The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets)

by James, Harper

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ Todd shoved Sonny hard on the shoulder, pushing him away from Mason. ‘Put your mask back on, dummy.’

  ‘Don’t you—’

  Todd backhanded him across the mouth, the slap connecting with Sonny’s lips and busting up through his teeth and his nose and eyes, snapping his head sideways.

  ‘I told you we should never have brought him along,’ Mason said. ‘Kid’s barely out of short pants. Got all the sense of a barn door, too.’

  Sonny touched his lip and looked from one to the other, undecided whether to respond to the slap or the words first.

  ‘We need to get moving,’ Todd said, breaking the tension. ‘Help the clerk with the cash.’ He gave Sonny a push. ‘And put your mask back on.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now—’

  ‘Just put it on.’

  Sonny pulled it back over his head as he walked towards the clerk. Together they pulled cash out of the register and stuffed it into the duffel bag.

  Todd looked up and saw the CCTV camera above the cash register winking at him.

  Shit.

  He raised the sawed-off and blew it into a million little pieces.

  ‘Hope that makes you feel better,’ Mason said, his voice resigned, ‘because it sure as hell doesn’t make any difference now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We might be in the middle of Hicksville, but that thing uploads directly to the cloud.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Exactly. If junior hadn’t shot the manager, we might have been able to get him to log into their online account and delete it . . .’

  They both looked at Sonny.

  ‘At least it’s only his face on camera,’ Mason said.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Mason shrugged.

  ‘Depends on whether you can trust him to keep his mouth shut when they arrest him, which they will now that he’s taken his mask off.’

  Todd gave an angry head shake. This was the last thing he needed.

  ‘He’s your cousin. It’s your call.’

  Todd would’ve been lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to empty the other barrel into the back of Sonny’s head.

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  He called out to Sonny.

  ‘What the hell are you two doing over there? We’re leaving.’

  Sonny came out from behind the counter, one hand under the clerk’s arm, pulling her after him.

  ‘Not her.’

  ‘She’s coming with us. She saw my face.’

  Todd thought about the CCTV, thought about real-time recording to the cloud, thought about raising the sawed-off and blowing Sonny’s stupid head clean off.

  Mason picked up a fifth of Old Crow Bourbon and dropped it in his pocket, watching the thoughts passing behind Todd’s eyes, thoughts he’d put there.

  ‘Could be a technical hitch with the system.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows, maybe their internet connection went down, maybe they didn’t pay the bill. We haven’t got time to argue.’

  ‘Hello? Earth to planet Todd,’ Sonny said in a tone of voice that almost got him another slap. ‘She – saw – my – face. She can ID me.’

  Me too, now she knows my name, dickhead, Todd thought, the temptation of the trigger under his finger calling to him.

  He looked at the girl, at the pale unhealthy skin looking like death warmed up, the bright red lipstick that went well over the real boundaries of her lips. He took in her tight jeans and even tighter white blouse, the buttons undone more than appropriate for the weather outside. Maybe they sold more liquor that way. Or maybe the girl got invited to more parties. It sure as hell worked as far as Sonny was concerned. Todd didn’t reckon he was bothered at all about her seeing his face. He supposed he’d been the same at twenty.

  ‘Okay.’

  The girl grabbed her coat and they all hustled outside. The parking lot was empty apart from the stolen Toyota waiting for them at the curb, Loyd at the wheel. A thin covering of snow covered the asphalt. Todd got in the front, the other two in the back with the girl between them.

  ‘What’s with her?’ Loyd said.

  ‘Just go,’ Todd said. ‘We’ve taken too long already. The cops will be here any minute.’

  Loyd pulled away, spinning the wheels on the wet snow before he got it under control and eased onto the highway, heading north.

  ‘What the hell went on in there? I heard shooting. Sounded like somebody’s nine mil and then your shotgun.’

