BLUE MERCY (42 page)

The knife in his palm beckoned him. The urge blossomed. He lowered the Spyderco, at last pressing the streamlined handle along the shaft of his cock, the cool, mother-of-pearl inlay already warmed. He saw her fight
back her reaction. Maybe he’d cut her again, just to get a rise out of her.

With her hands tied to the embalming table bolted to the floor, Roach let his gaze trail the pale skin along her inner arms. He brought the blade to her wrist and traced its tip along the blue, pulsing vein. She couldn’t move, but beneath him in the stainless-steel service tub he felt her desire to. He celebrated her thin, choked whimper. He wanted to kiss her, but he couldn’t trust her.

He guided the blade farther down, caressing her armpit with its tip, and wondered what she’d say if she could actually speak. He let the Spyderco’s honed edge follow the lines of her toned midriff, past her navel, and to the top of her panties.

Teasing her with the blade now, he watched her try to move. Her head lolled uselessly to her shoulder. With no strength to right it again, she shifted her eyes, trying to see his hands. Fear, frustration, and anger darkened her face. God, it was beautiful.

He wanted to stand over her, make her see his power, watch her acknowledge her own death. He’d never felt it this strong. But just as he was about to rise in the tub, Roach saw Delaney’s gaze move to the door.

BILLY COOMBS
was out of the service tub in one lithe movement. Like a cat. He was naked, Kay noticed then. His chalk-white skin glistening from the water, his erection meager but blatant.

“Jesus Christ, Bernie! You scared the shit out of me.” His voice was magnified in the hollow room.

Bernard shuffled through the doorway, his suit damp and torn. He favored his right leg. Given the useless angle of her head, Kay couldn’t see his face clearly, couldn’t tell if he focused on her or his brother.

“I heard about this afternoon,” Coombs said, going for his clothes. His movements jerky. Nervous.

What did he see that she couldn’t?

“Fucking brilliant. But you gotta get outta town. I think I know someone who can help.”

When Coombs squatted, reaching for the shirt he’d folded with his pants, Kay could at last see Bernard’s face. Pure rage—the kind she’d seen once before.

Coombs came up with the shirt. But he never got the chance to put it on.

Bernard struck fast. Kay barely saw his fist swing before it connected with Coombs’s jaw. Coombs’s head snapped around, and blood flew from his mouth, splashing the wall.

He dragged a pale wrist across his bleeding lip, the knife still in his grip. “You son of a bitch. You fucking hit me!”

“Yeah?” The second blow, lightning fast, took Coombs under the ribs. Kay heard the vicious crack, and his thin, naked frame buckled. He wretched, tried to turn from Bernard, but the third strike took him in the small of the back.

Coombs reeled into one of the workbenches. She heard his knife clatter to the floor, but couldn’t tell where it landed.

Kay flexed her hands, testing the ropes, but still felt nothing.

She could only watch as Coombs turned, wheezing, a red welt already forming along his rib cage. His voice sounded diluted, almost desperate with fear. “What the hell are you doing, Bernie? You on something?”

“You motherfucking double-crosser. Why’d you kill her, Roach?”

Bernard took another swing, but this time Coombs was ready. He ducked. The empty punch left Bernard open, and Coombs hooked him in the gut. The big man didn’t even flinch. When Bernard hit him again, there was more blood, and Coombs sprawled into the next bench. Glass and stainless-steel pans smashed across the tiles. The room went thick with the stench of formaldehyde.

Coombs flailed for balance. Another two blows and he hit the floor. He floundered on the wet tiles, slipping on broken glass. When he regained his feet, they were bleeding.

Still, Bernard didn’t let up. “Why the fuck d’you kill her?”

Past Bernard’s wide back, Kay glimpsed Coombs’s panic, but he wasn’t giving up. When he tried to defend himself, Bernard laid in even harder. Coombs fell again, his scrawny frame spinning across the floor. Only this time when he came up, he was armed. In one bloodied hand he brandished the two-foot-long steel shaft Kay had seen Hagen use. Coombs jabbed the honed point in the air at Bernard, the gesture impeded by the length of hose attached.

“I’m warning you, Bernie. Just relax.”

