The Snow White Christmas Cookie (26 page)

Tommy the Pinhead said nothing. Just continued to glower. It was what he did best.

Yolie shook her head at him. “You are failing to grasp the reality of your present situation. Your problem is with us. Neither of you will make it out of this apartment alive if you do not give up everything right goddamned
now
.”

Gigi started to sob, her heavy eye makeup running down her cheeks in black gobs. “Tommy,
please
…”

Yolie aimed her weapon at Tommy’s left shoulder. “Talk.”

“Lady, I got nothing for you.”

She fired a shot into the wall that Des swore was less than a half-inch from his skin. “
Talk.
”

“I just told you. I got nothing.”

“Okay, I’m all done playing games with this fool,” huffed Yolie, who never left home without her Smith & Wesson SWAT spring-assist folding knife, size large. There are times when a combat knife can be vastly more persuasive than a SIG. This was one of those times. Yolie squeezed the knife’s thumb release and its razor-sharp four-inch blade sprang open with a click. Then she flung the bedcovers from Tommy and exposed his family jewels. “Hold his legs, girl,” she commanded Des. “I’m going to cut our boy Tommy down to size.”

Tommy wasn’t without nerve. He lay there sneering with contempt while Des grabbed his legs. And kept on sneering—right up until the moment when Yolie had that scary blade less than six inches from where he and his progeny lived. That was when he began to squirm, his eyes bulging. “
Wait,
lady!” he roared. “Are you crazy?”

“There’s an honest difference of opinion about that,” Yolie answered soberly. “But the state shrink cleared me for active duty. Let’s do this, girl.”

“I said
wait
!” he protested. “W-What do you want to know about?”

“Casey Zander,” Des said. “How things went down at the Rustic.”

“South in a hurry,” he said, his eyes never leaving that knife. “Casey was acting all spooked, okay? Said the law was getting hip to things now that his mom’s boyfriend was dead.”

“Hip to what things?”

“That he was stealing meds out of the mail to pay off Slick Rick.”

“
Who
was stealing them—Casey or his mom’s boyfriend?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know how blubber boy’s been doing it. Don’t know, don’t care. I just know he was into Slick Rick for big bucks and he’s been paying him off with meds, iPods, anything else he can lay his hands on. He’s been making good, too, until today out in the parking lot of the Rustic he starts whining like a little bitch about how the postal inspectors are grilling him and he’s getting real nervous. I went back inside and told my employer.…”

“Slick Rick, you mean?”

Tommy nodded. “He told me we’ll be toast if the feds start leaning on blubber boy. Casey would give us up in a heartbeat to save his own sorry ass. Slick Rick said to take care of it. I’d just sent Gigi to the Yankee Doodle with Casey to settle him down. Figured I’d follow them there. Except when I got outside there’s some dude crouched by the woodpile watching them drive away. Same dude who was just inside the Rustic asking Steve a bunch of questions. I figured he had to be the one.” He swallowed hard. “Put that thing away, will ya?”

Yolie held the knife even closer. “The one? What one?”

“The undercover cop. Slick Rick heard there might be a state narc hanging around. Word gets out.”

Des felt her stomach tighten. “What did you do about him?”

“Whacked him over the head with a snow shovel and tossed him in my trunk.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I couldn’t just leave him lying there. People would notice him.”

“No, dumb ass,” Yolie growled. “Why’d you whack him over the head?”

“Because I didn’t want him following me to the Yankee Doodle. I had business to take care of there. I had no personal beef with the guy but he intruded into my thing. So I did what I had to do.”

Yolie raised her chin at him. “Of course you did.”

“Then I drove to the Yankee Doodle, except
Gigi
had locked the bungalow door.”

“I always do,” she whimpered. “I told you I was sorry.”

“Just shut the hell up, will you? I had to pound on the freaking door. Attract all kinds of attention to myself. That’s real smart, isn’t it?”

“Not here to listen to you two bicker,” Yolie growled, poking at the tender flesh of Tommy’s scrotum with the tip of her knife.

Tommy held up his hands, shuddering. “Okay, okay. Just take it easy, will ya? When I went in, Casey was sitting on the bed taking his boots off. Still had his clothes on which, believe me, was a good thing.”

“I hated doing him,” Gigi said. “He was totally fat and he had these acne scars all over his back that were disgusting.”

