Fatal Game

by Diane Capri

  On the other hand, Melissa Green must have known someone in this town. Jess looked down the main street. Where might she have made a friend?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Tuesday, May 23

  Santa Irene, Arizona

  Cora gawked at Hades, mouth agape. “Twenty million?”

  Hades picked her up and twirled her around. She giggled, and he pulled her close for a long, hard kiss. When he set her down, he said, “Maybe even more. Can you believe it?”

  “Hot damn!” She stamped her bare foot on the floor and fist-pumped the air.

  “I heard all the shouting” Pony walked down the stairs, his heavy boots thumping on the treads. “What’s going on?”

  “Looks like Lawson was hiding a hell of a lot more money than we thought.” Cora laughed. A long, rippling sound.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Hades scowled. “We don’t know for sure yet. All we know is that Lawson has a foreign account with some money in it.”

  Cora shook her head. “You said they want a signature because it’s over twenty mil.”

  Pony whistled. “Twenty million?”

  Hades held up his hands to stop the conversation. “They did say that. But maybe they were testing us, knowing that there is nowhere near that amount there. Maybe we just triggered some alarm, and don’t know it yet.”

  Cora sighed and sank onto the arm of the sofa.

  Hades waved at Pony. “Get back up there. I need to think, and we still need a lookout.”

  Pony looked at Cora and back to Hades on his way up the stairs to his post. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “I know.”

  “We have to get it,” Cora said.

  “If we can,” Hades said.

  “If it’s real,” Shorty said.

  “It is a lot of money. We can get it. And it’s real.” Cora walked around the sofa. “I can feel it. I can taste it.” She spread her arms out to encompass the luxury surrounding her. “Look at this place. Lawson is a doctor. Sure, he makes good money. But the electric bill alone must be more than most people earn in a year.”

  “Maybe, but we don’t know anything yet. We all just need to—”

  Shorty threw his arms up. “Twenty-frigging-million!”

  Hades stabbed his finger at him. “Shut it! We won’t have anything if I can’t figure out how to get this signature done.”

  Cora waved to the desk. “There’s lots of examples of his signature around here. You could practice.”

  Hades sighed. “But can I do it in an office in Tucson? Under pressure? And it could be a setup.”

  “Why?” Cora shook her head.

  “People there could know Lawson. Personally. Or what if they have a photo on file?”

  “We could make a mask,” Cora said.

  “It wouldn’t look exactly like him. Not up close.” Hades sat silently. Minutes ticked by.

  Cora refilled her coffee and returned to the sofa. “We have to do something.”

  “We’re going to.” Hades stared into space. “For twenty million, we could get out of this game forever.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tuesday, May 23

  Bear Hill, Arizona

  Jess wandered along the main street through Bear Hill. She passed two banks. They would be ideal places to find information about Melissa Green, but they were also the last places that would talk to a merely curious reporter.

  She saw two diners and a coffee shop. Not franchises or chains. The coffee shop was on one side of a bakery. The intoxicating aromas made her stomach growl. Jess lingered in front of the fresh bread and pastries displayed in the window.

  Bear Hill was a small, but self-sufficient, town. If Melissa Green had wanted to leave the public glare after her sister was kidnapped in Santa Irene, Bear Hill had been a great choice.

  Okay. So Melissa didn’t come into town much. But her kitchen had been fully stocked when Jess was there before the explosion. Her food and supplies had to come from somewhere.

  Jess looked up and down the street. It would be hard to visit this town without being seen. She had the feeling that no one walked the street that Dawn failed to see.

  Jess returned to the Mustang and drove the length of Main Street. She turned a couple of times and found herself headed north on a parallel road. There were a few stores mingled between older homes here.

  She passed an antique store, a Presbyterian church, and the Bear Hill fire station. The houses she saw were settled on large lots, but they were old and tired-looking. The residents she’d seen were mostly seniors, too. A gray-haired couple sitting on a porch waved as she passed.

