Read 0758215630 (R) Online

Authors: EC Sheedy

0758215630 (R) (7 page)

Henry pulled out his shiny new Glock. “I don’t think so.”

She stared at the gun, sucked in a breath.

He had her attention, or at least what he had in his hand did. “Where’s Phyllis Worth?”

“As far away from you as she can get—which is a long,
long
way from Vegas.”

“Something a little more specific would be good.”

She shook her head, eyed the gun in his hand. “I hate to repeat myself, but . . . Go fuck yourself.”

He fired. He didn’t mean to exactly, but damned if his finger didn’t convulse on that trigger. Yeah.

She stared at him, her face white with shock, then she lifted a hand to her shot-up shoulder, now pulsing blood down the front of her white blouse. “You son of a bitch.” She slumped back into her chair, blood slipping and sliding through the fingers of the hand pressed to the wound.

Henry wanted to kick his own ass, knew damn well his putting a bullet in her was a bad idea, bound to attract the boys in blue. Q wouldn’t like that, but there was no going back now. “There’s more where that came from.” He put both hands on the gun, steadied it. He always shook a bit after he fired. Never told anybody that though. Always figured it wasn’t how you felt about things that mattered, it was how you performed. Henry Castor always performed. “So how stupid are you, bitch? Here’s your second chance. Where’s Worth?”

Her face, white before, was chalky now. It looked as if the damn bullet had aged her twenty years. Not a killing shot though. Not yet. He took aim at her chest, and for the first time she blinked.

“Worth,” he repeated. “Where is she?” It looked like she was going to pass out on him.
No fuckin’ way.

Instead, she struggled to her feet, put her face inches from his. “Where you’ll never find her.” She gave him a dragon’s smile. “Now get your sorry ass out of my office, before I—”

He fired again.

Chapter 6

Quinlan Braid placed his hands on the patio balustrade and looked down; already the egos and their satellites were gathered in their selected herds on his lawn and patio. It was the Los Angeles A-list—an awkward, unwieldy mix of politicians, moneymen, and movie people who pretended to admire one another while each sat on his own smug perch, convinced it was the highest of them all.

Catching sight of Giselle, his groin tightened, and his gaze followed her lush form as she wove her way through the crowd to the patio below, where she joined two of his guests. She wore white as he’d instructed her to, and she looked like an angel—which, of course, she wasn’t—at least not in his bed. Giselle Morrisey was the best he’d ever had.

She looked up, saw him, and waved, the gesture bordering on childlike. “Hurry up,” she mouthed.

He nodded. Giselle would enjoy the formal evening—another reason he’d proceeded with it. Keeping her amused served to stave off his own boredom.

Back in his bedroom, he lifted his chin and straightened his black tie. With so much on his mind, he’d considered canceling the event and spending the evening in bed with Giselle. It wasn’t as if he needed these people anymore. He already had their money. But he’d planned this party months ago as a way of showing the expected gratitude for his guests’ investment in his last financial offering. A deal that had gone very well. Fifty million dollars domiciled in an offshore, zero-tax regime. Tax relief for them. Immense profits for Braid Enterprises.

He studied his tie in the mirror. Perfect. As was the catered food, the music, and the lights and candles artfully illuminating the grounds of his lavish estate.

Yet, he hesitated, loath to join his guests and curry favor no longer necessary to him, when the matter currently of most importance in his life was his own past—brought back to him in living color by Henry Castor.

He had to deal with the man, of course, but the prospect was not without its concerns. The measures required might well be severe, and Q was disquieted by the thought that he might have grown soft over the years, his instincts dulled by the security that gates and money provided.

Opening a narrow drawer in a tall marble-topped bureau, he surveyed the symmetric row of folded, monogrammed Irish linen hankies. He selected one with double-seamed edging and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

He was ready—prepared, physically and mentally, for the evening ahead.

All he needed were his shoes, given to Jerald to shine exactly twenty-one minutes ago.

Where was the man
?

He reached out a hand toward the keypad on his dresser, was about to touch Jerald’s call number, but again hesitated. So unlike him, these delaying actions, but he couldn’t settle himself.