“Yeah, like you’d know from disgusting,” Yolie said.

Gigi frowned at her. “Did you just insult me?”

“Then what happened?”

“I pulled a blade and he ran into the bathroom, squealing like a little girl.” Tommy’s voice was eerily flat and emotionless now. “I went in there after him and stuck him until he wasn’t squealing anymore.”

“What did you do with him?”

“Wrapped him in the shower curtain and threw him in my trunk.”

“With the other guy?”

“Yeah, with the other guy.”

“Was the other guy still unconscious?”

“Don’t know. I wasn’t paying much attention to him.”

Des’s gaze flicked over to the windows, then back at the bed. “Are they still out there in your trunk?”

“No way. You think I’m stupid?”

“You don’t actually want us to answer that, do you?” Yolie responded.

“What did you do after you left the Yankee Doodle?” Des asked him, struggling to maintain her calm.

“Dumped Casey’s body.”

“Where?”

“Breezy Point.”

Breezy Point was a state park ten miles east of Dorset’s Historic District. It had a nice stretch of beach and miles of bike paths and hiking trails that overlooked Long Island Sound. During the summer it was a popular destination. During the winter it was windy and desolate. Hardly anyone went there.

“Why Breezy Point?”

“It’s my favorite place in the whole world,” Gigi answered, brightening. “That’s where Tommy and me met. Right, baby? I was wearing that little pink T-shirt and you said, ‘Hey, I like pink.’ Which I thought was
the
lamest line ever. But you were so cute I started talking to you anyway and…” She trailed off, sniffling. “I thought it would be, you know, funny.”

“I don’t get the joke. Yolie, do you get the joke?”

“Afraid not.”

“So you drove out to Breezy Point, dumped Casey’s body and then?…”

“Picked up a pizza and came back here,” Tommy the Pinhead said. “That’s the whole story, I swear. Now put that knife away, okay?”

Yolie shook her head at him. “Not quite. The guy who you brained with the shovel…”

“What about him?”

“Did you gut him, too?”

“Nope. Didn’t have any cause to.”

Des walked around to his side of the bed and pressed the nose of her SIG against Tommy the Pinhead’s forehead. “What
did
you do with him?”

C
HAPTER
16

T
HE FIRST TIME
M
ITCH
came to he was positive he had to be on a wild ride at Disney World. It was hurtling him along incredibly fast and was bone-jarringly bouncy and everything around him was pitch-black and really, really scary. Except Mitch had never been to Disney World, which meant he had to be dreaming. Except he
wasn’t
dreaming. His eyes were wide open.

Oh, God, I’m blind.

No, wait, he could see a crack of light down there by his feet. And hear the sound of tires on slushy pavement as the wild ride slowed down and came to a stop. Mitch took careful stock of himself. He seemed to be lying on his side in a fetal position. The back of his head hurt. He reached for it, fingering it. It felt sticky.… Okay, now he remembered. He’d been watching the parking lot of the Rustic when someone coldcocked him on the back of the head with a heavy object—like, say, a twelve-inch Lodge cast-iron skillet. Because he’d gotten his bell rung but good. Second time in less than a year, too. First time was that concussion he got at Astrid’s Castle when he and Des got stranded up there with that killer who kept …

Focus. Try to remember what happened.

The Rustic. He’d been standing there watching, um, watching Casey and Gigi take off in Casey’s Tacoma. Sure, that was it. And now?

Now I’m stuffed in the trunk of somebody’s car.

It was cold and super-cramped in there. Zero headroom. And it smelled like oil and burnt rubber. Had to be an old beater of a car. Its automatic transmission was bad. As they started to pick up speed again, Mitch could feel the tranny rev and rev and rev before it lurched into second gear. He smelled more burnt rubber. Smelled something else, too. An animal smell. A
dead
animal smell. He groped around in the darkness. His fingers found the smooth roundness of a spare tire. Then, behind him, a plastic bag. Really large one. Actually, more like a tarp than a bag. Something big and heavy was wrapped inside.

Or someone.

Mitch gulped as he fought back a strong, sudden wave of nausea. Then the car went over a bump and the back of his head smacked hard against the lid of the trunk and he was out again.

