Fatal Game

by Diane Capri

  Traffic lights marked the next intersection. The freeway was to the left, the denser city streets to the right. She gripped the wheel and decided to go right.

  The lights were red. A line of traffic waited. The first cruiser was pressing hard behind her. She moved out to overtake the stationary traffic. A police car was blocking the right exit, red and blue lights flashing.

  Another cruiser raced to block the road ahead but wasn’t yet in place.

  A minivan wandered across the intersection. Cora eased left, judging the minivan’s progress, and matted the accelerator. She whipped by the waiting cars. The intersection cleared.

  And the minivan stopped.

  “Damn! Damn! Damn!” She jinked the wheel, but she couldn’t deflect the van’s mass. She hit the minivan’s rear quarter panel at full speed. The minivan spun as if a giant had flicked a toy with his finger.

  Cora’s airbag exploded. The force shoved her hands from the wheel. The van pirouetted and hit three cars waiting on the other side of the traffic light. The van scraped along the sides of the vehicles before lurching around the last car and hammering into the front of a flower shop.

  Cora shoved the deflated airbag from her face. Steam poured from under the hood. The engine had died. The windshield was a mosaic of cracks.

  The front of the van was buried in the storefront. Flowers were scattered everywhere.

  She leaned all her weight on the door. It creaked open. Her left hand throbbed. In the dim light, she saw blood dripping onto the airbag and the steering wheel and down to the dirty carpet.

  She struggled out of the van and landed on solid ground. Her legs were weak, but she was inside the flower shop. There was no time to torch the van. She had to go. Now.

  Behind the counter was a door. She put her weight on the counter, rolled over, and pushed through the rear door.

  It led into a stockroom, and another door led outside. She grabbed a handful of paper towels for her bleeding hand.

  Outside an alleyway led to another street. More shops and a bus collecting passengers. She hurried to reach the bus a moment before the doors closed. She fished a few coins from her pocket and dropped them into the fare box. She walked down the aisle and slid into a seat near the rear door.

  Passengers chattered about the noise and confusion of the big crash. A few pointed back to the intersection. She heard sirens headed toward the carnage. The bus drove in the opposite direction. Gradually the siren song subsided, and the passengers quieted.

  Cora folded her arms and gazed out the window. She kept her injured hand covered with the paper towels and waited for her blood to clot. A bored commuter, blending into the fabric of life. The very life she had been so desperate to leave behind was now her means of escape. She smiled at the irony. As her adrenaline levels began to subside, the throbbing in her hand became more intense, but she ignored it. Nothing more she could do about it now.

  In a couple of miles, she changed buses. She tossed the wig in a trash can on the street and cleaned off the makeup with a few swipes of the tissues in her pocket.

  Two buses later, she made the call.

  Hades would rescue her at the next bus stop. She’d get a lecture, and he would worry about the evidence she’d left behind. He worried about everything. Damn cop chasing her in that first cruiser was to blame. People must have died in that crash. What the hell did he think he was doing?

  She shrugged. None of that was her problem. She’d calm Hades down. She always did. Their plans would be derailed for a week, but they were safe. And that slime ball Lawson wasn’t going anywhere with the money he stole from Benny, anyway. At least, not yet.

  She looked at the bloody paper towels, dried now, adhered to her wound. If only she hadn’t hurt her hand.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sunday, May 21, 8:30 p.m.

  Santa Irene, Arizona

  Hades raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes. A half mile away sat Simon Lawson’s modern, two-story home on a gentle upslope. The closest neighbors were a hundred feet of lawn away from the house, separated by thick pines.

  The property had a commanding view. The lawn swept upward from the street. A waist-high brick wall and a wrought iron gate separated the green manicured perfection from the daily road grime.

  The solid front door was set deep into the front porch. The drapes were open, but plantation blinds shielded the interior from view. Light spilled from between the slats.

