The Dirty Secret (46 page)

Staring into his green eyes, Rikki saw a hunger she vividly remembered. It was matched by the longing growing inside her.

Three soft claps sounded from the dining room. Turning her head, she felt her knees buckle as she saw a tall, muscular man with a blond crew-cut standing there. Bright white teeth peeked out from beneath his sneer, and the lower half of his left ear was missing.

“Wow,” Yuri Petrenko said caustically. “How touching. What a shame it took 15 years to reach this point.”

“How do you know that?” Dave demanded, squaring his shoulders and placing himself between Petrenko and Rikki. “And how did you get in here?”

Oh, God
, Rikki realized,
I left the doors unlocked
.

Petrenko laughed. “You know AIS. We know
everything
about
everybody
. I could recite your wedding date, your divorce date, her dad’s date of death, yada yada yada. All that really matters is this goody two-shoes girl of yours started sniffing around Jack McCallen’s unfortunate demise,
and
she left her backdoor unlocked tonight. Not a good combination of decisions. It seems she has this mistaken belief that people are inherently good and trustworthy.”

Dave cast a sour glance over his shoulder at Rikki. “Nobody’s perfect,” he muttered.

Petrenko reached down to his belt, unsheathing an eight-inch-long blade that shimmered in the firelight. “If it’s any consolation, I do feel guilty butting in like this. Part of me wanted to wait until after the humping was over to kill you both, but I couldn’t risk waiting any longer.”

“Hey!” Rikki blurted. “What makes you think there was going to be ‘humping’ going on here tonight anyway?”

“Please!
Moonlight Serenade?
That nostalgic crap isn’t playing by accident, lady.”

Suddenly, the floorboards between the front door and the living room creaked. Looking to her left, Rikki saw Silent Doug Vaughn standing there in a blue WVU sweatshirt, gray cotton sweatpants and gray felt slippers, holding an empty Purex measuring cup. The flames from the fireplace reflected off his glass eye while menace flared in his flesh one.

“If I was you, Roosky,” he said slowly. “I’d put down that knife and stop badmouthing Glenn Miller. You’re under arrest for burglary, and you don’t want me to add anything else.”

Petrenko sneered and shook his head in disbelief. “What’s this? The local neighborhood watch hero making a citizen’s arrest? You’re in
slippers
for God’s sake!”

Vaughn wiggled the glass measuring cup. “The wife’s baking cookies for her book club meeting tomorrow morning. It’s Sunday night and the grocery is closed, so she sent me next door to borrow some sugar from Rikki. I heard the music playing and figured she didn’t hear me knock, so I let myself in.”

“You left the
front door
open, too?” Dave asked, incredulous.

“This is the safest place in the world!” Rikki replied. “We leave our doors unlocked all the time!”

“Quit jabber-jawing and get your asses behind me right now,” Vaughn growled. Dave and Rikki quickly complied while Vaughn slowly stepped toward Petrenko. “I’m trying to talk some sense into your visitor before he does something stupid he’ll end up regretting.”

Petrenko laughed so hard Rikki thought he might pee himself. “Listen, Grandpa. There’s no chance those two will be alive tomorrow. You’ve got a lot of balls, and I
really
don’t want to have to gut you, too. So why don’t you just walk out of here … Tell your wife the prosecutor was asleep and she’ll need to finish baking her cookies tomorrow.”

Vaughn snatched a grey velour throw from the loveseat and wrapped it around his left forearm. “You’ve never met my wife. She makes Stalin look like Gandhi. I’d rather take my chances with
you
than walk back in that house without sugar.”

Petrenko sighed and shifted the knife, gripping it with the blade protruding from the pinky side of his right hand. “Suit yourself,” he said, bouncing toward Vaughn like a boxer emerging from his corner.

The sheriff stood still with his hands dangling at his sides. Petrenko lunged forward, throwing a right-handed punch and the blade flashed in the firelight. Vaughn nimbly moved his left foot back a half step, using his thickly-wrapped left forearm to brush aside the punch just as he jabbed Petrenko in the face with the Purex measuring cup. The blow jolted the Russian off-balance, leaving him wide-eyed and gape-mouthed.

Awestruck, Rikki watched Vaughn move like a whirling dervish. Sliding his left hand under Petrenko’s right forearm, he crashed his right elbow down on the Russian’s tricep, causing the knife to shoot violently from his grip. Vaughn then reared back and smashed the glass cup into Petrenko’s face, causing it to explode. Discarding its shattered remnants, he pummeled the man’s face five more times with his bare fist. Petrenko crumpled onto the floor in a dazed and bleeding mess before losing consciousness.

