Unmanned (17 page)

I thought about calling him a dork-faced perv, but resisted.

Rivera straightened, stalked over to Peter, and leaned close.

Their conversation was short. I didn’t hear a word of it until Rivera pulled back.

“Got it?” he asked.

Pete nodded. He looked shaken. It takes a lot to shake up Pete, so it could be I was wrong. Could also be that I didn’t hate Rivera quite as much as I thought I did.

I followed him to the door, where he turned.

“What’d you say to him?” I asked, needing rather desperately to know that someone had gotten under my stupid brother’s skin.

The muscle again. “The senator’s in D.C.,” he said.

“What?”

“The old man always leaves town when he’s got something planned.”

“Something planned? You can’t seriously believe your father wants me dead.”

He stared at me.

“I just told you about Nick and Dick and—”

“I don’t want you seeing Manderos.”

I laughed. Actually laughed. “Because he’s good-looking or because—”

“Because he’s got a fucking gun!”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it demurely.

The tic danced in his jaw. “Just stay in the damned house and keep your legs together until I get this worked out, then you and Manderos can have a fucking orgy.”

“Bite me,” I suggested. Not quite so demure.

“Not until I’m done wooing you,” he said, and left.

21

Maybe knowledge is power, but it ain’t nearly as satisfying as punching some smart-ass in the chops.

—One of the McMullen troglodytes…it doesn’t really matter which one

I
WOKE UP AT FOUR
in the morning. My head was stuffy. My eyes felt as if they’d been scrubbed with lye and left in the sun to think about what they’d done wrong. I rubbed them, sat up, thought of the previous night and wanted rather desperately to crawl under my bed. Harlequin raised his flop-eared head and gazed at me. His eyes didn’t look a whole lot better than mine felt.

Maybe he’d been dreaming of masked guys dragging him into the shadows, too. More likely he’d been dreaming about pork chops, though. He’d stolen two off the counter three weeks ago and had looked kind of dreamy ever since. My own nocturnal meanderings hadn’t been nearly so enjoyable.

Slipping out of bed, I used the bathroom, then wandered groggily into my atom-sized office.

Closing the door quietly behind me, I popped onto the Internet and googled Daryl Dehn. The image that finally appeared was a complete surprise. He wasn’t the flat-faced goon I had expected, but a relatively handsome Caucasian in his late thirties. He had a neatly cropped head of dusky blond hair, was wearing a pale blue dress shirt with dark pants, and accepting an award for high automobile sales. He worked at a dealership called Stiller Chevrolet.

But it was the other pictures that truly fascinated me. The pictures of Daryl harnessed to a truck. Daryl Dehn, it said, was competing in Sheboygan’s Regional Strongman Championship.

He was wearing a gray, ribbed wife-beater and straining against a rope that attached him to a large, cherry red vehicle with rounded fenders. Behind him, a crowd cheered. But it was difficult to notice anything besides the muscle. It bulged out of his shirt, past his baggy shorts, and up his straining neck.

There were more pictures. Some of him flipping tractor tires, some doing what was called the farmer’s walk. One of him holding a trophy while his buddies beamed and dumped liquids on his head. I couldn’t look away, Was this the guy who had dragged Pete into the darkness? Who had grabbed me by my front door?

Or had one of the Heads accosted me?

I did a new search but found nothing about the Heads.

And that was the extent of my investigative skills. So after a few seconds of intense soul-searching, I clicked off the Internet and dialed the phone.

J. D. Solberg answered on the first ring, sharp-toned and instantly alert.

“What’s wrong?”

I scowled at the receiver. It was 4:53 in the morning. “Solberg?”

“Is Laney okay?”

“What?” My stomach twisted, my heart went wild. “What’s going on?” Had I somehow endangered her by asking for the loan? Had D made the connection between us? It seemed unlikely, but not so long ago my own tortured existence had involved Laney in a dangerous plot. In that moment I had realized her life was worth a couple of mine.

“I haven’t heard from her,” Solberg said. “Do you think I should fly out there?”

A hundred nasty scenarios skimmed through my head…crazed strongmen, irate husbands, moronic brothers. “What happened? When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“Last night. I think I should fly out there. I could be there by noon if I don’t pack—”

“Is she in trouble? Why didn’t you call me?”

“She’s still filming in the mountains, but if I took a cab straight from the airport—”

“Wait a minute.” My heart rate slowed a little. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, remembered who I was talking to. This was Solberg. And Solberg wasn’t always the most stable of nutcases. “
When
did you speak to her last night?”

