I stepped in and let the board go. It slammed back into place. I blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust. A new beam of light hit my eyes. Instinctively, I put my hand up to shield my eyes and backed up a step.
“Hold your arms out to the side.”
I had left my purse in the Jeep. With only my jeans, a pink tank top, and the diamond necklace, it was pretty easy for Mitch to see that I was unarmed. I held my arms about a foot away from my sides and squinted to see into the light. “Where’s Angel?” Directly in front of me, I could see shadows that I figured had to be the rows of theater seats that faced the screen.
“Walk forward.”
Was Gabe there? Where was Angel? I tried to remember what the theaters had looked like. They had been simple. Screen up front with an exit door to one side of the screen. That’s where I had come in. Then rows of seats—hadn’t they been a red or burgundy? I couldn’t remember. Projection room in the back.
I took a step forward. I tried reasoning with him. “Mitch, let’s not make this any worse than it is. It was an accident that the necklace ended up in the sex-toy kit you gave us. We didn’t even know we had it. Then someone took it from me, not realizing there was a diamond necklace hidden in it.”
The voice behind the light said, “It was incompetence. But Zack paid for that.”
I stopped walking. I had to buy time for Gabe. Had he gotten in? Was he trying to find the theater we were in? There were four movie screening rooms, I thought. God. Dust coated my tongue and tickled my nose. The air smelled putrid, like decay. Maybe a small animal had died in there. Revulsion rolled through my stomach.
“You’re wearing the necklace.”
Startled, I looked directly into the light, then winced. “Yes. It seemed the safest way to get it here. I didn’t want to take any chances. I just want this whole thing to be over.”
“It’s a lovely piece, that necklace. The mark wearing it was a dried-up old biddy. I should never have sent that kid to do a man’s job.” He sighed.
I thought I heard a noise from my far left.
Mitch swung the light away from me, sweeping the beam across the seats in a leftward motion until it landed on Angel. Silver duct tape secured her wrists to the arms of the seat in the front row and there was a wide strip of tape across her mouth. Now that the light was out of my eyes, I could see Mitch’s back as he searched for the noise.
He was between Angel and me. Angel appeared to be watching us. Was Gabe with her? I couldn’t tell. If he was, she didn’t give anything away.
I had to distract Mitch. He had that powerful flashlight in his left hand and a big gun in his right hand.
I didn’t have any weapon, so I used words instead. “But you had to send another man, didn’t you, Mitch? Your wanger is on the blink. It doesn’t rise to the challenge.” I held my breath, counting on him not wanting to damage the necklace by shooting me before he got it off me.
18
Mitch’s long elegant back went rigid beneath his dark-colored shirt. He turned slowly, the aura of the flashlight catching the silver streaks in his dark hair. He kept the flashlight pointed down. “My wanger?” His Richard Gere face sneered. “Wanger. What else could I expect from this hick town? You people are a bunch of hillbillies. Wanger.” He sighed.
I took exception to his comments. Lake Elsinore was the poor cousin to the surrounding areas like Temecula, Murrieta, and Corona. Lake Elsinore had all the raw materials to be a fast-growing resort town, but the character of the town resisted mightily. Those of us in Elsinore were a little sensitive to criticism. “Since you’re so sophisticated, let me be more specific. You either can’t get, or can’t hold, an erection that is required to seduce a woman with all the romantic trappings, including enough wine or champagne to get her drunk so she sleeps through your stealing her jewelry and your escape.” I took a righteous breath of anger and added, “I have a college degree.” OK, it was just a two-year AA degree from Riverside Community College, but it was a degree. I had to keep Mitch’s attention on me.
Where was Gabe? What was he doing?
Mitch dropped his gaze down to my breasts, then lower, then crawled his stare slowly back up. “Impressive—looks and deductive reasoning . . . and yet I’m the one who will walk away with the necklace. Now, let’s get down to business. Take off that necklace. I want you to set it on the armrest of the first seat on your right.”
Gabe had told me to stall, so I kept trying. “But what—”
Mitch raised the gun to point at my face. “Now. I’m done playing with you. Get that necklace off.”