  She was heading into a fully residential area. There was one last building that looked larger than most. It was the back side of a warehouse. All manner of lumber and pipes were stacked and protected behind a fence bearing warnings about video cameras recording twenty-four-seven.

  She circled the block. The front of the warehouse sat back on an unpaved parking lot large enough to hold a couple of dozen vehicles. A large pull-in loading dock was reserved for trucks to load purchases and then pull straight through. Bartlet’s Building Supplies had been painted over the main doors long ago. Like everything else she could see, the paint also looked in need of TLC.

  Three men were unloading an eighteen-wheeler. Two of them worked as a team, picking up the larger lumber and boxes and moving them inside. They kept a steady pace, carrying the load into the warehouse and returning for the next without a break.

  The third man cherry-picked what he lifted, and placed the boxes on a bright red dolly. When the dolly was three-quarters full, he wheeled it into the building.

  A horn beeped. Jess pulled into the parking lot, clearing the edge of the sidewalk and moving out of the way as a truck with the words Don’s Electrical on the side entered, bumping over the rough ground. A man in heavy boots got out of the truck, gave her a wave. He disappeared into the warehouse.

  Jess frowned. Building supply stores were typically the preserve of men. But every new place she’d ever moved into had needed a million little things to make it a home. A single woman like Melissa would have had no choice but to shop here at least a few times and probably more frequently.

  Jess parked and followed the man from the electrical supply truck inside. Building supplies always had the same smell. Not unpleasant, just a reminder of the components that go to make up a home. The basic mixture of wood, plaster, and concrete had barely changed in a couple of centuries.

  There was no one behind the checkout counter.

  The men unloading the big truck carried in a shower cubicle. They avoided eye contact with her and returned to the eighteen-wheeler in the loading dock.

  The building was densely packed with merchandise. Jess wandered through the aisles. Commonplace tools rested beside peculiar electric saws for which she couldn’t imagine a need. Another aisle displayed bathroom fixtures, waste disposal units, and big wide pipe for venting residential clothes dryers.

  She met the man from the supply truck in the electrical section. His work shirt was embroidered with his name over the pocket. Don uncoiled a thick cable on the floor, paced out a section, and cut off the length he wanted. He smiled as she passed.

  The remainder of the store was filled with lawnmowers and garden tools of all kinds.

  She returned to the checkout counter, but the register was still unmanned.

  Don arrived behind Jess, his coil of cable over his shoulder and several boxes of electrical supplies in his large hands.

  The man with the dolly wandered in from the loading dock with another half-load. He steered away from the checkout.

  Don whistled. Loud. “Hey, Steven! Come on. Customers are waiting here.”

  The man with the dolly looked over. Steven flashed a half smile, half grimace, and sighed. He let go of the dolly. It rolled to a stop of its own accord.

  Don nodded to Jess. “This lady’s first.”

  Steven ambled to the checkout. He looked
Jess up and down. She had the feeling he wasn’t looking for what she was going to purchase.

  “What you got?” he said.

  Jess looked at Don. “Actually, I just wanted some information. If you want to go first…”

  Don put down his armful of switches and hefted the cable onto the counter with a thud. “No problem. Steven here needs to work on his customer service skills.”

  Jess took a deep breath and looked at Steven. “Do you know Melissa Green?”

  Steven screwed up his face. “Who?”

  “Melissa Green.” Jess pointed in the direction of Melissa’s house. “She lives up the road.”

  Don laughed. “Well, this is good.”

  Jess frowned.

  “You remember Melissa, Steven.”

  Steven shifted his weight and shrugged his shoulders.

  Don grinned. “She slapped Steven once.”

  Steven scowled.

  “Pretty hard, so I heard,” Don said.

  Steven glared at Jess. “Are you going to buy anything?”

  “Why did she slap you?”

  “The usual reason a woman slaps a man,” Don said.

