Where Evil Waits (19 page)

An emotion Luke didn’t recognize swelled in his chest. So, she owed him something now. And just how many of his sins would saving Aidan forgive? Would it forgive his having made her a widow? He hadn’t been driving the car that killed Andrew, and he hadn’t completed the hit. But he might as well have.

He sharpened his voice. “I’m nobody’s hero, Kara. It would be unwise for you to think of me that way.”

She looked at him, a wrinkle between her brows. Wisely, she changed subjects. “This guard at the prison. Do you think he knows how the riot got started?”

“Or played a role in starting it himself.” He told her about Gibson buying a houseboat. Could feel her energy pick up. It was that same
ping
he’d felt.

“You have to take me with you,” she said. “This is about me. I might hear something that you won’t understand.”

Luke’s jaw hardened. “Counselor, I’m not a cop. My ‘interviews’ are a little different than what you’re used to.”

“Do I smell a tire iron and kneecaps?”

“What if you did?”

She drew a deep breath through her nose, and Luke
could feel the wheels turning. “Someone killed my husband and my friend, and is taunting me with the deaths of others. Today, he shot at my son. If this Gibson knows who did it, I’m not going to quibble about how you convince him to tell us who he is.”

“Why, Counselor, I do believe I’m a bad influence on you.”

S
ASHA DUG.
He spent all evening on it, pushing through the carefully raked layers of stall bedding, removing the rubber stall mat and sawing through the floor, then removing chunks of Georgia red clay one stubborn wedge at a time. When he finally had a hole big enough, he bullied the stiff, disgusting body of Megan to the edge and straightened.

He remembered the token just in time. He bent down and yanked a plastic barrette from the back of her head, ripping out a small tangle of hair along with it. Good enough. The hair would be a nice touch.

He rolled Megan into the hole and pushed the clay on top, replaced the flooring and the pine bedding. Tomorrow, he’d have to do something about the flies. Montgomery Manor had been pristine—kept that way by people like Sasha. He wouldn’t let its replica be any different.

He put his tools away in the tack room, showered, and dressed. Looked at the cot that had served as his bed for the last several months. Jesus Christ, the three hours of sleep he’d grabbed this morning hadn’t been enough and he felt like he was working through a fog of exhaustion. But there was one more thing to do before tomorrow.

He went to the storage rack across the back wall of the tack room, pulled a bucket off a shelf. Reached inside for the last nameplate.

It was wooden, the size of a license plate, and decorated with a wood-burning kit like the one Sasha had bought for himself when he was thirteen. He’d been assigned the task of making all eight nameplates for the stalls at Kara’s birthday party—assigning each guest a horse—and instead of just using magic markers or paint, he’d dug out his old wood-burning kit and stayed up late every night for three days trying to make them special, burning the names into the wood in cursive letters and adding a border to each one. A couple of them, he’d had to re-do two or three times to get them looking nice enough for Kara Montgomery’s birthday.

Kara hadn’t noticed.

Now, the other nameplates already hung on the appropriate stall doors, their occupants long ago buried. Evelyn Camp had been the first, and now, Megan was the last.

Except for Kara, of course.

Sasha burned Megan’s name onto the final nameplate, taking care with the lettering, the smell of burning wood filling his nostrils. He smiled and hung Megan’s name-plate on the nail, then gave her stall a once-over and treated himself to a walk-through of the rest of the stable. Evelyn, Jessica, Anthony, Laura, Matthew, Megan. He was proud of having found them all, especially the ones with not-so-common names.

And, of course, Andrew. It was a little disappointing that Andrew’s body wasn’t actually buried here but frankly, at that point so early in the process Sasha simply hadn’t planned it quite well enough. He hadn’t predicted that Andrew would be walking with some woman
the night he was struck down, and hadn’t planned for a way to retrieve the body. The best he’d been able to do was get out of the car long enough to make sure Chandler wasn’t going to make it and grab his sunglasses. Sending the glasses to Kara on the anniversary of Chandler’s death had been a nice touch, but it had always bothered him to have that stall empty.

Recently, though, he’d decided on a way to handle that. He would put Aidan there. Had thrilled in sending Kara
that
hint.

He drew a deep breath, realizing for the first time that Kara’s little stint with the FBI had changed the game irrevocably. Her kid would be under lock and key now. It would be next to impossible to get him.

Bitch. She’d fucked him over yet again. Some things never change.

He bit back a pang of anger and pulled Megan’s barrette from his pocket. Kara may have forced him to alter his plans a little, but the party was still on. The truth awaited.