  ‘The retard shot the manager,’ Mason called from the backseat and pulled the fifth of Old Crow out of his pocket. He twisted the top off it and took a swig, passed the bottle between the front seats to Todd.

  Sonny glared at him but kept his mouth clamped shut in a tight line.

  ‘Shit,’ Loyd said, a three-syllable word. ‘Killed him?’

  Mason gave a short humorless laugh.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll be going to the Christmas party.’

  ‘He was going for the alarm,’ Sonny said. ‘What’d you expect me to do? Ask him nicely please don’t touch that.’

  ‘That’s why you brought her with us?’

  Mason shook his head.

  ‘No, I think that’s got more to do with the tightness of her blouse and junior here just entering puberty.’

  They all laughed except for Sonny and the girl who was rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, sniffing wetly. Todd held the bottle of Old Crow over his shoulder. Sonny reached for it and Mason slapped his hand away.

  ‘Uh-uh. Grown-ups only. You wouldn’t like it anyway, not enough sugar and chemicals. No wonder you kids are so hyper.’

  He took another pull on it, watching Sonny over the bottom of the bottle, his eyes challenging him to try to push it down his throat.

  ‘It gets better,’ he said to Loyd.

  Loyd met his eyes in the mirror.

  ‘What would you do if I called you a retard?’

  ‘Punch you on the nose, maybe.’

  Mason nodded.

  ‘Yeah, sounds reasonable. But would you take off your mask first?’

  The car was silent for a moment while the words sunk in.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Loyd let out a long breath. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, really.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have riled me,’ Sonny said, his voice petulant.

  ‘That’s not all.’

  If it wasn’t for the fact that they were all in it together, you’d have thought Mason was enjoying himself. He took another swig of the Old Crow.

  ‘CCTV records straight to the cloud.’

  Nobody said anything for a long while, the rhythmic slapping of the wiper blades and the girl’s snuffles the only sounds. Outside the snow was getting heavier, big fat wet flakes reflecting in the car’s headlights.

  They drove for another mile or so, then Loyd turned off the highway into a long since abandoned tractor dealership. He drove through the customer parking lot and around behind the main buildings, where he parked beside an ancient, nondescript Dodge minivan. They all piled out and quickly transferred everything into the new vehicle.

  Loyd ducked down under the dash as Todd shone the beam from the flashlight on his cell phone. He touched together the two brown starter wires he’d cut and stripped earlier. The engine wheezed and turned slowly over but didn’t fire.

  ‘Who stole this piece of shit?’

  ‘Who do you think?’ came from Mason’s side of the back seat. ‘Been better if we let the girl here do it. Junior doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.’

  Sonny gave him a dirty look, but had the sense to keep his mouth shut for once. He didn’t like the way Mason’s fingers flexed around the whisky bottle every time he opened his mouth.

  Loyd tried it again. The engine coughed into life sounding like a smoker on a cold morning. Sonny gave Mason an up-yours smile, and they all sat shivering and
waiting for the windshield to clear as five people’s excited breath steamed up the interior.

  ‘Somebody turn on the radio,’ Mason said from the back. ‘There must be something on the news by now.’

  Todd found a local station and they didn’t have to wait for long before their worst fears were confirmed.

  Using CCTV footage, police have identified one of the three armed robbers who held up the Liquor Warehouse near Warrensburg earlier tonight as Sonny Day. During the course of the robbery, Day shot and killed the store’s manager and the gang took a female clerk hostage with them as they made their getaway in a white Toyota Corolla driven by the fourth member of the gang. Police have warned—

  Todd turned it off with an angry stab of his finger. Mason laughed.

  ‘I don’t see what’s so damn funny,’ Todd snapped.

  ‘Sonny Day?’ Mason laughed some more. ‘Is that actually a real name?’

  Sonny looked out the window, didn’t respond. His jaw was clenched tight enough to crack his teeth.

