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I LANDED HALF on, half off the top of the wooden privacy fence as the first snarling dog rounded the corner. The barks grew louder as the rest joined in the hunt. I lunged upward, hooked my right leg over the top, and launched myself into the neighbor’s backyard, landing on my side with a thud. The wind knocked out of me, I rose to all fours and tried to suck in a breath, fervently hoping the neighbors didn’t have guard dogs, too.
The snarling and growling intensified as the dogs began to paw wildly at the ground under the fence. I climbed to my feet and stopped. My gun was no longer in my bellyband. I pivoted, searching the ground, but the semiauto was nowhere to be seen. Retracing my steps wasn’t an option. I took the loss and sprinted for the Jeep.
Chacon’s outdoor lights popped on, illuminating the front yard, and the barks turned to howls. Realizing that I’d be easy to spot on the street, I adjusted my trajectory and headed for the stand of cedars I’d parked by the first time I was there.
My lungs close to exploding, I raced into the small copse of trees and ducked behind one of the largest ones. I was dead meat if they let the dogs loose in the street. They’d pick up my scent and find me in no time. I stared at the Jeep, mind feverishly searching for some way to get to it.
The sound of the dogs barking their heads off upped my anxiety level. Being attacked by snarling canines wasn’t an option. I had to move, now. Slinging my camera back over my shoulder, I eased out from behind the grove of cedars and calmly walked to the Jeep. I had to slow myself down so I wouldn’t look like I was running away.
Even though I was.
Blood pounding in my ears, my hand closed around the driver’s side door handle.
Almost there, Kate.
I yanked the door open and stowed the camera safely in the console. I was about to climb behind the wheel when the unmistakable sound of footsteps signaled there was someone behind me. Heart in my throat, I slid into the driver’s seat and was about to close the door when someone gripped my arm and jerked me out of the Jeep. Whoever it was wrenched my arm up between my shoulder blades and pinned me face first against the Jeep. I let out a yelp. Something hard pressed into my spine. The strong scent of onions and cigarettes nearly made me gag.
“Where do you think you’re going?” The man’s voice dripped with malice, matching his iron grip.
“What the hell are you doing? Let me go.” Every time I tried to move he wrenched my arm higher. Pain rocketed into my shoulder. There was no way to escape, especially with a gun in my side.
“What were you doing in the backyard?” The man’s voice was more like a growl.
“I wasn’t in a backyard.”
He tightened his grip and shoved my arm higher. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. A dislocated shoulder appeared imminent.
The dogs sounded like they’d been contained—the barking had subsided, dwindling to the occasional whine. I assumed the owner had ordered them quieted before someone called the police to complain. I craned my neck to see if any of the neighbors were coming outside. It looked like there was someone standing in the street, although it could have been one of the other men I’d seen at the house.
Maybe I could force the guy’s hand by screaming. If a neighbor heard me they might call the cops. I’d rather take my chances in police custody.
I took a deep breath, but my handler wrenched my arm further up my back, turning my scream into a pathetic whimper.
The man grunted and yanked me away from the Jeep. Still behind me, he whispered in my ear, “If you scream, I will shoot you. No one will hear.”
I assumed that meant he had a suppressor on his gun.
“You’re hurting me.” The fear in my voice was annoying.
“You don’t know the definition of hurt. Now move.” He frog-marched me back toward the house, my stomach sinking like a stone with every step.
***
The man who brought me back to the house turned out to be the guy in the hoodie. He shoved me down a long hallway, past several closed doors, and into a back bedroom.
“On the bed.”
His words chilled my blood. When Hoodie saw my expression, he grunted and motioned for me to hold out my hand. When I hesitated, he grabbed my wrist, yanked it toward him, wrapped a cord around it numerous times, and then tied me to the headboard. He did the same with my other wrist and left.
Relief tunneled through me at the reprieve. Hopefully none of the occupants were interested in adding rape to their rap sheet. I scanned the room for something I could use to get free. There wasn’t anything in the room other than the bed, two nightstands with a pair of matching lamps, a chair, and a dresser against a far wall. An en suite bathroom was to my left.
Why hadn’t I let Sam know what I was doing? At least then he’d be able to retrieve my dead body.
