Vengeance to the Max (37 page)

“Get dressed.” A touch of something less than anger flared in his eyes. “I’ll drive you to your car or whatever the hell it is you’re driving.”

“What about Ladybird?”

Only his mouth moved, the planes of his face otherwise expressionless. “Call me psychic, but seems to me her emergency’s over.”

Max was scared shitless. Her hands trembled on the steering wheel, and her heart quaked in her chest. Her foot moved involuntarily on and off the accelerator, making her speed as jerky as she felt. She planned to stow Witt’s gun in the waistband of her skirt and use the long black blazer to hide it. Right now, the thing lay on the seat beside her, magazine loaded but not ready to fire. Her eyes hopped between it and the freeway in front of her.

Witt had given her one of his looks when she got into Sutter’s Toyota, then he’d left her with a kiss and no words. What else was there to say? He’d said it all.

Why the hell
did
she have to do this on her own? Because Cameron told her to?

She should have at least asked Witt to help her wear a wire. Or back herself up with a small recorder in her pocket. Something to nail Bud with besides her word.

“A recorder or a wire isn’t going to stop him,” Cameron whispered. “This is between us. You, me, and BJ.” BJ, they were back to that. For Cameron, maybe he’d always been BJ, never Bud. “Does it matter what I call him?” Cameron said, then went on, “You’ll miss the exit.”

“No, I won’t.” She veered to the right, hitting the cloverleaf too fast. The 4Runner shimmied, then found its footing. Her Miata would take the ramp at twice the speed.

“I thought you’d left for the nether regions.” She was glad he hadn’t.

“I’d never intended for you to do this alone.”

She thanked God he hadn’t since he’d made her leave Witt behind.

“He’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”

Yes, but would he be able to touch her with the same passion after she’d killed a man?

“Trust in him,” Cameron whispered.

She did. About a lot of things. This wasn’t one of them.

The traffic was nil at half past midnight, not even a cop car. She waited for the left turn arrow. “
Am
I going to kill Bud?”

“Do you want to?”

She closed her eyes. “I’ve always hated those people who stand outside the prison walls and cheer when they get the news of the latest execution.”

“I sense a
but
.”

“God’s let me down a lot. I don’t think I can leave this one to him to take care of.”

“But you don’t relish it.”

She thought of Wendy hiding in the closet, knowing what was to come, knowing her father would torment her mind and abuse her body and make her think she liked it. She thought of the bullet hole blossoming in Cameron’s forehead. “I feel kind of sick because I
do
relish it.”

“The light’s turning.”

Max snapped to attention, the signal already on yellow. She punched through on the tail end, not that it made any difference. The road was empty.

Second right. First left. Right side, warehouse, driveway.

Max sailed past, noted the various cars parked along the road, and pulled over a block ahead. No Cadillacs like the one Bud drove. If Bootman was here, she wouldn’t have clue. Unless she tried a little psychic trance.

“No time,” Cameron snapped, his urgency bleeding through.

“Shouldn’t I at least know what I’m walking into?”

“You’re walking into the lion’s den. What more do you need to know?”

She cut the engine, slipped the key into her jacket pocket, clicked off the headlights, and grabbed Witt’s gun. Once on her feet outside the SUV, she tucked the weapon inside her waistband. She had to suck in her breath against the tight fit, the barrel or muzzle, or whatever it was, digging into her flesh as a reminder.

The November night air was cold, but not as cold as Michigan. Nowhere near. Adrenaline and her blazer were enough to keep her warm. Her high heels tapped on the pavement as she skirted cars and kept an eye out in every direction. Trash rustled across the street, jumpstarting her heart. The wind kicked up beneath her skirt. Her nose filled with the scent of damp earth and concrete. Rain was on its way though the sky above was full of stars and the moon was bright.

A six-foot chain-link fence surrounded the yard. Max stepped up onto the curb, muffling her footsteps on the scrabble grass poking through hard-packed dirt. Gliding one hand along the links of the fence, she kept the other near the gun at her side. She stopped beyond the ring of light from a street lamp and gazed at the drive-through gate. Closed and padlocked. Stupid idea to wear the heels and the skirt. How was she going to climb? She should have changed when she picked up the Toyota. But she’d only heard the minutes ticking away, and the state of her clothing had been the furthest thing from her, a slip-up she now regretted.

The luminous dial of her watch said she’d used up ten minutes since exiting the freeway. An engine rumbled, the sound coming from within the locked yard. Her heart picked up the tempo once more while her feet skated past the gate, toward the sound and the point where the line of the fence made an abrupt left turn.

The growl of the engine called. She followed, easing deeper into the shadows along the fence, away from the street and decreasing her ability to run if she had to. Her heel caught a hole, but she righted herself before she fell.

And there the car was.

The Rolls was old and shabby, rust on its chrome, dents in its doors, and scratches in its paint. Tires flat, the rims now rested on the concrete. Weeds sprouted through cracks. The car hadn’t been moved in years. The engine she’d heard must have been a rumble from the past, or an echo of her dream. Leading her to this place. The license plate wasn’t the same either. In the dream, it had been 4WDY452, but now, only the 452 was in common.

It was enough. Coming to this place was her destiny, just as she’d thought. 452 was the cosmic link.

