Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (101 page)

When he handed her the gun, she handed it right back. “You
have better mobility and speed in case it’s needed. Until I’m, as you say,
fixed up.
”

They went back outside and over to the garage. He pulled the
Range Rover out and the Shelby in.

“They pay you for keeping everything in order here?” he
asked as he helped her into the front seat.

“Because I consult on their films when they involve cops and
robbers, and they like to have somebody reliable keep a watch, it’s a quid pro
quo. It’s nice to come over and sit quiet and away from my life.”

“Doc’s the only one knows?”

“Yes. He’s a good friend. I dated him for a while, but we
proved much better as friends.”

He nodded and walked around to get into the driver’s seat.
When they were on the highway heading for Tahoe City, Marco suggested any doctor
treating a bullet wound was obligated to report it.

“He’ll deal with it in the best way to protect me. He can
write a report, if he’s so inclined, and neglect to submit it.”

After a few moments of silence, Sydney decided to ask a
question that had been bothering her. She turned to him and said, “You aren’t on
the run, are you, by any chance?”

“I had problems, but I paid my debt. I’m clean.”

“You do time?”

Marco nodded. “Nearly two years in a really nasty system
below the border. Then I got rescued and did some work for Uncle Sam. In turn, I
got my records sanitized, so now I’m a free man with no record.”

“What’d you do?”

“A colleague on the border, and a good friend, was ambushed
and killed. The killers escaped back into Mexico. I took a leave, hunted them,
and brought them to justice. Unfortunately, I didn’t get away clean.”

“But you are now.”

“I am now.”

She was seeing this guy from an angle she would never have
even considered a short time ago. He was one of those guys living in that gray
world, that no man’s land, the lawless underbelly, and she was becoming more and
more comfortable with that. And hers was a story not all that far removed from
his. It was a definite connection.

And nobody does favors for Homeland or the feds and gets his
record washed after he’s killed people and spent time in a Mexican prison unless
he’s really good at something they want. She wondered just what it was and
whether that skill set might be of use to her. But she was a major threat to his
chances of a new life. He was Tony Cillo’s nephew, and that made it a very
complicated situation for both of them.

“Your uncle’s Italian. Cruz is Spanish.”

“I’m half Italian, half Mexican on my father’s side.”

She glanced at him. He had a very heavy background. If she
wanted help, she couldn’t have ordered up anyone much better prepared for
whatever she decided to do. All she knew was, she had no interest in running.

9

On the way into Tahoe City, Sydney replayed the shooting in
her mind. She tried to fit the size and shape of the shooter to someone from her
past. Who the hell was he?

The problem with running through her internal contact list
was that she’d been involved in a lot of arrests, busts, and—later—prosecutions
with the sheriff’s department. Then there were her many investigations with the
DA. She’d gathered more enemies than friends. It was a very difficult
environment because South Lake was divided between California’s jurisdiction and
Nevada’s, and further divided by counties.

One conclusion she had to face was that she couldn’t believe
Ogden Thorp, a man who really wanted her dead, would send somebody so
incompetent to take her out. That complicated everything in her mind, because it
was Thorp she wanted to bring down, and having some random fool out there
looking to kill her was an unwanted complication.

“Your doc live right in town?” Marco asked.

“He lives a few blocks off the main drag. Go through town,
and I’ll show you where to turn.”

When they crossed over the bridge on the Truckee River,
Marco said, “I used to love boating down this river. One of the first things I
learned from my uncle was that the Truckee River, instead of flowing west toward
the Pacific, flows east into the lake, then continues on east to Pyramid Lake.
He said the lake takes forever to drain. Supposedly, if you dropped a cup of
coffee in Lake Tahoe, it wouldn’t be gone from the lake for six hundred fifty
years. You believe that?”

“I’ve heard that. Nobody has been able to test it yet.”

He looked over at her. “How you doing?”

“Miserable. I’ll be a lot better as soon as I get some pain
pills and medical attention. And some food.”

“Wanting food is always a good sign.”

