No Escape

by Meredith Fletcher

  In the shadows under a palm tree, Heath strapped the

  9 mm under his left arm, then pulled a black windbreaker on to hide the weapons. He shoved the extra magazines into the thigh pockets of his cargo jeans, then pulled on a black ball cap to cover his hair.

  After closing the trunk, he jogged down to the beach and ran along the dark water. Trying to approach the villa across the light-colored sand of the beach would have made him stand out. Since the moon wasn’t up, the ocean was inky dark, and he knew he was nearly invisible against it. He jogged, his feet sinking into the wet sand with liquid crunching noises.

  With someone in their midst, Heath felt certain that the villa’s flesh and blood security would draw closer to the core, leaving it to the electronic surveillance to watch the perimeter. Those systems weren’t fail proof. During the days he had scouted the villa, Heath had felt certain there were weak points. Trespassing would have made any evidence he’d obtained that way illegal, though. So he’d kept his distance.

  Tonight, all bets were off. Lauren wasn’t supposed to have bearded the monster in his lair. They were supposed to have coaxed Gibson out.

  He ran, his muscles warming up against the chill coming in from the sea.

  * * *

  The house had seemed large and ornate from outside, but once Lauren was inside, she was overwhelmed by the opulence. Chandeliers, art, plush furniture, woods, marble and window treatments that looked as though they’d been ripped from designer catalogues filled the rooms she saw as Roylston escorted her to the back of the house.

  Lauren’s fear had grown when she’d entered the villa’s gates, and it was everything she could do to control it as she followed the bodyguard. She made herself think of Megan, but that was a double-edged sword because that memory was as filled with terror as it was with resolve to see her sister’s murderer caught.

  She followed Roylston up to the second floor to a door. The bodyguard indicated the door. “Everything you need will be inside. Feel free to choose whatever you wish.”

  “Thank you.” Lauren stepped through the doorway into a large room that contained a vanity and two large closets filled with women’s clothing.

  “Sure.” Roylston pointed to an intercom on the wall. “If you need anything, just ring. When you’re ready, let me know and I’ll come get you.”

  “All right. Thank you.” Lauren watched the man close the door, but she still didn’t feel alone. She took a deep breath and tried to release the tension that she felt inside her.

  She couldn’t help wondering if this was what Megan had been treated to, as well. Then she knew that wasn’t the case. No matter what had happened between Gibson and Megan, Lauren knew her sister would never have put up with something like this.

  Yet, here she was, prepared to put on clothes Gibson had provided for his “guests.” Curious, Lauren looked through the closets, wondering what kind of clothing Gibson had chosen, and wondering, too, at the women whom he brought back to the villa. During the time she and Heath had watched the villa, no one had brought a woman onto the premises.

  Growing up in foster care, Lauren had endured her share of hand-me-downs, but this was a more exotic collection than she’d ever seen. The clothing wasn’t all “play” wear either, though there was an assortment of that, too: catsuits and wispy lingerie. But there was also a choice of casual clothing, beachwear and cocktail dresses. There was even a range of sizes and lengths.

  Lauren picked a pair of snug-fitting skinny-legged jeans and a close-fitting pullover because that outfit provided the least amount of loose material that could be used against her if she had to fight for her life. She didn’t think that would be the case. Too many people knew that Gibson had bailed her out of jail. He wouldn’t dare hurt her, would he?

  She took the clothing to the bathroom in the rear of the room.

  * * *

  Sipping from a snifter of brandy to hold the darkness in him in thrall for a while longer, Gibson watched the woman strip in the bathroom. Her body—her shape and her form and her nudity—wasn’t what excited him. It wasn’t even the vision of what he would do to it. What fascinated him most was the knowledge that he was about to have more power over her than anyone had ever had before.

  Onscreen, the woman stepped into the shower but the heated water had fogged the windows to the point that she seemed like an illusion on the other side of the translucent glass.

  He hummed in anticipation, knowing it wouldn’t be much longer now. She was going to pay for upstaging him.

  Chapter 21

  Plastered up against the seaward wall of the villa and drenched in the darkness, Heath felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He slid it free, thinking that Lauren might be calling him from inside the house.

  Instead, Jackson Portman’s face showed on the view screen.

  Heath debated answering the phone, but this late in the evening with everything going on, he knew that his partner wouldn’t call unless there was serious need.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I know who Gibson is.”

  The information surprised Heath, but not the fact that Jackson had stayed with the search. “How?”

  “I kept backtracking Sisco’s employment to a place called Blackheart Solutions. Heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Neither had I until I dug in. Turns out Blackheart Solutions is a company that specializes in computer software. They get a large part of government contracts every year. Providing encryption and stuff like that.”

  Heath gazed up at the tall perimeter wall. “I got a thing here, Jackson. Maybe you could pick up the pace a little.”