“Patsy was mine, Roach. Mine! Not yours.”

Kay strained against the ropes, welcoming the new sensation of pain as she tried to slip the knots.

Coombs stabbed the air again. “Just back off, Bernie. I’m warning you.” And then, as though to emphasize his threat, Coombs reached behind him and flipped a switch.

A muted whirring started up in the corner. The motor of the pump she’d seen Hagen use. And the same sucking sound, like a vacuum. Bernard’s next step blocked her view,
his mass obliterating Coombs’s attempts at defense. She couldn’t be sure what happened next as the two brothers clashed. Bernard lurched to one side, and she saw the glint of the polished shaft. Then Bernard twisted. One of them swore. More grappling. Coombs’s bare arms flailing in the air. And finally a muffled grunt.

Through Bernard’s legs, she could see Coombs. Naked, streaked with blood. He was suspended for a moment, his feet lifting off the littered floor. And then Bernard dropped him.

Kay tried to look away, but couldn’t.

Coombs was a pale, convulsing mound. His muscles contracted and stiffened. His eyes were wide, and his mouth gaped. And then Kay saw the steel shaft, sunk deep into Coombs’s abdomen, the rubber hose dancing and jerking from the protruding end.

Coombs clutched at the embedded tool. “Jesus, Bernie,” his whisper rasped between clenched teeth. “What the fuck …”

Bernard stood over him. Silent. The only sound in the room was the wet slurping and the dull hum of the Porti-boy. The big man appeared to watch until Coombs stopped twitching. Then Bernard’s neck and shoulders straightened. Kay thought she heard a sigh.

And finally, he turned.

Sprays of blood marked his shirt and hands, a few drops on his cheek. When he looked at Kay, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She tried to say his name, break through the trance that seemed to grip him. But she couldn’t remember how to form the words.

And then, as Bernard looked from her to her brother’s knife on the floor, Kay wished Billy had killed her.

When Finn had steered into the Parkview Funeral Home’s lot, he worried his hunch had been wrong. With no sign of Coombs’s Buick, he’d gotten out to circle the building. That’s when he’d found the jimmied side door. Barely inside, he heard the ear-shattering crashes and exploding glass. Then voices.

He brought the police radio up, opened the frequency, and ordered immediate backup.

Finn took the same carpeted stairway Hagen had led him and Kay down only the other day. To the embalming room and the stench of death and chemicals. He moved cautiously.
Assess the situation. Know the layout. Know what’s waiting for you down there
.

Two steps from the bottom, Finn made a silent prayer to God, made promises he doubted he could ever keep.
Just let her be alive.

At the bottom now, back pressed against the velvet wallpaper, Finn inched to the doorframe.
Too quiet
. A quick duck around the corner: all clear. At the end of the corridor, light flooded from the embalming room. Finn edged toward it, his Glock ready.

Ten more feet. Six. Finn gathered himself. With the element of surprise he might avoid a hostage situation. The image of Kay with a knife to her throat galvanized him. He gripped his nine tighter, already visualizing the single shot he’d make to take out Coombs.

Assess the situation
.

One deep breath, and Finn eased around the doorframe. First he saw the broken glass, the tossed pans and instruments,
a slurry of chemicals and blood spilled across the tiles. Then he saw the body. Male. Nude. Smeared with blood. A steel rod extended from the victim’s gut and there was a moist sucking sound Finn didn’t understand.

From the angle, he couldn’t be sure it was Coombs. There was another voice, a muted mumble. It sounded male. Finn edged farther around the doorframe, his eyes frantically scanning. And then he saw him.

Eales’s hulking mass was unmistakable. With his back to the door, he hunkered over a wide steel service tub. Finn evaluated the situation in rapid flashes. Blood on Eales’s pants. On his shoes and hands. Then Kay. He could barely glimpse her past Eales: her face pale, and the bright glare of blood along her throat.

And then Finn saw the knife.

“Eales!” Finn lined the big man into his Glock’s sight. “Drop the knife, and back away from her. Now!”

Eales’s great frame turned slowly.

“Step away from the tub, you bastard, or I swear, I’ll fucking shoot you.”