The center of the city was slow, a lot of foot traffic
crossing every block. Marco said, “I don’t remember it being this busy.
Especially on a Sunday night.”

“New restaurants, walkways, plus new, well-lit trails along
the water,” she told him.

Sydney directed him to the doctor’s house on Fairway Drive
on the north side of town, a green and white bungalow on a quiet, unpretentious
street of mostly single-story houses. He put the Range Rover into reverse and
parked few houses back. He told her to wait. He wanted to look around.

“This is a very safe neighborhood—”

“You called him. He knows you’re coming. I just want to be
sure he didn’t call anybody.”

“He wou—” she started to say, but he was already out and
walking away.

He had the Beretta under his shirt, a button opened so he
could get to it in a hurry. She watched him as he paused, studied the street,
the houses, and then moved between the doc’s place and the neighbor’s, quiet and
stealthy as a ghost.

When he came back a few minutes later, he nodded, and she
got out and followed him around back. A patio door wasn’t locked. She didn’t ask
if he’d done that or James had just neglected it.

The doc was sitting in his home office doing something on
his computer when he looked up and saw Marco, then her. Then his gaze drifted to
her blood-stained clothes and his eyes flashed alarm. “Sydney, what the hell is
going on?”

“I’m sorry to come in on you like this, James. But I have no
choice. I ran into a problem. I need you to take a look at some scratches.”

The doc looked at Marco like he might be the source of the
“scratches.”

“I just need a quick patch-up. Maybe some of those new type
of stitches. This is the guy who saved me or I’d be dead.”

The doc nodded, not showing the shock she knew he felt.
“Syd, what is going on?”

“No time for Q and A,” Marco said. “Just fix her up and
we’ll be out of here.”

Sydney nodded. “I have some problems. Do what you can for
me. And we need a few things. We were never here, and you don’t know anything
about anything.”

“Be smart,” Marco added. “This can be nothing to you, or it
can end up being everything.”

The doc didn’t waste time. He went to work on Sydney’s
wounds.

Marco said he needed a few food items from the kitchen. He
laid some money on the desk, but James said he didn’t need any payment. Marco
took the money back and left the room.

James Young, one of a dying breed of GPs, gave her
questioning looks as he worked.

“Just do what you can and let us go. He’s not my problem,”
she reassured him, nodding toward the kitchen. “I’m sorry I put this on you, but
I needed a place to get cleaned up. And, obviously, you can’t report this
because it never happened.”

Sydney apologized profusely for smelling of fish and sweat,
but the doc didn’t seem to care about that. He still seemed unsure of what Marco
was really all about but went about the business of getting her fixed up.

After cleaning and sanitizing the wounds and using
Dermabond, a kind of superglue liquid stitch, he wrapped the graze wounds. Then
he went into the adjacent guest room and came back carrying a clean blouse and
loose jogging pants. “My sister won’t miss these. I’ll buy her new stuff when
she visits again.”

Then he gently cleaned the bottoms of her feet. He didn’t
ask how that had happened. He put some ointment on them, bandages, and then got
her some socks and slippers to wear.

When he was finished, he handed her some antibiotics and
some cover bandages, then a bottle of ibuprofen.

Sydney said, “I was never here. This never happened.”

“I understand.”

“Thanks.”

Marco returned holding two filled paper grocery bags. “We
all on the same page?”

The doc nodded.

Marco smiled. “As they say in Mexico, stay smart,
mantenerse con vida
. Stay alive.”

10

They left the doc’s house out the front door. Walking back
to the car, Sydney said, “The Spanish bit, that wasn’t really a necessary
touch.”

“You lay the coffin nails out on the table, and it tends to
get attention.” They both got in the Range Rover and Marco eased away from the
curb.

Just as they were about to turn into town to head back,
Marco got a call from his uncle. He pulled into an empty strip mall lot and put
Cillo on speaker.

“Marco, we need to meet now,” Cillo said, sounding highly
stressed. “This is way out of bounds.”

“I’m not sure what ‘this’ is.”