  “Blackheart Solutions is owned by a man named Julius Bleak. Guy knows congressmen and presidents by their first names. He also has a son, Terrence, who is forty-three years of age. Terrence has a history of violence against women. Two charges of rape and aggravated assault in Seattle. Both cases were dismissed with prejudice because Terrence Bleak’s daddy used his leverage to get the charges dropped. I had to really look for that information to get it. Terrence was nineteen and twenty-two at the time. Then Terrence vanished. No history. A few years later, Gibson starts hitting the magic circuit. How do you like that?”

  “Less and less by the minute, buddy.” The anxiety inside Heath reached shattering levels. All he could think about was Janet and how he hadn’t been there for her. “I’ve got to go. I appreciate everything that you’ve done.”

  “Let me know how everything works out?”

  “Definitely.” Heath couldn’t tell Jackson his situation. His partner would have tried to talk him down, and Heath didn’t have the time for an argument. He hung up, then looked up Inspector Myton’s phone number and placed a call to him.

  Myton was slow to pick up, and when he did he sounded half-asleep. “Hello?”

  “This is Heath Sawyer.”

  That perked Myton up immediately. “Where are you, Detective Sawyer? I have some questions I’d like you to answer. It seems your hotel room was trashed, and there was a shootout in front of the building that has me puzzled.”

  “I’m at Gibson’s estate.”

  “Really? What are you doing there?”

  “I’m saving my friend. You need to hurry.” Heath hung up, turned to the security wall and walked to where the ocean lapped at the perimeter. Over the years of constant assault, the salt water had chipped away at the mortar holding the stones together, leaving hand and foot holds. He started climbing, hauling himself up as quickly as he could.

  * * *

  Lauren followed Roylston back down to the first floor, then to a library much like the one at Agony House, though designed on a less ambitious scale. The shelves held books and DVDs on magic, and glass display cases held dioramas of famous magicians performing legendary tricks and escapes.

  Fascinated, she stopped in front of a display case that held a scene of Houdini talking to a gypsy woman seated at a table with a crystal ball. The magician had hold of the table
and was yelling at the woman, who was terrified.

  “Houdini didn’t believe in the spirit world.” Gibson had come into the room behind her without her knowledge.

  “That’s right.” A chill passed through Lauren, but she suppressed it. She couldn’t help thinking that she was looking at her sister’s murderer, and that she was standing more or less helpless inside his house.

  “Would it surprise you to know that I first got involved in magic because I wanted to speak to my mother?”

  “I’ve never read that anywhere.”

  “I’ve never told anyone.” Gibson gazed at the diorama. “My mother died when I was very young. I’ve missed her my whole life.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Gibson shrugged and smiled. “She chose to leave. Committed suicide.” He shrugged again. “At least, that’s what my father tells me. He’s a very powerful and influential man, so that must be true, don’t you think?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  With slow, deliberate steps, Gibson crossed the room to gaze intently at the diorama. “Who are you, Mistress Tereza—or should I call you Lauren Cooper, since you were booked under that name—that you would come into my world and seek so strongly to attract my attention? I feel that I should know you.”

  Lauren was surprised to discover that Gibson still hadn’t recognized her from the encounter in the restaurant days ago. “I’m a struggling magician trying to make a name for myself.”

  “And you choose to do this by confronting me on my turf?”

  “I didn’t mean any harm.”

  Gibson looked at her then. “Not even when you stole the show from under me at the Agony House?”

  “I didn’t expect you to be so confrontational. I was going to use someone else in the audience to finish the trick, but when you stepped in so hard, it had to be you.”

  Shrugging, Gibson lifted a hand, and a gold coin danced across his knuckles like a leaf flowing down a river, smooth and effortless. The deep yellow color of the metal winked in the light. “I couldn’t let you just steal the show like that. Then, I couldn’t stop you.”

  “I thought maybe we could work together.”

  “If you know anything at all about me, you know I don’t work with a partner.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be a partner. Just a warm-up act.”

  “And the death-defying leap from the ship into the ocean while in a straitjacket today?”

  “That was to get your attention.”

  “Was it? Because I think it was to capitalize on the success of the video currently going viral across the internet.” Gibson smiled, and there was no humor. Malice gleamed in his dark eyes.

  “A little publicity never hurts.”

  “This publicity? It’s going to hurt you.” With his other hand, Gibson snapped a card into the air.

  The card whirled like a Frisbee as it crossed the distance to Lauren. Without thinking, she plucked the card out of the air.

  “Very good reflexes.” Gibson seemed genuinely amused.

  Lauren turned the card over and saw the white rabbit there.

  “After the police find your body, I’m going to mail them that card.” As he strode toward her, Gibson’s hands came from behind his back. In one of his hands, he held a long knife.

  * * *

  Heath clambered over the security wall without setting off an alarm, then dropped to the ground and ran toward the main house while staying in the shadows. The sweet, heavy scent of the bougainvillea filled his nose and almost made him sneeze.

  One of the security guards emerged from the house and went to the car parked in the circular drive. The engine started with a smooth growl. The guy rested behind the steering wheel with the dome light off, the instrument panel glowing in his face. Another guard stood at the door to the house and talked on his cell phone.