Vaughn quickly solidified his grip on Petrenko’s now knifeless and lifeless right hand and forearm, extending them away from his body, backwards and behind his head. Bringing his knee down on the middle of Petrenko’s back, he forcefully pushed the man’s face down into the carpet, balancing his weight between Petrenko’s skull and back to keep him immobilized.

“Dave,” he said calmly, panting slightly. “Make yourself useful and grab this bastard’s legs for me. Rikki, go fetch my flex-cuffs out of the cruiser.
Now!
”

Dave kicked the knife away before pouncing on Petrenko’s legs. Rikki paused briefly to slip on Birkenstocks then rushed out the front door. A minute later, she returned with a fistful of two-foot-long plastic straps. Vaughn hauled the dazed Russian’s hands behind his back. “Do me a favor: Strap a cuff on his wrists and pull it tight. Not so tight that you cut off the blood flow, but too tight for him to weasel out of it.”

Rikki swiftly looped a strap around Petrenko’s wrists, tightened it, and fastened it into place with a stainless steel barb. She repeated the process with a second strap for good measure.

“Good,” Vaughn said. “Cuff his ankles, too, and strap his ankles to his wrists. I’ll keep my fat ass on him so he can’t wiggle around.”

Dave sat on the back of Petrenko’s knees, holding his ankles with a white-knuckled grip, but his face was sweaty and pale. Moaning loudly, Petrenko began kicking against Dave’s grip. Rikki quickly threw a set of flex-cuffs around his ankles and tightened it until it almost cut into his skin.

The sheriff examined Rikki’s handiwork and smiled. “Okay, Dave. You can get up now. That stupid Roosky ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Petrenko thrashed wildly against the restraints, gritting his blood-spattered white teeth. Veins popped out on his forehead and arms. It did not matter.

“Whatcha have to say to Grandpa
now
, you Roosky motherfucker?!” Vaughn screamed. He had a crazed smile and an even crazier look in his one good eye. “Huh? Does the cat have your tongue, you Communist cocksucker?! Tell my wife she’d have to wait until tomorrow to bake her cookies, my eye!

“Oh, yeah!” he ranted, spit flying from his mouth. “Speaking of eyes! Did you get a good look at my
fucking eye
, you son-of-a-bitch? You know what it’s like driving when you can’t check out your blind spot because
the whole left side of your head is a fucking blind spot?
I probably have your fucking daddy to thank for that ‘going away present’ I brought back from Nam.” Grimacing, he kicked Petrenko in the throat. “Don’t I, you sorry fucker?”

“You really shouldn’t strike your prisoner,” Rikki whispered from the side of her mouth. Petrenko hacked and coughed so hard it sounded like his trachea had collapsed.

“He was resisting arrest,” Vaughn shot back. “Wasn’t he, Dave?”

“Hell yeah, he was! Kick him again!”

Standing above the prisoner, his gray felt slippers in the man’s face, Vaughn’s chest heaved up and down and he stared down at Petrenko hatefully. “You’re lucky this lady is kinder than I am.
Personally
, I’m inclined to drive your ass down to the river, throw you in it and be done with it. You’re under arrest for burglary, assault, brandishing a deadly weapon and resisting arrest. For now.”

Petrenko glowered but said nothing. Then the sound of Donna Summers’ hit,
She Works Hard for the Money
, blared from the cell phone clipped to his belt.

Rikki bent down, stared at the phone and smiled. “Well, what do you know? Why’s Tabatha McCallen calling you at this hour?”

“Probably clamoring for her 30 pieces of silver,” Dave said.

CHAPTER 104

ESQUIRE HOTEL
CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14, 9:45 P.M.

After feeling trapped in a nightmare where the silence was only broken by her own screaming, Tabatha finally emerged from that haze and looked at the clock. It was 9:45. With quaking hands, she made a call on her cell phone.

Four rings. Five rings. Come on, dammit! Answer!!!!

