Out of Luck

by Kendall Talbot

  “Damn.” He muttered under his breath as he pulled on his shorts. Shit like this just didn’t happen to him. Not good shit anyway.

  In the kitchen, he opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of waters. For the first time in years, he wished he had a wine to offer. Hopefully, Charlene wouldn’t ask for one. He plucked his phone off the table and scrolled through his contact list. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he jabbed the number to dial a friend he hadn’t spoken to in years.

  “Crow? Is that you?”

  Marshall grinned as he tugged out a chair to sit. “Hey, Harry, long time between chats.”

  “Sure is. Got me wonderin’ why you’d be calling me now.”

  That’s what he liked about Harry; he was a straight shooter who got down to business ASAP. “It’s a long story. You got time?”

  “Got nothin’ goin’ on at the minute. Hit me with it.”

  Charlene stepped from the bathroom, and he pointed at the water. She collected the bottle, twisted off the cap, and plonked herself down in the seat opposite him.

  “I met this crazy woman who needed to get to Cuba.” He wriggled his eyebrows at her, and Charlene rolled her eyes and took a swig of her drink.

  Harry laughed. “I think I’m gonna enjoy this story.”

  Marshall took his time telling his old navy roommate everything that had happened. Harry had connections in Cuba. More than Marshall did, and more importantly, they were people in authority.

  “How do you think I can help?” Harry asked.

  “I’m hoping you can point me to someone who can do the right thing for that woman they dragged into the bushes.”

  “Hmm. Hang on a sec.”

  Marshall glanced at Charlene, and for the first time, he noticed the cute constellation of freckles across her nose. A series of clicks on the phone had him turning his attention back to the call.

  “You there?” Harry’s gruff voice had the hallmarks of a lifetime smoker.

  “Yeah.”

  “Got the very man for you.” Harry relayed the contact details for a guy who was a senior police officer for Policía Nacional Revolucionaria. Harry went on to say that Alejandro Castillo knew when turning a blind eye was necessary for progress, and Marshall knew exactly what he meant by that.

  Harry had given him the right man.

  They said their good-byes, and Marshall hung up the phone and swigged his water.

  “He seemed like a nice guy.” Charlene tilted her head at him.

  “Yeah, he’s a good man. We served together for many years.”

  Marshall liked that she didn’t ask a dozen questions. It was another aspect of Charlene that drew him in. Hell, everything about her appealed.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “Gotta make another call. But you’re not going to able to follow this one.”

  “Why not?”

  “He probably doesn’t speak English.”

  “Oh.” A frown rippled across her forehead, then she pushed back on her chair. “I’ll go play with Hoppa then.”

  “Hey, don’t go pampering him too much…silly dog will want to stay,” he joked, and she giggled as she carried her water out to the front porch.

  Marshall turned his attention to the next call. It was going to be a tricky one. He needed to give enough information to get the job done, without implicating Charlene. Or himself, for that matter.

  With a plan rehearsed in his head, he made the call. Alejandro answered after the second ring. Marshall told him how he got his number, but he didn’t give his name, and thankfully Alejandro didn’t ask. Marshall explained the site of the massacre, how many bodies would be there, where he could find that poor woman. But it wasn’t until he mentioned Diego’s name that Alejandro’s voice hit a whole new level. The impression he’d been portraying of being annoyed by the call quickly transitioned to interested. Very interested.

  “Where did you say it was?” Alejandro questioned in Spanish.

  Marshall explained the derelict runway and everything he knew about it from his trip there and back.

  Alejandro burst out laughing. Then he dropped a bombshell that ricocheted around Marshall’s brain like a stray bullet.

  Chapter 27

  Noah had spent the last two days fighting both the expectation that the police would come barreling through his door at any moment and the wretched nausea that came with that fear. But as the minutes ticked on and his brain leveled out from the perilous overload, he managed to put the entire debacle into perspective.

  First and foremost, the onus of proof was the critical element that would save him.

  There was no proof that he’d been to Cuba. He’d blackmailed his pilot with the legitimate threat that, should something happen to him, then Noah would drag the pilot down with him. He’d also paid the greedy bastard more than enough to ensure that vital evidence was never revealed.

  There was also no proof that he’d shot Stella. Fortunately for Noah, Colt had wrapped his hand around the gun’s handle to finish the job. A chuckle rumbled from his throat and soon became a full-blown belly laugh as it dawned on him that once again, he’d gotten away with murder. After all, he’d been the one who’d ordered the hit.

  In addition, the isolation of that wretched Cuban runway made it highly unlikely the bodies would ever be found. Yet even if they were, identifying them and connecting them to him was negligible.

  Noah analyzed his situation like it was one of his own cases, and the more he replayed each facet of the fiasco, the more the acid churning in his stomach dissipated. His ultimate conclusion—that he had indeed come away unscathed, yet again—deserved a toast.

  He strolled to his liquor cabinet and poured a glass of his most expensive cognac. The fact that it was only eight in the morning was irrelevant. With the glass in his hand, he moved to the window to sip the liquid gold and admire his multimillion-dollar view.

