Princess

by Christina Skye

  “Thanks.” Jess slid into the car and took the phone, surprised to hear Hawk’s quiet voice.

  “Jess?”

  “Um, hi, honey.”

  “You need to get out of that car now,” he said tightly.

  “My friends and I are going out for a while, just up the road to my friend Luellen’s house. Don’t worry, honey. I’ll be fine.”

  “Get out of there, Jess.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “Why? Is she drunk?”

  “No, I don’t like Chinese food. If you want to stop, let’s get barbecue—you know how crazy I am for that.”

  “She’s crazy?” Hawk cursed softly. “Is anyone left inside the building?”

  “No . . . honey. And I won’t be long.”

  “Is the dog, L.Z., sitting up, looking stiff?”

  “Yes, I’d say there’s no doubt about it.”

  “Jess, I need you to put Izzy on the phone. Do it now.”

  “I will, honey. See you soon.” She pretended to power down the phone and held the lit screen toward Izzy so that he saw it clearly.

  “All done? No problems?” Izzy looked at the screen, then carefully slipped the activated phone into his purse.

  “He said it was fine. He’ll just wait.” Jess was certain that Hawk was either tracking them through the cell phone or recording their conversation . . . or both. He’d used his phone as a recorder in the elevator when the threats had come over the speaker. There was no question that he and Izzy were using state-of-the-art technology.

  Luellen gave a cold laugh. “Glad that’s done with. Ladies, start your engines.” She rested her gun on the dashboard as she fishtailed out of the parking lot.

  The Bronco went into a skid, and beads of sweat trickled down Jess’s neck.

  “Is he good in bed?”

  Jess stared at Luellen. They’d been driving for almost fifteen minutes, and Izzy had carried most of the conversation during their drive. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, Jess had volunteered only one-word answers so far. Staring at Luellen, she wriggled in the seat, moving her feet restlessly. “Is who good in bed?”

  “Your husband—that man I saw you with on the TV. So is he good in the sack?”

  Jess cleared her throat. “Uh . . . pretty good, I guess.” Her toe brushed something hard under Luellen’s seat. Moving aside her purse, Jess searched the floor and pulled out a folded towel that felt unusually heavy.

  When she opened the towel, Jess realized why.

  Inside the dusty cloth was a Colt 45. The 1911 model was loaded with a full magazine judging by its weight. Jess’s sister had the same model Colt for use as her non-service weapon, and she trained with it once a month at a private gun range in south Philadelphia, even dragging Jess along several times for reluctant and very uncomfortable lessons.

  Jess sat back stiffly. Was Luellen so paranoid that she had weapons stashed wherever she could reach them in an emergency? God help them all, if so.

  One thing was certain. Jess couldn’t possibly give the gun back to Luellen. The woman was running on empty in the logic department, and a second loaded weapon was the last thing she needed.

  Taking small movements, she rewrapped the Colt and slipped it down into her purse where Luellen wouldn’t notice it. “You mean he’s no better than good? Now, that’s a damned shame.” The manager blew out a sigh. “You ask me, there’s nobody half as hot as Paul Senior on American Choppers.” She grinned, tapping her gun against the steering wheel. “Damn, that man has one prime body.” She gave a ragged laugh. “He can clean my carburetor plugs anytime he wants.” She grinned back at Jess, and barely missed a garbage truck lumbering in the opposite direction.

  Izzy inched over the seat, as if he were bracing to grab the wheel.

  “Almost home.” The manager slowed down abruptly. “If I don’t crash because of Ruthie’s stuff down here on the floor.” She reached down and tossed a book onto the dash. “That kid leaves books everywhere.”

  Beside Izzy, the big dog sat up straight, body rigid.

  “Damn, but there’s something real wrong with your dog.”

  Izzy stroked the dog’s back. “It only happens around strangers, part of the training. So your daughter reads a lot?” he asked.

  “Thanks to that no-account boyfriend she hangs around with. I saw him come out of the public library with twenty books one day, filling Ruthie’s head with his crazy ideas about college and traveling.” She turned the wheel with a nerve-wracking jerk. “If I find out she snuck out to see him tonight, I’m going to lock her in the tool shed.”

