The search had never posed any threat to her. She wasn’t careless enough to leave incriminating information in her home. Sensitive material—ID kits, client lists, illegal weapons and eavesdropping devices—was kept in Santa Monica in a storage locker she’d registered under an assumed name. Electronic data of a private nature were stored on a secure Internet site. No one could find the site by examining her PC; a sophisticated program permanently erased all record of her online activity with every shutdown.
She’d worked too many cases where a stalker had stashed incriminating photos under his bed or left damaging emails on his computer’s hard drive. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake.
Still, the impossibility of finding anything to use against her hadn’t stopped the federales from trying.
With a sigh, she set to work cleaning up the mess. She had succeeded in reorganizing her music collection when the intercom buzzed.
“Yes?” she said.
Gerry answered. “An agent from the FBI is here to speak with you.” He made no effort to conceal his disapproval of the visitor.
Abby frowned. Just what she needed. Another feeb to make her life hell.
“Send him up,” she said in resignation.
She placed the last few CDs back on the shelf before the doorbell rang. When she opened the door, Tess was there.
“Oh,” Abby said. “It’s you.”
“It’s me.”
“You’re looking well.”
“Cut the crap, Abby. May I come in or not?”
“Make yourself at home.” She gestured at the disaster that was her living room. “Your fellow jackbooted thugs already have.”
Tess entered and stood awkwardly amid the disorder. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re real broken up. It wasn’t too long ago that you thought I was good for Dylan Garrick’s murder.” Abby knelt and began gathering up her smaller but still considerable collection of DVDs.
Tess spread her hands helplessly. “What else was I supposed to think? Everything pointed to you.”
“Tess, if you would watch more TV, you’d know it’s never the most obvious suspect.”
“Well, forgive me for taking the evidence at face value.”
“You could have tried taking me at face value.”
“You were lying.”
Abby started putting the DVDs in alphabetical order. “Not about anything important. I told you I didn’t kill Garrick. That part was true.”
“You should have told me the rest.”
“Couldn’t risk it. You might not have believed me.”
“Maybe I would have. I never wanted to think you were capable of murder.”
“And yet you thought it, anyway. You’re always underestimating me. But I can’t entirely blame you. Sometimes I underestimate myself.”
“Now, that I don’t believe.”
“You should.” Abby arranged the first third of her DVD library, from A to H, on the shelf. “Remember how, in the Boiler Room, you asked whether my conscience was enough to keep me in line?”
“I remember.”
“Well, it was a fair question. In fact, I started wondering the same thing after Friday night. Wondering if maybe I’d become too much of a desperado. Whether I need somebody to ride herd on me. Whether I’m getting out of control.” She put titles I through P on the shelf. “I came pretty close to shooting Dylan Garrick. Closer than I admitted to you.”
Tess took a step forward. “How close?”
“I wasn’t sure. What I knew was that something he said changed my mind. It was just a little thing. He said we were both pros. He said the hit on Andrea was just a job for him—a job like mine.”
Tess nodded, understanding. “He said you were the same.”
“Right.” The videos from Q through Z were added to the shelf. She really did have a Z. Two of them, in fact—Zoolander and Zulu. “He said we were the same. And suddenly I ... well, I didn’t want it to be true.”
“If he hadn’t said those words ...”
“Would I have gone through with it?” She turned to face Tess. “That’s the question I kept asking myself the next day. And I didn’t know the answer. And it scared me. It made me doubt if I could really go on—or if I even ought to go on. You know the old Nietzsche thing, about how when you fight monsters you risk becoming a monster yourself? That’s what worried me. I thought maybe I’d crossed the line. But I didn’t. And I won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because last night I had the opportunity to shoot Jack Reynolds in the head. I wanted to. I mean, I really wanted to. But I didn’t do it. I’m still in control. I’m still me.”
“Then you’re okay with yourself?”
“Yeah. But I’m not okay with you.” Abby knelt and started stacking books in neat piles. “I’m not blaming you. Your response was predictable. But that’s the problem. I know you. I know you’ll put what you see as your duty above any personal loyalty.”
Tess took a moment before asking, “Is that wrong?”
“I don’t know. It’s not my way. And it complicated my life a lot, and nearly got me killed.”
She went on stacking books, not trying to organize them, just needing something to do.
“So what are you saying?” Tess asked. “You can’t trust me?”
“Yes. And no. I can trust you to always do the right thing—as you see it. I can’t trust you to see eye to eye with me on what the right thing is.” She looked up from the fourth pile of books. “Which means we’re not going to be working together anymore.”
“I hadn’t expected us to.”
“And it means—we’re not friends, Tess.”
“What are we, then? Enemies?”
“Not yet. But if you ever come back to my town and get mixed up in my business again—we will be.”
“I hope that day never comes.”
“Me, too.” Abby let the words settle into the silence of the room. Then more brightly she added, “So are you flying back to your nest in the Rockies?”
Tess hesitated, then knelt beside her and started stacking books herself. “On my way to the airport. Michaelson even arranged a driver.”
