Adrenaline (32 page)

Geoff began whistling as he wound their legs with a chain and bound them to the seat mounts.

“What difference does it make?” Lazar’s voice was shaky; something Lisa hadn’t heard from him before. “Dead in forty-five minutes or dead in an hour and a half. We should’ve made him shoot us both.”

“It matters, doesn’t it, Geoff?” She talked fast, feeling that if she didn’t, she would just sit there and hyperventilate and that was no good. Couldn’t get in the habit of running through air if Geoff was going to sink them in that black water. “You’re not going to just drown us, you’re going to leave us an opening, aren’t you, Geoff. You’re not just a murderer.”

He grimaced as he put a facemask on her. “Technically, I’m afraid I am. So you better make your own opening. There. Test your air.” She took a tentative breath out of each regulator mouthpiece. The air rasped through easily enough. She looked over at Lazar and saw that he was doing the same thing.

Geoff took Lazar’s wristwatch off and strapped it onto the steering wheel. He taped a dive light to the base of Lazar’s headrest and turned it so the beam hit the watch face. It was just minutes before twelve. “If you’re lucky, it’ll still be pointing that way once you hit bottom. If you’re not—well, you’ll know your time is up when your last tank is empty.”

He snapped the headlights on, leaned through the driver’s door past Lazar and put the car in neutral.

Lazar grabbed him.

The car began rolling down the hill. Geoff snorted. “Give it up, will you?” Lisa could see Lazar’s grip was just around Geoff’s arm.

The car picked up speed. Carly was left behind, screaming.

Even in that instant, Lisa knew if Geoff wasn’t able to meet Steve, then she and Lazar would certainly never get out of the car. But she reached for Geoff anyhow, straining against the rope to get hold of him somehow, to somehow take him down with them. But he pulled away, and stood on the rocker panel, crouching outside the car. Still Lazar held his arm tight.

They rolled onto the pier and were heading down the center to the dark water at the end. A piling flashed by and as the next came up, Lazar lifted his knee to try to push the steering wheel. She saw he was trying to hit it with the open door and crush Geoff.

But Geoff reached out with his left hand and calmly headed the car down the center. They missed the piling by inches. Then he reached around to his back pocket and something glittered dully in his hand. Lisa saw it was the razor, Carly’s razor. “Nice try, guys,” he said, as he sliced the back of Lazar’s hand.

Lazar cried out into his mouthpiece and let go. Geoff fell in and braced himself momentarily on the center console with the hand holding the razor. Lisa instinctively reached over and grabbed it. The blade bit down to the bone but still she held on—and then it was hers as Geoff let go and shoved away from the car.

The nose of the car dropped abruptly and the headlights lit the surface of the water an instant before they hit.

Metal screeched as the hood buckled. Water roared into the open door and the car canted to the left. Lisa panicked, certain it would roll, certain that they would sink upside down.

Then the weight of the engine pulled the car down and water poured in through her window and rose over their heads. The sound of the air rasping through the regulators changed as they were fully submerged. Silver bubbles burst in front of the dive light beam.

Lisa had a brief glimpse of the muddy bottom below, not too far away, and then the lights winked out.

The dive light shook crazily as Lazar fought in the confined space, trying to free himself from the clothesline. The shockingly cold water found its way into her wetsuit. Her ears hurt, and she swallowed rapidly, clearing them as fast as she could. For a time, the only thing she could hold on to was that she still had air. She was still breathing.

She had no sense of how long it took to reach bottom, whether it was minutes or seconds. She looked to her left and Lazar looked back. It was a surreal scene. His facemask reflected the peripheral glow from the dive light. Air bubbled from his mouthpiece.

Good, she thought. He’s still breathing.

She saw his air was just rushing out and she realized hers was, too. Goddamn it, we’ve got the right, she thought, grinding her jaw against the excruciating pain in her ears. She swallowed and yawned the way Steve had taught her and the air squealed through her ears as the pressure equalized. She looked over and saw Lazar was shaking his head. The pain had to be intense for him, and she wished there was a way she could tell him what to do.

