The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  Like Ivy.

  Oh, Ivy. A couple of months back that girl was actually thinking about going down the path of artificial insemination, essentially eliminating the best part of the process—the big bang. Zahera had told her that at age twenty-eight she still had plenty of birthing years left in her. “The right man meant just for you will eventually find his way into your busy life,” Zahera had said on one of her more philosophical days, “and when he does, your heart will never feel the same.”

  She figured that speech would keep Ivy’s mind at bay for at least a year. For now, she knew other things occupied every bit of her friend’s time. The hunt for Anika’s parents that had taken Ivy and Cristina down to South Padre Island, and then the fallout from that lunatic killing people using rats. Rats! Her thoughts went to Jake and Evan. From what Ivy said, Jake had resisted the murderer with every means possible, including his handgun. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. Another one dead.

  Was it because he knew Ivy? It seemed that way. This time, though, the killer had screwed up. He’d left too much evidence for Stan and his cohorts not to find him. It was only a matter of time.

  Now if that bitch, Pearl Griffin, would stop writing hateful blog posts about Ivy, life would be less complicated. The woman had sent out another blast this afternoon, acting as if Ivy were some type of magnet for demented murders. Basically, the Nothing But the Truth blogger now held Ivy accountable for all of the deaths. Zahera thought about posting a reply right on the blog, but she knew Pearl controlled the content of the site. Waste of time.

  Just before walking out of the living room, she’d sent Ivy the latest post, just so she wasn’t blind-sided in case someone threw it in her face. With Saul apparently not part of their group any longer—and for good reason—Ivy might want to talk to an attorney. One of her old flames who practiced law. There had to be some way to put a muzzle on that blogging witch.

  Releasing a deep breath, she admitted her fear factor about this killer was still in the yellow zone. She lived in one of the most secure residences in San Antonio. Even though Clint thought everything that moved was food, he was protective. And if all else failed, she had her Walther 9mm. “The equalizer,” she said with a giggle.

  Zahera caught her reflection in one of the chrome fixtures. She sat up, splashing soapy water over the side. Looking closer, she wondered if she saw the beginning of her first…

  She couldn’t say the word. She was only thirty-two, not fifty-two. Thanks to good genes and a sizable investment in organic face creams, she could pass for twenty-five. And she planned to keep it that way for another ten years. Even if it took an extra nip or tuck.

  Easing backward, she heard Clint release a howl. “Clint, you sound like a coyote,” she hollered. “Hush it. You’ll wake up the neighbors.”

  Ten seconds later, another howl. She climbed out of the tub, dried off, and walked naked through the condo to the utility room. She had Clint locked up again—he’d barfed up a fresh set of flowers. Probably wasn’t wise to put out live flowers; the dog would eat anything his canines could chew on.

  “Where was that bellman?” She’d called fifteen minutes before her bath, hoping he’d take Clint for a nice, long walk. Sometimes, she’d get in a workout and run Clint until his tongue was wagging. But not after working fourteen hours on those heels. Unsure of where she’d put her phone, she decided against calling downstairs for now. She unlatched his cage and cut up half of a leftover steak and dropped it in his bowl. His euphoric moan reminded her of most men—one-tracked and self-centered. She walked back to her room, knowing that if anyone was looking through her ten-foot windows twelve stories high, they’d get quite the view. She smacked her ass and sauntered back into the bathroom, where she sat in her makeup chair and applied a copious amount of lotion to her entire body.

  “Silky smooth,” she said, running her hand up her calf. She began to rub a special exfoliator on her feet and heels when the doorbell rang. “Now he shows up?” She threw on a robe, grabbed Clint’s leash, and whistled for him as she walked to the door. She opened it and saw someone she didn’t recognize.

  “You’re new,” she said.

  The pear-shaped man dipped his hat. “I work odd hours, but I’d be happy to take your dog out for a walk.”