Abby wrinkled her nose at the mention of Michaelson. “He’s a piece of work, huh?”
Tess grunted. “There’s definitely something to be said for working alone.”
“You’ve gotta watch that guy. He’s still gunning for you. Probably now more than ever. He’ll sink your career if he gets half a chance.”
“I know.” Tess paused to examine one of the books, which was, Abby noticed, a sex manual, and a darn good one. Tess added it to the pile without comment. “And he’s still rising in the ranks. Could be the director someday.”
“Remind me to move to Mexico if that happens.”
Tess smiled. “I might be moving there with you.”
Abby found herself smiling, too. “I have to say, I’ve enjoyed our two little outings.”
“I can’t say I have. Sorry to put it that way, but—”
Abby waved off the apology. “I’d be disappointed if you said anything else. It would be disturbingly out of character.”
Tess sighed. “Well, as much fun as this is, I’d better get to the airport.”
They rose together. Tess walked to the door and stepped into the hall, then turned, her face serious again.
“I don’t plan on coming back to L.A. But I don’t always have a choice about where I go—or the cases I work. You know that.”
“I know.”
“It’s not impossible we’ll cross paths again. And Abby, if that day ever comes—I’ll be ready.”
Abby met her gaze. “So will I,” she said, and slowly she closed the door.
Author’s Note
As always, readers are invited to visit me at michaelprescott.net, where you’ll find information on my other books, as well as interviews, essays, and an email address
Tess and Abby, the heroines of Mortal
Faults, teamed up (reluctantly, as always) in my previous book, Dangerous Games, and reunited in the follow-up, Final Sins. They also appeared separately in two earlier novels. Tess McCallum stars in Next Victim, and Abby Sinclair is The Shadow Hunter.
My gratitude goes out to all the people who helped me with the original print edition of Mortal Faults, including editor Tracy Bernstein, whose careful reading of the manuscript resulted in many improvements; Doug Grad, formerly of NAL, who first suggested pairing off two of my characters; copyeditor Michele Alpern; and Jane Dystel and Miriam Goderich of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. I’d also like to thank my friends in Florida, Sherry and Cullenthia, for their support, and Lisa DuMond for supplying me with the “brass ovaries” line. That’s one I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.
Turn the page for a preview of the Amazon bestselling thriller
THE SHOP
by J. CARSON BLACK
THE SHOP
J. CARSON BLACK
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
Aspen, Colorado
Landry thought: The kid’s positively giddy.
Landry had been getting comfortable with the night, watching from the woods as the party wound down at the house on Castle Creek Road, people getting into their expensive cars and driving away, leaving just the core group.
Shortly after, the young man came out and made his unsteady way to the railing. He had spiky hair and his clothes hugged a scarecrow frame. He looked down at the rushing water, then up at the stars. Landry could see his smile even from where he was. The kid’s skinny arms hugged his body, as if he couldn’t quite believe his good fortune. Tipsy—more than tipsy, inebriated—but something had delighted him, thrilled him. Something had gone very right for him today.
The young man twirled around, looking at the stars. Mesmerized by them. He could have been the leading man in his own musical—the wonderful story of his life. He could barely contain his joy. He had less than an hour to live.
* * *
As they reached the walkway, Landry said, “Gloves and masks from now on.”
They split up. Jackson would go in first, through the back door. Landry and Davis would go in the front. Green would remain outside; he was surveillance only.
They waited for Jackson to report in. “Upstairs clear.”
“How many?”
“Two. The couple. They were laying in bed.”
“Lying,” Landry said.
“What?”
“Lying in bed. Not laying.”
A pause. Then, “Roger that.”
Davis opened the front door in one smooth, quick motion, and they stepped inside.
The lights were on. Landry saw the expensive furnishings and enormous stone fireplace; cataloging these things briefly before dismissing them. His eye was on the four targets. Three of them were sleeping: a male and female entwined on a zebra skin near the fireplace and a young woman crashed out on the couch. The fourth was in the process of walking unsteadily toward the kitchen. He was the kid Landry had seen twirling under the stars. A lot worse for wear. He’d done some steady imbibing, or toking, or snorting, since last Landry saw him on the deck.
The kid looked at them. His eyes had difficulty tracking. He said, “You should’ve come earlier, there was a lot more food.”
Landry fell into step with the kid and put an arm around his shoulder, casually pulling him around so he had him from behind. He slit the kid’s throat and dropped him like a sack of grain. Dead in eight seconds.
Davis finished dispatching the couple as Landry turned his attention to the sleeper, who was half-sitting, half-lying, her head resting against the couch back. Some sixth sense must have awakened her because she cocked her head upward, her eyes bewildered.
Startled.
He’d seen her before. It came to him—Brienne Cross. One of those celebrities in the news all the time. His daughter had a poster of her up in her room.
He hesitated just long enough for alarm to dawn in her eyes, which dismayed him. He touched a finger to his lips, letting her know it was all right, and pulled her up toward him with one hand. He drew his knife across her throat with the other.
