The Bone House (23 page)

    Cab
turned on the oven in the apartment's kitchen. He'd found a restaurant on the
north side of town that sold vegetarian quiche, and he'd ordered it to go,
along with a bottle of Stags' Leap Chardonnay. He deposited the quiche on foil
lining a baking sheet and put it in the oven, then located a corkscrew and
opened the wine. He found a glass in a cabinet above the stove and poured the
wine almost to the rim. With the Chardonnay in hand, he dimmed the lights in
the apartment and switched on the gas fireplace. He settled into the leather
sofa, put up his long legs, and drank the wine in gulps as he watched the fire.

    He
thought about calling his mother. They texted each other several times a month,
but he hadn't actually heard her voice in six weeks.

    It
was the middle of the night in London, so he used his phone to send her a
message instead.

    
Cold
as hell here. Lonely but beautiful. See pic. C.

    He
attached a picture he'd taken with his phone on the crossing from Washington
Island, with the angry water against the gray sky and the forested coastline of
the peninsula looming ahead of him. His rented Corvette had been the only
vehicle on the ferry. Right now, in the empty guest house, he felt like the
only man alive in the town of Fish Creek.

    He
was accustomed to that sense of isolation. He thought of it as being homeless
with a roof over his head. If he were back in his condominium in Florida, he
would have felt the same way.

    His
mother had extended an open invitation to join her in London. Neither one of
them had anyone else in their lives who really mattered. Even so, he'd resisted
moving there, because he didn't know if he was ready to stop running. Whenever
he looked back, he saw Vivian Frost chasing him. He still needed to exorcize
her ghost. That was something his mother didn't understand, because he'd never
told her the truth about Vivian's death.

    Cab finished
his glass of wine. He got up, checked the quiche in the oven, and poured
another glass before sitting down again. He watched the gas fire, which burned
in a controlled fashion, never changing. Fire wasn't like that. It was volatile
and unpredictable, twisting with the wind, sucking energy out of the air. It
was also, he knew, a particularly excruciating way to die. Hilary Bradley may
have been blowing smoke his way with her story about Harris Bone, but she was
right about one thing. If you were capable of burning up your wife and
children, then you were the owner of a cold, dead soul, and you would feel
little remorse watching the life flicker out of a girl's eyes on the beach.

    Then
again, he'd felt no remorse himself watching Vivian die. Not then. Not until
later.

    Cab
got up restlessly and took his wine with him. He walked to the west end of the
apartment and pushed open the glass doors that led to the balcony. He went
outside, where the wind shrieked and cut at his face. The empty boat docks of
the harbor were below him, and street lights glowed in haloes along the
waterfront.

    He
thought about Hilary Bradley and realized he was annoyed with her. He was used
to being the smartest person in the room, and he had the sense that she was
every bit as smart as he was. He didn't like it that she had put a finger
squarely on his vulnerability without knowing anything about him. It also
bothered him that he experienced a glimmer of jealousy at the idea that she was
so deeply in love with another man. It was an unwelcome reminder that his own
life was emotionally and sexually barren. When he did have sex, it was
generally the end of a relationship, not the beginning. He'd even gone so far
as to pay for sex on a few occasions when he was living overseas, in order to
be free of any complications.

    'Cab.'

    He
heard the voice, but he didn't move or look around, because he knew it wasn't
real. It was just the echo of a ghost. Vivian had always had this way of wrapping
her Spanish-tinged British accent around his name, so that it came from her
lips like a prayer. She'd said it that way so many times. When she recognized
his voice on the phone. When she was under him and her body was arching with
one of her violent orgasms. When she was on her knees on the beach, pleading
for her life. Begging him to spare her.

    
Cab
.

    That
was the last word she'd ever spoken.

    
She
disappeared on a Tuesday.

    They
had planned to meet for paella and Mahou at a street cafe north of the
Diagonal, but Cab sat there alone for an hour, watching the crowds for her
face. She never arrived. When he walked to her apartment six blocks away,
everything personal to her had been stripped. The kitchens and bathrooms stank
of bleach. It was as if she had never existed. She left nothing behind.

    The
next morning, black smoke poured skyward from the shattered windows of the
Estacio-Sants train station. Twenty-seven people died.

    The
Spanish police needed only four hours to identify the terrorist behind the
bombing. Cab knew he'd been played for a fool when he saw the CCTV feed from
inside the station. The grainy footage showed Diego Martin, an American
fugitive wanted for gang murders in Phoenix, arm in arm with Vivian Frost.

    Diego
Martin, who had led Cab and the FBI on a chase to Barcelona. Diego Martin, who
had used Vivian to spy on Cab.

    There
had never been any love in Vivian's heart. Only sex and betrayal. Only lies.

    That
night, Cab drove north. He brought his gun. He knew what no one else did; he
knew where they'd gone. A few days earlier, he'd found reservations for a
rented house on a secluded beach near the rocky coast of Tossa de Mar. It was
the ideal hideaway for two criminals on the run.

    Vivian
and Diego.