As she forced herself to slow down her breathing, to inhale, one-two-three, exhale, one-two-three, she felt a sharp pain in her hand and remembered that she had cut her hand on the razor.

Remembered she had taken it from Geoff.

She cried out in sudden hope, and, just as quickly, in frustration.

Her hand was empty.

Chapter 37

Geoff held Carly’s wrist and looked at her watch. “They’ve been down thirty minutes.”

She jerked her hand away. “I’d like to join them, right about now.”

Geoff knew she was terrified, sitting there in the van with him outside of Raul’s gates. But he liked the way she was trying to tough it out. He drew the four-inch blade from Jammer’s belt that he now wore around his waist. “This will give us all we need, once we hear Steve’s boat.” He thumbnailed what he and Steve had discussed.

She looked more frightened than ever. “You’re counting on Steve? How do you know he’ll come through? And what if they have guns?”

“We can count on both things: They will have guns, and Steve will come through. As for how we take care of it … well, that’s where the fun comes in.”

“Fun? Jesus Christ, why do you talk that way?”

He put his hand over hers. “Basically, just go along with everything I say. You’ll know what to do and when.”

Geoff felt good. It was just like before a football game in high school. Everyone else was nervous, either looking like they might puke or yelling at the top of their lungs to prove they weren’t scared. He would just sit there feeling good. Knowing that he could move so fast. Knowing with absolute confidence that his body would do the right thing at the right time. That he would do whatever it took to win.

That his luck would hold when the odds were impossible.

Geoff laughed out loud, surprising Carly. She looked over at him, her cheeks wet. “Hey, hey,” he said, wiping the tears away with his thumb.

She said, “Don’t you know he plans to cut me up in front of his camera? Literally?”

“Sure I do. But he doesn’t know what I intend.”

“Neither do I.”

He kissed her lightly. “You’ll see.”

Strike counted the money while the Hispanic guy frisked them. The guy took his time with Carly, grinning over at Strike as he touched her. The thing almost got out of hand when she scratched him across the face.

“You bitch!” The man drew back his hand.

Geoff got between them and said to Strike, “Raul likes sloppy seconds?”

Strike’s eyes glinted. “The man don’t care about that, but he wants them whole when he gets them. How she get cut? She damaged goods, man.”

“She did Jammer. He didn’t go down easy.”

Strike grinned at her appreciatively. “Yeah? Managed to kill your last man, huh?”

Geoff interjected, “Just so we get this straight, she makes this movie, it’s ten thousand dollars and all her doctor bills, right? That’s the deal.”

Strike swallowed his quick grin, and said to her, “That’s it, baby. Good deal, considering you cut the man.” Strike exchanged a glance with Geoff and the two of them smiled.

Carly thought she might go insane as they tied the Mako to the stern of the big yacht.

How could she have believed Geoff?

She saw that smile between him and Strike. If he could put Lisa down into that car to drown, why should Carly trust his word to her?

Because he loves me, she thought. Stupid girl.

She looked at her hands, and then, with a certain reverence touched her arm, feeling the smoothness of her skin, flexing the healthy muscle and bone underneath. She tuned in to her body, appreciating it as hers; appreciating her own beauty.

She felt another flash of rage at Geoff as she touched the scar on her face. How could he bring her face-to-face with Raul? Face-to-face with a man who wanted to hurt her so he could get his rocks off on some goddamn video.

Geoff will ditch me, she thought. For a second, she panicked and cast about for some way to escape. Strike put the keys to the Mako in his jeans pocket as he knocked on the cabin door. She wished desperately for her razor.

Geoff stepped in front of her and winked. She bore down on the panic, forced herself to swallow it. She searched his eyes, his body, looking for evidence to assure herself that he would come through. She saw the belt buckle and remembered Junior. She closed her eyes then, and thought about Geoff telling her that he loved her and that he would take her away. She breathed deeply, and she wanted him to kiss her and whisper that everything was all right. But when she opened her eyes, he had moved away.