He boxed up the barrette and lettered the last horse-card. Not
TRUTH
like all the others. Kara’s actions necessitated a change. But that was all right. Sasha might have lost the tracker; he might not know precisely where Kara was right now. But he did know how to get this gift into her hands. Courtesy of her own personal bodyguard.

Surprise, Kara. You aren’t as good as you think you are.

You never were.

The Landing was a privately owned marina just outside the limits of the state park at Red Top Mountain. Knutson had sent Luke what they knew about Gibson: His name
was Ronald. He was twice-divorced with one child from his second marriage. He was forty-eight years old and had been a guard at the Floyd County Correctional Institute for sixteen years, paid alimony to both wives and child support to the second. He’d rented a slip at The Landing for wet storage of his houseboat since the end of March and rumor had it that he came here every weekend. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with a woman, but most often alone. Fished. Drank. Listened to heartbreak-and-blame country music.

Luke pulled into a gravel lot, parked the SUV in the corner farthest from the security light, and got out. The air was heavy and hot and smelled of gasoline and charcoal grills, with a thin layer of algae drifting up from the water’s edge.

A half dozen cars speckled the lot. Saturday night, late enough that the day boaters had already gone in. Those cars that were left belonged to the people with houseboats, or people with friends who had houseboats, out on the water for the weekend. Luke glanced to the dock where about twenty slips stood, most of them empty, with one small houseboat just now maneuvering into one of them.

Gibson.

Luke walked around to the back of the SUV, glancing around for the surveillance team Knutson would have in place. In the trees, on the water, on the trails. He didn’t see anyone, but knew they were there.

He opened a hatch beneath the trunk. Kara joined him and he couldn’t resist. He pulled out a tire iron and handed it to her.

“If he gives us any trouble, I’ll let you do the honors,” he said, deadpan.

She rolled her eyes and he pulled out a set of guns: a
Smith & Wesson 500 with a ten-and-a-half-inch barrel, a pocket-sized .22, a 45-caliber Les Baer 1911, the G18 he’d carried in the alley. In the end, he tucked the Baer into his belt and settled for a Wusthof boning knife in his hand—a knife with a narrow, seven-inch blade that could slide through a salmon like butter. A public marina wasn’t a good place to start spraying bullets, even if there weren’t too many civilians around right now. There would be at least two: Kara and Gibson. Gibson, he imagined, wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, given what information Luke was about to lay on him. But if he had friends aboard, or if there were bystanders on one of the other boats… There had been enough killings in this thing.

He turned to Kara. The darkness concealed her expression, but he could sense the tension in her body.

He held out his free hand and she gave him back the tire iron. “Jerk,” she said as he put it back in the car.

He looked down at her. “You’re right that you might hear something that I won’t understand. But I want you to listen, and that’s all.”

“I’m a prosecutor. I know how to get information out of defendants.”

“You’re not a prosecutor here. You’re my girlfriend,” he said with finality. He reached out and drew her toward him, crowding her back up against the wall of the car. “And it’s time you act like it.”

H
IS HEAD CAME DOWN.
Kara gasped but his mouth smothered it, and she started to push back, then realized he wasn’t forcing her. He eased in close, his knife hand bracing against the top of the SUV while the other came to her cheek, warm and strong as his fingers threaded into her hair and he tipped back her head to better receive his kiss. A second later, she heard voices, people climbing up the path from the dock, their laughter choking to a halt when Kara and Luke came into sight.

Act like it.

Reality struck:
It’s an act.

Her limbs loosened, her lips softened, and she gave in to the kiss. Varón slanted his mouth over hers, warm and mobile, and he pressed her against the hot metal of the SUV, marauding and suckling, the very scent and taste of him invading her senses. Frissons of sensation stirred to life at the center of her body. In the distance, the crunch of gravel changed direction—the intruders cutting a wider swath—even so, Varón didn’t stop. His tongue slipped out and traced the crease of her lips, seeking entrance.

A spear of sensation shot straight between her legs.
Kara parted her lips and Varón was right there—filling her, possessing her, a tender, insistent invasion that made her knees wobble as his hand slid the length of her spine and pulled her close. She heard what might have been car doors opening and closing, then the hum of an engine coming to life, but the sounds didn’t matter. Her heartbeat deepened and her nipples rose against his chest, and when she reached up to grasp his shoulders, his muscles flexed and strained beneath her fingers. A groan resonated in his throat and his free hand smoothed down the side of her rib cage, his thumb brushing the outer curve of her breast and setting loose a cyclone of sensations whirling in her belly. Sensations she hadn’t felt for… forever.

