The Wrong Side of Dead (6 page)

“I hear you been looking for Desiree,” the smoker said in accented English. “Who are you? And what’s your interest in her?”

Dark skin with piercing eyes and a prominent nose, the guy kept his distance. Real cagey.

“Because I can see we’re going to be such good friends, you can call me by my first name, Oprah. And my interest is personal.” Inside her jacket pocket, she wrapped her fingers around the M84 stun grenade canister, feeling for the detonation pin and lever.

“Not good enough.” The taller man joined the conversation. “And for the record, attitude don’t work with us.”

Jess sized up the two men. What Beef Boy lacked in gray matter, he made up for with brute strength and the ego of a bully who hadn’t been bested. He was posturing to impress her with his bulk, but she had no doubt he worked for the smaller man with the nasty nicotine habit. And if things got dicey, the smoker would be the man to watch. He had the cold unreadable eyes of a predator who didn’t have to prove himself.

“I got mixed feelings on that,” she said. “Bad news is, I gotta toss out all my best material ’cause attitude is all I got. But on the plus side, that means I’ve got nothin’ to say.”

She tried sidestepping the muscle, but he blocked her, saying, “We ain’t done.” His right eye twitched like a warning blinker.

“Then make your point. I might cooperate if we had a little give-and-take.” She directed her question to the smoker. “What’s your interest in Desiree? Does she work for you, or is she a good customer?”

From what the bartender told her, she didn’t figure Desiree had a pimp, but she didn’t want to make assumptions. If she had to guess, she’d put money that this guy was her dealer. Yet why would he take a personal interest in a small-time streetwalker turning tricks for product? More questions stirred in her mind than she had answers.

But one loomed larger than the rest.

Desiree had made herself scarce for a reason. Being a hooker with an addiction, she’d made a tough decision to lie low. What had scared her enough to stray from the demons she knew? Jess had a feeling the girl knew what had happened to Harper and didn’t want to get dragged into it. Or maybe she’d set him up in the first place in exchange for money to feed her habit. Another real possibility. Jess knew that when she located the troubled girl, any answers she’d give would give her no more than a fifty-fifty shot at helping Seth.

Finding Desiree would either prove his innocence or lock him in a box for life.

“You’re not understanding how things work here.” The smoker lowered his voice and stepped forward. His version of “less is more” had worked. “I ask the questions, and you answer. If you can’t abide by this, then you’ve got a serious problem.”

She kept her mouth shut for two reasons. One, if this asshole believed he had the upper hand, he might let his guard down enough to let her stun grenade do the talking. And two, keeping her trap shut gave her time to think up a lie worthy of her fierce skills.

“Now tell me why you’re looking for Desiree,” the smoker persisted.

The side of beef to his right crossed his arms, grimacing in thought. Apparently, thinking was a challenge.

“She’s my sister.” She shrugged. “Half sister, actually. Our mother wanted me to track her down. Any idea where I can find her?”

Jess always appreciated the irony in faking sincerity.

“What do I look like…4–1–1?” The big guy smirked. His face made the effort look like it hurt. “I ain’t interested in makin’ this a family reunion.”

“That’s too bad. Havin’ you in our family would’ve taken pressure off me bein’ the black sheep.”

Having a finger on a detonator gave her a whole new appreciation for the word “empowered.”

“Just say the word, boss. Gimme a reason.” He reached into his pocket and took out a switchblade. The whisper of its jutting blade caused the hair at the nape of her neck to stand on end. These guys wouldn’t be satisfied with a hand slap.

“You don’t look like the kind of guy who needs a reason to hurt a woman.” She locked eyes with his, not backing down. “I bet you ran with scissors when you were a kid. Didn’t your momma teach you about the danger of sharp objects?”

“I ain’t worried about that, but you should be.” The eye twitched again.

“Taking a knife to an unarmed woman, that’s the mark of a real coward.”

“But it does get your attention, don’t it?”

She stood her ground, her body taut and ready. Timing would be everything.