There was a moment of silence that somehow managed to sound defensive, then: “Anything could have happened in the last six hours, Chrissy.”

I stared numbly at my computer monitor. A picture of Laney and me graced the screen. We were in the lobby of the Actors Guild Theatre, just about ready to view the premiere of some movie I’d forgotten long ago. Behind us a dozen glamorous stars-in-training preened in their finery. Laney was wearing blue jeans and a tank top. She shone like a meteorite.

There was a reason the Geekster was obsessed. Still, I didn’t feel quite ready for his paranoia.

“Solberg…” I closed my eyes again and rubbed them. I was tired and maybe a little bit cranky. “Do you have some shred of a reason to believe Elaine’s in trouble?”

“They’ve got her riding a horse.” He sounded whiny and a little nuts. Well, join the fricking freak show. “Did you know that? Did you know they’re risking her life? Big monster of an animal. What if he gets hungry?”

“Horses are not carnivorous, Solberg.”

“Okay. What if he bucks her off? He’s big as—”

“It’s a gelding?”

“What?”

“The horse, is it male?”

“Yeah. I guess so. Why?”

I leaned into my chair. Things were back in perspective. “No self-respecting male would hurt Laney, Solberg.”

“It’s a horse.”

“You think Laney’s appeal stops at Homo sapiens?” Maybe I meant it as a joke, but Harlequin couldn’t look at her without getting a loopy look in his eyes. Of course, the pork chops had had something of the same effect.

Another pause, long and agonized. “She’s out there with all those men, Chrissy.” His voice was little more than a murmur now. “Good-looking, young, muscley guys with teeth and hair and…” He stalled, the line went cold with his dread. “Do you think she’s met someone else?”

I smiled at the wallpaper on my screen. Laney smiled back. “Since last night?”

“This isn’t funny, Chrissy.”

I sighed. “Lots of things aren’t. Did she say she met someone else, Solberg?”

A pause. It might have been pregnant. I’ve never been sure how to tell if a silence has conceived or not. “No.”

“What did she say?”

I could hear him squirming in his chair and tried not to imagine his scrawny ass plopped down in his office amidst a thousand pictures of my best friend. It just so happens I had broken into his house once. Had even gone through his underwear drawer. I’ve sanitized my hands with bleach since, but the memory remains.

He drew a deep breath. “She said she misses me.”

I dropped my head back and thought of the inconsistencies of the cosmos: The sun looks like a pinpoint of light, yet it’s bigger than the earth; something as inspiring as a hot fudge brownie volcano can actually be considered detrimental to your health; and Brainy Laney Butterfield had fallen for the Geek God. “Tell me the truth,” I said, “did you make some kind of pact with the devil?”

He paused, sighed. “I know I’m a lucky son of a—Sorry.” He halted, reworded. “I know I’m the luckiest bugger that ever lived. I know it. That’s why it’s so difficult.”

I nodded, making my chair rock a little. “You know you can swear if you like, Solberg,” I said. “I won’t tell Laney.”

There was a moment’s silence, then, “But if she knew, she’d be disappointed.”

And there it was—the beating, pulsing, aching heart of the matter. He had given up swearing, drinking, and acting like a…well, like himself. And he’d done it all for her. He was, in short, her knight in shining armor. So what if he was half her height, balding, myopic, and psychotic. He was hers. My eyes felt kind of wet suddenly. Funny, L.A. isn’t usually humid, but it couldn’t have been tears. I’m not the sentimental type.

“I’m going to tell you something, Solberg,” I said, “and after I say it, you’ll never hear it from my lips again, and if you repeat it, I’ll have to call a hit man, and I’ve got him on speed dial.” I took a deep breath. “Are you ready?”

There was dead air for a second, but he pulled himself together enough to answer in the affirmative.

“Laney loves you,” I said, knowing it was as true as it was unlikely. “She loves you, and when Laney loves, it’s forever.”

I think I could hear his heart beating on the other end of the line before he spoke. “It was with God,” he said finally, his voice barely a whisper.

“What?”

“The pact,” he said. “It was with God. I promised to do everything in my power to make her happy for as long as I live.”

And suddenly my cheeks felt wet. Damned humidity. I swallowed and wiped the condensation off my face with my knuckles. I’d been considerably more comfortable when Solberg had been a cocky little chicken-legged perv. “Well, you’d better,” I said. “So that’s why you haven’t already raced out there, huh?”

