Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (113 page)

What the hell’s going on? He ignored his misery for a
moment. Is she with them or did they just take her?

He walked across the nape of the hill and down to his car,
each step sending spikes of pain through his skull. He waded through dry pine
needles and pine cones, then stopped, leaned against a tree, and felt sick.

I can’t die here. I won’t die here, goddamnit!

To ease and calm his mind, he entertained violent visions of
revenge, getting the Jesup woman and giving her live to Thorp on the condition
he got to watch the fucking lion rip her to pieces. Only violent fantasies
tended to relax him. It had always been that way for Henry Craven Lee, aka Leon.

The pain exploded across the tangled wire of synapses in his
brain like an electrical storm. He suppressed a scream. He couldn’t move his
jaw. With tears fogging his vision, Leon cried inside, cradled his face, and
tried to will the pain away.

He hadn’t taken a beating like this since he was a kid and
one of his mother’s many boyfriends beat him on a pretty regular basis. The
worst was the one who made him do things. The bastard who made him try and fuck
the neighbor girl, the bastard jacking off as he watched two nine-year-olds.
Then later, he beat the crap out of Leon to convince him never to say anything
about it. He threatened the girl with death to her whole family.

At least Leon had gotten even afterward, when he’d thrown
him out a sixth-story window. He still relished his first suicide kill, still
the one he remembered with the most pleasure.

Breathing hard through his nose, Leon finally made his way
to his car, every step pure agony.

They came for the PI to do what? Kill him?

Thorp was right about Jesup. She was a nut case. And what
was this with Kora North? She come to pick them up? Had she dropped them off?
Was she working with them?

He considered calling in some of Thorp’s goons, but that
wouldn’t solve the problem if it was big and included other people. He had to
understand it first. No, this was his problem now. His alone.

He had to get back to the cabin. Get the lawyer to bring
some pain pills. Right now, he couldn’t move his jaw without sending white-hot
lightning bolts that fired splintering pain up through his face and head.

36

“What do you want from me?” Kora asked when they parked up
in the trees above the ravine near their car, just far enough away so Kora
couldn’t see what they were driving.

“Like he said, we’re going to talk to you about something,”
Sydney said to this beautiful stick of dynamite.

“Talk about what?”

Sydney said, “The big party next weekend. You’re part of
that, I assume. Miss Daisy?”

“Yes,” Kora said. “Look, I just want my stuff, and I want to
get out of here. I don’t care if you killed Corbin or some mystery guy you’re
talking about. Just give me what I came for and let me go. This is kidnapping.
You can’t do this shit.”

Sydney let a moment’s silence hang over the conversation.
Then she said, “We have you by your short hairs, Kora. Don’t tell me what we can
or can’t do. People are trying to kill me. I’m in no fucking mood to put up with
any shit from you. I hand this stuff over to the right authorities, you’ll do
serious time. Except you won’t get the chance to do time. You’ll be dead. You
know too much. You’ll be as dead as Shaun…and Karen Orland. And she’s very
fucking dead, girl. You remember Karen, don’t you?”

Kora gave Sydney a gelid stare.

“Help us out,” Marco said. “And by helping us out, you’d be
helping yourself. We’re what stands between you and a very bad ending.”

“Help you out how?”

Sydney said, “The Great Gatsby Gala.”

“What about it?”

“I hear Rouse closes down his place and spends the weekend
at Thorp’s. Plays poker around the clock. That true?”

“So?” Kora’s belligerence was somewhat tempered by
curiosity.

“Rumor has it, Tricky Dick has a lot of blackmail tapes on a
lot of people. Plus a huge bankroll in that office of his…”

Kora emitted a cynical little snort. “You’re crazy if you’re
thinking of breaking into Rouse’s. Forget it. He’s got a top-of-the line
security system. His place is like Fort Knox. He pulls out his cell phone, he
can see every room anytime he wants. He’s paranoid because of that office he
calls his sanctum sanctorum.”

“During the party, where does he stay? He have a room at
Thorp’s, or does he come back to his place?”