  Noah had earned his place at the top of the world, and not a single person could ever take that from him. Not his imbecile partner who’d just ruined his own career. And now that Diego was dead, that chapter of his life was forever buried too.

  The spicy cognac put the fire back in his belly that’d been yanked out when his pilot had intended to leave him in Cuba. That was the first time he’d feared for his life.

  Yet as much as it had reduced him to nausea, it had ultimately been invigorating.

  Noah was invincible. Untouchable. The king of his world.

  He raised his glass. “To the king of the world.”

  His desk phone rang, and he clenched his jaw at the intrusion. He’d instructed his secretary to decline all calls, and yet, following suit with all his hired help at the moment, she’d ignored his instructions. The second it stopped, it started again, and he strode to his desk to jab the intercom button. “What?”

  “I’m so sorry, sir, but this man has called every five minutes for the past hour. He won’t go away and, well sir, he wants you to know that Claudia is still alive. So I thought it might be important.”

  An icy chill shot down Noah’s spine pinning him to the floor like a pair of ice picks.

  “Sir…Mr. Montgomery, are you there?”

  He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.

  “Sir…would you like me to put the call through?”

  It was happening again. How could that be? His mind was trapped in a time warp that bounced from twenty-two years ago to forty-eight hours ago. Twice he’d tried to eradicate that bitch from his life. Twice he’d failed.

  He would not fail again.

  With his jaws clamped together, he sat down, grabbed his notepad and pen, and forced his brain to focus. After a calming breath, he said, “Put him through, Annabel.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  She clicked off, and Noah listened to the empty line for a good te
n seconds before he could convince his tongue to move. “What do you want?”

  “Ahh, there you are.”

  It was a man’s voice on the other end. American. Noah decided it had to be the man who’d helped her at the Cuban runway. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the man who’s going to ruin you.”

  “Is that a threat, Mr…” He waited for a name. Noah couldn’t work without names.

  “Oh, no, not a threat. It’s a promise.”

  “Cut the bullshit. What do you want?” Noah admonished himself for losing his cool. It showed weakness. He curled his fingers into a fist and squeezed until his nails dug into his flesh.

  “Claudia wants to meet you.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Noah Montgomery. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to jump on that Gulfstream G650 and get your ass to New Orleans.”

  “I don’t take—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” the man barked down the phone.

  Noah bit his tongue, and the sting brought with it the tang of his own blood. This was a whole new territory for him. Nobody gave him orders. Nobody!

  “You will meet us at the parking lot at the abandoned theme park Six Flags New Orleans. Repeat it!”

  Noah clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Six Flags New Orleans.”

  “You will be there at four o’clock today.”

  “I can’t get—”

  “Bullshit. You flew to Cuba in a day; you can get to New Orleans in four hours. I’m giving you seven.”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “The footage of you shooting that beautiful blonde woman on the runway in Cuba will be plastered all over the front-page news come six o’clock tonight.”

  Noah’s bowels loosened, and a cold sweat flooded his forehead.

  “You still there?”

  Noah wanted to reach down the phone and strangle the cocky bastard. Just like he’d done to Benita. Squeezed and squeezed until her eyes popped.

  “I know you’re still there. So here’s the final instructions. You’re going to drive to the theme park alone, and you’ll have a million dollars with you.”

  A jolt raced through Noah at that final comment. If this was about money, then it was an easy solve. Not that he had any intention of handing over a cent.

  “Repeat it!”

  Noah repeated the instructions, and when the man abruptly hung up, Noah hurled his crystal tumbler at the windows, and it smashed it into dozens of shards, spraying the golden liquid onto his white carpet.

  He stood and paced the floor. Once again, he’d been caught off guard. It was like a switch had been flicked to trigger any and all attempts to crucify him. But he was a fighter. He’d crawled out of tough situations before. He was going to stride out of this one.

  He placed a call to his pilot, and they went through the infuriatingly repetitive haggle to agree on a price. Once that was done, he strode to his safe, punched in the combination, and removed his Ruger LCP II and two magazines. He didn’t need his holster this time. One of the most appealing aspects about this weapon was that he could conceal it in his coat pocket.

  Neither Claudia nor her conspiratorial accomplice will see what’s coming at them.

  Noah rarely traveled in rush-hour traffic, and he hated that he’d been forced to do it today. He settled into the back seat of his limo on the way to JFK and used the solitude to clear his mind and focus solely on the situation at hand. The entire journey was consumed with an inner debate over whether or not the new blackmailer had been bluffing about video footage of him shooting Stella. He mentally listed the facts.

  The remote Cuban airstrip had been dark.

  If the supposed footage was taken by the couple he’d seen running into the bushes, then they were positioned at a significant distance from where the plane landed. Footage, if there was any, would be of poor quality.

  For them to have captured him actually shooting Stella, they would have needed to be positioned at the perfect angle to cover the entire scene.

  Halfway to JFK, his brain stammered to a conclusion. It was highly likely they were bluffing.