  A three-car garage was nestled behind the house. Only two of the spaces were filled. Lawson had recently sold his Porsche and scoured the Internet for a late model Ferrari California to fill the vacant slot.

  Hades grinned. He had different plans for that empty space.

  Cora’s left hand still bore the wound of her first failed attempt to steal a white panel van. A broad bandage covered the gash. For the first few days, she had winced with the slightest movement. The wound was still fresh, but not as painful.

  Last night, from a different bar in another part of town, she’d completed the theft easily. Before this night ended, the stolen van would rest in the spot Lawson had optimistically reserved for the Ferrari.

  Hades took a deep breath to quell his nerves. Not because he feared the consequences. Far from it. He relished the stakes. The greatest risk for the greatest reward. Always one step ahead, one second from tragedy, one brush from the razor’s edge. Nothing else was worthy. Nothing else stirred his blood. Nothing else fired his imagination.

  For the Greek god and his queen, nothing was as important as winning the game. Especially this time. For Benny.

  A half mile away, the lights behind the plantation blinds in Lawson’s house went dark.

  Now was the point Hades relished. The game began. He would balance on the razor-thin edge between life and death. The adrenaline almost fizzed in his blood.

  He rapped twice on the metal wall behind him, between the van’s front seats and the two men waiting in the rear. “We begin,” he said.

  “Ready.” Both men tapped once on the wall. “Ready.”

  Cora started the van. The engine rattled and knocked before settling out in a rough idle. She pulled out from the roadside spot where they had parked onto the planned route through the streets to the house with the now-darkened windows.

  She drove easily. No high revs, no crunching the manual gearbox. The rough engine purred under her right foot. She was as in touch with the mechanics of a vehicle as anyone Hades had ever encountered. She was no trophy, no pampered debutante, no spoiled queen. She was as much a part of the gang as any of the men. How’d he get so lucky?

  He checked his watch. Lawson and his wife had returned an hour earlier. They’d made dinner and opened an expensive bottle of wine. Content and relaxed. Perhaps discussing their weekly shopping expedition, or plans for the vacation they’d booked for next week.

  Cora drove the van closer to the house. From here, Hades no longer needed the binoculars to see the front door, recessed into a deep and dark porch. On either side were tall windows. The windows upstairs were smaller and squarer, but no less dark.

  This was the house owned by a successful doctor who had done well for himself. He’d studied hard and worked long hours. Even better, he had amassed significant wealth. He was even richer than his partner, Donald Warner, had been because of the money they stole from Benny.

  Hades would take it all. Before the week was over, Lawson would beg him to do it.

  Lawson needed nothing but an incentive, and Hades was a master of persuasion. He hadn’t been in his early years. Back then, he had merely mastered violence. In prison, he’d come to understand how violence could lead to consent. He’d learned the hard way, but he had learned well. He planned to demonstrate his skills to Lawson and that bitch he was married to.

  Mr. and Mrs. Lawson were eating dinner in the dining room at the back of the house. He had watched their routine. He’d made notes and taken photographs. He knew their movements and actions better than they did. Predicting routines
was the easiest thing in the world.

  He rapped his knuckles against the metal wall. “Time,” he said.

  Hades felt the two guys shift their weight, bringing stationary muscles to life. Stretching. Limbering up. They were like athletes; they never played a game unprepared. Hades heard the reverberating noise in the cavernous van as they released safety catches. Pony and Shorty were ready.

  Hades pulled a VBR pistol from the holster on his hip. The gun seemed massive. One of the reasons he liked it was that it had a rough surface as if it had been cast from iron and forged in hell. Seemed fitting. A second hand grip and an offset sight added to the gun’s presence. Merely brandishing the weapon often encouraged capitulation. Thirty-three 9mm rounds backed up the threat. Hades chambered the first round and placed the gun in his lap.

  In his coat, he carried a 12-gauge short-barreled Remington pump action shotgun. He’d removed the superfluous items on the shotgun. No fancy hooks or scrolls, so it slid smoothly out of a loop inside his long coat.