He clenched his jaw and made a move toward her. Jess clutched the grenade, primed to react, but a man and woman walked out of Dirty Monty’s. They were talking and laughing too loud, a reaction to the noise inside. The man hesitated and stared at the two men next to Jess. And everything came to a grating stop.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Muscle for Brains pocketed his blade and glared until the man backed off without a word.

The two latecomers to the party had assessed the situation and opted not to get involved. They headed around the corner with heads down and tails between their legs. In the ‘hood, once the action went down, she’d be on her own. Good Samaritans these days were as rare as a straightforward politician.

“Whoever Desiree was before, she isn’t now,” the smoker reached in his pocket for another cigarette and lit up. “She is no longer your concern. If you’re smart, you’ll walk away. Forget about finding her.”

Anytime the guy opened his mouth, she got a cold chill. He had defused the tension, but she had the feeling he liked to strike when least expected. A primitive-yet-restrained cruelty hardened his words. Unleashed, the guy would do serious damage.

The question was—would he let her walk or would he feel the need to demonstrate?

“I appreciate the advice. And I’ll certainly give your words of wisdom all the consideration they’re due.” Her friendly way of saying—hell, no, and mind your own damned business. “But I still need to find her.”

Admittedly, she could have played it smarter. Provoking the guy wasn’t the mark of a sane woman. The problem was that Jess wanted more from their exchange than these men were willing to give her voluntarily. Harper needed results—and answers. If she played the trump in her pocket, she had options—her way.

“Then you leave me no choice,” he said, his voice low.

For the first time, the smoker curved his lips into a nicotine-stained grin. All in all, she wished he hadn’t. She had enough trouble sleeping.

“That makes two of us.” Jess fixed her eyes on him, sending the man a clear message that he’d misread her. She saw that he’d gotten the message, but his hired muscle wasn’t a man of subtlety. Without waiting for an order, the big guy made his move.

And so did she.

The man lunged for her, his meaty hand reaching for her throat. With her left arm, she blocked his attack and grabbed his wrist. A quick yank and she wrenched his arm, thrusting it back. The move caught him off-balance. He compensated with a shift of his body, but as he leaned, she cocked her hip and swung a leg behind him. His momentum dumped him onto the sidewalk, slamming him hard to the concrete.

It happened fast, but time hadn’t been her friend. The smoker had reached into his jacket. In the shadows, his moves were a blur. It didn’t matter whether he’d pull a knife or a gun, either way she had no time to think—only react.

Her life would mean nothing to this man. She had seen it in his eyes.

Jess reached into her pocket and took out the stun grenade. She pulled the pin and lever, tossing it between them. She’d have only seconds. The disorienting effects of the blast would be over in a heartbeat. But unless she moved, she’d be swept up in the detonation.

A second later, a deafening blast thundered off walls. It echoed wave after wave down the block. And a blinding light stabbed the dark.

Her heart slugged the inside of her rib cage, her adrenaline on overload. She barely had enough time to lunge for cover. Jess felt intense heat at her back. It seared her exposed skin. For an instant, the grenade’s brilliant flash stole her night vision. Pinpricks of light assaulted her eyesight. Her ears rang, but she wouldn’t be as bad off as the men who had attacked her. They rolled on the ground with arms over their heads, moaning and dazed.

Although she wasn’t in great shape, Jess had to move. In no time, these men would recover. A crowd had already started to form. And onlookers gazed cautiously down from windows along the street, silhouettes eclipsed in light. Hunched over, she kept her head down and crept toward the first man. Covering up what she was doing, Jess kept her back to the crowd and searched for his wallet, only having time to take his driver’s license. She did the same with the smoker.

People had started to congregate, making a tightening circle around the men on the sidewalk. Now she’d have to improvise.

“What happened? Did anyone see anything?” she yelled. When no one pointed a finger at her, Jess took charge. She kept her head down and barked orders like she had a right. “Someone call 911. These men need help.”

She kept up the chatter until it stirred others to act and take over. In the confusion, she slipped deeper into the shadows and melded with the crowd. She made sure no one noticed, waiting long enough before she climbed behind the wheel of Seth’s blue monster and drove away.

