Just Fall (31 page)

Lucien pushes open Maison Marianne’s front door. He has not been here in six years. Not since the murder-suicide that had not only shocked the island but inspired fevered international reporting as well. Of course it had. Think of all the elements: a rich self-made American; his patrician, wellborn wife; a local girl, no more than a teen, really; rumors of voodoo spells and restless ghosts. Lucien doesn’t believe in superstition. He believes in facts and evidence. Still, he can see how the house maintains its legend. The floorboards creak ominously under his feet; the very walls seem to weep.

Lucien shakes off the wispy traces of ghost tales that cling to him like cobwebs. He may not believe in ghosts, but he can’t deny the heaviness of the fallen grandeur of this ruin, the welter of pain that shrouds it.

But the house appears to be empty of life, human life at any rate, he thinks as a fer-de-lance slithers in front of him. Lucien stays stock-still until the snake, which he knows to be venomous, the deadliest variety on the island, disappears into a crack in the wall. Lucien’s exhale as the reptile disappears sounds unnaturally loud in the moist, stagnant air.

If Thomas had been right, if he had been held at Maison Marianne, it seems his captors have since fled. Frustration prickles at Lucien’s skin, leaving him irritable. These heinous criminals are almost like ghosts themselves in the way they have eluded him.

Lucien sees the body as he enters the great room. It is a man. Tall and gangly. He is bound to a cheap chaise longue with duct tape. Blood pools from his stomach. He is still. Silent.

Lucien strides to the body and checks the man’s pulse, noticing the dancing skeleton tattoo on his cold wrist. The man is dead. Another murder has fouled Lucien’s beloved island.

But it is the bloody severed lip—cleanly sliced from the corpse’s face and casually tossed to the dank, filthy floor—that brings a roiling wave of nausea into Lucien’s throat.

Ellie had sent the text to the number she had been given, using a burner phone that she discarded immediately. The text was succinct:
Meet me at La Canne in the Grande Sucre Hotel
.
2
P.M
. La Canne was the hotel’s main bar, half open-air, half covered, exploding with fresh tropical flowers, clean sand and clear water just feet away. Ellie had seen pictures of the man she was to meet. She also had another advantage. He was expecting a man.

When Williamson entered, Ellie was sitting at the curved bar sipping a virgin rum punch. She wanted her wits about her. It was 1:52. She recognized him from the photographs an Internet search of his name had generated—muscular, deeply suntanned, his hair streaky from salt water and sunshine. Much bigger than she. She watched him scan the bar. She couldn’t do this. She suddenly knew she couldn’t do this. Could she?

Carter settled in at the other end of the bar, satisfied he was early. He kept his back to the wall and his eyes trained on the entrance. He was so intent on his expectations he scarcely noticed Ellie sliding onto the bar stool next to him. A rush of power flooded through her; for this moment at least she had the upper hand.

She greeted him softly and he glanced at her once, taking in her blond hair, the lime-green bikini under the gauzy white cover-up, the flush in her cheeks.
Attractive, but not my type,
his eyes said.

“I’m waiting for someone.”

“Aren’t we all?”

The flash of annoyance on his face amused Ellie. The creep actually believed she was flirting with him.

“It’s a meeting,” he said. “A business meeting. I don’t mean to be rude but—”

“Then I’ll be sure to tell Quinn you weren’t rude.”

Her voice stayed light, but Carter flinched as if she had touched him with a burning ember.

“Shit. I’m sorry, you’re…”

“Not what you were expecting. Are you disappointed?” She purred the question.

“I thought you were going to meet me at the marina.”

“Change of plans.”

“Look, we can’t talk here…”

“I have a room.”

Ellie slid off her bar stool and knocked back the rest of her virgin rum punch. “Let’s go.”

She didn’t even need to look to be sure he was following her. He was a desperate man and desperate men did what they were told. She held her head high and let her hips sway. Gave him something pretty to look at. She wanted him distracted, off his guard. Rob had been quite clear in his instructions:
You are going to be told to kill someone. You have to do it. Don’t recoil in horror, darling, please, I can assure you, your target deserves to die.

They reached the elevator bank. A door slid open, disgorging a family of four in a flurry of sandals and sand toys and the chemical coconut blast of sunscreen. After they passed, Ellie and Carter entered. She pressed the button for her floor and the door slid closed.

Rob’s instructions chorused through her mind. She had memorized them.
You will be given a plan designed to make your target seem like the victim of an accident. But we have a plan of our own.

The elevator door opened, and Ellie exited. Carter followed her down the hallway as she sauntered to her room. Ellie unlocked the door and gestured him in. She had a bottle of chilled white wine in an ice bucket, uncorked and ready.

In our bathroom, in a prescription bottle labeled Benicar you will find Seconal,
Rob had written.
Get your target to ingest it. With alcohol is best; it kicks up the effects and disguises the taste.

As she closed the door behind her, fear clawed into Ellie’s gut. She was going to kill this man. She had to kill this man. How could she? Then she looked at his face and realized he was nervous. Possibly more scared than she was.

Carter spotted the wine bottle. Poured a glass without asking and gulped it down. Refilled his glass.

“Help yourself,” Ellie said wryly. She poured herself a glass and pretended to sip it.

“So what happens now? How does Quinn want to handle it?” His voice cracked on Quinn’s name. Ellie and Rob weren’t the only ones terrified of Quinn. Carter tossed back his second glass of wine.