“All right.” I tried to sound reasonable. I reached up behind my neck and fumbled with the clasp. My hands shook. I strained to listen, but all I heard was the roar of my own fear pounding in my ears.
And it smelled in there. The stench of rotting meat . . . or something like that. Ugh. I breathed through my mouth, trying to get my shaky fingers to work the clasp behind my neck. To show Mitch that I was cooperating, I took a step toward the row of seats.
My right foot hit something.
“Oh!” I let go of the necklace clasp and struggled to catch my balance. The toe of my right foot was wedged beneath something heavy and the momentum pitched me forward. My knees landed in a mass that gave a little beneath the impact and my hands hit the threadbare dirty carpet. Because my knees were higher than my hands, my butt was up in the air.
The smell was worse down there.
I had a bad feeling. A sick, greasy, horrible, fall-into-an-occupied-grave feeling. I turned my head to the left to see what my knees had fallen onto.
Zack. I’d found Zack. I was kneeling on a dead man.
A painful scream rocketed up my throat.
Another scream came from behind me. “I want my necklace! It’s mine! Give it back now!”
The scream in my throat froze as I recognized the voice. “Zoë! No! Get out of here!” How had she gotten free? I scrambled off Zack’s stomach, yelping when a something pointy bit deep into my right hand. It was a nail sticking out of a board that was on the ground next to Zack.
“Sam, watch out!” Angel yelled.
I looked up in time to see Mitch sighting his gun on me. It slammed into my mind that if Angel had yelled, then the tape was off her mouth. Which meant Gabe had to be there to have gotten the tape off her mouth.
Mitch must have had similar thoughts, because he turned his gun from me to Angel.
I looked over in time to see Gabe throw his body across Angel just as Mitch fired the gun. The loud bang and flash stunned everyone for a breath of time.
“Christ,” I heard Gabe groan out the word, then he was gone from view. Just melted down to the floor. He must have had ahold of Angel’s arm because she slid off the chair and was gone, too.
I didn’t know if Gabe had meant to escape to the floor, or if he had fallen from the shot. But I knew he had been hit.
A dark, ugly, vicious need to kill Mitch for shooting Gabe roared up from deep inside of me. I grasped the long board and scrambled up off the floor. The board was about a half inch thick, two feet wide, and four feet long. I felt a stream of blood from the nail I’d caught my hand on roll down my arm. All I cared about was Gabe. I had to get to Gabe, and that meant going through Mitch.
Mitch was rushing to the left, looking for Gabe and Angel. I ran after him.
A vicious growl rose up behind me. Ali! She must have followed Zoë out of the Jeep. I had left the driver’s side door unlatched.
“I want that necklace!” Zoë screamed from somewhere behind me.
Two feet in front of me, Mitch skidded to a stop and started to turn around. He still had the gun he’d shot Gabe with.
Ali ran up even with my left leg and stopped, dropping to a crouch. Her growl was a deep rumbling noise that made the hair on my neck rise. “Down, Ali!” I yelled at her. I didn’t want Mitch to shoot her.
At the same time, I turned to my right, lifted the board so that the flat part was parallel to the ceiling, and
swung hard. I pivoted left on my foot, leaning everything I had into the board.
That bastard had shot Gabe.
The edge of the board caught Mitch in his side just below his left arm. It cracked hard into his ribs and sent him flying into the wall. I didn’t see the gun.
The impact dug dozens of splinters into my hands. I dropped the board, desperate to get to Gabe.
Ali launched herself from her crouch right at Mitch. He had hit the wall and slid down. He wrapped his arms over his middle and doubled over. Ali bared her teeth at his throat.
“Hold him, Ali,” Gabe yelled, rising up from between the second and third rows of the theater seats.
I blinked, wondering how he had gotten there. He had a dark river of blood running down his right arm, but he was alive. Where was Angel? That was my last thought as I was tackled from behind. A mass of weight hit me in the middle of my back, throwing me into Mitch and Ali.
“I want my necklace!” Zoë wrapped both her arms around me and squeezed. She had powerful arms, and a closed pocketknife clenched in one fist. It flashed through my mind that the pocketknife was what she’d had in her skirt pocket. Stupid! I hadn’t checked even after seeing her fishing around for something in that pocket back in the motel room. She’d been able to cut herself free of the tape.