  Jess swallowed. “You wouldn’t really do that?” Her fingers curled into her palms and she flashed back to panic and disorientation. She scowled at Luellen, hating the memories of her own blinding fear.

  “Damn right I would.” Luellen took another curve dangerously fast. “There’s my place. And that ex of mine better not be anywhere close.”

  Through the dense trees Jess saw a weathered gray trailer with three smaller buildings, no more than sheds, spaced out along a muddy path.

  “It must be peaceful out here,” Izzy said quickly, as if he sensed Jess struggling with her anger.

  “Part of the reason I like it. That and I can see someone coming in time to protect myself.” She braked hard, her gun tapping on the wheel. “Any other cars in sight?”

  “None that I can see,” Izzy said after a casual check.

  “Good. Okay, ladies, you can hit the bathroom, and I’ll find my kid. After that, we’ll go get ourselves some truly heart-stopping barbecue. Beer’s on me.”

  FUBAR, Hawk thought grimly. He had heard every word of the conversation in Luellen’s car. Now that Jess had been shanghaied to join Luellen’s crazy expedition, the whole op was spiraling from bad to downright nasty, courtesy of Mr. Murphy and his screwed-up laws. If they hadn’t needed Luellen to give quick access to her trailer for L.Z. to track the bear, he’d have ordered that she be taken out by a quick, nonlethal use of force. But now that L.Z. had signaled a positive scent they needed Luellen, crazy as she was. Hawk didn’t want to risk any harm to the animal.

  He walked through the Laundromat, past half a dozen agents who were busy combing every inch of space for evidence. So far they had found nothing to suggest the lab animal had ever been there, and without L.Z., their job would take hours, not seconds.

  He motioned to a man in a flight suit. “Is the chopper ready?”

  “All set, Lieutenant.”

  “Then let’s move.”

  “Lieutenant, I need to speak with you first.”

  Hawk picked up an aluminum case from the floor and turned to the woman waiting in the doorway. “Yes?”

  “I was told to report to you or Ishmael Teague as soon as I arrived, sir. I drove straight up from California.”

  “You’ve been fully briefed?”

  The woman nodded. “Code name: Princess, sir. I had extensive lab and medical experience before I joined the agency, and I’m ready to take custody of the bear as soon as it’s located. My identification has been verified by your people outside.”

  “Hold on.” Hawk adjusted his earpiece as he received the thumbs-up for the new arrival. “I don’t have time to talk.” He glanced down at her ID. “Agent Lindstrom.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been checking out Luellen Hammel and her twelve-year-old daughter, the way you requested. The girl is an honor student, sir. No discipline problems in school. She keeps animals and seems to be pretty quiet.”

  Hard to figure out genetics, Hawk thought grimly. You could tinker with whole animals, but you couldn’t hope to understand a human family.

  “Anything else I need to know, Agent Lindstrom? I doubt you came all the way up here to brief me on the suspect’s model family.”

  “No, sir.” The agent hesitated, fingering the badge clipped to her jacket. “You need to know two things. One, Princess has had only female handlers, so she may become agitated around males. She has a very sensitive
sense of smell due to her genetic programming, so she will pick up subtle hormonal differences.” She glanced off to the south, where a bank of gray clouds straddled the mountains.

  “And?” Hawk prompted. “Give me the rest.”

  “Princess is sick,” the agent said quietly. “She exhib-ited some organ malfunction during her transport from Australia, but it didn’t appear to be significant. Now that we’ve studied the lab work, it’s clear that her organ problems are growing more severe. These problems are compounded by a highly advanced aging process, which is common in transgenic mammals.”

  “So you’re saying the clock is ticking?”

  “In a nutshell.”

  Wind furrowed through the azalea bushes near the town square. Even with the window closed, Hawk could hear dead leaves skitter along the deserted sidewalk. “How much time do I have, Agent Lindstrom?”