His tongue left her mouth and he suckled her lips, then nuzzled her face to the side and trailed a path of fiery kisses down the curve of her jaw and up again. He stopped in the hollow just below her ear.

“They’re gone,” he whispered, his breath fanning warmth over her ear.

Kara went still.
It’s an act
, her brain chanted, and embarrassment soared in. She sank back against the SUV, unsure if she could stand on her own. He’d robbed her limbs of strength and her mind of every last thread of cognition, sucked the oxygen right out of her lungs. For one, steamy moment, she’d forgotten about feeling afraid and exhausted and confused, and instead had just been
feeling.
And for one insane moment, she’d wanted to let him keep going. Keep supporting her weight, keep shielding her from the world, keep kissing her as if he wanted to swallow her whole. Even now, after his proclamation that they were once again alone, his lips still breathed kisses against her temples as if he, too, was reluctant to let it end.

“Okay,” she breathed. “Then back up.” She slid her
hands over his arms and laid them flat against his chest, a hot wall of iron. She managed to form a thought in spite of the craven lust that had left her feeling hollow and damp, and exerted just enough pressure that he straightened to allow an inch of space between them. His thumb grazed the corner of her mouth, his gaze snagging there.

“Good work,” he murmured, and brushed his lips against her temple. “Very convincing.”

She blushed deep red, grateful for the darkness. “I know how to act,” she said, and he finally stepped back.

“Apparently so.”

And that was that: a kiss that just about knocked her off her feet, from a murderer who held her life and her son’s life in his hands.

And for a moment, she hadn’t minded at all.

Kara’s throat went dry. Hit man, drug dealer, kidnapper. Lover and actor. Protector. She remembered the way he’d safeguarded Aidan and, for one fleeting moment, wondered if he actually cared about keeping her safe as well.

Well, of course he did, she reminded herself. He needed her to find Elisa’s killer and keep Collado coming.

Sounds drifted up from the water and she pushed that thought away. They turned and saw a figure tying off a houseboat—a thick man whose silhouette yanked the ropes tight and knotted them. Kara straightened: This was the man who might know who killed Andrew.

Varón moved back to the front of the car to close the driver’s side door, and an impulse surfaced. Kara reached into the back of the SUV and grabbed the little .22, stuck it into the waistband of her panties and tugged the dress back over it. It was too heavy to hold by itself and made a bulge, but it was dark and so long as she pressed her arm against it from the outside, it would work.

The man on the dock started up the ramp. Varón came back and Kara slammed the back of the SUV closed. He took Kara’s free hand.

“It’s showtime again,” he said.

The man from the boat came up the dock in a hurry—head down, moving fast, car keys jingling in his hands. Varón led Kara across the parking lot, started down the lane, then stopped, herding her off to the side behind a bench.

“Get down,” he whispered, and hunkered down beside her. “When I go, stay here. Let me handle him.”

Kara didn’t argue: Varón was probably masterful at getting people to talk. And she wasn’t feeling charitable enough toward Gibson to be interested in sparing him whatever Varón had in store.

Varón lifted the knife handle, weighing it, waiting. When the man hopped off the dock and onto dry land, Varón stepped into his path. Held the knife up between them.

“Christ,” Gibson said, skidding to a halt. He glanced around, then lifted his hands to shoulder height. “Fuck, I don’t got no money on me.”

“That’s all right,” Varón said, his voice rich and low. “It’s not your money I want.”

“Come on, come on.” Gibson started to whine. “Let me go. I got a call. My house got broke into. I gotta go.”

“Your house is fine,” Varón said. “The call was from my colleague.”

Gibson blinked in surprise. So did Kara.

“What? Nothin’ stolen?”

“Not that I know of. I needed for you to come ashore, that’s all. I wanted to have a chat.”

Now Gibson straightened and took another look around. No one else. “Who the fuck are you?”

“My name is Luke Varón. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

Gibson frowned. “No.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Varón said easily. “I’m not insulted. I’ll just fill you in with a little bedtime story. Once upon a time, there was a drug cartel in South America and it came to Atlanta. Luke Varón was positioned to be its chief. Varón was an amicable fellow, so long as he got his way. But when someone crossed him, he could be… testy.” He paused, running a finger along the edge of the blade. Gibson started to fidget.

Kara didn’t blame him. It was impossible to reconcile the man just now talking to Gibson with the man who’d kissed her a moment before. This wasn’t the man who’d set butterflies free in her belly with a stroke of his tongue, who’d reminded her what a kiss could feel like and made every fiber of her traitorous body long for more. This was the man who killed for a living and was planning to hijack a drug cartel.