  The guy’s hat was so low she could hardly see his eyes. Not that she wanted to. His acne needed major work. She turned and yelled for Clint. “Come on, boy.” She didn’t hear his paws tapping the hardwoods.

  “What kind of dog is he?” the man asked.

  She flipped around and noticed he was still standing outside her door. “Come on in. Here’s the leash.” She tossed it to him, then walked toward the dining room at the same time Clint busted through the kitchen and jumped on her. Thankfully, he’d been fixed a year earlier, so she didn’t have any embarrassing moments of his little wanker making an unexpected appearance in front of company. “Stop slobbering on me. You want to go for a walk outside?”

  The Doberman dropped to the floor and sprinted over to the bellman, who was shaking the leash. The bellman leaned down and rubbed his ears, then hooked the leash onto the collar. “Thatta boy. Let’s go have some fun.”

  Zahera smiled. “Just let yourself out, and I’ll see you back up here in fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Will do,” the bellman called out.

  She heard the jingle of Clint’s collar and dog tags until the door shut. She strutted back to the bathroom, de-robed, and returned to her makeup chair.

  She lathered up her torso, then turned her attention to her feet. If anything needed extra attention, it was her dogs. She applied an extra amount and rubbed for a good minute.

  Then she heard a noise. She stopped and lifted her head. Did she hear shoes squeaking on the floor? Was it the bellman? She realized she hadn’t asked him his name, and he hadn’t offered it. He wasn’t new, he’d said, just worked odd hours.

  “Sir,” she called out.

  No one said a word. “Clint, come here, boy.”

  More silence.

  When the dog didn’t start barking and going ape-shit crazy, she knew she was alone. She finished her lotion routine, slipped her robe back on, and carefully padded into the kitchen—her feet were like ice skates from the heavy sheen of lotion. Opening the fridge door, she spotted a bottle of guava juice. Just what a good body needs. As she picked up the juice, she also grabbed the remnants of the steak. She didn’t want anything going bad in her fridge.

  She shut the door. The bellman was standing a foot from her, a twisted smile on his face. A feeling of dread shot up her spine. She dropped the bottle and steak, glass exploding at her ankles. She jumped backward, slipped, and went airborne. It seemed like she hung in the air for seconds, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t swing her arm around to break the fall. Her head smacked the hardwood. As the pain rippled through her head and neck, for some bizarre reason her mind instantly replayed the sound—the sound of a hammer driving in a nail. Somehow she opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred, dark at the edges, but she saw enough to see the man with jagged teeth reaching toward her. He stuffed a smelly rag on her face. Ether. She shook violently, but her attempts were futile. He gripped the back of her head like it was a tennis ball, his fingers boring into her skull. She knew instantly: once the lights went out, she was dead. Just like Eileen. Just like Joanna. She’d wake up to a rat eating its way through her body.

  With a final burst of energy, she kicked like a wild woman, flailing her arms, smacking the man’s face, trying to claw out his eyes. His hat was knocked off, and she felt a layer of sweat on bumpy skin, then long strands of greasy hair. It almost ignited her gag reflex.

  The man crammed the rag even harder into her face, her verve to fight almost at zero. Her arms dropped to the floor, landing on meat. It wasn’t a weapon really, but that didn’t dissuade her from summoning a final surge and stuffing the steak in his face and eyes, up his nose.

  All the while, she could feel herself slipping under, into
the darkness.

  Paws clipped against the hardwoods.

  Clint?

  On what might have been her final intake of breath, she heard an angry growl. The man pushed off her and fell back on his heels as Clint leaped over her, taking the man down to the ground. She wiped her eyes and saw Clint biting into the man’s face. She had to get to her bedroom. Her gun. With her mind still fighting to stay awake, she tugged on the edge of the kitchen island, moving her body all of two feet.

  “Crap,” she gasped.

  Another glance over her shoulder. The man smacked Clint’s jaw. The big dog yelped but didn’t stop, didn’t give the man a second to right himself.