  A muscle tightened at her jaw. “Less than twenty-four hours, sir. After that, the deterioration of Princess’s organs will be irreversible.”

  chapter 22

  Jess’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She had to keep reminding herself that Izzy knew what he was doing, and that Hawk was somewhere nearby, tracking them via cell phone. Meanwhile, she was determined not to trigger Luellen to more reckless behavior. Jess wasn’t sure if the woman was desperate for friends or if she was psychotic.

  Izzy studied the gravel driveway and gray trailer that perched awkwardly at the top of a denuded hill.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Luellen swung open the car door.

  “It must be quiet all the way out here.”

  “You bet, and that’s just the way I like it.” Luellen slung her purse over her shoulder and stomped up the wooden steps to the trailer. “Come on, you two. I’ll get Ruthie and then we can go.”

  Izzy fell back and leaned close to Jess. “Stay here,” he whispered. “Once she’s inside, sprint for the woods.”

  Luellen turned and glanced back at them. “What are you two waiting for?”

  Izzy smiled uncertainly. “Are you sure you want us to come inside?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  Jess waited tensely as Luellen opened the front door of the trailer, the gun still gripped at her side. “Ruthie!”

  “Mom?” Bushes rustled at the back of the trailer. A girl in a red sweatshirt pushed through a row of azaleas. “Just wait till I tell you who came—” She stopped when she saw Jess and Izzy. “Who are you?”

  “They’re my friends, that’s who.” Luellen glared at her daughter. “Have you been with that no-account boyfriend again?”

  The girl swallowed hard. “Of course not, Mom. You told me not to, remember?”

  “I know what I told you, and if I see that boy around here again, I’ll call the police on him. You’re both underage, and damned if I’ll let you sneak off into the woods so he can fumble at your clothes.”

  “But, Mom, I don’t—”

  “Hush. We’ve got company. Say hello.”

  “Hello,” Ruthie said stiffly. “Why are you carrying that gun, Mom? You promised me you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

  Luellen sniffed. “Too many people driving past the Laundromat late at night, honey. Something damned strange about it.” Luellen patted her daughter’s arm awkwardly. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you. Go get your sweater because we’re all going out for barbecue.”

  Ruthie eyed Izzy and Jess uncertainly. “Are they from town, Mom? I mean—they don’t look familiar.”

  Jess shot a glance at Izzy. Strangely, Ruthie seemed to have more sense than her mother.

  “Just met them today, but they’re real nice people. C’mon. Let’s go.”

  Ruthie fingered her big bookbag. “Sure, but first I gotta feed my animals. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  She didn’t wait for permission, but raced toward an unpainted wooden shed with a single high window and vanished into a side door.

  Luellen snorted. “Her precious animals. As the Lord is my witness, that girl treats those animals like they were her best friends.” She frowned. “I guess she gets lonely, living all the way out here. Her creep of a father keeps trying to take her back to Seattle, but I won’t let him have her. Not as long as I can draw breath.”

  “She looks smart,” Izzy said. “Real nice, too.”

  Ruthie appeared at the door of the shed, locked it carefully, then ran across the grass. “All done, Mom. Let me dump my books.” She raced up the steps and into the house.

  Luellen’s mouth curved. “Smart as a whip, that’s a fact. Got straight A’s on her last report card. Lord knows, she doesn’t get her brains from me. All I gave her was spunk.”

  Jess struggled not to gape, surprised by Luellen’s show of maternal pride and insight. Then she heard L.Z. bump Izzy’s leg, whimpering low at the back of the throat.

  Luellen backed up slowly. “There goes that dog of yours again. You sure she isn’t sick?”

  Izzy stroked the dog, but L.Z. remained rigid. “She just gets upset around strangers, or she might smell Ruthie’s animals. It’s protective instinct.” Izzy’s voice was calm, but his shoulders were tense, his eyes carefully scanning every inch of the terrain around them.

  It had to do with the dog, Jess realized. Whenever the dog reacted to something, Izzy seemed to go on alert. And he looked wired now, as if braced for hostile action.

  Ruthie rushed back minus her bookbag. “Mom, I forgot to tell you. Your friend came through here a few minutes ago on a motorcycle.”