“This cartel boss, Luke Varón—that’s me, remember—had reason to believe a man named Ronald Gibson—that’s you—had fucked around in the cartel where he didn’t belong.”

“I didn’t,” Gibson said, frantic to find an out. “I never been involved in no drug cartel, I swear.”

Varón twisted his wrist and made a figure-eight in the air with the tip of the blade. “Do you know why I like this knife? It’s honed to perfection.” He toyed with it. “Perfectly balanced, with enough flexibility to maneuver delicate cuts. You know, like when you’re removing the silverskin from a good tenderloin.”

Gibson began to shake. “I’m not lying. Man, don’t do this—”

Varón took one step closer. “Tell me where you got the money for that nice houseboat, Ronald. And don’t give me some sad story about a rich uncle dying because the only uncle you have is a janitor at a hospital in Indianapolis, and the last I checked, he was alive. Of course, that was about an hour ago. Things could have changed.”

Kara’s skin tightened. Holy hell, how did he know that?
The cartels are better organized, better trained, better financed, and better armed. Not just with firearms, but apparently with computers, too.

Even though she had known that in her head, she was daunted every time she saw it in action. With the flip of some internal switch, Varón could become an entirely new character. He could turn on the drug-lord persona and scare the devil himself back to hell. A moment later, he could turn on the hero persona and throw his body between a child and wild gunfire.

And in yet another moment, he could turn on the lover and kiss a woman’s knees out from under her.

A shiver ran over Kara’s skin. She licked her lips, the sensation of his kiss still lingering there. For God’s sake, she had to forget it. Varón was a monster. Just ask Ronald Gibson.

Varón walked toward Gibson with measured steps. When he was barely more than an arm’s length away, he stopped. “The money,” he said. “The boat. And you’d better hope I like your story.”

“I can’t.” Gibson sank to his knees.

Kara was shocked.

“You
can’t
?” Varón parroted, putting voice to Kara’s thoughts. “You mean you’d rather get carved up like a filet than tell me where you got the money to buy that boat?”

A sob racked Gibson. “Shit, if it’s not you, it’ll be him.”

Kara stiffened.
Him.
Gibson knew who the killer was. He knew who killed Andrew and Louie and who’d been terrorizing her and her son.

“Who?” Varón asked. “Who paid you to stage the riot that killed John Wolff?”

Gibson hung his head. Varón circled him like a shark.

“How many inmates were in on it?”

Gibson closed his eyes.

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

“Ah, God…” Gibson whined again.

“Tell me a name, Ronald.”

“Just leave me alone—”

Kara had had enough. She stepped from behind the bench. “No,” she snarled, heading straight down the path to Gibson. “We won’t leave you alone.” She held both elbows locked in front of her, aiming the gun at his nose. Gibson looked up as if disbelieving that this could have gotten any worse; Varón looked at her over Gibson’s head like a panther eyeing his next meal.

“Krista,” he said, his voice a warning, but Kara kept walking. She curled her lip at Gibson.

“Varón left out part of the story,” she said. “It’s the part about the crazy woman who doesn’t believe in giving warnings and doesn’t like second chances.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about that riot.”

“Did I mention that the woman is trigger-happy?” Kara asked.

“Krista,” Varón said again, then leaned down to Gibson from behind him. “Watch out. She likes kneecaps.”

“It was a riot,” Gibson stammered. “It’s a prison. It happens.”

“It was a county facility,” Kara snapped. “Minimum
security. The men in Floyd are there for not paying child support and for hiding away their repos. John Wolff was there for drunk driving—an accident. He’d only been there a day and a half. You set that up. I’m not going to bother asking you to admit that because I already know that part. All I want to know is who paid you to do it.”

“Ah, God.” Gibson continued to shake his head. But he was weakening. Kara knew she’d overstepped known fact: She didn’t know for sure that Gibson had anything to do with the riot that killed John Wolff. All she knew was that some other employee at the prison had given his name to Knutson as a possibility, and that he owned a new boat that was incongruous to his salary. But she’d seen too many lies in her career not to recognize it. It was the law of the west: Defendants lied. Witnesses lied. Informants lied. Gibson was no different. He would lie unless he thought they already had him cornered.

Or unless he thought he was about to get hurt.

Kara looked at Varón. She lowered her gun arm. “All right, darling,” she said. “Go ahead and have some fun. Don’t ruin your shirt.”