Perhaps an added moment of reflection
 . . .

He walked to the French doors leading to his private patio. Not the patio looking down over the pool area where close to a hundred and fifty people waited for his arrival, but the secluded balcony he used for drinking his snifter of cognac and smoking the one cigarette, a Nat Sherman classic he allowed himself each night before retiring. A thoughtful, analytical time, this private moment appealed to his sense of order.

Henry Castor, on the other hand, was chaos—a yawning sucking chasm pulling Quinlan into a past he’d left far behind. He’d brought back to Q the one transgression—in years of many—he’d never forget. It was his basest moment; the moment when greed erased his soul—and it bore no statute of limitations.

He remembered Victor twisting Robert Browning’s famous words, poking at Q’s initial reluctance to become involved—in one more job. “‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,’ Quinlan, my man,” Victor had quoted. “Or what’s a hell for?”

That final reach had given Q the last of the funds he’d needed to start the legitimate life he’d planned—as far from Victor and the streets of Seattle as he could get. Except for a minor matter or two, Q hadn’t had serious dealings with Victor Allan since.

Yet that last reach had brought him Henry Castor.

In Q’s first life, Castor would have been dead within five minutes of their meeting—perhaps during it. Things were so much simpler then, kill or be killed. Take or be taken from. Now there were complications.

Castor was a thug, a man driven by violence and avarice, and Q had played into both with the offer of a four million dollar payday. Right now the rabid beast was in Las Vegas. According to Quinlan’s source—ironically a connection he’d made through Victor—Castor had gone there directly from their meeting. The town—loud, crass, and gaudy—did not run to Q’s taste, nor as far as he knew, did Victor have any business there.

All of it together made him uneasy.

There was far too much of the
street
in Henry Castor: The poor diction, the drugstore cologne, the furtive eyes—windows to an even more furtive spirit. The man appeared to lack basic intelligence. Worse yet, he was unpredictable—as was the teeming, tourist-infested town he’d gone to.

That such a man was in a position of power—albeit temporarily—over Quinlan enraged him, a rage he stifled, considering unbridled anger a weakness as dangerous as Castor himself.

He’d known his share of Castors and their type. As a young man, during his years in Seattle, he’d been one of them—but shrewder, more ambitious—until he’d risen above them all, and got what he wanted—enough cash to begin a life within the law. Almost.

What he and Victor had done in those heady, dangerous days, they’d done together. Drugs mainly, some smuggling, contract killings—whatever was necessary. All of it lucrative and planned to the last detail.

Q’s finale was to be the girl. The little girl in the torn jeans and too-big green shirt.

Now Castor—and that girl—threatened everything: The Braid name, its hard-won legitimacy, and its moneyed connections.

A possible prison sentence.

Idly, he rubbed the teardrop shaped birthmark under his chin. A conviction would, of course, prove difficult, given the elapsed time, a child’s memory as testimony—his money. But he would not risk the possibility nor the notoriety that would inevitably follow such an accusation.

Of course, Quinlan Braid could disappear. Some cash transfers, a flight plan, a new identity. . . Although complicated it could be arranged, but it would mean leaving Giselle. He was reluctant to do that.

Nor, given the nature of Henry Castor, would Q’s leaving be a guarantee of safety. The man was a mongrel, a back-alley cross between a bloodhound and a bulldog—as his investigation of him had confirmed. There was only one way to deal with the cur—put him down, and Q had the right people in place to do exactly that. How ironic that it was Victor who’d supplied them.

Yes . . . when Q had what he wanted—the name of Castor’s pipeline—Castor was a dead man.
As
was the girl.

Murder wasn’t new to Quinlan. His personal tally was eight in all: Six men and two women. He remembered the godlike challenge of it: The intense planning, the anticipation, the flawless execution, the feel of hard cash slapped in his hands, the extreme level of excitement.
The blood.

Even now his heart beat stronger at the thought.

The nostalgia for those long-ago days surprised him.
Perhaps because I excelled at it—or because I felt more alive on the streets than I ever have in a boardroom.

