Gunning For Angels (Fallen Angels Book 1) (37 page)

I will not let you go into the unknown alone.

–Bram Stoker

Enid sped the car up the road leading to Camelback Mountain, ignoring Sharon’s demands to let her out as well as Ernie’s periodic outbursts for her to slow down. According to Ernie, who had hiked the trail with his dad, they were almost there.

Enid jerked the wheel on a sharp curve and a car materialized out of nowhere. She froze, unable to so much as flinch.

The inevitableness of the crash hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity. The sound of crunching metal and plastic was followed by a sickening impact that knocked the air out of Enid’s body. 

An acrid smell burned her nose. She opened her eyes.

A man was prying the door open. His voice broke through her fog. “Are you all right?”

Enid looked up, feeling faint and sick. Something smelled like the inside of her mother’s purse. She felt tangled up in something and realized that it was the airbag.

Enid looked in the rearview mirror at Sharon’s angry face. Sharon’s mouth was moving but Enid couldn’t grasp what she was saying. Ernie sat with dazed eyes.

Enid climbed out of the car.

The man was opening the back door, unbuckling Ernie and helped him and Sharon out. 

Enid remembered why they had come. Jack was on the mountain – with a killer.

Enid stumbled toward the trail. She glanced back, unsure, and saw Ernie and Sharon sitting on the ground. The man was phoning for help.

Ernie met her eyes and gave her a weak smile, waved her forward.

She gave him a grateful smile and started climbing.

For what seemed like a long time, Enid struggled upward. Her breath ragged, Enid looked up the trail and stopped, startled.

A man lay in the dirt, his face down and one hand outstretched as if reaching for something.

Thinking it was Jack, she lunged forward, cold with terror at the thought that she was too late. 

She rolled him over and gasped with shock.

Detective Orlean’s face was ashen, his mouth lax and drooling. 

Enid put her ear to his chest and heard the faint, slow beat of his heart. She shook him violently, calling his name but there was no response. 

Her eyes followed his outstretched arm and she saw a pill bottle. She scrambled after it and found it empty. She scanned the ground and saw a pill. She grabbed it and crawled to his side and shoved it into his mouth.

It rolled off his tongue. She picked it up, worried that if she shoved it down his throat he would choke. She put the pill in her mouth and chewed it down to a soft spitball. Her mouth tingled and she felt her heartbeat quicken. Using her finger, she put the glob in his mouth and mashed it onto his tongue. 

She went down the trail and got three more pills and did the same thing.

She bit into a fourth pill and felt her heartbeat pound harder.

His eyes opened and he blinked.

Relief washed over her. “It’s me – Enid. Are you all right?”

He pressed his hand to his chest and muttered,  “Mount Vesuvius.”

“Where’s Jack?” she said.

“
Jenson – he’s coming.” His jacket fell to one side, revealing his shoulder holster and gun.

At the sight of the gun, Enid’s breath caught.
Enid grabbed at Bud, forcing him into a sitting position as she struggled to remove his jacket. “We have to get your jacket off – so you can breathe.” She clumsily removed his jacket. She threw it aside and tried to unbuckle his shoulder holster.

Bud’s hand snapped up. “No!”

“I need to listen to your heart,” she said, hoping she sounded convincing. “We learned how in health class.”

Bud
hesitated but let her remove the shoulder holster. She set it behind him and threw his jacket over it.

Footsteps pounded up the trail.

A man in yellow dress shirt and mint-colored pants bounded up the trail. His eyes looked sharply from Detective Orlean to her and back again. He pushed Enid out of the way and stooped over Bud, loosening his collar and leaning him back on the ground.

Jenson said, “Help’s on the way. Hang in there, Bud.”

Enid sat back and, when Jenson turned his back, she got Bud’s gun from the holster and tucked it into the back of her jeans.

Jenson said, “We have to get him down the trail.” He slung Detective Orlean’s arm over his shoulder and hoisted him up. “Take his other side.”

Enid stood up. “My dad’s up there. I have to help him.”

Jenson said, “Unless we get him down the trail, Bud is going to die.”

Enid wavered, unsure.