She wasn’t worried about the two men implicating her. They’d never talk to the police. As soon as they recovered—only a matter of minutes—they’d be gone, leaving the cops nothing to investigate. And if anyone remembered a mysterious blue van parked down the block, or if they had read the tag, they’d only find the vehicle registered to Seth. Being in jail gave him an airtight alibi. But Jess knew she’d made an enemy of the smoking man. He’d left her no choice. And he had looked like a man with a long memory.

Her heavy breathing mixed with road noise and muffled in her head, a lingering reaction from the detonation. Streetlamps cast ribbons of sparse light through the windshield and painted the dark interior of the van. The scrolling glow gave her enough light to read the names of the men she’d pissed off.

The hired muscle, Sal Pinzolo, and the smoker, Nadir Beladi. With Sam’s help, she’d soon have more on these men. And maybe she’d be one step closer to finding Desiree, Harper’s best shot at discovering who had framed him for murder.

But she had one more stop to make before heading home—and she sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to it.

Outside Chicago

The Twilight Motel had seen better days, Jess thought as she sat in her van parked in the shadows.

The motel’s cinder-block walls were colored in mottled aqua—the owner must have scored a deal on cheap paint—and it had a boxy construction any child could have designed in crayon. The place was totally forgettable except for one thing. Someone got off on ceramic gnomes. Several stuck out from under overgrown hedges and near the office door. Their faces were chipped, and their leprechaun clothes had faded with the sun, but no amount of damage had deemed them unworthy.

“God, I hate gnomes,” she muttered. With an elbow propped on a door panel, she ran a finger along a scar over her eyebrow, an old habit.

Gnomes ranked top of the heap on the shudder scale, even above the imposed giddiness of a yellow smiley face. At one time, the elf-infested motel might have seen interstate traffic, but a new addition to the area changed that. A nuclear plant had taken residence down the street. She saw the lights of the large facility on the horizon. Some local businesses had moved out after the plant got up and running. Now the motel looked as if it barely supported itself.

A red flickering neon sign pulsed its message of vacancies available, one of the few indications the motel was even open. At this time of night, the neon cast a sickly red pallor onto the gnomes and reflected off the windshields of the three cars parked in the lot. No sign of activity or Harper’s Mustang. Maybe the murder, and its crime-scene tape fluttering in the breeze, had deterred the usual patrons who rented rooms by the hour.

Jess checked her Colt Python, slipped out of her van, and locked up. She pulled her black White Sox ball cap down over her eyes and slipped through the shadows along the perimeter of the property, trailing an old cyclone fence toward the rear. If there was a back way in, she preferred to take it, but there wasn’t. She was disappointed not to find a way into the crime scene from the more private rear of the property. She headed for the only way in.

Nothing like a little B&E before hitting the sack.

Jess walked around the front of the motel, acting as if she belonged. When she got close to the crime-scene tape across room number six, she retrieved her lock pick and got to work. Seconds later, she had the door wedged open, but an overzealous CSI tech had crisscrossed the entry with an overabundance of yellow barrier tape. Clipped to her jeans pocket, she carried a small knife. She used it to cut the tape, at least enough for her to squeeze through.

Once she got inside, Jess had to hold her breath. The unmistakable smell of death hung heavy in the room. An odor no one ever forgot.

Jess let the darkness close in, her vision adjusting to the pitch black. She crossed the room to close the drapes and flicked on her small flashlight. The dim light shed a frightening pallor over the scene. Blood had dried to dark burgundy and brown with castoff stains and crimson shoe prints marring the carpet, but as she headed for the bathroom, the blood splatter gripped her heart in its cruel fist.

In the dark, a flood of memories came back to haunt her. Her heart rate and breathing escalated out of control. Images of her dead tormentor’s face raced out of the shadows, forcing her to flinch. And she felt his hands on her, still. Jess hadn’t expected such a strong reaction. In her line of work, she never had to deal with dead bodies or this much blood.

She shut her eyes and clutched her hands together to stop them from shaking. In her head, the horror of the dead woman’s last moments played out like a sick replay—her muffled screams, the terror in her eyes, the meaty sound of a knife striking her body again and again, and the frantic thrum of blood flung onto the walls and ceiling.