Adrenaline (28 page)

“Saturday.”

Lazar got onto the Southeast Expressway, heading for home in Norwell. He sighed heavily the first time the traffic backed up, and realized abruptly he had been doing that a lot. Sighing.

He dreaded his days off.

Partly it was the house. Memories of her in every goddamn nook and cranny. Maybe he should just sell the damn place, end up in a cockroach-infested Brighton apartment like a normal divorced guy.

He wished he could talk to her. He wished he could get a clear answer about why it had all changed. Why what was once a good thing—what was once their
life
—was now worthless.

Lazar rubbed his forehead, trying to shove the whining, hurt-puppy voice out of his head. He abruptly thought of Mann’s apartment.

All of those photos, but none of them showed the guy with a woman or anything that suggested family or friends. Jansten said something about grandparents, a girl in San Francisco. The personnel file would have a next-of-kin phone number. Hell, maybe Lazar would call it and Mann would answer. Got himself fired and scurried back to grandma and grandpa for free food and clean laundry.

Lazar glanced at his watch. Just before seven. Maybe he would stop by Jansten’s instead of calling. Standing at the man’s door, he’d be much more likely to get Jansten to move things along. With Lazar standing right there, Jansten might even be willing to send somebody back into the office over the weekend, find Mann’s file.

Get this fat cop off my porch.

Lazar grinned as he took the exit for Sea Crest.

Carly brought a bowl of soup and a sandwich to Lisa. The revolver was on the tray. Carly put the food aside and undid the ropes on Lisa’s feet and one of her hands so she could sit up. “There. Feed yourself.”

Lisa noticed that there was less menace in the girl’s voice than before and her hair was drying as if she too had just showered.

“You were wrong,” the girl said.

Lisa was famished. She ate the chicken sandwich and tomato soup without saying a word. This was the most complete meal she had eaten since they had kidnapped her and she wasn’t going to risk offending the girl.

When she finished, the girl said it again.

“How do you know?” Lisa said quietly.

The girl flushed. “Because he loves me.”

“Did he say that?”

The girl’s expression grew stony. “You think that’s a joke? A girl like me?”

“No.”

“I know what he feels. He doesn’t have to say it—I can make a man feel things a tightass bitch like you never could.”

Lisa was silent.

That seemed to make the girl angrier. “What makes you think you’re so different? What makes you think you’re better? It’s just clothes and … this rich-bitch attitude!”

“Does my having money justify what you’ve done to me? Does that make it all right to put me in that box? To kill Alex and Jansten?” Lisa looked closely at the girl.

Carly looked away. “You don’t know anything about me. I was just a kid when Jammer turned me out.”

“So what he did to you makes it all right?”

Carly’s face flushed. “It makes that fucker dead! It means that it’s my turn to get what I want. I’m young enough, I can wash those years away, and nobody’s going to know. And if no one knows, it’s like it didn’t happen.”

“So you’re just going to pretend I didn’t exist when Geoff kills me?”

The girl looked away from Lisa’s eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that. It might not happen anyway. Geoff can be real sweet when he wants. And if you want to stay on my good side, don’t kiss up to him.” She walked over to the mirror and looked at her scar. “He says we’re going to get this fixed. Maybe if we both make enough of a change, he’ll let you go. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to identify us any longer.”

“Do you actually believe that?”

The girl was silent and then she came and sat beside Lisa. “Look, I know what you’ve been going through, and I’m not saying I like it. Me and Darlene—she’s one of Jammer’s other girls—sometimes we would look up and see the disgusting shit we’re doing day in, day out … and we say like, ‘How did I end up here?’ And I know that’s different from what you’re in, you know, this situation. But I know you’ve got to be thinking the same thing.”

“You know that, and yet you’re keeping me.” Lisa looked at Carly and said quietly, “Please help me out of this.”