“We’re wasting time,” Jenson said, struggling under Bud’s weight.

Enid stepped backwards, shaking her head.

Jenson said. “I can’t do this alone. He’ll die.”

Enid turned and ran up the trail. The man called after her but she forced herself to move faster. She ran until she stumbled and landed on her knees with a painful jolt.

She climbed to her feet and listened. She heard the distant hum of the city and a woman’s voice.

Enid walked forward until she came face to face with a man’s shirt tied to a bush. She pulled at the shirt and was surprised to see what looked like a hole with a rock ledge to one side and thorny brush to the other.

She heard Jack’s laugh.

Enid jumped forward and pushed her way through the bramble. Edging along the rock wall, she winced as thorns dragged along her bare arms.

She stopped, heart pounding. It was Jack’s voice saying –

Dirty girl?

Enid
got the gun from the back of her jeans and made sure the safety was off. She pushed through the last of brambles, stepping into the sunlight.

Jack and Laura were standing with their backs to the cliff. Eve was pointing a gun at them.

Enid raised her gun and shot at Eve.

The explosion of her gun sent her reeling backwards
so that she landed in a group of thorny brambles. Enid screamed in agony as the thorns tore into her from all sides.

Ears ringing, Enid
tried to move but even the tiniest movement was agonizing. She lay still, gritting her teeth.

Another explosion.

Pain ripped through her right side. Enid lay still, staring up at the canopy of thorns. The previous pain was now blunted under the new sensation of burning that started at her right side and spread out over her body like fire.

She looked up and saw a bird – was it a bird?

It was in the thorns, staring down at her with eyes that had an impartiality that took her breath away. She gazed into the dark eyes, mesmerized.

Did the bird taste it too?

Blood.

The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.

–Mary Shelley

Jack heard the explosion and sank to his knees. What he didn’t expect to hear was Enid screaming. Jack’s eyes flew open and he saw what looked like Enid’s battered Converse sneakers flailing in the brush. He watched in horror as Eve bore down on her with the gun.

Jack sprang forward and hit Eve with a running tackle. At the same moment, Eve fired the gun into Enid, who lay unnaturally twisted in the thorns.

Jack saw Enid’s bone-white face and gasped. Blood seeped out from the right side of her body.

Fury burned through him. He
grabbed Eve’s arm and twisted it until she screamed. He felt her hot breath as they grappled. He gave a brutal twist that sent her to her knees. The gun fell from her hand.

Eve
went after the gun but Jack punched her, sending her sprawling into the dirt.

She
tried to crawl away but he came after her, grabbing her hair and dragging her away from the gun.

Eve
kicked and clawed at him like a wild animal, twisting from his grasp.

Jack
lunged for her and, with a violent effort, she eluded his grasp and hurtled herself away from him – and over the cliff’s edge. 

She made a mad grab – at nothing. 

He dove forward, grabbing her wrist. As she went over, the force of her body dragged him to the edge. He grabbed at a root, which pulled them to a stop with a jerk. His shoulder felt like it was being ripped from the socket and he could hear Eve’s feet kicking at the side of the cliff – not finding a foothold.

Using the root as leverage, he tried to pull her toward him but found he couldn’t. The root loosened and he slid forward until his eyes were looking over the edge. He found himself looking down on her and the massive drop under her dangling body.

Eve looked up and their eyes latched on to each other.

Like a kick to his stomach, Jack felt the truth combust through every fiber of his being. A stranger stared up at him.

A predator.

Jack gritted his teeth and pulled with all his might. Laura was there, struggling with him, helping him save Eve.

They pulled Eve onto the dirt where she lay gasping – eyeing him with the desperation of a ensnared animal. 

There was a click of the gun.

Jack and Eve turned.

Laura was taking aim, her sights locked on Eve.

Eve jumped to her feet, hideous with fury.

Cowering, Laura threw down the gun and backed away.

Eve sprang forward but Jack grabbed her ankle and jerked her back, slamming her into the dirt. He pulled her toward him, her fingernails dragging through the dirt as she resisted.

Jack
climbed on top of her, pinning her.

Eve
tried to twist free, reaching for the gun.

Jack put his hand around her neck and squeezed.