She checked her watch. They had wasted almost ten minutes getting out to the yacht. It was too dark to see anything, the clouds obscured the moon. She turned and looked out into the darkness, listening for the sound of the motorboat, for Steve.

Maybe Lisa’s been stood up, too.
The thought gave her no comfort.

“Carly, Carly,” Raul’s voice said. “I’m so glad you can join me and agreed to be in my little show.”

She forced herself to stare at him, show him that she wasn’t afraid, even though her insides were curdling. Raul stood there, his arms wide open, making like he was a big movie producer. Laughing at himself. Big soft tub of guts. She knew what he was capable of; knew what he could do to her because of his money and the men surrounding him. But she made herself see them alone in an alley, and she wished again for her razor. Her heart was pounding and her mouth tasted bitter. She couldn’t trust her voice to be steady so she didn’t answer.

“I’m anxious to get started,” he said, and waved her into the cabin.

Geoff jerked his head toward the cabinway, a small smile on his face that she couldn’t read. Nevertheless, she walked into the cabin, her legs stiff and numb.

Raul frowned. “What happened to her face?”

Strike said, “Dude here says she killed her man, Jammer. Got himself a cut in before he went down. I say we teach her, right?”

“Did you take away her razor?” Raul asked mildly.

“Checked good, man. She clean.”

“I should’ve cut your throat,” Carly said. Her voice sounded better than she thought it would. Clear, unafraid.

Raul chuckled. “Oh, she’s terrifying. I’m going to title this one
Pimp’s Revenge.”

Strike grinned, his eyes twinkling with good humor. “Jammer’ll like that, man, sitting up in pimp heaven.”

Raul snapped on bright lights, and Carly shuddered seeing the video camera on a tripod. The cabin had been rearranged to be dominated by a single bed. The bed and floors were covered loosely with red sheets and she saw a stack of towels on the counter. Beside the bed was an open footlocker filled with leather paraphernalia, gleaming with metal studs.

Carly’s breath was rushing in and out.

Raul stepped closer to her. He drew back his sleeve to reveal the ugly scar and then laid it against the scar on her face softly. The intimacy of it made her cry out involuntarily and she backed away. “We’re going to get a lot closer than that, Carly,” he whispered. “I’ll be inside you.”

“She thinks she’s gonna get ten K and all her doctor bills paid,” Strike said.

“That right?” Raul grinned over at Geoff. “I wondered how you got her here without handcuffs.”

Geoff put the suitcase of money on the bed. “This is the balance,” he said, quietly. “Why don’t you just take it and call it quits with Carly?”

She looked over at him.
That’s it?
She wanted to scream.

Both Raul and Strike laughed.

Raul said, “I’ve got another idea. Why don’t I work on her with a sharp knife for a few hours? Then have the boys drop her in the ocean with lead weights once I get bored. How about that idea? Only question is whether or not you join her.”

Carly tried desperately to read Geoff’s eyes and face, but all she saw was a sort of pleasant blankness. He didn’t even look at her.

The bastards planned to kill her.

And Geoff was doing nothing. In spite of herself, her breath began to rush, and her vision blurred. She wiped away the tears furiously.

Raul stared at Geoff contemptuously, then said to Strike, “Call Lee and have him take this idiot to the house. I’ll decide what to do with him after.”

“Hey, it only seemed right to make the offer,” Geoff said defensively. “Keep that fat bastard away from me.”

The weakness in his voice was something Carly had never heard before. She still couldn’t read him; couldn’t tell if he was acting or not. Either way, she figured she was on her own. If only she had
something.
Carly’s eyes flickered across the cabin, the galley, the desk. Not even a fork. She remembered Junior and stepped closer to Geoff, but he backed away and said, without looking at her, “Hey, I’m sorry, honey.”