Ali rolled out from the pile of people and barked in furious agitation. Mitch was trapped beneath me, and Zoë was on top of my back. She let go of my middle to grab hold of the necklace and started yanking it, trying to get it off my neck.
I ignored Zoë and her efforts to shred the skin around my throat with the necklace. Mitch was squirming beneath me and I didn’t know if he still had his gun or not.
“Damn it, Zoë, let go!” I bellowed as she jerked the necklace, snapping my head back.
Mitch got both hands free and reached up to wrap them around my throat. But he was having trouble getting a strong grip with two women rolling around on top of him.
How the hell had I become a victim sandwich? I thrashed around, trying to throw Zoë off my back and at the same time get my right elbow into Mitch’s injured left side. Finally, the necklace broke, and my head snapped down into Mitch’s face. My elbow slammed into his side.
“Fuck!” Mitch screamed, his arms wrapping around me in spite of the pain he had to be in.
“Ali, here!” I heard Gabe roar the command. And then, Gabe said, “Let go of her now!”
I stopped fighting Mitch and looked up. Gabe knelt beside us with a gun shoved up against Mitch’s temple, pointed in a direction away from me.
He didn’t look at me. “Turn your head, babe. This will be messy.”
The cold steel in his voice sent a shiver down my spine. I saw his face, his eyes. Black and feral, not a trace of the semitame man Gabe usually presented to the world. He would shoot Mitch through the head, and was calm enough to tell me to turn my head to avoid the gore.
Mitch let go of me.
“Move,” Gabe said.
I crawled backward off Mitch. I wanted to yell at Gabe not to kill him if he didn’t have to, but I couldn’t get the words out. I was worried about his shoulder, too. He was losing a lot of blood. It had to hurt like a bitch.
A set of hands helped me to my feet.
I looked up. “Angel.” She was OK. Her face was strained, and there was a raw red mark around her mouth from the tape that had been pulled off.
She hugged me. “Gabe couldn’t get to his gun. Ali picked up Mitch’s gun and brought it to him.”
I loved my dog. I looked around to see where she was. I was shocked to see Zoë sitting with her back against the wall. Ali sat a foot or two from Zoë’s left hip with the broken necklace in front of her right paw, along with the closed pocketknife. Zoë’s intense brown eyes glared at Ali, then at the necklace on the floor. Every time Zoë made any kind of move toward the necklace or the knife, Ali pulled back her lip to reveal her wickedly large teeth.
I looked back at Gabe. He had Mitch on his stomach and was in the process of handcuffing him. Or trying to. It looked like Gabe was struggling to get his right arm to work properly. I let go of Angel, went to Gabe, and knelt beside him. “You hold the gun on him.” I took the cuffs and snapped the bracelets around Mitch’s wrists.
No one in the theater doubted for a second that Gabe would shoot Mitch if he moved. When I was done, I turned to Gabe. “How bad is the wound?”
He met my gaze. “I’ll live. I wasn’t so sure about that when I saw Mitch turn the gun on you. My gun had flown out of my hand when Mitch shot me. I was dragging Angel under the seats with me and we couldn’t find the damn gun.” He closed his eyes, a raw and desperate expression passing over his face. “Then Zoë attacked you and I knew Mitch was going to kill you.”
I put my hand on his forearm. I needed something to put pressure on his wound.
Gabe opened his eyes and looked at me. “I’d have found a way to free you from him, one way or another, but Ali brought me his gun.”
I smiled. “And you brought me Ali. Remember?” Gabe had given Ali to the boys and me when we were in danger from some bad people my husband had cheated.
Angel handed me the blanket from the Jeep. “Put this on Gabe’s wound. The police are here.”
She had had the presence of mind to run out to the Jeep and get a blanket for Gabe even after her ordeal of being kidnapped. God, Angel was something. “OK. Thanks.” I moved to Gabe’s side to get a better look at his arm. Ugh. There was a big ugly jagged gash across the outside of his biceps. I didn’t think the bullet was in the arm, but the wound was deep. To Angel, I said, “Tell the cops we need an ambulance.”
