A Dangerous Affair (42 page)

Josh opened the leather billfold and dug out a pair of twenties. He spun around and flailed his arms, stomping the ground in a tantrum. He put the gun to his own head then aimed it back at Lloyd. "I know you're banging Blanchart's wife. I've seen you with her."

"That's got nothing to do with us."

"It has everything to do with us. I just want the money. Just give me the damn money and you'll never see me again."

"I told you I don't have it."

Josh aimed the gun at Lloyd's face. "Then you better find it. Fast!"

"I need time."

"There
is
no time!" Josh shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I swear to God I'll pull this fucking trigger unless you cough up the money right now."

Lloyd stepped backwards. "Hurting me isn't the answer. Whatever happened in the past is behind us. We can't go back and change it. The decisions you make right now will affect you for the rest of your life.
Christ,
Josh! I've seen you come unraveled before, but not like this!"

Josh squinted along the top of the barrel. "The rest of what life? I killed Sheila. I stuffed her body in her cello case and I hauled her to the curb like a bag of garbage. What kind of person does that?" The gun quivered in his hand. "She ruined everything for me. EVERYTHING! She hated both of us. She was going to throw me out. She never listened. She just kept yelling and screaming... I couldn't take it anymore."

Josh pressed the muzzle to Lloyd's nose. "Give me the money or I'll kill you where you stand."

"It's in here," said Lloyd. He pushed the stack of boxes aside and put his hand on the freezer chest. He opened the top and reached inside for the cash. Steady rain pinged the metal roof. Lightning sizzled in the super-heated air.

Josh stood over him with the gun. "Move!" he insisted, overcome by the prospect of so much cash.

Lloyd dropped the backpack in the freezer. "You'll need this."

Josh reached into the freezer for the bag with both hands.

Lloyd slammed the lid on his brother's hand, forcing him to drop the gun inside the freezer.

Josh jerked his arm free and tackled Lloyd against the wall in a drug-induced craze.

Lloyd fought back, his superior strength negated by his brother's meth-fueled rage as he exchanged random blows with Josh in an effort to subdue his taller sibling and force him into a submission hold.

But Josh kept coming like a man possessed. A man with nothing to lose and the will to kill if need be.

Josh slammed his knee into Lloyd's groin and snatched the gun from the freezer.

Both brothers wrestled for control of the weapon, grunting and straining in a macabre dance before the .38 revolver discharged at Lloyd's lower leg. The round tore a thin strip of pale meat along his calve through his pants and ripped the GPS monitor from his ankle.

Josh seized control of the gun and swiped a wobbly hand at his mouth, spitting and heaving from the violent confrontation with Lloyd. "Blanchart warned me about you." He held the gun on Lloyd. "I could kill you and walk away."

"Don't do it," said Lloyd. He pressed his hand on his shin.

Josh kept the gun on his brother while he gathered the rest of the cash.

"What would Dad think of this?" said Lloyd.

"I begged him to tell me where he hid the money. I didn't want to hurt him. But he wouldn't give it up."

"So you killed him?"

Josh wiped his nose. "I didn't mean to do it. I was in a bad way. He
owed
me! I saved his life from that scum-bag who tried to hurt us. Dad stole the money in the first place. All I wanted was a little something for me."

"I know you never meant to hurt him."

Josh shook his head. Lightning split the air so close he could smell it. "I can't do this anymore."

"You don't have to."

Josh shrugged. His swollen jaw hurt like hell. "You're right." He cocked the hammer and clutched a hand to his side. "I was never very good at much of anything, anyhow." He stared at the cash in the backpack. "Blanchart'll probably find me."

Lloyd put his hand out. "Give me the gun."

Josh pressed the hot muzzle to his temple. "Tell Mom I'm sorry."

"Tell her yourself."

Josh closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The loud pop reverberated inside the storage unit, where Lloyd dropped to his knees and cried.

Chapter 63

Petite and unassuming, Marsha Hollan moved with confidence through the crowded terminal inside the Orlando International Airport. A Judo black belt and senior advocate with an underground branch of the Haven Women's Shelter, Marsha empathized with her clients' plight. A runaway at age twelve, she'd fallen in love with the man of her dreams and married at age nineteen. Two black eyes and a broken eardrum later, she'd divorced her husband of three years and vowed never to marry again—until she'd reached her late twenties and the loneliness set in.

Her second husband was a doctor with a private practice in a small town where everyone knew everyone's business, including her marriage to a closet drunk. Divorce number two came and went, but the scars on her back and legs served a constant reminder of the past mistakes she refused to make again. For too many years, bad decisions became a way of life, eroding her self esteem to the point where she hated herself for what others had done to her. After years of counseling and ongoing support from a mentor at a women's shelter, she broke the chain of violence with a concealed weapon permit and a .357 Magnum fitted with a custom grip.

