Adrenaline (31 page)

Geoff was stunned. “How did you know her name?”

“You’ve been screwing up. You mentioned her name, you mentioned Jammer’s. You told me he was a pimp. I’ve asked questions.”

Geoff felt the blood rush to his face. He stood up. “You son of a bitch. If you’ve talked, Lisa’s already dead. Count on it.”

“Nobody talks more than you,” Steve said, irritably. “I just spread some cash around with a few street hookers. Found out that this Carly of yours cut Raul and he wants her back. And that his men are looking for her, you, and Jammer.”

“Hookers in the street?”

“Several knew that much about it,” Steve lied. “Now tell me what happened with Raul so I can figure the best way to make this work.”

Geoff opened his mouth, then shut it. Steve must be lying, he thought. That many people
couldn’t
know.… Yet Geoff liked what Steve had outlined before. Geoff didn’t want to give up on that kind of action. But he didn’t like the authoritative tone Steve was taking. Geoff was tempted to hurt him. Find out what sort of double-cross he had in mind. Guaranteed there was one.

And that realization made Geoff relax.

Because Steve was trying to put him on the defensive. Sitting there looking calm, dropping these little bombs. Well, fuck him.

Geoff smiled. “Sure, I’ll tell you what happened.”

“Tell me exactly. How you got on the yacht. How many people were with Raul, and how they were armed. Where is the money? What kind of bag or box is it in? Describe it. Describe all of it.”

Geoff did.

Steve listened quietly, taking it all in. When Geoff was finished, Steve remained silent for a few moments, his eyes far away. Then, he said, “You’ll definitely need to bring Carly. You won’t even get on the boat without her.”

Geoff shook his head. “No. I’m not going to risk her.”

“We need her.”

“Screw you. You’re just trying to get her away from Lisa, hope she’d break free, probably.”

Steve was surprised. The guy was showing real concern for the hooker. Steve leaned forward, speaking softly. “How do you explain it to yourself? How is it okay to kidnap Lisa, put her in a box—but it’s not okay for Carly to be in danger?”

“She’s been in danger since she was a kid,” Geoff snapped. “Besides, she’s mine.”

Steve pulled back. “And you want an adventure, don’t you?”

“That’s about right.”

“Well, let me put it to you this way. Adventures don’t come to people who seek them out.”

“Bullshit. In my experience, they
never
happen unless you make them.”

Steve gestured at the pictures on the wall. “People like you who take idiotic risks for the sake of the thrill aren’t having an adventure, you’re playing a game—a sport at best. You’ve got a choice, and you choose not to risk anything important.”

“Nothing but my life,” Geoff said.

Steve spoke slowly, willing Geoff to listen. “You also play Russian roulette like some people play Scrabble. Me, I’m trying to save Lisa. She means more to me than my own life. My adrenaline’s pumping right now because if she dies, everything I value is gone. If you really want to challenge me, then play fair. Take a real risk for once in your life.”

Steve waited. He saw that Geoff took it in, that he knew it was a challenge, and a transparent one at that. But what Steve had said was true.

“You think having Carly there will stack the cards in your favor?”

“Our
favor. When you show up without weapons, with her and the money, you’ll be doing just what they expect. You show up without her, you won’t even get on the boat to see Raul. It’s that simple.”

Geoff nodded slowly. “You realize that if Carly’s with me, I’ll have to leave something for Lisa—something on a timer—so if we don’t come back, she’ll die too.”

Steve inhaled. Then he nodded. “I expected that, yes.”

Geoff drained the last of his beer and threw the bottle into the trash. “Carly will be there.”

Chapter 35

Geoff had no trouble renting the equipment, even though the sum of his scuba experience was limited to a one-week certification course during a vacation in the Bahamas. “Give me full gear for two divers: a large man’s wetsuit and one for a woman who weighs about one hundred and fifteen pounds. Six tanks, regulators, and an extra set of mask and fins, dive lights.”

The clerk whistled. “Six tanks. Busy night ahead, huh?”

“Very.”

Geoff whistled on the way out to the van, feeling good as he and the clerk hauled the gear. Damn good. Carly was going to be along to watch him do his stuff.

Back at the house, she tugged at the smaller wetsuit. From the set of her mouth, the quick looks she darted his way, he could tell Carly was afraid of the stark equipment: the lead weight belts, heavy tanks, the gauges, hoses, neoprene, Velcro, and buckles.

“You don’t have to worry,” he said, teasing her along.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said.

“You won’t have to,” he said. “I’d never ask you to do something you couldn’t handle.”

Steve finished water-sealing the case he had bought that afternoon. He ran through his checklist: The explosives were ready. The guns were cleaned. Batteries charged for the Powersled and the electric outboard. The boat was fully gassed. He had the sketch of the cove taped up on the bulwark, and from the chronograph beside it he saw he had two hours to go.

Although he had no appetite, he grilled himself a steak. As he chewed the food slowly, he played back the messages on his answering machine: Two from his secretary, desperately trying to reschedule his missed meetings, and one from J.C., his designer down in Charleston. “Steve, I’m just calling to say I’d like to follow up with your guy, Alex Martin, on the Blue Water. Can’t raise a call from him.” A bluff message from Keiler, head of one of the electronics divisions, kidding him about his “extended vacation” but pressing him for answers, too. There were no calls from Jansten, which was surprising to Steve. He expected there were some pretty ugly rumors circulating by now about the new president.
Unreliable. Jekyll and Hyde personality. Questionable use of funds.

Steve was faintly troubled by that. But more than anything, he felt distant from that life. That foolish life he had worked so hard to achieve.

What he had before him was all that mattered. He had made his plans, and he was as ready as he could be. Calm under the butterfly stomach, calm under the bitter tension that made him wish the game could start right that minute.