“No.” Gabe growled the word.
I carefully put the cleanest part of the blanket on the wound and pressed. Gabe jerked at the pressure, then held still. I looked at his face. Pale. The sheer adrenaline that had kept him going was draining away. “You’re going to the hospital.”
He shook his head.
God, he was just like the boys. “Interesting, considering all the times that you dropped me off at the hospital and left. There was always some pressing business that couldn’t wait. I had thought I was pretty low on your priority list.”
I saw a small smile twitch his mouth.
“But now I think I know the truth. You’re afraid of hospitals.”
He ignored me and looked toward the boarded-up door.
I looked over and saw Detective Vance come through with several uniforms. All of them had flashlights and their guns were drawn. “Vance,” I said, “over here. Mitch St. Claire is in handcuffs. Gabe’s been shot. And Ali is watching Zoë.”
“Who is this?” Vance’s voice snapped out the question.
I glanced back again and saw him standing in front of the first row of seats, staring down. An involuntary shudder quivered from my gut outward. “Zack. He’s not missing anymore.”
Vance looked up over the rows of seats to me. “What the hell happened in here? Why didn’t you call the police?”
I looked up at Angel. “Can you hold this for me? Don’t let Gabe bully you either.”
Angel knelt down and took over.
I stood up and felt at least a dozen aches and pains. I had to stop getting knocked around by criminals and crazies. A surge of adrenaline pushed it aside, and I stalked by Ali and Zoë, pausing to say, “Good job, Ali.” Then I went up to Vance. “We did call the police, Vance. The first time, when Zack broke into Angel’s house, the second time, when he threatened her with a gun, then when I found the diamond necklace in the sex-toy kit, then when Mitch firebombed Angel’s car, and finally, when we found Zack dead on her bed, remember?” I took a breath. “Oh wait, you didn’t believe us.” That had felt like a betrayal. Sure, Vance and I had a complicated relationship, but did he really think I’d steal a diamond necklace?
His eyes zeroed in on me. “You weren’t exactly credible, Shaw. Angel’s kidnapped, then she’s not. There’s a man with a gun in her house but no sign of forced entry. Your friend’
s in financial trouble and her car’s conveniently firebombed and totaled. You call in a body on the bed and then the body’s gone. Bodies don’t get up and walk out.”
I looked down at Zack. “This one did, didn’t it?”
“Evidently,” Vance muttered. Then he sighed. “Hugh Crimson called us and spilled his guts. What a mope. He told us all about Mitch, giving him the key to Angel’s house and putting the tracking device on Angel’s car. I did manage to get out of Hugh that Mitch had mentioned this theater, which is what led me here.” Vance looked around the old theater and shook his head. “No wonder Angel told the background investigators that her ex is a lying sack of shit.”
Vance had once been furious at me for not believing in him. Now the tables were turned. “You should have believed me, Vance.”
His gaze did a slow search down my face, to the battered tank top and lower, then back up. “I never know with you, Shaw,” he said, his voice dropping to a throb that was unique to him. “I can’t pin you down. You’re so fiercely loyal, I thought maybe you just couldn’t see . . .” he trailed off.
“That my best friend was desperate?” Guilt slammed into me. “You’d be right. But Angel’s not a thief or that desperate for money.” God, I had failed Angel. It hurt me to face it. She had been torn up and worried about her mom, draining away most of her money in desperation to help her. I did believe Angel that she had money coming in and would be OK financially. But money wouldn’t fix her old guilt.
That’s what friends were for—to ease the pains we carry around inside of us.
And Hugh had twisted that knife in her. Where I had failed Angel was letting her feel alone and guilty. “Gabe thought the same thing you did, too. At least he did for a while.”
Vance narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, well, you gotta admit that whole story about a romance fan stealing a sex-toy kit with the necklace inside of it was crazy. But we were running down recently rented green Ford Focus cars . . . just in case you were telling the truth.”
In case I was telling the truth? That was supposed to make me feel better? I turned around and saw that two uniformed cops had Zoë on her feet and handcuffed. Another uniform had a first-aid kit that he was using on Gabe, while Angel and Ali watched.
Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required Page 25