“This is her dream. I think she needs to live it alone. At least for a while.”

“Could be you’re not such a bad egg, Solberg,” I said, and cleared my throat.

He might have misunderstood my emotion, though, because his tone softened. “What’s going on, babekins?”

I sniffled a little. “Maybe I miss Laney, too.”

“That why you called me at 4:47 in the morning?”

“I was awake.”

“Me, too.”

I smiled a little, feeling wobbly. Solberg and I on the same track. Terrifying. “I could use a favor.”

“From the Geek God?”

The name made me feel stronger. “I’ve just gotten so I don’t gag when I hear your voice, Solberg. Don’t blow it now.”

He laughed, sounding more like the scrawny dweeb I’d met a thousand years ago at the Warthog, where the urine smelled like beer and vice versa. “What can I do you for?”

“I need information.”

“Excellent.”

I scowled. “Are you feeling okay?” Usually, he whines like a spanked mule when I ask him for favors. At which time I threaten him with unspeakable tortures and he concedes.

“Been a long night. What do you need info about?”

“They’re whos,” I explained.

“Even better.”

I rattled off the names of the three men most likely to kill me.

“Wait a minute,” he said. I could hear him shuffle around in the background. “I gotta get my Mini Rex fired up.”

“Do I want to know what you’re talking about?”

“A new system I’m working on. Powerful as a dinosaur, but tiny as a cricket. Get it? You can wear it in your ear. Say the words you want to look up. It checks its database, then reads back what it finds.

“Bored, Solberg?” I asked.

“I’ve had some free time in the past couple months,” he admitted. “Say the names again.”

I did.

“What do you want to know about them?”

“Anything you can find out. But mostly their current whereabouts.”

“Anything else?”

I scowled, thinking back. “Whether they’re right-handed or left-handed.”

He didn’t skip a beat. “And?”

“How much time do you have?”

“Twenty-seven days, six hours, forty-two minutes and…four seconds.”

Till Elaine came home. “You’re one sick puppy, Solberg,” I said.

“Don’t tell her, okay?”

I agreed, but I was pretty sure she already knew. Knew, and loved him anyway. I stifled a girly sigh and trudged on.

“There’s also a Joseph Petras and a William Springer.”

“Okay…”

He waited for me to go on, and I thought,
Oh, what the hell.
“Peter John McMullen,” I added.

I could hear him pause. “Your brother?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going on, Chrissy?”

“Nothing I want Laney to worry about.”

I thought I could hear his face scrunch into a frown. “I’m not real comfortable about keeping secrets from her,” he said.

I thought about that for a second. “Laney’s not the kind to stay safely in Idaho if she thinks I’m in trouble, Solberg.”

“What do you want to know about Pete?”

“Everything,” I said. “Everything you can find out.”

22

A person without regrets is called a corpse.

—Doris Blanchard, the liveliest octogenarian in the three-state area

I
WENT BACK TO BED
after that, but gifted though I am in the sleep department, even I couldn’t relax.

At six-fifty I gave up and stumbled into the shower. It was the smartest thing I’d done in days. By the time I stepped out of the steam I felt almost human.

Everything was going to be okay. I wasn’t going to let these goons scare me. Well, okay, they were going to scare me whether I liked it or not, but I wasn’t going to become paralyzed with fear. Even Solberg, oddball extraordinaire, had managed to be productive under stress. In fact, he’d created some kind of ear-sized contraption that would probably net him a couple zillion dollars in profits during the next few years. If he could manage that, maybe I shouldn’t be cowering under my bed. True, Rivera had been rather emphatic about my staying home, but Micky Goldenstone had gone out on a limb to get me a visitation to Lancaster’s state prison and I could no longer afford to pass it up.

Still, the thought of visiting my former mentor made me feel cold and a little nauseated. I considered hiding behind sloppy blue jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, but after my visit to Lancaster I would be going straight to the office.

I’d worked my ass off to build my practice, and I wasn’t about to let Mandy scare off my clients at this late date.

On the other hand, I didn’t particularly want to get stabbed to death while getting out of my car, either.

Pattering barefoot to where my purse lay on the counter, I dipped inside and pulled out the Glock, then scowled at the back of Peter John’s tousled head where it lay on a pillow on my faded plaid couch.

In a second I was beside him. “Pete.”

“Mffmf.”

“Wake up,” I said, and nudged him with the gun.