The door opened and the man with the salt-and-pepper hair walked in. He moved to the foot of the bed and stopped. His expression was a cross between stone-cold killer and annoyed businessman. I opted to focus on the businessman.
“You need to let me go. I was expected home an hour ago. My husband is probably looking for me right now.”
He smiled, obviously amused. “And he will know where you are, how?” He had a slightly nasal accent, like the guy I’d overheard the night of Bobby’s murder.
I gave him what I hoped was a confident stare, although I was feeling anything but. “He knows where I was going.”
“Ah.” He nodded as if that answered everything. “And why were you sneaking around outside my home?”
“Your bodyguard, or whoever he is, is mistaken. I was nowhere near your place. I was visiting a client.” I kept my voice even and enunciated slowly, as though speaking to a child.
Ignoring my condescending tone he asked, “Who was your client?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
With a shrug, he walked to the dresser and opened the top drawer. He pulled something out and turned to face me. In his hand was a .45. The long black suppressor extended the barrel’s length by several inches. His expression didn’t change as he moved closer to the bed.
I cleared my throat. My desiccated tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Just what do you think you’re going to do with that?” My heart beat an annoying staccato in my ears.
He considered the weapon in his hand. “What do you think I should do with it? Or with this?” He reached behind him with his free hand and pulled another gun from his waistband. It was the semiauto I’d dropped in my mad dash to get away from the dogs.
I acted like I didn’t recognize it. “Nothing. Cut me loose and let me go and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
“Or else what?”
And that was the problem. What could I say that would make him think twice before he pumped a round into my head? I doubted any threats on my part would interest, much less scare him into letting me go. No, he was convinced I was the intruder. There wasn’t much I could say in my defense.
I opted for the truth. Sort of.
“All right.” I sighed, like I was giving in. “You win. That’s my gun. I’m a private investigator looking for someone’s kid. I received word that he’d been seen in the vicinity, and I was checking out the neighborhood to see if I could find him. Yours was the only house on the block with any activity, so I decided to take a closer look.”
Salt-and-Pepper shook his head in amazement. “Still you lie to me. Do you know what will happen to you if you don’t answer me truthfully?”
“Torture?” I shrugged. “Statistically, it’s been shown to be ineffective.” I neglected to tell him I knew from experience. “Besides, I told you the truth.”
“You are not afraid to die?”
I’d have to appeal to his common sense. As long as he had some. With criminals, that could be a crap shoot.
“If you kill me, then you’ll have a dead body to get rid of. Think of all the DNA I’ll leave behind. Add to that the hassle of disposing of the body. It’s not like you can just bury me in the backyard, right?” I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was listening. “If I turn up missing, I guarantee that somebody will come snooping around. I wasn’t lying when I said my husband knows where I am, and he’s got a lot of friends you don’t want to meet.”
“Why should I believe you?” He brought up the silenced gun and aimed it at my chest. I winced, preparing for the worst. Just then, there was a knock at the door.
“Yes?” Obviously frustrated, Salt-and-Pepper scowled at the interruption.
The door cracked open, and the guy with the spiky hair poked his head into the room.
“The cops are here, Mr. Chacon. Said a neighbor complained about the dogs.” His gaze darted between me and his boss and the two guns.
Chacon let out an irritated sigh. “Watch her.” He handed him the .45 and glared at me as he slid mine into the drawer and pushed it closed. “If you even think about screaming, know this: as you can see, my associate is now holding the gun with a silencer attached. He has been instructed to shoot if you utter a word.” He opened the door and walked out. Spike closed it behind him and turned to face me. He weighed the gun in his hand while a grin spread across his face. Then he raised the barrel with both hands and aimed it at my head.
“You mind pointing that thing somewhere else?” If the gun went off accidentally they wouldn’t be able to hear it at the front door, not with a suppressor. I didn’t want to have to cope with a bullet wound.
Or dying.
Keeping one hand on the grip, Spike lowered the barrel and absentmindedly scratched at his neck with his free hand. Like before, his nails left long red marks on his sallow white skin. Eyes twitching, he moved his hand to his shoulder and then his arm, scratching like a dog with a bad case of fleas. He was still wearing the army jacket, even though it was warm inside the house. Either the coat was infested or he was a quart low on his drug of choice. He walked over to the chair and sat. His leg bounced wildly as his gaze roamed the room. I cocked my head. I had one play. It could go well or very, very badly.