  “She been in here lately?”

  Steven sighed. “Who are you, again? What do you want?”

  “My name’s Jessica Kimball with Taboo Magazine. I’m looking for Melissa Green.”

  Steven took a half step back. “I didn’t have nothing to do with that fire.”

  “I didn’t say you did. I’m just trying to get an idea of what Melissa is like. So I can find her.” Jess paused. “You know she’s missing, I assume.”

  Steven nodded and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  “Tell her what you know,” Don said. “Bad situation up at her place. Least you can do is help when you’re asked.”

  Steven opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before speaking. “I don’t know nothing. She used to come in here. Sometimes. A while ago.”

  “How long ago?”

  Steven shrugged. “A year? Maybe two?”

  “Closer to two, maybe,” Don said. “When she first moved in. You know how it is, setting up a new place.”

  “Maybe closer to two years than one, yeah,” Steven said.

  “What did she buy?”

  Steven screwed up his face. “I don’t know. Stuff. Things.” He waved toward the warehouse. “We sell tons of stuff.”

  “Plumbing things,” said Don. “I saw her buying pipe and joints. A torch as well.”

  “Torch?”

  “Blowtorch.” Don mimed welding. “To join copper fittings.”

  “She did her own plumbing?” Jess arched her eyebrows.

  Don shrugged and smiled. “I heard she had a man helping out. But that might have been a rumor. Never know around here. Not much to do except gossip about the neighbors in a town like Bear Hill.”

  “What kind of gossip did you hear about Melissa?”

  “She was a looker. Really pretty. Hence Steven’s…” He patted the side of his face and turned his head with the push. “Anyway, I think she wanted to be left alone. Stayed out there in her place, mostly. Some people didn’t like that and weren’t above telling tales.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “It was just speculation. No substance to it. Gossip about men around her place. Stuff like that.”

  “What men?”

  “I don’t know.” Don shook his head. “I figure she had a plumber out there to do some work, and after that people just made up stories to have something to talk about. You know. After her sister, and all. I doubt there was any truth to any of it. I figure she moved here to get away from all that circus in Santa Irene. Stands to reason she wasn’t going to go out of her way to look for attention when she got here.”

  “That makes sense,” Jess replied and thanked Don for his candor. She walked back to the Mustang thinking that the rumors could easily have been true, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tuesday, May 23

  Santa Irene, Arizona

  Hades sat at the computer. Cora sat across from him with her coffee. Shorty had gone upstairs to shower. Pony was still on lookout and searching the Internet for news about Melissa Green.

  Hades hadn’t spoken in a long time. His coffee mug was empty, and his mouth was dry. He licked his lips and cleared his throat. “We can’t trust Simon Lawson.”

  Cora frowned. “To do what?”

  “Go to the broker’s office and sign over his money. You saw him downstairs. He’s falling apart. Desperate.” He shook his head. “No. Lawson would do anything to save his own skin.”

  Cora frowned. “What about his wife? Would he do the right thing to save her?”

  “I don’t think he cares. At least, he doesn’t care enough.” Hades shrugged. “His own skin is more important.”

  “We could try threatening her. See how it goes.”

  He shook his head. “I saw the look on his face when Shorty taped her arm to the chair. He didn’t look alarmed. More like relieved, I’d say.”

  Cora snorted. “He’s pond scum.”

  “We already know that.”

  “But we can’t ignore twenty million, baby.” Cora collected both coffee mugs and refilled them.

  “Or possibly more.” He tapped the computer screen. “Which is why I’ve been searching through Lawson’s email.”

  Cora handed him the coffee and looked over his shoulder. He pointed to a string of emails. She chuckled. “Well, well.”

  “Exactly.” Hades sipped the coffee. It felt good going down. His throat was parched ever since he’d heard about the twenty million. He wanted it. Wanted it bad. But he didn’t want to die to get it. “What do you think he would do for her?”

  She smiled. “He’s not complete scum then.”