The call rolled into voicemail and Tabatha yelled, “Alex! Where are you?! This is my third call! Someone broke into my hotel room and tried to kill me and I can’t find you! What am I supposed to do if that monster comes back?
Tell me!!
”

With watering eyes, she cupped a hand over her quivering lips. “The first half of the money was wired on Friday. I know the second half isn’t due until tomorrow afternoon, but I almost
died
tonight, damn it! I’m changing the plan.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “If the rest of the money is not wired to my account before noon tomorrow, you can shove that precious Addendum up your ass.

“It’s not up for discussion, it’s not negotiable. Call me.”

Tabatha hung up and collapsed on the bed. Then, remembering she was covered in dried urine in the same room where some maniac had almost killed her, she leapt up and dead-bolted the door. Stripping off her soiled lingerie, she threw them away and jumped in the shower.

As cool water ran down her face, she soaped up her body and scrubbed like she was possessed.
If I ever see the son-of-a-bitch who choked me again, I’ll blow his head off. And if those bastards at Petromica don’t want to wire me the rest of the money before I cast that ballot, tough shit. What will they do? Sue me to get the first half of their bribe back?

CHAPTER 105

PLEASANTS COUNTY COURTHOUSE
ST. MARYS, PLEASANTS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 8:45 A.M.

Standing outside the courthouse in the same clothes he had worn the previous day, Dave twisted his torso, grimacing. “My back is
killing
me from sleeping on the sheriff’s couch last night.”

“You think I liked sleeping in his daughter’s old bedroom?” Rikki asked. “I lay there all night wondering whether I was more freaked out by Petrenko trying to kill us or all the old Strawberry Shortcake stuff around me.”

Dave chuckled wearily. “Makes me glad I was on the couch. But I think Petrenko feels worse than both of us. I bet he’s still coughing up teeth after the beating Silent Doug gave him!”

Rikki shook her head in awe. “You told me he was a badass. You weren’t kidding.”

On cue, Vaughn strolled around the corner with a dejected-but-defiant-looking Petrenko waddling two steps ahead in ankle cuffs. Guiding the Russian by his wrists, which were cuffed behind his back, Vaughn yanked the handcuffs roughly, causing Petrenko to wince. “Do you think the magistrate will give us any grief for waiting eleven hours to drag in this piece of trash?”

“Did you follow my suggestions?” Rikki asked.

“Word-for-word. We read him his Miranda rights and immediately tried to question him at the station. He lawyered up, so we put him in a cell under video surveillance. Then Doc Lacy came in and patched up his face while we searched his car and phone and typed up paperwork.”

“Then we’re fine,” she said. “The purpose of the delay wasn’t to extract a statement from him and the video shows he was given medical treatment before arraignment. He was left alone, without interrogation or harassment, while law enforcement executed the search warrant.”

“Did you find anything interesting during the search?” Dave asked.

Vaughn grinned dangerously, sending chills down Rikki’s spine. “Aside from that pistol, there were tracking slips for ten heavy packages shipped to the Mingo County Sheriff right before the recount. Six missed phone calls and a text message from Tabatha demanding that he ‘wire the rest of the money’ to her account by noon or ‘the deal is off’.”

“Nice,” Dave observed.

Rikki pursed her lips. “Did you put that info in our request for a search warrant for Tabatha’s home and records?”

Vaughn proudly tapped a neatly-folded document tucked in his chest pocket. “Yep.”

Dave’s cell phone beeped. Looking at the screen, he looked confused. “What the hell? This text supposedly was sent last night at 8:30. Why did I just receive it?”

Vaughn chuckled. “Cell phone service is pretty sketchy down in our subdivision. Looks like you found that out the hard way.”

“Marcus is dead,” the text message from Monica Boley read. “Shot in head 2 look like suicide. U are accused of using him 2 fix election. Whoever killed him wants 2 frame u.”

The color faded from Dave’s face and he leaned against the courthouse wall.

“Dave! What’s wrong?” Rikki asked.

“Someone has murdered Marcus Boley. Shot in the head to look like a suicide. She says someone has accused me of conspiring with Marcus to fix the election.”

Petrenko’s jaw muscles tightened but he said nothing.

“Who accused you of that? And who is
she?
” Rikki asked.

Dave’s cheeks pinkened. “His sister, Monica. She didn’t say who accused me, but she thinks whoever killed him made the accusations.”

Rikki studied his face. “Is it true?” she asked softly.

Dave’s face flashed with anger, resentment, pain, disbelief. “I can’t believe you’d even ask me that, Rik! I’d do almost anything to help Jonathan win this election, but I damn sure wouldn’t break the law!”