Instead of fighting against the abuse done to women, she helped women fight back. Every victim had a different story, but they all shared a common theme. And no matter how determined they were to leave their abuser, many clients could never bring themselves to cut the cord. Flogged by doomed relationships and overcrowded courts that often turned a blind eye toward domestic violence, her clients found themselves at the mercy of their bankrupt self-esteem with nowhere to go but down. Instead of learning to rise above their predicaments, they learned to fail, perpetuating the cycle of misery and self-loathing so integral to victims of spouse abuse.

Marsha checked the United flight number on the printed itinerary against the flight number displayed on the airport monitor. "Our flight leaves in half an hour," she reminded Samantha, who followed her through the busy terminal.

"She'll be here," Samantha said, hoping against hope she was right. She worked the crowds with Marsha, parsing the flock of weary travelers entering the security screening area, her nerves a jumbled wreck from sleepless nights and prescription meds that failed to ease her anxiety. Hyped from a double cappuccino and the hope that Jamie's relationship with her abusive husband had ended, she followed Marsha back and forth from the ticket counters to the common areas flooded with tourists and business travelers alike. "I still don't see her."

"Maybe she had second thoughts," said Marsha.

"Not this time."

Marsha compared Jamie's photo to the female passengers herded barefoot past the TSA screeners. "It wouldn't be the first time a client had a change of heart."

"She'll be here."

"I don't trust the boyfriend you described."

"He's the least of our problems," Samantha reassured the hired help.

Marsha stared at a woman who strongly resembled Jamie. "Maybe she found the wrong terminal?"

"Maybe she's already on the plane."

Marsha shook her head. "I checked the counter. Her boarding pass hasn't been scanned."

Samantha glanced at her watch for the tenth time in twenty minutes. "Maybe the car broke down."

"Not likely... Did you try the boyfriend again?"

"I left three messages."

Marsha checked her phone.

"She doesn't know your number," said Samantha. "She won't call—"

"Just keep looking. Right now we're the only hope Jamie has."

Samantha scanned the line at Starbuck's Coffee. She searched the concourse entrance for a woman who resembled Jamie in plain sight—or in a cheap disguise. "What happens if she doesn't show?"

"We leave without her."

"That's it?"

Marsha dialed her cell phone. "Your friend knew the schedule and the risks. We can't force her to be here if she doesn't want to."

"She'll be here."

"I can't miss this flight. I have other clients to support."

"I'm not leaving here without Jamie."

"That's your choice," said Marsha, "but at some point you have to realize there's only so much you can do. She hasn't showed. And she hasn't called. For all we know, she decided to run away with her boyfriend."

Samantha moved her head back and forth on a swivel, overwhelmed by the volume of passengers coming and going in all directions. "She wouldn't do that."

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

Marsha checked her watch. "I've been doing this a long time. I can tell you from experience—"

"She'll be here."

"And what if she's not?"

Samantha chewed on Marsha's words and arrived at her own conclusion. "Then we go to her."

Chapter 64

Lloyd rode the Triumph like a missile between his legs, snapping through the gears with a pit-bull grip on the handlebars and a laser-beam focus on the rain-soaked road ahead. Two hundred thousand dollars in cash sagged inside his backpack while a gamut of raw emotions weighed heavily on his mind.

He set his sights for the interstate, charging the two-lane highway at more than twice the legal limit to leave his dead brother, his dying mother, and any semblance of a normal life with Jamie behind. Despite the uncertainty about his future and the guilt he carried with him, he felt more compelled to face a life on the run than add a manslaughter charge to his parole violations and spend the next twenty years fighting wolves in his old alma mater.

The siren came distant and faint at first, a mild lamentation from the wind in his ears, until the glint of flashing lights caught his handlebar mirrors.

He cracked the throttle wide open, force-feeding the dual carburetors all the octane they could burn. But the state police cruiser swallowed pavement at a faster clip, gaining ground on the antique bike that had drawn attention to itself when it blew through a radar trap.

Lloyd leaned forward in the seat, punching holes through the atmosphere at a hundred miles an hour. He pressed his torso against the gas tank to shield himself from the pelting rain and teeth-jarring turbulence as the engine vibrated between his legs like an angry hornet's nest.

When an oncoming van flashed its high beams, Lloyd split the lane to overtake several cars and put some traffic between himself and the fast-approaching cop.

He followed a crest in the highway and hugged the center line to guide the bike around a sweeping turn. When the pavement straightened, he clamped the brakes to scrub speed and followed a route heading east across a wooded stretch of county road.

He passed the gravel entrance to an abandoned trailer park dotted by plastic flamingos and a neighborhood watch sign stapled to a utility pole. Despite the adrenaline rush, the pain from the gunshot wound to his leg swelled with a vengeance, distracting him from the cavernous pothole up ahead.