Tough Customer (47 page)

"Lord o' mercy." The nurse shook her head again, causing the beads to clack together. "I'm sorry, sir, but she can't help you. Last few times that Oren came to see her, she didn't know him, didn't even know he was here."

Dodge asked how often Oren had visited his mother and when the last time had been.

"A while back," Glenda told him. "Several months, at least. Frankly ... and this is just between us, I wouldn't say it if this poor soul could understand."

"My lips are sealed."

She leaned toward him and spoke in a stage whisper. "I didn't like him."

"No one did. I didn't even know him, and I didn't like him."

"He wasn't right in the head, you ask me. Made you uncomfortable just to talk to him, you know?"

Dodge nodded.

"I was never happy to see him coming but was always glad to watch him go." Glenda's giant hand, with its surprisingly gentle touch, stroked her patient's arm. "Poor lady. I wouldn't wish her condition on anybody, but I'm kinda glad she doesn't know what her boy sunk to. After all that other sad business, she didn't deserve this."

Dodge's heart hitched, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. "Glenda, darlin'?"

"Hmm?"

"What other sad business?"

"Do you have to go?" Berry asked when Ski kissed her good-bye at the back door of the lake house.

"Duty calls. I've got to make an official statement to the media. Dot i's, cross t's."

"Will you come back for supper? I think it will make Mother feel better if you're here." She rubbed against him. "It'll make me feel better, too."

He nuzzled her ear. "You couldn't possibly feel any better."

Laughing with self-deprecation, she said, "I'm being shamelessly easy."

"I haven't exactly played hard to get." He pecked her lips with his. "Save my place."

She waved him off, watching like a lovesick puppy until his SUV was out of sight, then she climbed the stairs and went into the guest room that she'd occupied since last Friday night.

Upon entering the room, she spotted the bag of Oren's gifts sitting on the bed. Seeing it made her shiver. She had retrieved it this morning from the closet in her bedroom, the one Dodge had been sleeping in until last night. After getting Ski's call that Oren was regaining consciousness, they'd rushed from the house, leaving it and its contents on the kitchen table.

Who had brought it up to this room? She didn't want to look at it but was loath to touch it, so for the time being, she left it where it was. In an attempt to banish all thoughts of Oren's dying moments from her mind, she was eager to feel the heat of the sun on her skin, the embrace of the cool lake water.

After quickly changing into a swimsuit, she jogged downstairs and went to her mother's bedroom. She wanted to ask her about the bag, but when she opened the door, she saw that Caroline was curled onto her side, hugging the pillow that would have been Dodge's. Probably she had cried herself to sleep. Berry decided to leave her in peace.

She walked to the edge of the pier and dove into the lake. She swam underwater for as long as she could hold her breath, then surfaced and began swimming a vigorous crawl. The tension in her muscles gave way to a burn that felt good.

When she tired, she rolled onto her back and floated, expending just enough energy to keep herself afloat as she gazed at the white puffy clouds overhead and thought about the bizarre events that had taken place since the last time she'd gone for a swim.

So many bad things.

But good things, too.

She'd met Dodge, and, despite what her mother believed, she refused to accept that he would abandon them again. He loved her mother. Berry would bet her life on that. And he liked her. She knew that to be equally true.

No, she thought decisively, Dodge wasn't out of their lives yet. Even if he was operating under that delusion, she wasn't going to let him go.

And Ski. They'd got off to a rocky start, but sexually, they weren't merely compatible, they were combustible. He left her as hungry as she was satisfied, and the same seemed to be true for him. They'd pleasured each other until they were weak, but still they'd wanted more.

Aside from the marvelous sex, she also liked his solidness, admired his practical viewpoint of things and his unmitigated honesty, even regarding his own shortcomings. He appealed to her physically, cerebrally, and emotionally. He was as close as she'd ever come to
the one.

With enticing possibilities in mind, she flipped onto her belly, then did a surface dive and swam back to the pier. When she reached the ladder, she grabbed the top rung and was about to pull herself up when a head popped over the edge of the pier.