  The shells were his own design. Lead shot replaced by chili powder. A single blast disabled an opponent for minutes. Fired into a room full of people, it produced dramatic results. No one died. But they often wished they had.

  On his belt, he carried a nine-inch knife. The handle was thick and the blade serrated. Like the VBR, the mere sight of it could paralyze a civilian opponent.

  Cora turned the van into the driveway, clicked off the engine, and rolled to a stop. She stayed at the wheel as Shorty slipped on his realistic latex mask. He left the back of the van and walked toward the front door. His shaved head reflected the moon’s faint glow until his black clothes melded into the darkness in the corner of the porch.

  Hades and Pony put on their masks and headed around the rear of the building. They walked purposefully. The sort of walk that told nosey neighbors they were professionals doing professional work. Which, Hades grinned, they were.

  Their clothes were black, too. They made no sound as they walked, the effect of coating the soles of their heavy, steel-toed boots with a layer of spray-on rubber.

  The rear of the house sported picture windows that looked out on a full-length concrete patio. In the middle of the patio was a fireplace, open on two sides. On the far side of the fireplace were a pair of sofas, on the near side was a large mosaic table and chairs.

  Cypress trees ringed the edge of the concrete, shielding the Lawson home from the prying eyes of distant neighbors. The windows were uncovered. No blinds or drapes. The garden was ringed in thick pine trees. Lawson had planted the trees to ensure privacy.

  Fools.

  The couple sat across from each other at the oval dining table. The lights were dimmed. A vase of flowers and a bottle of wine served as the table’s centerpiece

  Lawson stood up, frowning. His wife’s eyes went wide.

  Hades worked his way between the lawn chairs. His mask was excellent quality. The Lawsons were no doubt surprised to see Babe Ruth walking toward them from the darkness. Or maybe they didn’t recognize the slugger at all, which would be even better. He moved smoothly, steadily, smiling all the while.

  Keep the targets curious.

  There’d be time for fear later.

  Pony followed him, pulling an iron battering ram from under his coat. Despite its fifty-pound weight, he swung it with ease.

  Five paces from the house, Pony ran headlong into the rear door, planting the flat front of the ram against the door’s frame. The combined weight and momentum crushed the door around its lock.

  Pony swung the ram back and pounded the door a second time. It sailed open.

  Lawson bolted from the dining room. His wife ran into the living room.

  Pony, wearing a mask with the likeness of an Australian soccer star they’d probably never seen on television, took off after the wife, his trademark ponytail flying behind him.

  Hades went after Lawson, pulling out his shotgun as he ran.

  Lawson was already halfway up a wide staircase. Hades knew Lawson kept a pistol in the drawer by his bed. Hades took the stairs two at a time.

  Lawson used the banister at the top of the steps to change direction and maintain speed. Hades raised the shotgun. Lawson ducked and kept running the full length of the corridor.

  Hades sprinted after him. Lawson darted into the master bedroom and flicked the door closed behind him.

  Hades raised his boot and hammered into the door handle. The door whipped open.

  Lawson reached for the drawer in his bedside table.

  Hades leveled his shotgun. “Simon. Stop it.”

  Lawson turned, his face screwed up in alarm.

  It worked every time. The confusion. He could almost hear Lawson thinking, “I don’t know you, but you know me?”

  The moment’s pause gave Hades all the time he needed.

  He pulled the shotgun’s trigger.

  The charge was small, the impact’s force subdued. The chili powder was hot. Painful. Stinging. Immobilizing. But not lethal.

  Lawson took the blast in the shoulder. He twisted around, screaming.

  Hades held his breath and covered the room in two paces. He swung his boot into Lawson’s kidneys.

  Lawson groaned once and collapsed.

  Hades grabbed him by the collar, dragged him downstairs, and threw him onto the sofa beside his wife.