    He
arrived after midnight on one of the most serene nights imaginable. The gentle
breeze off the Mediterranean was warm, the air was scented with flowers, and
moonlight flooded the beach. He climbed down the sharp hillside to the
sheltered cove and quickly realized that he wasn't alone by the still water.
They were there. He could see them on the sand. Entwined. Vivian on top, her
back to him, displaying an ivory expanse of naked skin sloping from her neck to
the cleft of her buttocks. He heard the guttural noises from her throat, so
intimately familiar to him, and even now, after everything, her abandon could
arouse him. They were fifty yards away, in the wet sand, close enough for the
surf to lap at their bodies.

    He
lifted his gun as he walked closer. He thought he had the element of surprise,
but he was young and out of his head with anger.

    Diego's
hand moved with the speed of a snake. Cab dove into the surf as bullets
screamed past his head. When he spun back with his own gun, Diego already had
Vivian in front of him. His gun was at her temple. Diego lurched out of the
sand, dragging Vivian with him.

    'You
want to kill me,' Diego said, 'but you have to kill her first.'

    'Do
you think that's a problem for me?' Cab asked.

    'I
know this woman. I know what she does to you.'

    'Cab,'
Vivian pleaded. 'Cab, I'm sorry. Let us go.'

    He
stared at her. She was naked, her body lit up by the moonlight, shadows under
her breasts. Streaks of sand clung to her damp skin. The natural thing would
have been to fold her up in his arms and lower her to the beach and make love
to her.

    'Drop
the gun,' Cab said, 'or I'll kill you both.'

    'I
don't think you will,' Diego replied calmly. 'You'd let me kill you if it meant
saving this wonderful whore.'

    Vivian
begged. 'Cab, please.'

    He
kept the gun steady in his long, outstretched arms. 'Viv, you know he's going
to kill you, don't you?'

    'Cab,'
she whispered. 'Just go.'

    'Why
do you think he brought the gun to the beach, Viv? Just because the police
might come? Come on, you're smarter than that. This man travels solo. He was
going to let you make love to him one last time, and then he was going to put a
bullet in your head.'

    Diego
began to back up in the sand.

    'Once
he's safe, you're dead, Viv,' Cab told her.

    He
could see her blue eyes. They were always the same - smart, cool, and
infinitely calculating. She knew he was right. It made him feel good to realize
that she'd been betrayed too. Her eyes dipped to the sand, and he understood;
she was about to drop out of his arms. Her legs buckled, she fell, and there
Diego was, head and torso exposed. Cab fired four times, in his chest, neck,
eye, and forehead. What he enjoyed most was the surprise. The disbelief. As if
it had never occurred to Diego that this woman could ever betray him.

    Diego
lay on his back in the water, dead. Vivian sprang to her feet, crying, as if in
relief, as if he'd freed her from a monster. 'Oh, God, Cab, thank you, thank
you.'

    She
took a step toward him, her arms wide.

    'Stop.'

    Vivian
froze. 'Cab, what are you doing?'

    Cab
aimed his gun again, this time at her head. 'Get on your knees,' he told her.

    She
stood in the sand. 'Cab.'

    'Do
it!' he shouted.

    Vivian's
knees sank into the dark sand. She squared her shoulders, as if to show off her
breasts to him. She was beautiful, even with her white skin splattered with
Diego's blood.

    'So
what happens now?' she asked him.

    'Now
I take you to the police. Now you spend the rest of your life in a stinking
hole.'

    'You
can't do that to me.'

    'Watch
me.'

    'I
lied to you, Cab,' she admitted. 7 cheated on you. I betrayed you. But the
rest? I didn't know. Diego was running from you, but I had no idea what he was
planning. I would have told you if I'd known.'

    'Twenty-seven
people died, Vivian. The police won't care. No one will care.' 'Just let me
walk away. You have Diego. He's dead.'

    'You
can mourn him while you sit in your little box.'

    Vivian's
face screwed up in anger. 'Is that what this is about? I fucked you, and now
you fuck me back?'

    'This
isn't about you and me.'

    'Oh,
like hell it's not.' Vivian spread her knees wide, exposing the shadow between
her legs. She leaned backward, stretching her torso, balancing on her palms.
'Is this what you want? You want a last ride, like Diego?'

    He
felt his fury resurfacing. 'Shut up.'

    'Come
on, Cab. I'm just a whore. I'll do whatever you tell me to do.'

    'Stop
it. How could you do this to me?'

    'I'm
sorry. We were both fools.'

    T
loved you,' Cab shouted. 'I still love you.'

    She
bowed her head. Her hair fell across her face. 'Then let me go. Don't put me in
jail for the rest of my life just because I lied to you.'

    'I
don't have a choice, Vivian.'

    'Cab,'
she pleaded again.

    He
wanted it to be over. He never wanted to see her again. He wanted to begin the
process of dismantling her face from his memory. Cab let his arm fall, pointing
his gun toward the beach. He hadn't counted on her desperation, her willingness
to betray him again. Vivian grabbed Diego's gun from the sand, taking him by
surprise. She didn't hesitate. She wasn't sentimental. In a single motion, she
swung her bare arm round and fired.

    She
missed. She was an amateur. The bullet sang by his ear, but Vivian never made
the same mistake twice. Her arm shifted, aiming again, and he knew her next
shot would be dead square into his brain.

    Cab
raised his arm and pulled the trigger at the woman he loved. He didn't miss.