OREN STARKS LEERED DOWN AT HER. "SURPRISE!"

Berry screamed and tried to push herself off the ladder, but Oren grabbed her wrist, clamped a handcuff on it, and jerked hard. "Get out of the water!"

Her only thought was
Escape.
She kicked and thrashed. She tried to pull her wrist free, but the metal cuff cruelly gouged into skin and bone.

"Berry, if you don't get out of the water, I'll kill your mother." He tapped the barrel of a handgun against the edge of the pier. "Bang-bang, she's dead."

Instantly she stopped fighting.

He smiled beatifically. "Thank you, sweetheart."

She gaped up at him with horror and stupefaction. Her teeth were chattering with terror. She couldn't speak.

"You look like you've seen a ghost. Thought I was dead, didn't you?"

Her head wobbled an affirmation.

"Well, clearly you were wrong." He yanked on the cuff. "Get out of the water."

"I ... I can't."

"Ber-ry," he said in a singsong voice, "I'm going to count to three. One. Two."

"All right." She gulped a breath. "I'll get out. But you'll have to let go of my hand or I can't climb the ladder."

He aimed the pistol at the bridge of her nose. "With those long, shapely thighs of yours, I'm sure you'll manage."

"I need both hands to pull myself up."

"Let me make myself clear. Either you'll make do with one hand or I'll blow your brains out, then go into the house and do likewise to your mother. But only after fucking her in every orifice. If you don't think I'll do it, remember Sally."

If he could rise from the dead, he was capable of anything. Seeing no option available to her, she placed her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, but she was trembling so bad it slipped off. She fell forward and banged her chin on the metal rung.

"Hurry up!" Oren hissed.

Apparently he had had the same thought she had, that a boat might come near enough for her to scream for help. He alternated between charting her progress up the ladder and scanning the lake for an approaching craft. Unfortunately, this being a workday, there weren't many boaters out, and none on this inlet of the lake.

Berry hauled herself up onto the pier. She thought of lowering her head and plowing into him, surprising him with an aggressive action. But he could still shoot her, and then her mother would be helpless.

Besides, she wasn't sure she could muster the strength. She was shivering with fright and with cold now that the air was hitting her wet skin. Her teeth continued to chatter.

Oren grinned evilly and nudged her raised nipple with the barrel of the pistol. "I took a picture of you like this. Have you seen it? You were stretched out here on the pier. The wind must have kicked up." He stuck out his tongue and waggled it obscenely.

Berry ignored that, focusing instead on how this could possibly be happening. She'd seen his brain bulging out of his cranium, his body convulsing. The doctor had pronounced him dead. Yet now he looked completely healed and whole. Gone were the scrapes and scratches on his face and arms that he'd got during his chase through the Thicket. He didn't have a broken tibia.

The only difference between him now and his sudden appearance in her bathroom last Friday night was that his head had been shaved. It was as slick as a billiard ball.

He spun her around and pulled her arm behind her back, then linked her wrists together with the handcuffs. He pushed her forward, forcing her to stumble ahead of him along the pier toward the house.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Oren, silly, who do you think?"

"You're dead."

"Wrong. Dead men don't have boners like the one I've got from seeing your stiff nipples."

"You must be Oren," she said. "That's the kind of juvenile, off-color remark that's typical of you."

He hammered the butt of the pistol against her temple. She hadn't seen it coming, and the pain was intense. It caused her to drop to her knees. They landed hard. She crumpled forward. Her stomach heaved. She tasted bile in her mouth and had to spit it out in order to gasp in pain. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. Blood ran into her eye.

"Now see what you made me do?" he cooed. "It's that snotty attitude that got you into this situation in the first place, Berry. You've got only yourself to blame."

He hauled her to her feet. She swayed, half blinded with the pain in her head as well as the blood that trickled into her eye. All her loathing and hatred for him and the things he'd done boiled over. "Fuck you."