  Pony let Shorty in from the porch shadows through the front entrance. He returned to hold his gun pointed at the couple, in case they hadn’t already received the message to cower and be afraid.

  Shorty, whose mask was the face of an obscure English footballer, ran to open the garage door.

  The van’s engine coughed into life and rolled into the garage. Shorty closed the doors. A moment later and they’d all entered the house. Shorty sealed the broken rear door with duct tape.

  The only sound in the silent house came from the ticking grandfather clock in the corner of the living room.

  Hades dragged a dining room chair into the room and placed it by the coffee table, directly opposite Simon and Natalie Lawson. They pressed closer to each other. They’d lost their snooty arrogance the moment Pony battered their back door. Her lacquered bleached hair was barely disturbed, but her makeup was a mess. His face had aged a decade since he took the chili shot to the shoulder. Perfect.

  Hades sat in the chair. He watched the couple huddled in a ball on the sofa.

  Seconds ticked by.

  Simon shifted his weight. Natalie whimpered and moved closer to him.

  Hades eased his knife from the sheath, and dragged the tip across the table, scoring a line through the thick varnish and tearing splinters from the wood underneath. The sound reverberated through the room.

  Natalie Lawson gripped Simon harder as if he was half the man she’d believed him to be an hour ago.

  Hades smirked and cut another line. The same depth. The same splinters. The same spine-tingling sound.

  He made a cross. X marks the spot.

  He flipped the knife backward in his hand and swept it down hard, driving the tip deep into the wood.

  The couple recoiled into a tighter ball.

  This one’s for you, Benny. Hades left the knife standing upright, halfway between himself and them, the point buried deep in the expensive wood.

  He smiled, revealing his broken front tooth. The one Benny had dinged with a bad bounce of a steely marble when they were kids. “Listen to me. Very carefully. I won’t repeat myself.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Monday, May 22, 7:45 a.m.

  Denver, Colorado

  Jess Kimball was early. Her appointment with Carter Pierce, the owner of Taboo Magazine, wasn’t until eight o’clock. Carter lived and breathed for Taboo. He’d have arrived at least two hours ago, even on a Monday morning. Of course, he lived in the penthouse of the building, so his commute was shorter.

  She took the elevator to the sixty-sixth floor of the magazine’s tower block. A few people exchanged smiles and greetings on the way
. Others raised surprised eyebrows because her work rarely brought her to the premises.

  She scanned the floor and noticed no decorating changes since she was here last. An open central area dotted with low-walled office cubes. TV monitors on stalks dangled from the ceiling. In one corner was Carter’s office. Actually, it was two offices. His personal space, and a large conference room next door where major stories and every issue of Taboo was hashed out by the team before publication.

  On either side of Carter’s office were rows of smaller offices. Jess’s was the third door down from his. Though she never flaunted it, she was Carter’s go-to reporter. When the story was tough or delicate or likely to make worldwide headlines, he called her. She’d worked hard to earn the position, and she was proud of it, but the legal and contract departments outranked her and filled the offices closest to Carter.

  On the opposite side of the floor, her assistant, Mandy Donovan, was busy with an overly complex coffee machine. She juggled a handful of glass and plastic and managed a wave. Jess waved back.

  She reached her office and dropped her bag into one of her visitor chairs. Even though the room was spotless, it smelled vacant, the result of her near constant travel schedule.

  She flipped through a pile of mail. Mandy had already handled the essentials. She slid the rest into the trash can. Even the special offers that might have interested her were out of date.

  At three minutes to eight, she walked to Carter’s office.

  Carter’s assistant, Thelma Baxter, was the epitome of the little old lady in sneakers who truly ran the daily business of the organization. Jess feared Taboo would cease to exist when Thelma died. There was no one and nothing the woman didn’t know.

  Jess had no idea how old Thelma was, but she had seen decades of staff come and go. As a party trick, she could recite the magazine’s front page headline for each issue back forty years.