Unsettled, he terminated his odd thoughts and reminded himself that murder was messy business, and the risks were high. Risks he could no longer afford. No, this time he’d be the one paying the killer while his own hands remained clean. He would witness the girl’s death, ensure there were no loose ends, but that would be the extent of his personal involvement.

He heard laughter and brighter, louder music coming from the pool area. He could delay no longer, and there was no need to; his decision was made.

As Q reentered his bedroom, there was a double rap on the door.

“Come in, Jerald.”

Jerald entered the room soundlessly on the soft-soled shoes Q required all his household staff to wear. “Your shoes, sir.”

“Thank you.” Q took the shoes, new John Lobbs purchased on a recent trip to London, and turned them in his hand, admiring the gleam of fine leather before sitting on the bench at the foot of his bed and slipping them on. “Has everyone arrived?”

“Yes, sir. All one hundred and fifty-six.” He paused. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes. Tell the orchestra to finish forty minutes earlier. I’ve decided on an earlier end to the evening.” If he couldn’t eliminate his boredom, he could at least lessen it.

Q noticed a trace of surprise cross Jerald’s face, and he understood it. Jerald, through their long association, was aware of Q’s assiduous adherence to schedule. How rare it was for him to initiate a last-minute change. To his credit, Jerald adjusted quickly. “I’ll see to it.”

Q watched him go, briefly grateful for Jerald’s unshakable loyalty. So much better than a dog. So much more advantageous. And all because one of the women on Q’s kill list was of Jerald’s choosing—the mother who’d abused him from birth. Jerald had been thirteen when he’d arrived on Q’s doorstep. He’d offered eighty-six dollars and a lifetime of servitude in exchange for a simple garroting. It was one of the best deals Quinlan ever made.

On the way to his party, at the top of the stairs, he paused, took note; his heart beat steadily in his chest and his mind was clear. His decision had calmed him, given him a sense of purpose. He again considered the numbers.

Three people were to die: Henry Castor, his mysterious pipeline, and most important, the girl—that dangerous misplaced shipment from his first life.

The girl whose name he couldn’t remember.

He ignored the tremor in his chest when he thought of her—of her beautiful, terrified green eyes.

Pity
?
Remorse?

Impossible. He’d taken her life over twenty years ago; what he was doing now was merely putting a signature on the death certificate.

Chapter 7

“You’re kidding me. This place is a mess. And I
am not
sleeping on that.” Joe glared at the sofa—short with high arms, its cushions askew, magazines dripping from it to the floor—as if the thing had jaws and a double row of teeth, then he looked at April. “I’d be crippled for a week.”

April barely glanced at Joe. She hadn’t been in the apartment for two or three months—and she hadn’t missed Phylly’s casual approach to housekeeping. To neat-freak Joe, no doubt the mess was doubly unappealing, and added to his already low opinion of his birth mother.

Although, when she looked at Joe’s large frame and the sofa’s small one, she had a twinge of empathy. “Take the bed, then. I’ll take the couch.”

What she got in response was an annoyed grimace.

Well, too damn bad for him. She didn’t care where he slept. They had no choice but to make the best of things, and it made sense, if they were going to go through Phylly’s things, to stay at her place, a modest—very messy—two bedroom apartment about a half hour southeast of The Strip. Although she had to admit the place was worse than usual. Even Phylly generally closed drawers when she opened them. God, she really had left in a hurry.

Cornie, who’d been listening and watching from the kitchen doorway, said, “For what it’s worth, little bear is sleeping in her bed, so have at it, guys.” With that she disappeared into the kitchen.

“Not exactly Martha Stewart, is she?” Joe said, the second Cornie was out of earshot.

“You’re determined not to like anything about her, aren’t you?”

The gaze he slanted her way was not attached to a smile. “I’m determined to get a good night’s sleep,” was all he said. “So how about we take a room at the Mirage? That way we can both have decent beds.” He paused, set his cold-hot blue eyes on her and grinned like a wolverine. “If we shared one of them, we’d be happier still.”

April resisted rolling her eyes, instead choosing a sweet tone. “Do you work at being obnoxious,
Joseph,
or were you born with the talent?”

“You know the family lineage better than I do. You tell me.”

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