  The break gave her a chance to fight harder, to stay awake, to live. She got to her knees, pushed herself upward, and lumbered to her bedroom. She threw open her bedside table, finding her Walther 9mm. Her arms quivered, every blink of her eyes moving objects left and right—nothing in focus. But the grip of the gun was as familiar as a body part. She stumbled out of the bedroom just as the man raced for the front door of the condo. He looked up as he ran across the Persian rug. That caused him to trip, dropping like a tree, his chin popping off the entry tile. Setting her feet, she used both arms to raise the gun. She took aim.

  Clint leaped out of nowhere a hair before she pulled the trigger. A scream escaped her lips, knowing she almost put a bullet into her faithful dog. Clint landed on the man’s crotch and bit into it just like he had his face. The man wailed, shaking his body left and right. She now saw cuts and blood on the man’s face. She raised her gun again, but she couldn’t risk killing Clint.

  Her phone. It was on the couch. She grabbed it, dialed 911. The man shoved Clint to the side. She lifted her gun and fired just as the man jumped through the door opening.

  Splinters of wood exploded into the foyer. She made her way to the door, looked down the hall, and only found a trail of blood.

  But it wasn’t her blood. Thanks to Clint.

  33

  It was nearly midnight, a half-moon allowing me to see patchy clouds. The four of us—Mona, Dexter, Cristina, and I—were loitering on a concrete slab in a small, gated community on the northern part of the island where every homesite was either vacant or under construction. Tapping the flashlight button on my phone, the cone of light illuminated three planks with nails sticking out in the ocean water, jutting up against the property. The planks smacked the side of a dock.

  “Construction crews don’t give a shit where their mess ends up,” I said, using my shoe to push boards, nails, and two bags of fast-food trash out of my path. “Here, hold this.” I gave my phone to Cristina, who held the light at the edge of the three-foot drop. I got down on both knees, leaned over, plucked the planks out of the Laguna Madre bay water, and then tossed them into a makeshift dumpster made out of plywood.

  “There’s probably two truckloads of crap in there; we just can’t see it,” Cristina said.

  “Feel free to jump in and dredge the bottom,” I said with an obvious tint of sarcasm.

  I turned my face into the southerly breeze and saw Mona and Dexter nervously pacing on the other end of the slab, in what appeared to be the master bedroom. Mona hadn’t stopped smoking. Part of the frame of the house had been erected, giving me an idea of the layout. A piece of plastic the size of Black Beauty flapped in the stiff wind. Its tattered ends reminded me of Revolutionary War pictures from my history class, where the war-torn American flag stood proudly as cannons and muskets fired all around.

  Thankfully, we weren’t in a war zone. We were waiting on Anika so she could be reunited with her parents.

  “You sure you got the address right?” I asked as Cristina shuffled by me.

  “Yep. Checked it twice. She didn’t want to meet in public, knowing her parents were squeamish about that sort of thing.”

  “Smart girl,” I said.

  “A girl who lives on the street is usually pretty smart,” she said, tapping a finger to the side of her head.

  “Present company included.”

  “Don’t you know it.”

  A phone buzzed, and I tapped my pocket. “You have both phones.”

  Cristina pulled out two cell phones and stuck mine in my hand. “It’s Stan.”

  We’d talked earlier, when I’d given him the name of Vincent Sciaffini. I asked if he could find out if Sciaffini was indeed a shark. “Again?” I clicked the talk button as she nodded.

  “Boy, you really know how to attract maggots,” he said.

  “Thanks. But not really.”

  “Your boy Sciaffini is…well, let’s just say he’s Chicago’s version of John Gotti, but a hell of a lot smarter, richer, and slimier.”

  “So it’s true? Sciaffini sent men to kill Mona and Dexter for the debt they owed a casino?”

  “I have no idea. That might take weeks of investigation, working with Chicago PD, our department, Vegas PD, even the FBI.”

  I wondered if Mona and Dexter would be alive that long. “That’s not good news, Stan.”