  Izzy’s eyes narrowed. Jess saw his stance shift subtly.

  “What friend?” Luellen asked irritably. “You’re not supposed to talk to men, Ruthie.”

  “He had these way cool boots and a camouflage jacket and—”

  “You mean, your father was here?”

  “No, not Dad. I don’t know this guy, but he had boots sort of like Dad’s and he said he was a friend of yours from the Laundromat. He wanted to know where you were and when you’d be back.”

  Boots.

  Fear dug into Jess’s chest.

  Izzy turned slowly. “Sounds kind of scary. Is he a friend of yours, Luellen?”

  “No one I know.” Luellen punched out an angry breath. “I told you there’ve been all kinds of people driving around here at night. When I go out to check, they cut off their lights. Probably that turd husband of mine is putting them up to it,” she said in disgust. “Anything to get out of paying child support, not that he pays more than once a year.” She scowled at a bent sycamore tree behind the trailer. “At least he makes a good sight for my target practice.” She gestured toward a picture of a man’s face tacked on the tree trunk. Bullets had left ragged holes across the forehead and drilled out both eyes and cheeks.

  Jess took a sharp breath as Luellen moved around Ruthie and put two bullets right between the man’s eyes. And there was no doubt that the face on the tree belonged to the man she’d seen in the diner, the same man she had seen briefly on TV.

  “That’s your husband?” Jess asked anxiously.

  “Richard Dickman, aka Richard the Dick,” Luellen said with a sneer. “Mean, nasty sonofabitch that he is. If he comes around here again, I’ll drill him in the head for real this time.”

  “Mom,” Ruthie said anxiously, “did you take your medicine today?”

  “I don’t need that stuff anymore. It makes me feel crappy, like my thoughts are all scrambled up.”

  As if they weren’t already scrambled, Jess thought.

  “That man told you he was a friend of your mother’s, Ruthie? Not a friend of your father’s?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “I guess so. I didn’t see anyone else around.”

  Izzie shifted his bag to his left arm. “Ruthie, maybe you should show Jess around while I use the bathroom? I see you’ve got quite a garden in back.”

  Ruthie glanced at her mother for permission.

  “Go on,” Luellen said impatientl
y. “Show her your animals while you’re at it. I know all about having to pee.” She winked at Izzy. “It’s hell getting old, isn’t it?”

  “But, Mom, I really don’t think—”

  Luellen shook her head. “Always arguing. Just like your father—may his mean and stingy soul rot in hell.”

  “I’d like to see the garden,” Jess said quietly.

  Ruthie glanced slowly from Jess to Izzy, then trotted over the damp grass. “Just watch your step. It’s real muddy back here.”

  Halfway down the hill, Jess heard the low whine of motors coming from the trees behind them.

  At the sound, Izzy halted, one foot on the trailer steps. He dug into his red handbag and stared at the three men on motorcycles winding along a muddy track that climbed up from the foothills. “Luellen?”

  “Don’t know them.” Luellen was staring down the hill with narrowed eyes, her fingers clenched on her Colt.

  “They’re probably not here to pick up their dirty laundry.” Izzy pulled a phone from his purse. “Get Ruthie and Jess into that storm shelter behind your trailer.” His voice was low and harsh. It was also unquestionably male now.

  “Wait a damned minute.” Luellen took a step backward. “You’re not a woman. You’re a frigging man.”

  The drone of the motorcycles grew louder.

  “Do it, Luellen.”

  “Damn, you really are a man.” Luellen was still struggling to get her thoughts around the fact that Izzy had completely duped her. “Why the hell are you dressed that way?” The gun twitched in her hand as if it had a life of its own.

  “Look, I’m a good guy, Luellen.” Izzy’s voice was a low growl. “But right now we’re all in danger. So get them out of sight and don’t come out until you hear me call you. Understand?” Izzy scanned the slope while punching in a number on his phone.

  “It’s that husband of mine, isn’t it?” Luellen hissed. “I thought I saw him on TV today. What’s he done now? Armed robbery? Illegal gun sales?”