  Stealthily, knowing there was no turning back at this point but feeling certain that Lauren’s life was in danger, Heath crept up on the man. Just behind the door, he whispered only loud enough for the driver to hear. “Move and I will kill you.”

  The man slowly started to raise his hands.

  “Put your hands on the steering wheel. Let’s not invite your friend before we need to.”

  After a brief hesitation, the man grasped the steering wheel.

  “Is the woman still inside the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she still all right?”

  “She was. She’s with Gibson in the library.”

  A sharp feeling of relief flooded Heath.

  “Doesn’t mean she’s going to stay that way, though. Gibson’s been in the mood to kill her since she showed up at that house. You’re the cop, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  The guy pressed a hand on the horn as he shoved out of the car and rounded on Heath, catching him off guard. His hand slammed into Heath’s chest because Heath didn’t want to fire immediately. Thrown off-balance, Heath staggered back and watched the man bring up a pistol.

  Heath squeezed the .357’s trigger and felt the pistol buck as a bullet whipped past his ear. His round caught the man in the chest, and he followed it with a second round that cored through the man and shattered the door window behind him.

  The man at the door brought up his pistol and took a defensive position inside the house.

  Keeping a lid on the panic that filled him, not wanting to think that he was going to lose the woman he was almost certain he was in love with, Heath yanked the falling dead man out of his way and slid behind the steering wheel. Shots blasted through the windshield and tore into the passenger seat as he pulled on the safety harness. He slammed the transmission into Drive and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

  The high-performance engine thrust the car forward. Heath laid the .357 in the passenger seat and steered with both hands to bring the car on a direct path with the front of the house. He hoped the front end stayed together long enough to get him where he was going. Otherwise he was a dead man and Lauren was going to brutally die.

  The front tires jerked and juddered as the car raced up the wide steps, but they navigated the incline with less trouble than he’d anticipated. The whole vehicle shook and shimmied, but he managed to hold it on course with one hand while he picked up the revolver with the other.

  When the car hit the front of the house, the airbags deployed. Even though he’d prepared for the impact, even though the seat belt clamped like a vise around his chest, the face plant against the airbag rushing up at him robbed Heath of his senses.

  Chapter 22

  Savage joy filled Gibson when he saw the fear in the woman’s eyes. That look, that palpable feel of the connection to his audience during the final performance he would give them, was an elixir that never failed to transport him out of the ordinary world. Drawn by that fear, he closed on her, eager to open her up and let the blood hit the ground.

  It would be the first time he had killed in the library in front of so many of his childhood heroes. He didn’t know why he hadn’t done so before. No one could stop him. Nothing could get in his way. He was invincible.

  The woman, Mistress Tereza, cowered before him, giving ground as he backed her toward the fireplace. She reached out and toppled a diorama of Doug Henning’s performance in Spellbound. The display smashed across the wooden floor in front of Gibson. He snarled inarticulate curses at her. The diorama could be replaced, but he hated the idea that anyone could touch his things.

  He lifted the knife and strode toward her with greater speed.

  Then Roylston’s mocking voice halted him. “Hey, Terrence.”

  In disbelief, stunned to have heard that name here in this house, Gibson turned toward his bodyguard. “What did you call me?”

  Twenty feet away, Roylston stood framed by the door. He held something in his left hand and a pistol in his right. He flicked his left hand forward, and a cylindrical shape flew through the air to land at Gibson’s feet.

  It was a cigar.
/>
  Gibson glared at Roylston. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Roylston smirked at him. “Your old man just called me. He’s having another son. He doesn’t need you anymore to carry on the family name.” He raised the pistol to fire.

  Panicked, filled with fear for himself for the first time in years, Gibson flung the knife he held. It flickered through the air like quicksilver and caught Roylston in the neck.

  With a look of shock, the big man clamped a hand to his neck and pulled it away covered with blood. The pistol fell from his nerveless fingers.

  Cursing, knowing that Roylston wouldn’t be acting alone, Gibson raced over to pick up the pistol. He gripped it and turned around, determined to get out of the house. But first, he was going to take care of the woman. He started to turn back around, but something that sounded very much like a bomb went off at the front of the house. Security alarms screamed to life throughout the villa.

  * * *

  Grimly, Heath clawed back up from the thready darkness that was trying to suck him down. He forced his head up and lifted the revolver at the same time.

  The man who had been hiding behind the door rose up like a ghost from the grave, covered in plaster and mortar dust that pushed into the house in a large, roiling cloud. He fired at the car, his hand suddenly filled with a muzzle flash.

  Taking deliberate aim, Heath put two rounds into center body mass, following through on muscle memory he’d gotten while in the military and from hours spent on the shooting range.

  The bodyguard stumbled back and fell.

  Looking around, his head feeling as if it was about to shatter from all the security alarms, Heath realized the car had gotten wedged in the suddenly enlarged doorway. The doors were stuck, and he couldn’t open them.

  He tried to free himself from the seat belt that felt as if it was crushing the life out of him, but something had to have been broken in the locking mechanism during the crash. He had to fish out his pocketknife and cut himself free.