The second time Mitch came to it was with a sudden yelp, as if he were awakening from an awful nightmare. He was cold. Freezing cold. He had never been so cold in his life. Shivering and shaking, his teeth chattering so violently that he was afraid he was going to shatter them.

Where am I? Why am I so cold?

He glanced around, blinking, dazed. Well, hell, he was basking on his own beach in the late-day sun. It was a nice, breezy afternoon out on Big Sister, the surf lapping against the rocks. Must have drifted off for a few minutes as he lay there in the sand in his swim trunks. Sure, that was it. He looked around for the island’s familiar landmark, the old lighthouse, except it wasn’t there. Wait a second, he wasn’t home. This was a different beach. Someone else’s beach. And this wasn’t soft sand he was lying on. And he wasn’t wearing swim trunks. He wasn’t wearing anything at all.

I am lying stark naked in the snow.

He was still asleep. Had to be. This had to be a dream. Except it wasn’t. He was lying naked in the snow, shaking with cold. It was, what, thirty-five degrees out? That wind off of the water was howling. His fingers and toes ached, ears and nose stung.

Where am I? How in the hell did I get here?

Someone had conked him on the head outside of the Rustic and then … what? Then he’d been stuffed in the trunk of that car, right? And now he was freezing his ass off on this beach. He looked around, thinking that he knew this place.

Breezy Point.

Sure, he’d come here for bike rides with Des. Breezy Point was one of the nicest places to be on a summer afternoon. In the winter? In the winter it was known as the windchill capital of the Connecticut shoreline. They didn’t call it Breezy Point for nothing. The beach was deserted this time of year. Absolutely no one came here. It was also remote. Had to be a three-mile hike to Route One from here. Darkness was approaching fast. And Mitch was naked and all alone.

Except for his friend, that is. The fellow who was lying in the snow next to him with that shower curtain around him. Casey Zander. It was Casey.
He
had clothes on—a Pats hoodie sweatpants and white socks.
He
wasn’t shivering. Or moving. Or-Or breathing. Just staring up at the sky, his face a winter shade of pale blue …

He’s dead. There’s blood all over that shower curtain. Blood all over his sweatshirt. Casey’s dead.

The sudden realization sent Mitch scrambling to his feet to get away from Casey’s body. He promptly fell right back down into the deep snow, his bare feet so frozen that they wouldn’t support his weight. He felt dizzy, too. So dizzy he almost passed out again. He managed not to. Couldn’t, mustn’t pass out. Had to stay awake and get the hell out of here before it got dark. Because if he didn’t, he would freeze to death awfully damned fast.

How did we get out here?

Slowly, it came back to him. Being lifted out of the trunk by that behemoth Tommy the Pinhead. Being forced to walk down to the beach in the snow, even though he’d been incredibly woozy and could barely maintain his balance. But the girl, Gigi, kept poking him with a gun. She was holding a gun on him. And Tommy was carrying something. A big, heavy package. Casey. He was carrying Casey’s body. When they got here Tommy dropped Casey and ordered Mitch to turn around. Then the bastard beaned him again. Hit him with that gun, probably. Hit him so hard that he’d passed out for who knows how long. Long enough for them to take all of his clothes off. Damn, they’d even taken his Omega, the one that his grandfather, Sam Berger, bought for seven dollars at the Fort Dix PX before he shipped out to fight Hitler. Sam wore that watch all through the war. And Mitch had worn it since he was in high school. And now it was gone and he was shivering uncontrollably and had no feeling whatsoever in his hands or feet.

What do I do?

Think it out, calmly and rationally. He’d gotten out of tough situations before. He’d get out of this one. If he had a problem, he simply needed to solve it.

Problem One: I’m going to freeze to death.

Solution: Put some clothes on, dumb ass.

And add this to the list of 297 things that Mitch Berger, noted New York City film critic, never, ever thought he’d find himself doing—rolling a bloody dead guy out of a bloody shower curtain so that he could undress said dead guy and put his bloody clothes on. First, he wrestled the Pats hoodie off over Casey’s head. Or tried to. Casey wasn’t exactly cooperating and Mitch’s fingers were numb and his hands were shaking. Plus his stomach kept lurching and sending hot, sour bile up into his throat. But Mitch tugged and tugged until, gasping with exhaustion, he finally managed to yank Casey’s hooded sweatshirt off of him.