzy to escape.

Callie ferociously thrust her weight behind the bottle.

His lock on her turned into a seizure, and she rolled herself off him. She scurried crab-like out of reach, praying for his death.