“His place is closed down for the whole weekend. He never
leaves Thorp’s. He never actually leaves the poker tournament. He plays poker
with all those stars and big shots. Thorp has a replica of the poker room in
Tombstone where guys like Doc Holiday played. Same kind of tables. Little rooms
there for the hookers so they can take a break, get laid, nap. They play big
games all weekend. Believe me, cash like that—and it’s all a cash deal—they have
security and they’re armed. Most of them are ex or current cops or sheriff’s
deputies. It’s like a million-dollar buy-in. Crazy amount of money.”

“Where’s the money kept?”

“Right in that room. You won’t get anywhere near it, believe
me.”

“We’re actually not interested in it. What about this office
of Rouse’s? There any money in there?”

“Sure. If somebody got into Tricky Dick’s safe, what’s
rumored, they’d find a fortune. Being one of the world’s biggest asshole
thieves, he doesn’t trust the banking system. But you must be joking. Nobody
gets in there without tripping off all those sensors and alarms.”

“Maybe the guy who put the security system in would know the
weak points,” Marco suggested.

Kora looked from one to the other. “Jesus, you’re serious.”

“As serious as Corbin is dead,” Sydney said.

“With that great security setup, does the lawyer have armed
guards around his place?” Marco asked.

“No. Doesn’t need them. It’s all electronic. Even if you
could get into Rouse’s place, you couldn’t get in his office. It’s a fucking
bomb shelter. Steel door is, like, ten inches thick or something. And then the
safe—”

“Kora,” Sydney said, “Let us worry about our problems. You
need to worry about yours.”

“What, exactly, are my problems?”

“You’re going to be our inside girl,” Sydney said.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No, I’m not,” Sydney said. “Once you leave here, you stay
close to home for the next couple days.”

“This is—you can’t make me do this.”

“We can,” Marco said. “It’s the alternative to destroying
you.”

Sydney said, “You don’t get involved with anyone unless it’s
Thorp and he wants you for something. You were never here. You don’t know
anything about what happened to Corbin. You know nothing about us. We’ll be in
contact with you. Later tonight or tomorrow, we’ll let you know what we want. If
there’s a lot of money involved, you’ll get your share, plus the dirt Corbin had
on you. If what I want is there, it’ll protect all of us. It’s time to turn the
tables on those boys.”

Kora said, “You’re going to get me killed.”

Marco said, “Consider yourself a dead girl already unless we
find a way to save you. It’s much easier that way.”

“Even if you get in the office,” Kora said, “what if you
can’t get in the safe he’s got in there. Maybe there’s some kind of time lock or
something?”

“We’ll deal with that when and if it becomes a problem. We
might have to find a way to get the man to come over and help us out,” Sydney
said.

“Without bringing a whole security force with him?”

“Would depend on what he thinks is going on. You let us
worry about that,” Marco said.

Sydney added, “Life isn’t fair. Right now, we own you, and
you don’t really have a choice. But you’re lucky. We’ll be very generous and
fair with you in the end if you do your part. And we’ll let you know what that
is in the next couple of days.”

“If there’s millions in that safe, I want half,” Kora said.

“We get in, and that safe is, like you say, a well-stocked
bank, you get a million-dollar buy-out,” Sydney said.

Kora said, “A million dollars isn’t what it once was.”

“We’ll work it out. Maybe two mil,” Sydney said. “By the
way, were you going to kill Corbin yourself? Or do you always carry a piece?”
She pulled Kora’s gun out of her bag.

Kora took a moment, then smiled faintly and shrugged. “The
thing is,” she said, “maybe I was going to shoot that miserable bastard right in
the mole in the center of his forehead. I can’t believe that’s what the guy who
killed him did. How weird is that? It’s like he stole my play. Why Corbin never
had that cut off is beyond me.”

“He was waiting for the right surgeon,” Marco said. “We’ll
be in contact.”

Kora said, “I want my gun back. It was a present, and it’s
kinda like a piece of jewelry.”

Sydney emptied the gun before putting it back in Kora’s bag
with the money and handed it to her.

Marco said, “Don’t shoot anybody. Have a quiet week. We’ll
be in contact. Do something stupid, you won’t live to regret it. That’s your new
reality.”

“It’s my normal reality,” she said with bitter sarcasm.