He laughed, unfazed. "Possibly. I haven't decided yet. You look like the very devil just now. No temptation at all. But I'll think about it. I promise I will. In the meantime, your mother will do nicely. You can watch," he said, as though he'd just thought up a fun, new game. "Then you can watch me kill her. Only then, Berry, will I begin to deal with you."

"He's a twin!"

"What?"

"A twin. Identical twin."

Ski sat bolt upright in his desk chair.

Through the phone, Dodge's breathing sounded like he'd been heaving hay bales. He was gasping each breath, but he made himself heard. "I went to that place where his mother is at. Nurse there told me Mrs. Starks had twin sons. Bookends."

"Fuck!"

"Tell me. The guy we pulled outta that swamp is Oren's twin brother, Carl. I'd stake my balls on it."

"Shit!"

"Something was hinky. I knew it, just didn't know what."

"We thought it was off. The Oren that Berry described didn't fit with somebody who'd hide in the Thicket."

"Makes sense now. It wasn't Oren."

"But he was the mastermind."

"That's what I think."

"Which means--"

"He'll come after Berry."

"I'm on it." Ski rounded his desk. "Where are you?"

"Blasting through Houston. I'll be there quick as I can."

Ski didn't waste time thanking him. He disconnected and began shouting the names of other deputies who were in the squad room. Simultaneously he punched in the telephone number of the lake house. Caroline answered.

"Caroline, Ski. Where's Berry?"

"Uh ... you woke me up. I--"

"You need to find her."

"She mentioned earlier she might go for a swim."

"If she's out, get her in. Stay inside the house and set the alarm. Keep the pistol on hand." He covered the mouthpiece and said to the men who'd assembled around him, "Stand by. New development in the Starks case." Then he addressed Caroline, who, fully awake now, was demanding to know what was going on.

"Oren Starks is alive."

"What?"

"The man who died was his identical twin."

"Dodge went to Houston, to the facility where his mother is a resident. He talked to a nurse and she told him. That's all I know."

"Where's Dodge?"

"Racing back. Alert Berry. Okay?"

"Of course, yes."

"And, Caroline?"

"Yes?"

"Call me as soon as you're both safely inside. I've got some calls to make, but if you beep in, I'll answer. Don't forget."

"I promise."

Ski clicked off and addressed the deputies grouped around him. "I want one of the launches on the lake ASAP, patrolling that inlet where Mrs. King's house is."

"I thought the asshole was dead."

"His twin brother is dead. He's still unaccounted for, still considered armed and dangerous."

He assigned special tasks and ordered the dispatcher to put out the word. "City police, DPS, Rangers, FBI, everybody, got it?"

"Got it."

He personally placed calls to the detectives in Houston. Rodney Allen was unavailable, but Ski talked to Somerville, who was no more gregarious than before. He listened to Ski's remarkable update without emotion or comment, then said, "I'll inform Detective Allen. We'll check out Oren Starks's residence, put out an APB."

"One more thing."

"Yes?"

"Tell Allen it was Dodge Hanley who cracked it."

After breaking off the connection, Ski unlocked the department's gun cabinet and took out a high-powered rifle with a scope. Stevens, who was on the phone, raised his eyebrows as Ski walked past his desk, the rifle on his shoulder.

"Bringing out the heavy artillery, Ski?"

"You bet your ass."

Caroline came racing into the kitchen just as Oren shoved Berry headlong through the back door. Caroline screamed and rushed forward to help her daughter, who had fallen hard, banging her shoulder against the floor.

Oren thrust the pistol into Caroline's belly. "Drop the phone! Drop the phone!"

"Mother, do it! I'm okay. Do as he says."

Caroline let go of the cordless phone. Oren moved it along the floor with the toe of his shoe, then kicked it out the back door before slamming the door shut.

Berry worked herself into a sitting position. She shook back her hair and tried to blink the blood from her eye as she looked up at her mother. Caroline cried out in shock at the sight of her bleeding head. "What did you do to her?" she screamed.