Carly shook her head. “I can’t go against Geoff. He’s the only guy who’s ever taken care of me.” She blushed. “Maybe that sounds stupid, coming from a whore. But I’ve got feelings too.”

“You think I don’t?” Lisa couldn’t keep the desperation from her voice. Her lower lip trembled. “You’re willing to do this because you’re waiting for him to say some
words
to you? What do you think is going to happen the first time you cross him? He’s doing this to me because Steve beat him out of a job. And I embarrassed him, maybe. I slapped him.”

“Why?” Carly looked at her closely.

“Because he was risking lives. For his stupid damn
job,
he was risking lives. Proving something that no one else needed proving. For what?”

“Huh. You’re too rich to know what it’s like to be poor. He was rich, now he’s lost it. This will get it back.”

“Rich? Maybe someday we would be. But for now, I don’t know how Steve raised the money he did. Believe me, I know our finances. There isn’t any more.”

The girl smiled. “You think you know everything. Geoff says that money he got from your husband was just flash money. He’s going to do some payback on a guy who hurt me and he’s going to make us rich. Geoff is going to take me all over the world.”

“How nice,” Lisa said, feeling the hysteria she had been holding back push to the surface. “How nice to know you’ve got a good reason for killing me.”

Lisa willed herself to look away from the gun.

The whole time she had been talking, she had been conscious of it on the tray. So when the doorbell rang downstairs and Carly automatically reached for the gun, Lisa didn’t hesitate.

It was as if she had been poised for this moment all her life.

Geoff sat up abruptly on the sofa. He had been asleep and it took him a second to realize where he was. The doorbell rang again. He got to his feet and hurried to the window.

It was the black cop. Lazar.

Geoff’s blood began pounding and he looked for other cops. He quietly moved the back windows and peered out. No one that he could see. That didn’t mean anything, though.

He went back to look at the cop. No gun in his hands. His car pulled right up in the driveway. Ringing the doorbell.

Maybe the guy just wanted to talk to Jansten again.

Geoff let his breath out. Maybe, just maybe, if they were quiet, the man would go away. Geoff felt disoriented, not ready for this.

That’s when he heard the sound of a struggle upstairs. The scrape of wood on wood that he figured must be the two of them struggling on the bed.

“Shit,” he said under his breath and ran for the stairs.

He was halfway up when one of them screamed and the gun went off, filling the house with a hollow boom.

Geoff checked himself on the stairs and turned back as he heard the front doorknob rattle. The cop kicked the door, and Geoff saw the doorjamb splinter around the lock.

Both of Geoff’s guns were upstairs.

He threw himself over the banister and landed just a few feet away from the cop as he kicked his way into the foyer.

Chapter 31

Police!” Lazar yelled.

Giving that warning almost cost the cop his life right there because it gave Geoff the split second to grasp Lazar’s revolver with his left hand and jam his index finger between the trigger and trigger guard. The cop tried to yank the gun away, and Geoff rammed him in the face with his elbow.

Lazar twisted his head and the blow broke his cheekbone. The cop shoved Geoff hard and let go of the gun. That surprised Geoff and he fell back, off balance. Before he could transfer the revolver to his right hand, Lazar pivoted on one foot, kicked the gun away, and then did a fast spin and snapped off a kick at Geoff’s stomach. Geoff was able to block the blow with his forearms, but the force of it knocked him down and he slid across the marble floor. The big cop glided forward, and Geoff lashed out at his knee. Lazar turned just in time and took the hard kick against his thigh.

It slowed him down long enough so that Geoff could roll to his feet. The two of them circled in the foyer, the cop’s breath rasping. Geoff’s own breathing was coming pretty fast too. This cop was as skilled as anyone Geoff had ever taken on in competition. And he was surprisingly quick for his size. Lazar’s eyes flickered to the floor, and Geoff risked taking his eyes off the cop for a split second to see the gun lying in the corner.

Lazar jabbed his fingers at Geoff’s Adam’s apple.