And in that moment, Finn hoped the son of a bitch made a move. As he felt the trigger’s curve under his finger, he hoped for any excuse to let loose the slug that would drop Eales. For Kay. For her year of hell. And for himself.

“Come on, Eales. Give me a reason.”

But the knife clattered to the floor, and Eales took two steps forward, arms coming up.

“Now get down. Flat on the floor.”

As he did, Finn kicked the knife away. There was blood on its blade, and he looked to Kay.

Her mouth was open as though she wanted to say something. Then her eyes closed. And in that instant of horror Finn realized he was too late.

Finn crouched over her, at first a blur, then clearer. As she focused on his eyes, Kay recognized his fear.

She gave him a feeble nod, felt his hand at her throat, and realized he’d believed her dead.

The world had tilted and spun like the teacup ride at a fairground when Finn had come through the door. And the blood seemed to wash out of her the moment before she blacked out.

“Stay down, you piece of shit,” she heard Finn growl at Eales.

Finn had his gun still on the big man where he lay on the floor: belly-down, his face pressed flat against the tiles. But his slow eyes were fixed on Kay.

“Are you okay?” Finn was touching her, his hands moving over her. Her face, her throat, checking each wrist.

Kay worked at a nod, and her voice was shaky. “Yeah.” She floundered in the shallow water, trying to push herself up.

She remembered Eales coming at her, the knife in his meaty hand, the vacant look in his eyes. She’d feared the worst when he’d reached for her. But, instead, he’d cut her loose, slicing through the bonds only seconds before Finn had burst through the doorway.

She would never know if Eales had intended to release her or use her as a hostage. And she didn’t want to.

“That’s him, right?” Finn nodded to Coombs’s prone body, his face angled to the far bench.

“Yeah.”

“You sure you’re all right? Did he … he didn’t …” Finn shook his head as though he couldn’t say the word.

“I don’t think so.”

Eales coughed.

“You just lie there, you hear me?” Finn told him. “You so much as hiccup, you prick, and I’ll put a fucking slug through your brain, you got it?”

Eales nodded once.

From outside, Kay heard the sirens. She struggled again, this time managing to sit as the strength returned to her quivering muscles. Finn’s arm was around her waist then, drawing her up and out of the tub, his gun’s sight never leaving Eales. Even when Finn lowered her to sit on the edge, he switched the Glock to his left so he could remove his jacket and place it over her shoulders.

Uniforms thundered down the stairs, and she heard them moving along the corridor.

“Room’s clear,” Finn shouted, holstering his nine when they stormed in. He nodded at Eales. “Read this asshole his rights. And call for an ambo. We’ll need the ME down here too.” Coombs’s body still gurgled in the corner.

Finn had found her shoes and helped her with them as she watched the uniforms cuff Eales. All of it so surreal.

When she stood, Finn supported her. He helped her navigate the floor of broken glass, trailing water over the tiles, until she reached Coombs. She stood over him then, surprised that she had nothing to say. Staring down at his frail, deflated body, she was amazed at how small Coombs seemed. How utterly human he looked.

He
was
just a man.

Kay gestured to the Porti-boy, and as she wavered there in the middle of the embalming room, Finn switched the machine off. The sucking sounds stopped.

“Come on,” Finn said, returning to her side. “Let’s get you out of here.”

He drew her away from the spectacle of Coombs’s partially drained body and ushered her up the stairs. Someone was reading Bernard his rights. Outside, she shivered when the night air hit her damp body.

“You sure you’re okay?” Finn turned her, the fear she’d seen in his face was fading.

She nodded and welcomed his embrace.

Not until Eales was led from the side door did Finn release her. Kay watched the big man shuffle across the lawn and placidly allowed himself to be wedged into the back of the closest patrol unit. When the door closed on him, she sensed his stare. Even in the strobing glare of the radio-car light-bars, she knew Eales watched her.

In some warped sense that she doubted anyone else would ever understand, Kay knew she owed Bernard Eales her life. And as the radio car pulled away and she caught his expressionless nod, she recognized that—like one of those crystal-clear snapshots in time—her mind would never let go of the image of Eales’s eyes on her.