He rolled over, scrubbed his face with his left hand, opened his eyes, and froze. “Oh, hell!” He let his head drop back against the rumbled pillow. “Not again.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said, knowing it was a long shot. “I just want to know how to use this thing.”

He sat up slowly, looking wary and a little like his hair had had a run-in with an industrial Wet Vac. “On who?”

“Whom?” I corrected. “I’m not sure yet.”

He was scowling. “When you figure it out, will you let me know?”

“This is the trigger, huh?” I said, fingering the doo-hickey.

“Shit!” he said, awake now and slurping all the way upright. “Be careful.”

“That’s my plan.”

He squinted at me, then out the window. The sun was just now making its appearance. Lazy-ass sun. “What the hell are you doing up?”

I considered getting on my high horse and telling him that some people had to work for a living, but I remembered him promising to keep me home. Rivera could scare a turnip. Pete’s not as bright as a turnip, but still, he may have planned to follow the good lieutenant’s orders.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said, “but I’m sure I’ll do better with this thing under my pillow.”

Pete swung his bare feet onto the floor. His legs were bare, too. What is it with men and clothes? You’d think they were allergic to fabric. “If you blow your damn head off, it’s not my fault.”

“I’ll make sure Mom is notified,” I said, examining the cool, brushed metal.

He made some sort of
hmmfff
ing noise. “You were always her favorite, you know.”

“What?” I stopped cold.

He took the pistol. “You know it’s true.”

“Her favorite
what
?”

He pushed a button and a rectangular piece snapped out of the handle and into his hand. “I think all that schooling actually made you dumber, Christopher.”

“I was
not
her favorite.”

He stared at me, jaw set. “Who was, then?”

Now, that was a stumper. “I always assumed she hated us all equally.”

He snorted and lifted the rectangular thing. “This is the magazine. See the bullets?” I did. They made me feel a little sick. “You keep the magazine separate from the gun if you want to be safe.”

“But I can’t shoot anyone that way.”

“I guess it depends on your definition of safe.” He shoved the magazine back into the handle with a sharp
snap
and yanked back the slidey thing at the top of the pistol like they do in the movies. Then he tilted the gun so I could see in the open space. A deadly little cylinder was cradled there, cold and ready. “Now it’s loaded.”

I swallowed, but managed to nod.

“Push this button,” he said, and did so. The slider snapped noisily back into place. I jumped and was surprised when he didn’t laugh. “Now it’s ready. Long as you leave the magazine in there, you don’t have to rack it back again. Just aim and fire.”

“What about a safety?”

“There ain’t one. Not really. See this little lever in the middle of the trigger?”

I did.

“Long as you have your finger firm on that thing when you fire, it’ll discharge.”

“That’s it?” I asked finally.

“Pretty much. There’s a site at the top. You point and shoot. Just like a camera.”

“I never was any good at photography,” I said distractedly, and rose to my feet.

There was a moment of silence in which I expected Pete to fall back into unconsciousness. I’m not the only McMullen with the much-revered sleep gift. “She expected more from you.”

“What?” I asked, staring at the deadly little piece in my hand. If I didn’t know its capabilities, it would be kind of cute.

“That’s why Mom was so hard on you,” he said. When I turned my befuddled frown on him, his expression was somber, almost sad. “The rest of us…There wasn’t much hope.” He was silent for a moment. “But you’re special, Christina.”

I stared at him, mind free-falling in my cranium as a thousand errant thoughts tumbled about like underwear in an oversize dryer. Could it be true? Had Mom liked me best? Did she expect more? Did she think—But Pete’s unusual silence caught me in a sudden stranglehold. This was my ninny-hammer brother talking.

“You’re full of crap,” I said finally, and he laughed as he swung his feet back onto the couch.

“Shit,” he said, still laughing. “I knew the ‘you’re special’ part was over the top, but I had you going for a minute, didn’t I?”

I stared at him, trying desperately to think of something caustic to say, but my efforts would have been wasted anyway, because he was already snoring. It took all my considerable maturity to keep from stuffing corks up his nostrils. Peeved, I tromped into my bedroom and shut the door behind me. Harlequin rolled onto his back, showing his bald belly. I sat down beside him and rubbed him absently as my mind did funny things in my head. It might be called thinking.

True, Peter John was a troglodyte, but could he, this once, this singular time…be correct? Maybe my parents truly had seen potential in me. Maybe they’d really cared. Wanted the best for me. They simply hadn’t known how to show it. It’s often the case. Sometimes the offspring in question turns out relatively normal, but sometimes the collateral damage is devastating. According to Rivera, Will Swanson’s mother had been a drug addict. Undoubtedly that had had some bearing on Swanson’s subsequent life of crime. On the other hand, Julio Manderos had been orphaned, neglected, and abused, yet he’d fought the odds and become a kind and caring individual.