“Don’t play around, Marco. The big boys at Incline know
what’s going on. Word is out. Was out before you got half a mile from my place.
I can’t talk on the damn phone. I got to meet with you. This has to get settled
fast. Tonight. Where are you?”

“Just driving around thinking.”

“Where’s that damn Jesup woman?”

“I assume she’s long gone. I dropped her on a back street
behind the casinos and some friend picked her up. She’s probably on her way to
who knows where.”

“Don’t bullshit me. I know you too well. You got her stashed
somewhere or you know damn well where she’s headed. That’s your nature and your
problem. Marco, you and me need to talk, and right now. Not on the phone. Pick a
place.”

Marco glanced at Sydney as if wanting her opinion. She
nodded in the affirmative.

“No problem,” Marco said. “Go past Camp Richardson. Take
that turnoff that puts you at the museum. I assume it’s still there.”

“Valhalla?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Marco said. “Park back there. I’ll meet
you in an hour. Don’t bring anybody else. We’ll figure this out.”

“It’s bigger than you know. Don’t even think about playing
games.”

Marco hung up and turned to Sydney “Well, this is where it
ends. I’ll deal with my uncle, make amends. You need to be long gone. You should
be in Truckee and on the 50 in about half an hour, and in Sac—”

He stopped as a black Ford 250 pickup truck shot past. The
driver paid no attention to two people in a Range Rover. Besides, with tinted
windows they were all but invisible in the night.

“You think that’s him?” Marco asked.

“Could well be,” Sydney said.

They watched the pickup disappear up the street heading to
the north end of Tahoe City.

Sydney said, “I want to find out what’s going on, what your
uncle has to say. Maybe he has an idea who the shooter is, or who ordered it.
Anything will help. I don’t want to leave until I have some idea what’s going
on. I’m coming with you.”

“That can’t be a good idea,” Marco said. “You get someplace
safe, you call me, and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“You might have a target on your back for rescuing me and
then letting me get away.”

“I’ll deal with that.”

“You go by car, you’re vulnerable to getting trapped. The
shooter is hunting right now, and maybe some other guys, too. You can’t go meet
him by car. Especially
your
car. And if you want me to take off, it’s in
this car. No, we’ll take the Shaws’ boat. I know how to get there and where to
drop you off. You can see Cillo. Nobody will expect you to come in that way.”

He stared off a moment, shook his head, but he didn’t seem
to have a counterargument.

She said, “You don’t understand how things are up here, and
I mean with your uncle as well. You need to have an easy escape if it comes to
that. I’ll sit in the boat. Let you off where you can hike through the woods to
the museum parking lot. Talk to Cillo. Be real careful. He’s not running things,
and somebody could be using him right now. On the way, I’ll explain some things
you need to know about what’s going on.”

He stopped at the Shaw house drive, unlocked the gate, and
pulled in. “You sure about this?”

“As a cat on a hot tar roof. But I’m not ready to run just
yet. I’m not happy somebody tried to kill me, and I need to know if it was some
minor-league fool or somebody connected to the major players around here.
Sometimes you run, nobody follows. Sometimes there’s nowhere you can run they
can’t get to you.”

He didn’t argue with that.

***

Corbin hated the voice at the other end of the GPS. Stupid
bitch. “That’s not what I asked, goddamn you.”

The robot said she didn’t understand. If he knew how to hunt
her
down, he would have.

Mustangs were everywhere, but not many were red
convertibles. He had never realized there were so goddamn many of them.

“Where are you, dammit?” he yelled as he headed for the next
medical clinic on his GPS. “You can’t hide. I’m gonna find you bastards!”

He felt a degree of sobriety coming on and he needed it.
This was getting crazy. He wondered what he’d do if he found them in some damn
clinic. Shoot them on the spot?

He drifted slowly now, looking at all the parking lots, all
the tourist cars. So goddamn many stupid tourists. The GPS idiot robot lady
telling him to go here, go there, West Lake, 505, now 531.

“Jesus, these aren’t clinics.”

“Take the next right in three hundred feet, then take the
first left on Christy Hill…”

“Jesus, how the hell many places are there?”