Her mouth went slack. The light in her eyes died. He let her back down on the couch, gently.
“Four here,” he said into the radio.
Thinking: Brienne Cross.
Jackson joined them. There were six people. All in all the operation had taken fewer than five minutes.
Landry looked at Jackson. Jackson shifted his feet, then started back toward the stairway. His reluctance was clear. He might not do a convincing job.
Landry said: “I’ll do it.”
* * *
The couple lay in bed, naked above the sheets. They looked peaceful despite their slashed throats. Landry crossed himself, tried to think of what he did next as gutting a deer. They were dead; they would feel nothing. But their mutilation bothered him.
Done, he glanced around the room, which now resembled an abattoir. His regret at the desecration of these young people was eclipsed by the satisfaction of a job accomplished with flawless precision. It had taken him three and a half minutes, including painting the two eights on the mirror with the woman’s blood.
As he started down the stairs, Landry flashed on the girl on the couch, the look in her eyes: frightened, then trusting, and finally, empty.
His daughter had her poster on her wall.
They were almost out of here. One last check of the perimeter and—
Then he heard sirens. They were a long way off but coming fast.
Simultaneously, Green’s voice crackled in his ear.
“Police heading this way.”
“Where?”
“Up from the valley. Two units.”
“We’re out of here.”
Landry turned off the lights and slipped out the back door. The sirens screaming in the night now. His mind ranging far ahead as he tried to make sense of this. He wasn’t worried about escaping. What worried him was something else.
Who had betrayed them?
He melted into the woods, found a suitable vantage point and stretched out, stomach-down, on the ground. Relied on his training to make himself part of the forest.
Cataloging faces, phone calls, names. Who?
The lights burst through the trees below, blinking white, red and blue. Engines straining. In his mind’s eye he saw them swerving in at the house, slamming into park—
But that did not happen.
The cars did not slow. They rocketed past, two Pitkin County sheriff’s cars.
It was OK.
No one had betrayed them.
As the sirens receded, he spoke into his radio. “Wait where you are until I give the signal.”
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
NICK
1
It came to Nick Holloway, gradually, that he lay on cold hard concrete. Something above held him fast. His shirt was hooked on the undercarriage of a car.
He managed to get loose, tearing his shirt in the process, and crawled out from under. Enveloped by the stench of motor oil, shaking and sick, Nick finally realized where he was: the two-car garage beneath the Aspen House.
The last thing he remembered was talking to a guy named Mars at the Soul Mate wrap party. He’d never seen Mars before. It was an exclusive wrap party—just Brienne Cross, the contestants and their guests, himself, and the crew. But Nick remembered talking to the mysterious Mars, the two of them sitting on the back deck, the movement of Castle Creek rushing underneath the slats making him dizzy.
After that it was lights out.
Nick pulled himself to his feet. His legs didn’t work very well, and the smell of flowers and cut lawn sickened him. He became aware of the bright yellow ribbon stretched across the entrance to the garage. Written on the tape were the words: CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.
A policeman behind the tape stared in at him, mouth open in shock. Then he started yelling.
* * *
A Pit
kin County Sheriff’s detective with long legs, big shoes, and a face like a hatchet took him to a brown Chevy Caprice, exactly the kind of car Nick had described in Hype.
“Do you have some I.D.?” the detective said.
Nick had a question of his own. “Do you know how I ended up in the garage?”
“I thought maybe you could tell me that.”
Nick realized that he had to stare at the air conditioner vent in the cracked dash to avoid spinning. “I have no idea.”
“I.D.,” the detective reminded him quietly.
Nick shifted to pull his wallet out of his back pocket and nearly passed out. He stared at the vent until the double vision stopped. “Jesus.”
Hatchet Face took the wallet and looked at his driver’s license. “Nick Holloway. I’ve heard that name before.”
“Maybe it was my book, Hype. Number thirteen on the New York Times Bestseller list.”
“I don’t read. The wife does, though. It’s not about vampires, is it? She loves that stuff.” Hatchet Face had his license out and was tapping it against his leg. “Did you know the people in the house?”
Nick noticed the past tense. He wondered if the cast and crew had blackballed him, but that seemed silly. The aspirin taste seeped into his mouth again—he was going to be sick.
“Mr. Holloway.”
But Nick had already passed out.
* * *
They resumed the interview in the emergency room. They had plenty of privacy. It had been two hours and a nurse had poked her head through the curtain once, ducking out instantly in case anyone asked her for anything. Nick lay in a surgical gown on the crank-a-bed. Hatchet Face, Detective Derek Sloan, sat on a plastic chair.
“You mean they’re all dead? Brienne? Justin? All of them?”
Nick wasn’t quite able to grasp it, but he knew it was huge. Logically, he understood that he had just escaped death, but in his current state, was unable to assimilate it.
Sloan switched his ankle from one knee to the other. “You have any idea how you came to be in the garage?”
Mortal Faults Page 34