Sydney and Marco got out of the BMW, taking the tennis bag
with them.

“Go the long way home,” Sydney said. “You were never here.
You know nothing.”

“Maybe they already know I was coming here. Maybe Corbin
told somebody.”

“Don’t overthink it,” Marco said. “Go home. Stay home. Play
the role they want you to play. You’re Miss Daisy; nobody’s going to kill Miss
Daisy.”

A very unhappy Kora North eased her BMW out onto the back
road and disappeared past the trees.

Sydney said, “Real sweetheart. I hate that this whole
operation could end up depending on a high-end hooker.”

“Believe me,” Marco said, “I’ve been in operations that
depended on a lot worse than Kora North. Let’s get the hell out of here. I’d
like to talk to this Dutch. You know how to find him?”

“I can find him. My police-reporter friend will track him
down. Let’s go somewhere we can get a few hours rest. Come back to Tahoe after
dark.”

They walked back to the Range Rover. Marco said, as he
pulled out, “Looks like you got yourself a partner and an inside girl.”

“Hopefully.”

“You know what the end game looks like? We hit that place,
no matter what we get, nothing is admissible.”

“I have an end game in mind,” Sydney said. “And it has
nothing to do with the law or the courts.”

“I’m starting to like you,” Marco said, “and that scares the
hell out of me.”

“It should,” Sydney said.

37

All the way home, Kora North debated with herself about what
to do. Run? Tell somebody? Jesup and her boyfriend were nuts. No way in hell
they could pull this off.

She figured the damage she could see on their faces—the
bruises, cut lips—wasn’t caused by fat-ass. He couldn’t whip himself. So their
saying it was some killer who’d taken out Corbin and then nearly them made
sense, and that they’d killed the guy.

I’m screwed,
she thought.

Seeing Corbin dead didn’t affect her as she thought it would
somebody else. She wasn’t horrified in any way. She was actually satisfied that
the universe had finally gotten sensible and killed the nasty little weasel. Her
only regret was that she didn’t get to pull the trigger herself.

But now what was going to happen?

They’re gonna use me and then what?

Feeling like she was in a crazy nightmare, Kora drove to her
condo depressed, seeing no way out.

I hope the bastard died knowing it, feeling the whole fear
and pain, she thought. Payback.

She watched people walking toward the Ketch Restaurant by
the boat docks. She wondered if she had it in her to do it. She thought she
could. She’d fantasized about killing a whole bunch of assholes who’d messed up
her life. Someday, she’d pick one of those miserable sonsabitches and do it.
Maybe hunt down the punk bastards who’d raped her when she was fourteen. In her
mind, it wouldn’t have been murder. It would have been eradication of a disease.

This guy with Jesup, whoever he was, looked like the real
thing. Where’d he come from? Cute in a badass sort of way. Jesup hire him?

If Dutch Grimes was actually working with them, they just
might be able to pull off something crazy like this. Maybe that guy had all the
information on the security system and the safe. Hell, he put it all in.

She sat in her car for a time staring at the waterfront
condos. She was trapped for sure. No way out. Jesup and her buddy had her.

What if they were good to their word? Would they really cut
her in? Part of her hoped they succeeded and somebody finally took down Thorp
and Rouse. Those miserable bastards needed to be brought down, all the people
they ruined.

Not likely. But how cool would that be?

Had her turn finally come around and she’d hit the damn
lottery? Or would she just be a tool to be disposed of? This was getting crazy.
There’d be killers running all over Tahoe after each other.

Gonna be a Chinese New Year around here, she thought, this
gets out of hand. What’s that saying…you want revenge, dig two graves? How about
a whole fucking cemetery?

Why in hell am I always in this kind of shit? Kora wondered
as she got out of her car.

Her greatest curse was that she’d been born sexy, kept
getting sexier, and seemed to have no defense against a world that wanted that.
Since she was little, all she really knew was how men reacted to her, reached
for her, used her. Next weekend, the highlight of the damn party would be when
she, as Daisy, ripped off her clothes and jumped into the goddamn fountain Thorp
had built. Other girls would join her. A real fun fest.

That’s my life, she thought, entertainment for jack-offs.