Chapter 16 #2
Down he went into a shaft leading straight to the sewers beneath the city. Counting tunnels and watching for numbers written on the walls beside the ladders with something akin to delight, Lash knew when he reached number seventy-nine that he was directly beneath the newsstand.
He waited, and minutes later, he heard the echo of boots against metal as Ryder Justice walked across the sewer lid and dropped the bags full of money…his money. A smile broke the concentration on his face. So far, so good.
He knew the bags were bugged. He’d watched the Feds planting the bugs himself. So he transferred the money from their bags into the ones he’d brought, and left the original bags and their bugs right where he knew they would eventually be found.
Once again, he was using the underground sewers of Ruban Crossing as a means by which to travel.
With the narrow beam of a small flashlight for guidance, he began to count tunnels and ladders again until he came to ladder number sixty-five.
This time he went up, coming out in the alley just outside the abandoned garage where he’d parked Fostoria Biggers’s car.
When he drove out of the city, he was three million dollars to the good. As for the fifty thousand he was supposed to pay Bernie and Skeet, it was unfortunate, but he was going to have to renege.
It wasn’t his fault Bernie had left fingerprints behind when they’d yanked Casey out of her car.
Eventually the police would find Bernie Pike.
And if they found Bernie, Skeet Wilson would not be far behind.
Lash didn’t trust them to keep quiet about his part in the crime.
He couldn’t leave witnesses. Not after he’d gone this far.
As he drove, he reached down and felt the outside of his pocket, reassuring himself that his gun was still there.
Once or twice, as he pictured pulling the trigger and ending two men’s lives, he came close to rethinking his decision.
And then he would remind himself that, for three million dollars, he could live with a little bit of guilt.
All he had to do was walk in the house, pull the trigger two times and they would be out of the picture.
At this point, his imagination began to wane.
He kept picturing himself opening the door to the room in which Casey was being kept and pointing his gun at her as well.
After that, the image faded. Would she beg?
Would she cry? Would he be able to kill the woman he once thought he loved?
Fostoria Biggers’s little car fishtailed in loose dirt as Lash sailed down the road toward her home. Only a few more miles.
* * *
“He’s turning south,” Roman said, and held on to his laptop as, moments later, the helicopter took the same turn, yielding to Ryder’s skill.
Roman’s gaze was completely focused on the screen before him. And the farther they flew, the more certain he was of where Lash Marlow was going.
“There’s nothing out here but swamp grass and trees,” Ryder muttered, as he banked the chopper sharp to the right, sometimes skimming so close to the treetops that the skids tore the leaves as they flew by.
Roman frowned, grabbing at the computer and leaning into another sharp turn. “If you were partial to driving there, you should have said so—I’d have gotten one of these things with wheels.”
“Am I still on course?” Ryder asked.
Roman looked down at the screen. “Yes. We can’t be more than a half a mile behind.”
Half a mile. Would that be the difference between Casey’s life—or Casey’s death?
“I don’t like this,” Ryder said, glancing down at the blur of terrain beneath them. “There’s nothing out here but snakes, alligators and wildcats.”
“And the house where Fostoria Biggers was born and raised.”
The helicopter dipped. Not much, but enough to let Roman know Ryder had been startled by what he’d said.
“Who is Fostoria Biggers?”
“One of Marlow’s clients. I thought it was a little too convenient that Marlow has her car and her power of attorney. I checked land records at the courthouse. Would you believe that her house is just a little farther south… in the direction in which Marlow has been driving?”
Ryder looked startled. “How long have you known about this?”
Roman shrugged. “Bits and pieces of it since the first day. But it didn’t all start falling into place until you caught Marlow repeating the kidnapper’s demands, word for word. After that, we didn’t exactly have time to talk. I figured you wouldn’t mind if I took the initiative.”
Ryder’s expression was grim. “I don’t care what you do. But when we get where we’re going, Marlow is mine.”
Roman nodded. That much he understood. He glanced back at the screen. “Read ’em and weep, brother. It looks like our runner is about to stop.”
Ryder’s heart skipped a beat as he looked down at the screen. For the first time since they’d gone airborne, the blip was stationary. He glanced out the windows, searching for a sign of the car and a place to set down.