Right by the car was a walk-in gate. Unlocked. A simple clasp held it closed. With a deep breath, the gun dug into her waist, reminding her there was no round in the chamber. Removing it with a sigh of relief, she pumped in a round, and this time, put the weapon in her jacket pocket. Its weight dragged down the material. As long as the little trigger didn’t catch on anything, she’d be ready for Bud.

Max pulled the jacket close around her.

Nothing in life is coincidence. She couldn’t remember who told her that. Witt maybe. She knew that neither the unlocked gate, the placement of the car, nor the plate were coincidence. Her destiny waited inside.

She lifted the clasp and opened the gate with a creak. Still, in the quiet of the night, the sound seemed enough to wake the dead. She waited, holding her breath, but heard nothing beyond the normal.

The black mouth of the warehouse yawned. The door had been left open, but the interior remained dark and ominous. Max didn’t head straight in, but instead moved off to the right and glided along the metal wall of the building, stopping with her shoulder to the edge of the opening. She entered with a turn of her head, saw nothing, heard nothing, then eased her whole body inside to once again coast along the wall and away from the outside light.

Mechanical smells, machine oil and degreaser, would make her head ache before long. She slipped deeper inside, stopped, listened, picked up no sounds, and moved on.

Another quick glance at her watch showed five minutes to one. She’d beaten Bud here and could lie in wait for him. If only her eyes would adjust to the shadows so she could find a place to hide.

Bulky shapes rose around her, monstrous in the darkness, changing to outlines of behemoth machines as her pupils dilated. She stood with both hands against the metal wall, searching.

She smelled him before she heard or saw him. Cigars. And a ripe cologne that twisted her stomach.

She turned to the barrel of his gun—most likely Cameron’s gun—stuck in her face and the soft sound of his laughter.

“How did you find me, Max? Your abilities are uncanny.” Bud’s teeth gleamed, but his eyes, like black holes, swallowed what little light entered through the door. “I suppose you’ve come to try to save yourself.”

“I could have done that with a good alibi. Which I had, by the way.”

“Fucking the dear detective?” The tone was venomous.

“Don’t be jealous,” she purred. “I was with his mother.” Or would have been.

His voice relaxed, though the gun didn’t. “Then why fall in with me?”

“I wanted a chance to kill you before wriggled free of this one, too.”

He laughed before she’d finished the sentence. “I suppose, Max, you were going to surprise me by lying in wait.”

“That was the plan.”

“Instead I’m lying in wait for you, Max.” His mouth moved into a smile, a grotesque grin in the dark.

Had she misunderstood the dream, gotten the time wrong? Whatever the case, she was screwed. “So what’s this place?”

His head moved, she assumed to encompass the warehouse surroundings. “A client’s conveniently isolated property, Max. I always have an eye for potential uses when I take on someone new.”

“What are we here for?”
Duh
. She asked anyway.

He took hold of her arm and pulled her into the darkness, the gun scant centimeters from her cheek. “My dear sweet Max, you know why I’m here. To rid myself of a two-year-old thorn in my side.” When she said nothing, he added, “Waiting for Dennis.”

“Dennis?”

“Your husband’s killer, Dennis Martin.”

Max blinked, a strange sensation tearing up through her middle. His name was Bootman. Dennis Martin didn’t fit. Bootman, after all the things he’d done, shouldn’t have such an ordinary name.

“That was the one who pulled the trigger, wasn’t it, Max? Not our friends with the scar or the tattoo.”

“So he’s still alive.”

“We have a meeting in...” His wrist tilted, so did the gun, grazing her cheek with cold metal. “Two hours. He’ll show an hour early though, thinking he can trick me.” He grinned again, all white teeth. “Which is why, Max, I’m here an hour before that.”

He pushed her down onto a crate and squatted before her, the gun level with her stomach. She held her jacket up, making sure her own gun in the pocket didn’t bang against the wood. “I was going to kill him and leave your gun.” He waggled the thing in her face. “On his chest, I think.”

“It’s a stolen gun. The police won’t be able to trace it back to me.”

He glanced down. “Now why would you have a stolen gun, Max?”

Ah, he hadn’t caught onto the filed serial numbers. “So they couldn’t trace it to me when I killed you with it.”

He laughed. “Then it’s good your arrival has given me a better idea, Max.”

A flashlight lay on the crate beside her. He leaned forward, switched it on, and aimed it at her thigh. It was enough to see his face by. His gaze traveled the length of her, the high heels, the black tights, and the skirt with its long slit. A smile grew, lifting one corner of his mouth higher than the other. “I’m going to let you do the honors, my love.”

If he expected a reaction, he got none. Perhaps she was beyond feeling. Her hands lay clasped in her lap, near the opening of her pocket and over Witt’s gun, ready for Bud’s slightest lapse.

He went on. “Do you know what he said when I paid him the second half of the paltry sum it took to kill your Cameron?”

That peculiar sensation again, as if a chasm had opened up through her middle and split her in two. She didn’t have to ask him to finish. He’d tell her because he wanted her to hear, wanted to watch her reaction.

“His boots were soaked with blood. He laughed and said he’d never wash it off. To remind him of what a good piece of ass you were, Max.” Bud raised a brow. “And to remind him of the kill.”

Did people like this deserve to live? Did society want them walking around free? Bootman. Bud. What was the difference?

“It’s you I’m interested in. BJ.” She made it a separate sentence, a separate comment.