  “It gets worse.”

  “What now?”

  “When we were talking earlier, you mentioned that Cristina had asked the Chicago Police Department if they could check in on Sara Litvin.”

  “You have an update?”

  “You’re the first call I made after dropping the line with Chicago. And…” He paused a moment to bark some instructions to a coworker.

  “And what?”

  “They found her in her kitchen with a bullet hole between her eyes.”

  It felt like a hundred-pound weight had fallen on my chest. “What?” I squeaked out, my voice a wet garble.

  “You said she was Mona Hamrick’s AA sponsor, right?”

  “They confirmed it earlier for me.”

  “We need to bring them in, put them in protective custody. Not sure if Sciaffini is sending a message or if it was a random shooting, but we can’t take the chance.”

  I turned and watched the Hamricks for a moment. They were bundles of nervous energy, their faces looking to the main road on the other side of the stone fence every time lights broke through the darkness. I didn’t want to ruin this moment with Anika.

  “I’ll tell them after they see their daughter.”

  “Call me, and we’ll set something up. If I don’t answer, call Moreno.”

  “Why wouldn’t you answer?”

  “Shit, I was in so much of a rush to get out of here, I almost forgot. We’ve got a name, Ivy.”

  My pulse ticked faster. “A name?”

  “Our IT guys were able to use the data from the dating website to connect an IP address to a small home owned by Ryan Erickson. I think we’ve got the guy who killed these people and tortured you.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Stan, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Thank me later. I’m part of the team heading out there right now.”

  “Where?”

  “Hill Country. Somewhere outside of Boerne.”

  Memories of the room in which I had been held captive flooded my mind. The lights that nearly fried my brain, the water that pulverized my skin, the blast of cold air that froze every appendage on my body, the slicing of my skin, the electric shock. I knew it back then—I couldn’t have been anywhere near civilization. Not with the intensity that I had cried for help.

  “Get him, Stan. Get his ass.”

  “We will.”

  We ended the call, and I released a trembling breath. “You okay?” Cristina touched my shoulder. I gave her a thirty-second update on both fronts.

  “Hallelujah,” she said, then she turned to look at Mona and Dexter.

  A crack of a gun, followed instantly by concrete chips spraying in our faces.

  We were being ambushed.

  34

  Cristina was flat against the concrete, my body draped over hers. I held my breath, waiting for another shot. Seconds ticked by. All I could hear was a gasping whimper from Mona and the tattered plastic flapping in the wind.
>
  “See anything?” Cristina whispered just next to my ear.

  “Not yet.” My heart pounded in my chest as I deliberated whether to move or just hold our position. Given the angle of the spraying concrete dust, the shot had come from the west, one of the many homes under construction.

  The next thing I heard sent bile into the back of my throat. It was a laugh. The kind of laugh that made you shiver instinctively. But it wasn’t a baritone laugh. It was at least two octaves higher.

  “Anika?” Cristina said, pushing me off.

  I flipped around, but could only see the faint outline of her body walking between wooden slats from the house next door.

  “What the hell’s going on, Anika?” her dad said, moving to his knees. I noticed he and Mona had found safe haven behind a pallet of shingles.

  “I think you know,” Anika said, her voice calm.

  “Anika,” her mom cried out, “you must tell us what this is all about? We ran off to protect you, to make sure that vicious murderer from Chicago didn’t come near you.”

  “You’re full of shit, Mom. You always have been.”

  Anika came into full view at the far end of the slab. I could see a pistol in her hand, pointed at her parents.

  “What?” Mona began to sob, dropping her face in her hands.

  “Are you high or something?” Cristina directed the question at Anika. I nudged her with my arm, not wanting her to agitate the person who held a deadly weapon.

  “Shut the fuck up, Cristina.” She turned our way briefly, then returned her glare to her parents.

  Dexter took a single step forward. “Anika, dear, it’s your mother and me. We love you.”