She stopped fighting and lay still. She gazed up at him, eyes softening.

Jack stared down at her, horrified to feel that he still wanted her. He took his hand away.

“You love me,” Eve said.

Her lips were on his and he jerked his head back, hating himself for wanting her. 

Eve said, “You and me, we’re cut from the same cloth.”

Jack said in a hoarse voice, “I do love you.”

Her eyes lit up, triumphant.

Jack said, “Not enough.”

Eve’s face contorted into a grotesque mask of rage. Her curses were drowned out by the sounds of a helicopter that came in from the west and left them in a cloud of swirling dust.

Jack squinted toward Enid, wanting to help her but too afraid to loosen his grip on Eve.

“If Enid dies – I’ll kill you,” he said.

Eve
gave him a look of such tenderness that it took his breath away.

He realized that everything else before that had been cheap acting. This, like her eyes meeting him over the ledge, was real.

It was the only moment she ever loved me.

And then it was gone.

Now comes the mystery.

–Henry Ward Beecher, on his deathbed.

“I wish I could have been there,” Bud said to Jenson, who stood at the foot of his hospital bed at John C. Lincoln Hospital. “I would have given money to see her face when they cuffed her.”

Jenson said, “It doesn’t get much better than watching Eve Hargrove cuffed like a common criminal.”

“She is a common criminal,” Bud said, wincing as he placed his hand over the pacemaker that was lodged under his skin.

Jenson said, “Vivian is facing federal kidnapping charges for Laura – I mean Lani. Not to mention the charges she racked up for running an underage sex trafficking operation out of a girls’ home.”

Bud said, “Lani Mulberry – what’s she going by? Laura or Lani?”

“Laura,” Jack said as he entered the room, pushing Enid in a wheelchair. “At least for now.”

Jenson tipped his hat and headed for the door. “I’ll be going. Nice seeing you all.”

Everyone said their goodbyes as he left.

Enid said to Bud, “Am I allowed to say I told you so?”

Jack said, “Say what you want about Eve, but if your mom had been pimping you out to your stepfather you’d end up a sociopath too – so don’t go throwing ‘I told you so’ at glass houses.”

Enid snorted.

Bud said, “Eve hired the best defense attorney out of New York – real shark.”

Jack said. “I don’t care what anybody says – she never stood a chance with a mother that used her as pedophile bait.”

Bud said, “What I figure is that Vivian, when she was stripping, was dressing up like a little girl to lure in the pedophiles. Once she found Daniel, she used eight-year-old Eve as bait to get him to marry her.”

Jack said, “Upstanding businessman Daniel Hargrove wasn’t about to marry a stripper, so Vivian had to sweeten the deal. She took in Jeni – then made up a cockamamie story about another daughter in Oklahoma that she would bring to Phoenix once she was settled.”

Bud said, “I wonder if she went so far as to cut him a deal? Give me the life I want and I’ll give you three beautiful little girls.”

Jack said, “Eve should have cut off his balls.” He looked at Enid, “You didn’t hear that.”

Enid said, “She cut out his heart. I bet she had two special blowtorches made named ‘right’ and ‘left’ for his balls.”

“Jesus, Enid,” Jack said.

Bud said, “Eve and Laura learned that if they faked sick, they could get Daniel to focus on Jeni – until Jeni couldn’t take it anymore and ran away. It was Jeni who never stood a chance.”

Jack said, “I thought it was Petunia’s husband who hired Frank Ficus to follow me. It was Eve. Laura told me that she had told Eve that Jeni asked her for money so she could hire a private detective to find her real mother.”

Bud said, “Eve knew that Jeni wasn’t her biological sister and didn’t want Jeni to find out the truth.”

Jack said, “Eve and Vivian must have had a pact – spoken or unspoken – who knows? Eve knew what her mom was doing and, as she got older, was in on the cover-up. Eve hired Frank to follow Jeni, which he did – right to my office. That’s when Eve lands on my doorstep, offering me money to drop Jeni’s case.”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Bud said.

Jack said, “You didn’t really think I was a hit man, did you?”

Bud said, “I rule nothing out.”