Feeling pretty much the way Geoff wanted him to feel.

Carly hated the tears. Hated herself for letting another man twist her around. “You lied to me!”

That made him mad. She could see it in his face: His understanding look vanished, and he turned thin-lipped and cold. “I need you there.”

She pressed herself against him, willing her body to thaw him again, to give her another chance to show that all she wanted from him was a chance to run away forever. “Screw the money,” she said. “We’ve got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars! You don’t need to prove anything else to me.”

“It’s not the money,” he said, as if she hadn’t even touched him.

She pulled away. “Like hell, it isn’t.” Her shoulders began to heave, and she turned away from him. She knew he hated weakness.

“You’ve got to know that I can’t be pushed. You’ve got to see that I’ll take care of you no matter what.”

“Please, Geoff, please. Let’s just get in the van and go.”

“You want me to shoot those two down the hall? Just murder them?”

She bit her lip. “No. I never wanted you to kill anyone, except maybe Jammer. Just leave them tied up, put some food and water near them. We can make a call from Florida. Once we’ve had the plastic surgery, we can go anywhere, you said it yourself.”

Geoff looked at her like she was a little kid. “Lazar is a cop, and you shot him. We’re going to need time to recuperate from the operations, and we won’t make it out of Miami if he can name us.”

“Don’t just shoot them. Don’t do what you did to that old man.”

Geoff smiled at her as if she had just agreed with him. “That’s what I mean. These things have to work a certain way.… I made a deal with Steve and I’m going to keep it, to a degree.”

“A deal! Geoff, you’ve got his wife—you can’t trust any deal.”

“I said to a degree. And I know that a hundred and fifty thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money to you, but it’s not for the life I have in mind for us.”

“Sounds
like a lot of money? You’re damn right it does. I don’t care how rich you were before, we can go anywhere in the world—for a while anyhow—on a hundred and fifty thousand.”

“I’m not interested in ‘a while.’ ”

She brushed that away. “Geoff, what more do we need?”

“We need to kill Raul and take his money,” Geoff said, quietly. “We need to show each other that we’re willing to stand together and take down anyone who gets in our way.”

“Why?” She laughed uncertainly as she said it, afraid suddenly of what he might answer her. And just as afraid that he wouldn’t say it.

He did.

She knew she was supposed to laugh. That this was a real scream. She should be hugging herself it was so funny. She was only eighteen but she had been a hooker for two of those years, and she knew damn well not to believe it when a man said he loved you and that he was going to take you away to be with him forever.

But she didn’t laugh.

She didn’t cry anymore.

She stood there staring at him while he waited for an answer. Until, at last, she said, softly, “All right.”

Chapter 36

You can’t be serious,” Lazar said.

But he saw from the look on Lisa’s face, the way she was clamping her jaw tight, that she believed Mann. And given what he had done to her before, putting her in the freezer, he probably was. Lazar felt his knees start to shake, but he kept the bluff tone. “I’m not doing it.”

“Up to you,” Geoff said. He had them outside, standing on top of the small hill that ran from the top of the house to the ocean. It was just a little before midnight and the floodlights from the back deck provided illumination. The smell of the sea was strong, and Lazar could hear the slap of the waves hitting the private pier. Beside them, the doors and windows of Jansten’s Mercedes were wide open. “You probably won’t make it if you don’t put on the wetsuit, though. Hypothermia.”

“We’re not going,” Lazar said.

Geoff shrugged and pushed his wet hair away from his face. He pointed at Lisa.
“She’s
going. Even if I have to toss her in the front seat without a wetsuit, she’s going because I made a deal with Steve—he’s got a chance to get her back alive.” Geoff smiled. “Not a
good
chance, but a chance. As for you, Lazar, I figured, why not? You prefer me to shoot you now, put you in the trunk, that’s fine—but Lisa still only gets two tanks of air.”

Lazar glanced to the left. Carly was standing about fifteen feet away, aiming the rifle at him. Close enough for her to make a sure hit, but too far for him to get to her. Between the loss of blood and the hobble, he couldn’t manage much more than turtle speed. Lazar licked his lips, feeling awfully tired. “I’m still not doing it.”

“Shoot him, Carly,” Geoff said, indifferently.

“No!” Lisa stepped between Lazar and Carly’s gun.

“Oh, give me a reason,” the girl said.

Lisa ignored her and grasped Lazar’s hands. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

Geoff hammed it up, acting as if Lazar were refusing to dance with his date. “Come on, Lazar! Put on the wetsuit and get in the car. Her husband has a rendezvous in half an hour with me and Carly. A half hour to do the job, a half hour to get back. If he gives me a good enough reason, you might get another chance.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” Lazar said, dully.

Geoff nodded to the Mercedes. “Everybody’s got to die sometime.”

Ten minutes later, he had lashed them to the front seats with clothesline. Lisa was trying to contain her panic. Trying and barely succeeding to remember what she had learned from the three dive lessons Steve had once given her in a pool before she had decided it wasn’t the right sport for her.
Too claustrophobic.

The thought made her laugh now, a hysterical little gasp that made Geoff smile at her oddly as he checked over his work. He had tied two scuba tanks to each of their seats in the back and ran the two regulator hoses over their shoulders using duct tape to fasten them so they wouldn’t fall away. He said, “Keep your mouth clamped tight over your mouthpiece as you go off the pier. I’ll put masks on you so you can see the pressure gauges, here—you’ve got three thousand pounds in each tank. That line’s got enough slack so you can switch mouthpieces once the first tanks are empty. You’ll be in about thirty feet of water. When I dove down tonight, I went through most of that in just under an hour—of course, you might be breathing a little faster than I was.”