Adrenaline (24 page)

Alex focused himself. He drew a hideously painful breath and carefully put his hands on the gun and slipped his forefinger inside the trigger guard—and then he lifted that dead weight off the floor.

The big-caliber bullet took off most of his assailant’s head.

Alex tried to swing the gun onto the girl, but someone reached over him suddenly and yanked it away.

“Hell of a job,” the man said, kneeling beside Alex as he lay dying. “You did one hell of a job.”

Chapter 26

Steve came to. He was cold and wet, lying on the floor. He groaned, pushed himself up, and realized that he was lying in water.

There was a whining noise, a mechanical sound. He swayed on his hands and knees. His head ached terribly and he was confused as to where he was and why.

Then he remembered running into the house after Alex, the dark shape that had come just behind him—and the sudden, crashing blow.

And the screams.

The gunshot.

“Lisa!” Steve steadied himself against the wall as he stood. The water flowed down the hallway. He hurried into the lit room, the kitchen. His gun was gone.

“Lisa!”

Blood was splattered on the ceiling and wall. The man Steve had fought down by the boat was lying on the floor, his head a bloody ruin. Steve wouldn’t have been able to recognize him, if not for his clothes.

The water.

The water was pouring from a big floor-mounted freezer. An electric pump was rigged up to it and a big padlock was snapped to the hasp. The water was brimming from the top lid.
 

Steve lost it momentarily. A sound came from deep in his chest as he fell to his knees and ripped the pump away. Water pulsed across the floor. He called her name repeatedly, expecting no answer and getting none.

The lock wouldn’t give way against his hands. But then he saw a crowbar on the counter. Even in that state, as he ripped the hasp away, he knew Geoff had left the tool so he could find her.

Steve threw the lid open. Water splashed onto his legs, red- tinged water.

He backed away from the horror inside.

It wasn’t Lisa.

Alex was crammed into the tiny space. His body shifted as the lid opened. His head broke the surface of the water.

“That’s the bad news,” Geoff said, behind him. “The good news is Lisa still wants to talk to you even though you showed up late to the party.”

Steve whirled, the crowbar raised.

Geoff raised the revolver so that it was at eye level. “It’d be suicide.”

Steve hesitated.

“I thought so. You are definitely CEO material. Always thinking. Unlike your poor schmuck of a friend who blew in here and almost saved the day. Alex was his name, right?”

“That’s right.” Steve’s voice was hoarse.

“I was impressed. I told him so, too. Just before he died.”

“You knocked me out.” Steve was still swaying on his feet. He felt stupid and slow.

Geoff slapped his forehead, mockingly. “I
forgot
to tell him that. He called for you a couple of times. Guess he died thinking you had let him down. My mistake.”

Steve tried to shut Geoff’s words off. He closed his eyes, briefly, then said, “Where is she?”

Geoff nodded toward the window. “Take a look.” He flipped a light switch by the door and a floodlight revealed Lisa and another woman in the backyard. The other woman was aiming a rifle—Alex’s gun—at Lisa. The woman’s neck and shirt were bloody.

“The junior varsity did real well,” Geoff said. “Seems Lisa had a piece of broken glass and managed to cut Carly. Even took on Jammer.”

Steve opened the window.

“Keep your voice down,” Geoff warned.

Steve ignored him. To Lisa, he called, “Are you hurt?”

The way her face broke, the sudden relief he saw there made tears well in Steve’s eyes. He didn’t deserve her.

“I thought he’d killed you,” Lisa said. She started toward the window.

“Get back!” The girl jabbed Lisa with the rifle; hit her hard in the chest. “Give me a reason, you bitch!”

“Carly was soft on Lisa,” Geoff said. “Seems Lisa has been conning us for days. Made us think she was weak. Carly tried to help her out, and Lisa cut her for it. Ugly scar from her ear down. If it had been a little deeper, maybe Lisa would have gotten away.” He looked Steve in the eye. “Now my biggest challenge is to make sure Carly doesn’t kill her unless I give the word.”

“You want a challenge, put the gun down.”

Geoff shook his head. “You’re not ready. You were out cold just a few minutes ago.”

“Let me worry about that.” Steve put the crowbar on the counter.

Geoff kicked Steve in the chest. It was a high, fast kick that surprised Steve completely and knocked him off his feet. Geoff got in close and pressed the gun barrel right under his chin. “Listen. Maybe you
do
deserve the big desk at the big company. But in the game of life and death, you just don’t seem to be cutting it.”

He stood up. “You lost round one. So I’ll be taking Lisa with me tonight. Don’t give up though—as long as you do what you’re told, you’re going to get another chance.”

Steve was able to cut himself loose within half an hour, which was about how long Geoff had said it would take.

Steve set about cleaning the kitchen.

He washed the blood and brain matter off the walls, having to stop twice to run into the bathroom and vomit.

He moved the rental car half a mile away and walked back. Then he rolled Alex and the other man into the sections of old linoleum that Geoff had told him he would find in the cellar. From there, Steve drove back to Charlestown in Alex’s truck and loaded the dive boat onto the trailer. He came back to the house, put both bodies onboard, and found a boat ramp in Hull.

A part of him wanted the police to find him. A part of him desperately wanted to explain why he was covering up a murder—weighting the bodies and dumping them at sea. As the dark waves closed over them, Steve said a brief prayer.

As he closed his eyes just before dawn, lying in his bunk in
The Sea Tern,
he told himself that the part of him that wanted to talk to the police—and to God—would just have to be silent for the time being.