  That led to his next question.

  Was money their ultimate intention?

  The blackmailer said Claudia wanted to meet him. Why on earth she’d want to do that was beyond Noah. Maybe she wanted to admire her bloodline. Maybe she wanted to get a confession from him. He huffed. If they did secretly record the conversation, it would be deemed inadmissible in a court of law anyway. So that was the least of his worries.

  He squeezed his hand around the butt of his weapon. The stupid fools were leading him to an abandoned amusement park, and that would make it all too easy for him to kill them both.

  He hoped they were recording the meeting. It would provide him with interesting viewing afterward.

  But he had to be careful. Whoever these two were, they’d taken down eight Cubans and his guards to get away last time.

  All it took was one bullet. Noah wouldn’t miss this time.

  The pilot greeted Noah with a million-dollar smile that Noah wanted to slap right off his face. To top that off, the greedy bastard had insisted Noah show him proof of the electronic transfer before he could board the plan. Noah decided there and then that this would be the pilot’s last job for him.

  Noah buckled into his seat, and before the plane was even airborne, a headache was beginning to burn at the back of his eyes. After swallowing two painkillers, he squeezed his eyes closed and forced his mind to recuperate for the duration of the flight.

  A high-pitched squeal cut through the silence, and Noah jolted upright. To his surprise, he’d actually fallen asleep, and the sound that had woken him was the jet’s tires touching down at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. He shook himself awake and strode to the bathroom.

  When he glanced in the mirror, he was appalled at his reflection. Noah always prided himself on his appearance. Now, though, his face had a hideous pallid hue, and dark smudges surrounded his eyes. He hated that he’d let the stress get to him. He was good at stress. Thrived on it. But this mess was hitting depths he’d never considered possible. For the first time in his life, he was nervous, and he hated that the caller had produced that emotion in him.

  Fighting the urge to punch the mirror, he splashed water on his face, straightened his shoulders, and planted the confident expression on his face that he’d projected over a thousand times in the courtroom.

  By the time he stepped from the bathroom, he was riding a new high at the prospect that he was about to experience another life-changing event that was destined to eclipse the previous two.

  He returned to his seat, glanced at his watch, and was pleased he still had two hours and twenty minutes until the dictated meeting time. According to his research, the drive from the airport to Six Flags New Orleans would take just thirty-two minutes. That gave him enough time to set a trap for Claudia and her accomplice.

  In the leather seat beside him was his briefcase containing two hundred thousand dollars. It was everything he’d had in his safe, but if the blackmailer had given him more time, Noah could have fulfilled the requested demand.

  Not that it was relevant.

  He had no intention of giving them anything…other than early funerals.

  Chapter 28

  Charlene didn’t think she’d ever return to New Orleans. Not after the horror she’d experienced there. But after Marshall had talked her through his plan, it made perfect sense to return to where it all started for her and, in particular, to involve Detective Chapel again. Especially after what Alejandro, the Cuban police officer, had told Marshall on the phone. Her heart had simultaneously skipped a beat and cried at that news. The implications of it were shocking, and yet it was also exactly what they needed.

  De
spite falling asleep in Marshall’s arms, she’d barely slept that night. It was impossible to shut her mind down from the possibility that within twenty-four hours, she’d be standing face-to-face with the monster who killed her mother.

  But she needed to do it.

  She’d seen Noah on television many times, touting his case for innocent victims. He seemed intelligent and dignified, yet something had happened twenty-odd years ago that made him a murderer. Her mind replayed that moment when Peter had whisked her away from her mother. Her screams for her mom had been drowned out by the roar of the plane. The last image she had of her mother was of a beautiful, distraught woman with tears streaming down her cheeks and fear blazing across her eyes.

  Charlene had to know if her escape was the reason Noah had strangled her mother.

  After Marshall had made the call to Noah, he’d moved to a safe that was concealed beneath the floorboards and removed a shoebox-sized case. When he’d opened it, he’d glanced at Charlene. Inside was the biggest handgun she’d ever seen.

  “Want to change your mind?” he’d said.

  She’d dragged her gaze from the weapon and glared into Marshall’s pleading eyes. “No.”

  Nothing was going to change her mind.

  Marshall spent the remainder of the evening trying to talk her out of it. But she wouldn’t back down. Couldn’t. If she didn’t get that closure, she would be forever wondering why. Marshall had pointed out that Noah might have killed her mother simply because he was a madman. And given how easily he’d shot that woman in Cuba, that was potentially true.

  However, Charlene didn’t buy it.

  Their morning had been consumed with packing an overnight bag and Marshall’s nonstop attempts to talk her out of meeting with Noah. On the way to the airport, Marshall dropped into a store, and they purchased some fancy-looking surveillance equipment, which, unlike the gun case, they’d packed into their hand luggage.

  During the flight from Key West to New Orleans, they’d unpacked and examined the camera and microphone. Marshall had explained to her that the footage would be inadmissible in court. However, it was their backup plan. Should Noah get away for some reason, the footage would find its way to all the tabloids in the country.