Jack said, “If Jeni hadn’t told me that story about her writing her tell-all autobiography – if I hadn’t told Eve – Jeni would still be alive.” He shook his head, pained. “I might as well be a hit man. I got Jeni killed.”

“What do you mean?” Enid said.

Jack said, “Jeni made me promise not to tell anyone she was writing a tell-all book about her family and what do I do? I tell Eve. The one thing Eve can’t deal with is the truth. She’d do anything, even kill, to make sure no one ever finds out the truth about her. The thought that anybody would ever even think that she wasn’t pure as the driven snow – she couldn’t stand it.”

Enid said, “But she slept with you and Chip – how does that make her pure?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said.

Enid said
to Jack, “Why’d you tell Eve – after you promised Jeni you wouldn’t tell anyone?”

“Because I’m a fucking idiot,” Jack said.

Enid looked at Bud, questioningly. Bud was examining Jack with a frown. Enid said to Jack, “It can’t be your fault. You’re not the bad guy.”

Jack said, “Good guys and bad guys are for fairy tales, kid.”

Bud said, “No. There’s a line.”

Jack said to Bud, “Which side was I on?”

Bud remained silent.

Jack said, “A book that didn’t exist – I broke a promise and made it exist. I’m the one who got Jeni killed.”

Enid stared at him, disturbed. “So you’re a scumbag. Don’t do it again. Then maybe you won’t be a scumbag.”

Jack gave a pained smile. “Thanks, Enid. Leave it to you to rub salt in the wound.”

Bud said, “We got evidence that Eve murdered Frank. She was setting you up for the murder of Jeni and Frank. She told Frank to be there and, after Eve shoots Frank, she planted bogus records showing that he had been following you for weeks and that you were the last person to see Jeni alive.”

Jack said, “Even after she tried to frame me – we were together.”

“You were a loose end,” Bud said. “So was Laura. Eve planted Laura’s suicide note – and Daniel’s finger. She told Laura to meet her on the mountain and fed you the story of her fight with Laura – probably blackened her own eye – and then made damned sure that you went with her to ‘save’ Laura.”

Jack said, “Laura believed that Eve loved her. Like I believed Eve loved me.”

Bud said, “You can’t blame yourself about Jeni. You broke a promise but you didn’t pull the trigger.”

Jack said, “First time I met Jeni she told me she’d rather be crazy on the truth than drunk on lies.”

Bud said, “We got to the truth.”

“Did we?” Jack said with a frown.

Enid said, “What about the guy in the canal?”

“Dennie Dutter,” Bud said. “The connection was Vivian. Maybe she started the home to help girls in need – maybe she had bad intentions right from the start – we’re not sure. What we do know is that she was high-profile enough to keep the donations coming in, and at some point she needed more money and decided to get into the sex trafficking business.”

Enid said, “She was rich. Why would she do that?”

Bud said, “I never met anybody who thinks they have enough money. Vivian had a school full of girls with no one to report them missing, and Dennie was the man on the street with the connections to get the girls trapped into sex slavery.”

Enid said, “What’s going to happen to them – the girls?”

Bud said, “Child Protective Services.” 

Enid said, “Eve should have killed her mother.”

Bud said, “There’s no justification for murder.”

Enid said, “Eve murdered her stepdad because he molested her, but her mother was responsible for hundreds of girls getting molested – she’s the one who deserved to get murdered.”

Bud said, “No one deserves to get murdered.”

Jack said, “With Eve it was personal and to hell with anyone else. Vivian was in it for the money.”

Enid said, “What about the therapist? The one that drugged me?”

“Gone,” Bud said, “but not forgotten – at least not by the authorities.”

Enid said, “Was he a real doctor?”

“We’re not sure,” Bud said. “There is a doctor by that name with all the right credentials but we’re not sure it’s the same guy.”

Jack looked at his watch and said, “I’m meeting with the insurance guy about my house.”

Bud said to Enid, “When are they letting you out?”

“Today,” Enid said. “They keep telling me how lucky I am to be alive.”

Bud said, “You were lucky for me. You saved my life. Thank you.”

Enid blushed and looked down.

Jack said, “You’ve done the impossible – she’s speechless.”