Because Geoff still wanted to play.

Chapter 27

“Want something to take your mind off not getting laid?” Bannerman said, as he sat down across from Lazar at the coffee shop on the corner of Columbus and Berkeley.
 

“What’ve you got?” Lazar said. Truth was, his loneliness was a physical thing, a weight on his chest that sucked the breath and life out of him.
 

It had been eleven months since Charlotte had moved out on him. Eleven months since she had become someone he didn’t know. Someone who said she wanted different things from life. She wanted to leave social work and go back to school. She couldn’t give any more at the woman’s shelter; she couldn’t worry along with other cop wives; she couldn’t worry alone at home another night. She had said she couldn’t—and didn’t—love him the way she once did.

She had moved in with a girlfriend, saying she needed her space. At least for a trial period: a week or two. “Maybe, I’ll be back,” she had said, her voice tired. She hadn’t looked at him when she said it, but still he hoped.

He had walked around like a zombie for five or six days until he finally gave in to a nasty little suspicion that had been growing in his head like a tumor. That night, he had waited outside her girlfriend’s place and then followed Charlotte as she drove into Boston. She had parked just off Columbus Avenue in the South End. It was an area that was undergoing gentrification: meaning poor blacks were being shoved out so the buildings could be gutted and rebuilt for rich whites.

He had never cared one way or the other about being black. He knew he was supposed to, but it wasn’t something he really thought about much. But that night he was all wrapped up in a rage that swelled him, made him feel twice his size. And that night he cared as he watched her through the binoculars go up the stairs to this place with an overnight bag. He suddenly knew with absolute certainty that she had been screwing around on him, and he knew the type of guy it would be: some rich white guy who had bought up a string of these places and was turning them over for a fortune.

That’s what all this shit is about, Lazar had told himself. Charlotte couldn’t stay with him because she had found someone better. Some white guy just trying out a black chick for a change.

He could see how good she still looked, the bounce in her step as she went up the stairs, free from him and going to meet her new man. Lazar saw the button she pushed, and he knew he could find the apartment from there.

He left his service revolver under the car seat and went in after her.

He told himself he was going to talk it out with her. Confront her with words. Make her explain herself and say the things he needed to say. But as he strode up the stairs, he felt the rage about to burst, and knew he was going to be on the wrong side of a domestic for the first time in his life. Lazar had a black belt in karate, and when he kicked in the apartment door the crime scene flashguns were already bursting in his head, displaying the bodies like big broken dolls on the floor.

But instead of finding Charlotte with her man, he found her with two little kids and their mama. They were obviously poor, the woman was probably part of the shelter. Lazar saw that Charlotte’s overnight bag held children’s clothes and books.

After a moment of incredulous silence, Charlotte simply said, “You followed me? You followed me?”

That had sealed her decision to move out to a new apartment. He had been too disgusted and ashamed of himself to put up an argument, and had stayed away when her brother helped her make the move. And then Lazar kept away. To her credit, she had never once thrown the incident back at him directly. Listening to her these days, it sounded as if their marriage was just something they had once done together for a short time. She said they really needed to move forward on the divorce. Last week, she had called and told him she was starting to date again. Her tone had been just the slightest bit defensive, letting him know she was being honest and didn’t expect to find him pounding down any doors.

“Congratulations,” he had said and hung up.

He felt the jealousy surge through him again, starting from his heart out to his arms, his stomach. He could feel it right down through his legs to the soles of his feet; it even flowed from his fingertips and lips onto the coffee mug. He wondered if they had enough soap back in the kitchen to clean it off. He was a goddamn health hazard. Customer after customer coming in and being infected by the jealousy in him, a middle-aged, black cop. Mooning over his wife behind a face as impassive as that of a statue.

“What are you glowering about?” Bannerman said.

Lazar realized he had been drifting. “My effect on people,” he said.

“Huh. Well maybe this will take your mind off Charlotte.” Bannerman held out a manila folder.

“Screw you,” Lazar said without any heat. “What is that?”

Bannerman pulled the folder back against his chest. “You’re not going to waste our time, right? I’m only giving you this because you’d pound me if you found out I knew and didn’t tell you.”

“Give.”

Bannerman handed the file over.

Lazar read it and shrugged. “Ball’s van parked over at that garage near the Wang Center. Back window gone, bullet in the dashboard. Big deal.”

“That’s what I say.” Bannerman called for a cup of coffee. “Waste of time.”

“Not a line on Geoff Mann when I ran his name. Or on the chick, Carly Duncan. That was a surprise—there weren’t any busts for soliciting.”

“Yeah.” Bannerman looked mildly curious, then turned back to his menu. “She was a knockout, though. Maybe Jammer just has her out on calls.”

Lazar swallowed the rest of his coffee and snapped his fingers at the waitress. “Ginny, make Bannerman’s coffee to go.”

Bannerman protested. “Hey! I was planning on pancakes.”

Lazar had to grin, amazed at how a little distraction could change his mood. Maybe he would find some woman for himself, get on with
his
life too. “Bannerman, you’re looking a little fat these days. So come on, before their shift changes. I want to see if the attendants can place Jammer at the garage that night.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s going to happen. About a thousand people have been in and out since then.”

“Damn right. Leave the pancakes before another thousand go through today.”

Bannerman had called it.

The three attendants had looked at Lazar as if he were an idiot. Didn’t he know how many people flowed through there every day?

“What now?” Bannerman asked, as they left the garage.