What about the man who had accosted me? Who was he? A dangerous man, certainly. An angry man. But controlled. Disciplined. I remembered the feel of his hand on my mouth. He had had a goal in mind. A mission. And he would see that through. Yet…what had he said exactly?
“It’s hard to get blood out of clothing.”
No,
linen. “It’s hard to get blood out of linen.”

My spice orange dress was linen. Had he known that? What kind of man would have that kind of information in his head? An educated man, probably. A well-dressed…

Senator Rivera! The name popped into my head. The senator dressed immaculately and…

Crazy! This was crazy! His son had put insane ideas in my head. But why
had
Julio stopped by my office the day after Will’s death? And why the gun? He was well dressed, too. Well dressed and charming. Too charming to be interested in me. Unless he had ulterior motives. Just as Dr. David Hawkins had.

My phone rang.

I jumped, heart pounding, and reached for it with quivery fingers. “Hello?”

“Chrissy?”

“Mom?” My relief was almost palpable.

“Have you heard from your brother?”

“Wh—”

“Your brother!” Mom’s voice sounds like an early-morning James Earl Jones. “Peter John. Did you tell him not to go through with the wedding or something?”

“No. Why would I—”

“Why? How would I know? You tried to convince Holly not to marry him. Remember?”

“I didn’t try to convince her not to marry him. I simply said she should think things through so that—”

“What? The last thing we need is for that girl to start thinking.”

“Ummm…”

“What in the world is wrong with you, missy? Don’t you want your brother to be happy?”

It hadn’t even taken a full minute and I was feeling like a four-year-old. “He makes people eat excrement.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “What on earth are you talking about?”

Good question. I’d never told Mom about the droppings. In the McMullen clan, tattling was tantamount to high treason. And besides, I had no desire for my brothers to spout off about the things I had done or the things I planned to do in the near future. Turnaround was more than fair play; it was smart.

“Besides, he’s been married a dozen times,” I said. “What makes you think he’ll be happy this time?”

“There’s a baby.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“He’s not supposed to be happy. He’s supposed to be a parent.”

“But you just said—”

“You don’t want to make no more trouble for Holly, do you?”

“What are you talking about? What trouble?”

“This is family, Chrissy. You don’t go messing with family.”

My head was spinning.

“She’s going to be a mother, you know.”

“Yes, I—”

“You think it’s so simple, but it ain’t.” Her voice was deepening. I felt that giddy combination of fear and guilt. “You’ll find out someday when you have a ten-ounce baby trying to squeeze out of your—”

“Listen, Mom, I’d love to chat, but I have to get to—”

“Have you been knocking marriage again?”

“What are you talking about? I don’t knock marriage.”

“It’s a holy sacrament, ordained by the Church.”

“I know that.”

“And, by God, this baby will have the McMullen name.”

“Why do you think she won’t?”

There was a prolonged moment of silence. In the McMullen clan that’s more than significant. It generally precedes something humiliating and possibly lethal. “Because Peter John isn’t here. And I think you know where he is.”

“How would I—”

“You two was always so chummy. You and him.”

“What?”

“Thick as thieves, you two.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You call me first thing if you hear from him.”

I felt limp, shell-shocked. “Sure.”

“I mean it, missy.”

“If he calls, I’ll let you know.”

“See that you do,” she said, and hung up.

I stared at the phone like it was a hand grenade—which, come to think of it, might come in handy. Then I blinked a few times and shook my head, checked my recently dialed calls, and rang Solberg.

“She called,” he said after the first ring.

“What?”

“Angel.” His voice sounded dreamy. For a moment I wondered if he was high, but then I remembered that he calls Elaine “Angel,” and that he’d never get high because it would make Laney sad. “She called.”

“Everything okay?”

“She does love me,” he said.

I relaxed a little but made my voice firm, even though I’d never be able to match’s Mom’s terrifying baritone. “I told you never to repeat that.”

“She loves me,” he said, and laughed giddily.

“I need more help,” I said.

He was silent a second, then, “I draw the line at murder.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I have another name for you.”

“Shoot.” He brayed a laugh at his self-supposed wit. He was less irritating when he was depressed. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“Her name’s Holly,” I said. “Holly Oldman.”