Geoff blocked him just in time. “Good try,” he said.

That widened Lazar’s eyes, but he didn’t say anything. He kept circling for an opening. He snapped off another kick, which Geoff sidestepped neatly.

Then Geoff went to work. He feinted with a groin kick, and followed up fast, hitting Lazar’s collarbone with the knife edge of both hands. Lazar bunched his heavy shoulder muscles just in time, but from the way his breath gusted out, Geoff could tell the blows had done some damage. When he connected another solid punch to Lazar’s cheekbone, he started laughing; he felt so good.

The cop was winded and hurting.

Geoff went for his eyes, his fore and index fingers rigid, his whole body exultant.

Maybe it was Geoff’s overconfidence. Maybe it was just Lazar’s skill. But the cop parried the jab away, grasped Geoff’s wrist, and twisted his arm behind his back before the younger man even realized how much trouble he was in.

Geoff tried to throw himself forward so that he could roll onto his back and yank the arm away. But Lazar wrapped his left arm around Geoff’s throat and kicked his legs out from under him. The two of them fell to the floor, Lazar on top. Geoff roared in pain—the man was going to break his right arm, he could feel the elbow joint giving way. Amazingly, he couldn’t see any options: Lazar’s gun was out of reach. Even if he could have reached it, Geoff needed his left arm to reach behind his back and try to counter the awful strength of the cop by holding his right wrist.

Geoff saw Carly’s legs coming down the stairs in front of him.

Suddenly the cop let go of Geoff and went for the revolver himself.

From above Geoff’s head another gun spoke, impossibly loud in the foyer. Carly had his revolver, the one he had taken off Steve.

The wall behind the cop splattered with blood and the cop dropped his gun, his right arm now useless. He fell to his knees, fumbling for the gun with his left hand.

Geoff said, “Hold it, Carly.”

He shoved the cop away and picked up the revolver himself. Geoff coughed and massaged his throat. As soon as he could breathe freely, he kissed Carly and gave her a hard squeeze around the shoulders. She was bone white and shaking. “Good girl.”

He went back to stand over the cop, and then, abruptly, kicked him hard on the shoulder, right over the gunshot wound. That got a reaction from the cop, a strangled kind of scream. Geoff said, “Lazar, you let a woman beat you. How’s that appeal to that sense of humor of yours?”

“Is she dead?” Geoff asked.

“I wish.” Carly slapped Lisa in the face. “She fought me for the gun, but I got it back and cracked her a good one. That’s the second time she tried to kill me.”

Lisa moaned and raised her head slightly, then let it fall back down. There was a lump on her forehead.

“I’ve had it trying to help her.” Carly’s voice was cold and flat. “I think you should get rid of her.”

“You do, huh?” He spoke up cheerfully. “Wake up, Lisa. We brought you some company.” Geoff went back into the hallway and grabbed Lazar. They had tied his hands and hobbled his legs with a short length of rope so he could walk but not use any of those kicks. Not that he looked like he was in any condition for that anymore. His face was swelling around his broken cheekbone and his arm trembled visibly as the blood poured down his sleeve, covering his hand. He looked at Lisa blankly at first, and then Geoff could see a stirring of interest. Lazar licked his lips and said, “Who’s she?”

Geoff smiled. “This guy’s a tough one, Lisa. Kind of fat, but he’s got an exit wound as big as my fist out the back of his shoulder, and he still wants to meet the ladies. Lisa Dern, please meet Detective Lazar of the Boston Police.”

“Geoff, let him lie down,” Lisa said. “Please.”

“Please fuck yourself,” Carly snapped at her.

Geoff put his arm around Carly and kissed her again. “You were ready for her. Saved me, too.”

In spite of everything—of Lisa and the wounded cop staring at them mutely, of the fact of Jansten lying dead just a few rooms away—Carly smiled delightedly. Loving Geoff’s attention.