  “Close enough. But she’s our best chance.” He’d made up his mind. He patted her ass. “Get Pony and Shorty.”

  A minute later, all four stood around the kitchen island.

  “We have a new plan,” Hades said.

  “The brokerage account?” Pony’s eyes grew as wide as the rim of a shot glass.

  “I’m not sugar coating this. It’s a big risk. And if we get the money, we have to leave the country. No ifs, ands, or buts. We’ll be burning bridges. Thousand ways things could go south quick. And if they do, there’s no turning back.” He took a deep breath. “So if anybody wants out, now’s the time to jump ship.”

  “Twenty million dollars?” Pony glanced at Shorty and Cora, then back at Hades. “Who the hell wants out?”

  Shorty nodded.

  Cora’s decision was never in doubt.

  Hades looked carefully into their eyes. To each member of his crew individually. Each one nodded. He nodded in return. “Then we’re going to get it. All of it.”

  “But we’re going to finish what we started, too, right?” Pony said.

  “Hell, yes. And we’re not leaving anyone or anything behind. Which means we’re going to have to split up.” He pointed at Pony and Shorty. “You have to clean out the safe house. Everything. Take a truck, empty the place. Sterilize it. Then drive the truck off a cliff.”

  Shorty said, “Why not just torch it all?”

  “Look at what happened to Green’s place when we did that,” Pony said. “We don’t need any more heat.”

  “Driving a truck off a cliff doesn’t attract attention?” Shorty said.

  “A stolen truck in the middle of nowhere. Plenty of gas in the tank, so it explodes and burns.” Cora purred. “It’ll take days before they even figure out what model it was.”

  “Torching the house would be easier,” Shorty grumbled.

  Hades leaned in and lowered his voice to make them all pay close attention. “Everything we do leaves some evidence. I’ll be damned if I’m giving anyone any more than we have to. Not when we’re this close to getting out of here with twenty million dollars in our pockets.”

  “You clean the place out, leave the keys for the owner. An o
rdinary bunch of people doing ordinary things.” Cora said, smoothly. “We’ll be a distant memory out at the lake house even before you’re safely back here with us.”

  “What will you two be doing?” Shorty said.

  “In Tucson. Signing for the money.”

  “Clearing the house is going to be a big job. Shorty’s right. We could use the help,” Pony said.

  Hades held his fingers like a pistol and mimicked a gunshot. “After that’s done, we’re finishing what we started.”

  “You going to put the squeeze on them?”

  Hades shook his head. “Not worth it.”

  “We didn’t think Lawson was hiding twenty mil.”

  Hades kept shaking his head. “We need to focus. We risk it all if we’re too greedy.”

  There was silence around the island.

  “The money will transfer tomorrow night. Once it’s gone, we’re gone.”

  “What about…” Pony looked around the island. “We’re not all here.”

  Hades glowered. “And that’s the way it’ll stay until tomorrow. No contact with anyone else. No surfing the Internet looking at Ferraris. Nothing. We keep the lowest of low profiles. Absolutely nothing to attract attention.”

  “You better not be thinking of taking his share of this money.”

  Hades grabbed Pony’s shirt. He dragged him close, and whipped his knife into his hand and shoved it against Pony’s abdomen. “Don’t you dare accuse me—”

  Pony twisted, but Hades kept a tight grip on his shirt and the knife close.

  “Then why don’t you want to collect—”

  Hades shoved Pony back. “We’re not leaving anyone.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. We’re not leaving anyone behind. We collect Benny’s family tomorrow. We clear out his stuff and pay his bills. Just like the safe house. We just don’t need anyone getting interested at the last minute. Got it?”

  Pony glowered. “If you say so.”

  “I damn well do. If we keep our wits, we’re all going to be rich. Very rich.”

  Shorty pointed at the floor. “This is all great. But what about the weasel downstairs? How do you plan to get him to cooperate?”