“He’s angry with you, you know.” Ellie’s tone was soothing, seductive. She settled into the bucket chair, crossing her legs sinuously.

“Shit, I know that! I didn’t mean for it to happen, he’s got to understand that. I never wanted a kid to die! It was a fucking mistake—the brat just kept fighting me! It wasn’t my fault.” Carter paced the room, all jittery nervous denial.

A kid had died? And listen to this asshole. Not his fault. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

Carter gave her a sly glance. He seemed to think he had a sympathetic ear. “Look, Pascal and I…we were just testing the waters with the kid thing. It was only a sideline. The routes were already all set up to Miami. And the buyers! Coming out of the woodwork! Willing to pay, cash, no questions asked. So we experimented. Proof of concept. Got a few kids sold, made some dough, but once we knew it was a steady business we were for sure going to cut Quinn in. Shit! I shouldn’t have said that about Pascal. Quinn doesn’t know he was in it too. Can we not mention that? See? I’m not such a bad guy. Don’t want to get my compadre into trouble.” He looked hopefully at Ellie.

“Very noble.”

Carter took her comment at face value. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. She shifted and crossed her legs again, giving him a good look at her naked thighs. He shot her his best version of a winning smile. “The only question now is, how are we gonna fix it?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I so wish I could help you out. But you know Quinn…” She let that dangle in the air between them.

“Mind if I smoke?” he asked nervously. Ellie pointed silently to the discreet “No Smoking” sign. Carter fumbled in his pockets and lit a fat joint anyway. Gulped down wine. Ellie topped off his glass.

Carter sucked on his joint. “The kid was a total accident! Much more in it if they’re alive, right?” A giggle spilled from his mouth. “There’s no reason we can’t go right back to business.” He toked hard on the joint, then set it down on the edge of the nightstand. “But I swear, I was going to cut him in. There were only three before this one. I’ll make good to Quinn on what we made on those too.”

“How much?” Ellie noted dispassionately that the joint was charring the wood.

“What?”

“How much did you make on the other three kids?”

“Fifty K apiece.”

“You sold children for fifty thousand dollars?”

“Okay, it was a hundred! So shoot me for trying to bank a little extra cash! A man’s got to look out for himself.” Carter slugged down more wine. A crafty look came into his eyes. “How ’bout I cut you in for, I don’t know, twenty-five K and you tell Quinn it was fifty? Huh? A little side deal, you and me?” He sidled over to her, put an unwelcome hand on her shoulder.

For fuck’s sake, he was making killing him too damn desirable. It was practically a public service.

Then his hand went up to his forehead. “Whoa.”

“Are you all right?”

“Just need to…whoa. Shit.” He reeled back on his heels, sat heavily on the bed. “Whoops! You’re not…I mean…it’s just that I have to make this right. I’ll make it right, I promise…”

His eyes fluttered closed, then open. He sagged back onto the coverlet. His arm swung, knocking the wine bottle to the floor. He was staring at her.

The words of Rob’s letter reverberated through her mind:
Don’t recoil in horror, darling, please, I can assure you, your target deserves to die.
Even more so than she could have imagined. The monster on the bed before her had killed a child, sold others.

She thought about the man she’d married. She remembered a sleepy Sunday morning a few weeks before the wedding. They had woken just before dawn and turned to each other wordlessly. Sleepy limbs and drowsy breath intertwined and then they were fucking, she sat astride him as he gripped her hips and pulled her deeper on him. They’d come together, explosive, and her body had collapsed like unfolding origami on top of his.

They had had their first talk of children that breathless, sexy morning. In the course of the conversation, she realized Rob shared the same tenderly ambivalent dread she held about having kids. Yet she’d had no idea why. Now she realized that while their life experiences were wildly different, the sufferings they had endured had rendered in them many identical wounds and badly healed scars. This, she realized, was why she really loved him. Because she’d found someone who not only shared her pain, but understood it.

Ellie pulled herself back to the present. Carter’s eyes had finally closed.

The easiest way for you to kill the target will be a knife to the abdominal aorta.

Ellie retrieved the knife she had secreted in the bottom of her beach bag. Tugged off Carter’s clothes. Drew the tip lightly over his stomach, tracing the trajectory she was to follow. A small nick, and he began to bleed. She gagged. Then stumbled away from the bed, sickened and terrified. Stood there panting, her heart pounding in her chest. Then she remembered the innocent children whose lives Carter had destroyed. She thought about Rob, held God-knows-where, relying on her to save his life. She stepped forward, plunged the knife into Carter’s stomach. It was surprisingly difficult to penetrate the layers of skin and muscle and fat. She wrenched and heaved, both hands gripping the handle, panting with exertion. Watched the blood as it began to spill. He jerked once or twice and then was still. She spun away, fighting nausea.

She staggered to the balcony doors, stumbling outside to the salt tang and sickly sweet scent of alcohol, sugar, and fruit too long in the sun.

She had done it. She had killed a man. She had done it for the love of another man. And now they were the same, she and Rob. More united than they had been in marriage, they were united in death.

You will be told to dispose of the body so there is no trace of it. Instead leave the body in a place you know it will be found. What I will ask you to do next will seem grisly, but believe me, darling, it is necessary.

Down on the beach, hard-muscled young men tossed a football in the surf. They shouted and laughed and grunted, their sounds wafting up to the room.

The room where Ellie had just crossed a line she could never uncross.