  ‘That’s just about the most inappropriate name I ever heard. Hey, junior, next time your parents have a kid—which they won’t after you popped out last time—get them to give me a call. I’ll come up with something. Rainy night would be more like it—’

  ‘Why don’t you shut your mouth? I’m getting pissed with all your—’

  ‘You’re getting pissed? Because I called you a retard and laughed at your stupid name.’ He gave that an irritated head shake and jabbed his thumb into his chest. ‘I’m getting pissed because I’m probably going back to jail because of you.’

  Todd turned towards them.

  ‘Just give it a rest you two. It isn’t helping any.’

  ‘What now?’ Loyd said, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

  In the back Mason said, ‘Junior’s ugly mug is going to be all over the TV news—’

  Sonny lunged at him, not caring now, squashing the girl between them. She let out a surprised yelp as his elbow caught her in the mouth. Todd leaned back and gave him a resounding slap upside the head.

  ‘Enough!’

  He grabbed his collar and threw him back into his seat while Mason was still deciding whether to poke him in the eye with the whisky bottle or not. Sonny pushed open the door and climbed out, letting in all the cold air. He slammed the door so hard the minivan rocked on its suspension.

  ‘Hey, Loyd, get your foot on the gas,’ Mason yelled. ‘We’re better off without him.’

  Loyd looked at Todd who shook his head.

  Mason groaned.

  ‘Aw, man.’

  Todd gave him an ugly look.

  ‘If we leave him here, you think he’ll take the rap for us? For his good buddies who left him behind in the snow. Get real.’

  Mason couldn’t argue with that. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

  ‘We could take the eighty-seven north and be in Canada in less than two hours.’

  Loyd shook his head.

  ‘No way, not in this weather we couldn’t—’

  Todd slammed his palm on the dash, quietening them.

  ‘Don’t be so stupid. That’s exactly what they expect us to do. There’ll be roadblocks set up already. Southbound too.’

  ‘That leaves east or west.’

  ‘West,’ Todd said with enough conviction in his voice to make them look at him. ‘Into the mountains. I know just the place where we can lie low for a day or two until we decide what to do. There’s an old hotel, closed for renovation.’

  ‘Now, Loyd,’ Mason yelled. ‘Go, go, go, before junior stops sulking and gets back in.’

  Todd nodded and grinned at Loyd.

  ‘Take it nice and easy. Let him run down the road after us until he’s worked off all that excess testosterone.’

  ‘No problem,’ Loyd said, the words riding out on the back of a low chuckle, ‘I reckon my apartment moves faster than this heap of junk anyway.’

  Todd reached between the seats and patted the girl on the knee. She didn’t look up, kept on staring at her hands in her lap.

  ‘You’ll probably thank us for tiring him out too, won’t you, sweetheart?’

  Loyd pulled away and they set off to the sweet sound of Sonny’s enraged shout. Mason leaned past Loyd and gave the horn a mocking toot. The old minivan trundled down the road at a steady ten miles per hour, bursting at the seams with seething, pent-up anger and frustration just looking for an excuse to erupt.

  God help anyone who got in their way.

  Chapter 2

  THE BACK WHEELS OF the rental SUV slipped on the wet snow as Evan turned into the private drive that led to The Lodge, an exclusive boutique hotel sitting on the banks of its own private lake, twenty miles further into the mountains from the more famous Lake Placid.

  Gina’s hand rested on Evan’s thigh and she gave it a squeeze as the car slid sideways.

  ‘Careful, I don’t want to spend the weekend digging us out of a ditch.’

  ‘No? What do you want to spend it doing?’

  She smiled. Some things didn’t need to be spelled out. She looked across at him concentrating hard to get the car back on track, studied his profile. He was handsome, but not in the way that made you think he’d hold up the bathroom every morning. His look was more rugged, his face just on the right side of craggy, his smile a bit crooked, his hair not fully tamed. Weathered skin, crow’s-feet around the eyes, strong chin and nose. She could think of worse ways to spend the weekend.