“You still have that plastic baggie full of pills?” I nodded toward his jacket. He stilled and narrowed his eyes.
“What pills?”
“The ones I saw you take out of the plastic tub and hide in your jacket pocket.”
“Fuck you.” Scowling, he stood and paced the floor. Midstride he stopped and pointed the barrel of the gun at me. “And how the fuck do you know anything about any pills? Unless,” he moved closer, a cruel smile on his face, “you really were watching us.”
I held my breath, wondering if he’d be willing to kill me to hide the theft.
“And if I was? What do you think your boss would say if I told him you were skimming off the top?” I neglected to tell him how deadly the fentanyl-laced ones were. He wouldn’t have thought that was a bad thing, probably. Addicts tended to think in terms of how high they could get, not how dead.
A troubled look skated across his features but then cleared. “He won’t believe you. He’ll think you’re lying to save your ass.” He sneered. “Besides, all’s I have to do is put the stuff back and he’ll never know.”
“Unless he already suspects you.” I shrugged. “No skin off my ass, but he looks like the kind of boss who wouldn’t be very happy to catch an employee in a lie, much less outright theft.”
Spike scowled, but I could tell he was worried. The scratching began in earnest. I wondered if someone could scratch themselves to death. Soon, he was on his feet, scratching and pacing, pacing and scratching.
“Look. I don’t want to tell him, but if it will delay the inevitable, then, yeah, I’m going to say something.” I fell silent, letting him think.
He stopped midpace and took a step closer. His eyes gleamed in the lamplight. He brought the barrel of the .45 up and forced the end of the suppressor against my temple. I tried to swallow, but failed.
“He’ll be pissed off if you kill me. He wants to interrogate me, not dispose of a body.” I was amazed that I got the words out.
“I’ll just tell him you tried to escape.” The stench emanating from his open mouth was enough to make death preferable.
Taking shallow breaths, I replied, “True, but”—I peered at the rope around my wrist— “he’ll have a hard time believing you if I’m still tied up and leaking brains all over the bed.”
Spike appeared to consider the implications. He lowered the gun and took a step back.
I let go of the breath I’d been holding and added, “But he doesn’t have to know.”
Like a moth to a flame, he drew closer.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Let me go.” At the look of disbelief on his face, I hurriedly added, “We’ll make it look like there was a struggle. Tell him you untied me so I could use the bathroom. I promise he won’t have a clue about the pills.”
Spike appeared to be weighing the offer in his sketchy, flea-infested brain. I was betting on his need for the pills over his need to be a good soldier.
The pills won.
With a quick glance at the door, he untied the wrist closest to him and stepped back. I didn’t wait for an invitation. I untied my other wrist, leaped to my feet, and started for the window.
“Wait.” Spike grabbed my arm. “We have to make it look like something happened.”
“Oh. Right.” I glanced at the lamp on the dresser and then at him. He followed my gaze and gave me a little nod.
“Yeah. Hit me just enough to give me a bruise. That’ll work.”
I grabbed the lamp and smashed it against the side of his head with as much force as I could muster. The heavy base made a cracking sound but it held together. He dropped like a stone. I grabbed my gun from the dresser and slid it into the band around my waist. Then I raced to the window, eased the screen off, and let it slide to the ground before I climbed through. The window opened onto the side of the house near the gate with the lock I’d picked earlier. The dogs must have been corralled inside—they were nowhere to be heard.
I lowered myself to the ground and sprinted around the side of the house, headed for the street, praying that Chacon’s men weren’t looking in my direction.
“Moving targets are hard to hit.” I repeated the mantra and broke into a flat-out run for the Jeep.
The red taillights of the police cruiser were disappearing down the street. I made it to the Jeep before the dogs started yowling. A door slammed, followed by a man yelling as I jumped in and turned the engine over. I rammed the accelerator to the floor, and the tires chirped as the Jeep rocketed away from the curb in the same direction as the cruiser. Half a block away, I glanced in the rearview mirror at the three dogs hurtling after the Jeep, growing smaller and smaller.