It was Roman who saw it first. “There!” he shouted. “I see the top of a roof up ahead in that clearing.” He leaned farther forward and pointed across Ryder’s line of vision. “There’s the road, just to your left.”
“I see it,” Ryder drawled. He gave his brother one last glance, and there was a wealth of understanding between them in that single look. “Hang on. We’re going down.”
* * *
It was getting late. Casey could tell by the temperature of the bare wooden floors beneath her feel Every nerve she had was on alert.
She’d said her prayers, and such as it was, her little game plan was already in place.
The contents of the bottle of lotion she’d found in her purse was in a puddle on the floor just inside her door.
Her letter opener was in one hand, held fast at the hilt, and an unopened can of beans was in the other.
Oddly enough, Bernie had had a change of heart, and sneaked them back in to her when Skeet wasn’t looking.
From the size of his belly hanging over his belt, she supposed he didn’t think a person should die on an empty stomach.
And, she was as ready to die as she would ever be, but not without a fight.
Just as she was about to get herself a drink of water from the bathroom sink, she heard a shout of jubilation outside her door. Her thirst forgotten, she stifled a moan. That could only mean one thing. Lash had arrived. Bernie and Skeet were about to get paid.
* * *
Lash pulled up to the house and put the car into Park, but left it running. This trip was going to be a real hit-and-run. He had to get back into the city and pick up his car at the courthouse. It was the final stage of his plan, and one that would tie up the last loose ends.
He was halfway up the steps when Bernie Pike met him at the door. “Did you get it!?” Bernie asked.
Lash grinned and nodded as he put his hand in his pocket. “Where’s Skeet?” Lash asked. “I want to pay you both at the same time.”
“I’m right here,” Skeet said.
“Hot damn,” Bernie said. “My horoscope said this was my lucky day.”
The gun was in Lash’s hand before either man thought to react.
Bernie went down still wearing his smile.
Skeet had started to run and then stumbled and fell when Lash’s second shot caught him square in the back.
The echo of the gunshots beneath the roof of the old porch were still ringing in Lash’s ears as he nudged each man with the toe of his shoe.
Neither moved, nor would they ever again.
While Lash was staring down at their bodies, something fell on his sleeve. He looked down and then shrieked in sudden panic. Frantic, he brushed it off with the butt of the gun, then stomped it flat. What was left of a caterpillar lay squashed on the floor of the porch.
Another worm. A rapid staccato of drumbeats began again, ricocheting through Lash’s mind as he backed away from the worm and into the house with his gun drawn.
He was all the way inside and halfway across the floor before he realized he had his back to the door of the room in which Casey was being kept.
He crouched and spun. Heart pounding and slightly breathless, he aimed the gun at the middle of the door.
It took a bit for him to calm down. And when he did, he went to the door, rattling the knob just enough to let her know he was coming.
The tone of his voice took on a high, singsong pitch. “Here I come, ready or not.”
He opened the door, saw her standing across the room, and stepped inside, right into the puddle of lotion.
One second Lash was looking at Casey and the next he was staring at the ceiling and struggling to breathe. He clutched his chest with a groan and rolled as air began to fill his deflated lungs.
“Damn you,” he gasped, crawling to his feet just in time to duck an object that came flying through the air.
Although he knew it wasn’t Casey, he pulled the trigger in self-defense, then gasped as something splattered all over his face.
He looked down at himself in disbelief. Beans? He’d shot a can of beans?
* * *
For Casey, the two shots outside the door were unexpected.
But when total silence followed, Casey suspected her worst fears were about to come true.
Not only was Lash capable of killing her, but she’d bet her last dollar he’d just done away with Bernie and Skeet.
It figured. He wasn’t the kind of man to leave loose ends untied. Lash was nothing if not neat.
She backed against the far wall, and when his voice taunted at her through the door, she traded the dagger in her right hand for the can of beans, then held her breath and waited.
The door opened, and to her undying relief, Lash hit the oil slick of lotion and fell flat on his back. While he was struggling for breath, she hauled back and sent the beans sailing, then ducked when his shot went wild.