  The SUV righted itself and they continued down the tree-lined drive, the snow still falling, but more gently now.

  ‘It’s so beautiful. I can’t believe this is real.’

  A couple of months earlier—although it felt like a lifetime ago now—they’d had dinner at a steakhouse near Louisville, down in Kentucky, while he was on a case. He’d never forget it—she’d never let him for starters—but it was the night before Gina was abducted and ended up getting shot in the leg while he overslept in her bed. He hadn’t known that at the time, of course, and on the way out he’d dropped his business card into a jar and forgotten all about it.

  Then, a month later, he took a call telling him he’d won a weekend for two at a newly-renovated hotel buried deep in the mountains of upstate New York. He’d thought long and hard about asking Kate Guillory if she wanted to go. Guillory was a detective with the local police department. Their relationship started out confrontational when she had to restrain him to stop him attacking her partner, and then turned into a purely professional working arrangement. Now things were blurring at the edges. In the end he decided against it. They’d only been to dinner a couple times, after all. And he wasn’t sure if he was ready for the relationship to develop with everything else that was going on in his life.

  So, he called Gina up and invited her and she jumped at the opportunity. She probably deserved a break more than Guillory anyway. It could hardly turn out as badly as last time, after all. Stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, even he couldn’t get in any trouble. There’d been a catch—the hotel wasn’t officially open yet after the renovation. Along with two other lucky couples, they were assuming the roles of luxury guinea pigs.

  Evan pulled up in front of the main building and parked next to the only other car, an expensive Mercedes SUV. They sat with the engine running admiring the beautiful old building and enjoying the sense of peace and solitude when a news item on the radio caught their attention.

  Using CCTV footage, police have identified one of the three armed robbers who held up the Liquor Warehouse near Warrensburg earlier tonight as Sonny Day. During the course of the robbery, Day shot and killed the store’s manager and the gang took a female clerk hostage with them as they made their getaway in a white Toyota Corolla driven by the fourth member of the gang. Police have warned that the men are armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached under any circumstances.

  Evan reached over and switched it off.

  ‘That poor girl,’ Gina said.

 
‘Yeah. You, more than anyone, can sympathize with how she must be feeling.’

  They were both quiet a few moments as thoughts of Gina’s ordeal filled their minds. So far, they’d managed to keep away from the subject but he could feel it hovering just out of sight—and there was still a lot of weekend ahead of them.

  He gave her leg a squeeze.

  ‘Let’s hope it turns out as well for her as it did for you.’

  She pulled her head back to look at him better, her eyes narrowing.

  ‘What? You mean it’s worth being abducted by maniacs and getting shot for a chance at a weekend away with you?’

  He gave a gentle shrug, kept his face deadpan.

  ‘A lot of women would say so. It was only your leg after all.’

  He knew more than most people that there was no only about it. He was still recovering from being shot in the leg himself—with an arrow rather than a bullet—by a psychopath called Floyd Gray in the course of his last investigation.

  He immediately regretted the comment, not because he thought Gina would be offended, but because it brought the story that Floyd Gray had told him back to mind. And the whole point of the trip had been to try to forget about all of that for a while. Unfortunately, he knew it would all come out as soon as she saw the scar.

  But, for the moment, she didn’t rise to the bait. She was learning.

  ‘You’re right. It couldn’t possibly turn out that well.’

  He grinned at her and she felt a little worm of excitement start up in her stomach. It soon passed as she thought again about the poor girl’s plight.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t think it’ll end in a good way at all,’ she said. ‘Not where people like that are concerned.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘We passed through Warrensburg.’

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘You were dozing at the time.’

  ‘I was not!’

  ‘Snoring too.’

  ‘Now I know you’re lying.’

  ‘I remember seeing that liquor store and thinking maybe we should get a bottle of champagne there instead of paying for it here.’

  She slapped him on the arm but she was smiling.