MacKinnon 02 Dead Copy

by Kit Frazier

  I climbed back into the Jeep and pulled up the drive so that I was in full view of the camera and could reach the intercom.

  Heart pounding, I took a deep breath, gave Marlowe a quick hug, and buzzed security.

  “Cauley MacKinnon to see Mr. Ainsworth,” I said.

  “You got an appointment?” a familiar thick Spanish accent said. “Oh, Lord,” I whispered. “Please don’t let it be Chino.”

  I straightened my shoulders and said, “Mr. Ainsworth asked that I see him about communications. I’m here to give him a report.”

  There was a lot of silence, and then the gate buzzed open and I rolled up the driveway, a feeling of impending doom hanging over me like a mean little rain cloud.

  Marlowe and I tumbled out of the Jeep and went to the front door, which opened almost immediately.

  Oh, great. Chino. I glanced toward heaven and made a face at God. “What do you want?” he said, eyes sliding over my chest like he’d missed lunch and was in the mood for ribs.

  My heart pounded in my ears. Beside me, I felt Marlowe bristle. When he turned to close the door, I saw the raw skin of a recently lasered tattoo of a sword wrapped with a snake. T and S. He was having it removed, but you could still see the telltale signs of the Syndicate. I thought of what Diego DeLeon had said about some of his carnales breaking team. I shivered.

  “I have an update for Tres.”

  Chino leered at me, his dark eyes glittering.

  My stomach rolled. I needed a pack of Rolaids, a bottle of PeptoBismol, and half a pound of Prozac. I thought about the gun in the bottom of my purse and felt marginally better.

  Come on, Cauley, get it together…

  “It’s about his sister. He’s going to want to hear this.”

  “What about his sister?” he said, and I cranked my smile up a notch. It was harder than it sounded, seeing’s how my molars were grinding like a grist mill.

  Chino’s dark eyes slitted in suspicion, but he hustled off to find Tres, the chain jangling from his jeans pocket, his tattoos gleaming under the artificial light.

  There was something malignant in the air, and Marlowe must have felt it, too, because his shoulders were stiff, his ears pricked to high alert.

  After a time, Chino came back and ushered me and Marlowe back to Tres’s office. Deejay, gun-toting security guard, butler. A real model citizen.

  “Cauley! To what do I owe this surprise?” Tres said, pouring me a drink and motioning me to sit. I accepted the highball glass but didn’t drink.

  “Just here to do what I said I’d do.” He stared at me.

  “Giving you a progress report on your stepsister.”

  I’d paired a sleeveless, tailored white shirt with the skirt, half-business, half-slutty, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

  Nodding, he settled in behind his enormous desk and waited, hands linked behind his head, leering at me. I thought of the Veronica’s Angels catalogs and wanted to hurl. Beside me, Marlowe leaned hard against me, eyes trained on Tres’s throat.

  As cheerfully as I could manage, I placed my tape recorder on the desk and got out my little red notebook.

  Tres’s brows rose. “What’s that for?”

  I shook my head. “Just taking some notes on the progress. Don’t mind it. We’ll pretend like it’s not even there.”

  He shifted in his seat, trying not to look at the recorder.

  I watched him intently. “Has anyone collected the reward?” I said. “What?”

  “The reward. You know. The incentive to find Faith.”

  Tres shifted, still staring at me. “Sheriff Hollis found and arrested the perpetrator. He’s a public servant and can’t accept the reward.”

  “He okay with that?”

  Tres shrugged. “I donated a considerable amount to his campaign, so I’m thinkin’ he’s okay.”

  I kept my face very still, but my stomach flipped and my hopes to find her alive were dwindling by the minute.

  “I have some information about Faith,” I said, and he blinked.

  It was a small movement, but I caught it and it emboldened me, so I went on lying my ass off.

  “I’ve been helping with the investigation well, really just keeping up with it so Team Six can manage the media. Some things turned up.” Tres swallowed his Scotch and poured himself another. He took a long drink, then cradled the glass in his hands. Cool and collected. “What investigation? They got Lambert. He confessed. He’s in jail. Case closed.”

  I shook my head and smiled sweetly. “This case isn’t closed until we find Faith and bring her home, safe and sound.”

  His face showed no emotion, but he said, “Of course.”

  I nodded and went on. “I spoke with her friends at the club. How is it that you came to own a strip club right when Faith started working there?”

  “Ms. MacKinnon ” he said.

  So we were back to last-name basis again.

  He shook his head. “You’ve seen my stepsister. You saw what she’s done to herself. You see what she’s doing with her life. She was determined to work at that eclub’ and I was determined to protect her.”

  “Protect her from what? Herself?”

  “If need be.”

  I nodded and took some notes. I noticed he tried to sneak a peek. I cleared my throat, hoping he couldn’t see my pulse banging in my carotid artery. “Is that why you invested so heavily in her school?”

  He shifted, half-lifting himself off his chair like he’d suddenly sprouted a hemorrhoid.

  “Same reason. To protect her,” he said.

  I nodded and scribbled. “Any reason you said they had to keep her until she was eighteen to keep the endowment?”

  “Eighteen is legal age. I hoped she’d come to some better life decisions by that time.”

  I smiled. “You’ve been watching Dr. Phil.” “What?” he said, and I shook my head.

  “Any particular reason you had the girls benefiting from your endowment stuffing campaign letters for Junior Hollis’s upcoming reelection?”

  This time he smiled, his composure back in place. “Of course. Ms. Fisher was going to do a class on political studies. I thought it would be a good way to get hands-on knowledge from a grassroots level.”

  “By stuffing envelopes?”

  He smiled. “I did say it was grassroots.”

  I nodded, flipping through my notebook for effect. I stopped at my grocery list and looked up. “Have you come across any new information about your sister’s whereabouts?”

  “Sheriff Hollis is workin’ on it right now.”

  I smiled. “Yes, he’s been very busy. I’ve been trying to talk to him and Josh Lambert, and haven’t been able to get ahold of either.”

  Tres swallowed, trying to hide the fact that he was swallowing. He was quiet.

  “Well, if you speak with Sheriff Hollis, will you tell him I’ve left messages? If I don’t hear from him by tomorrow, I’m going down to the jail to sit in the lobby until I get to talk to Josh.”

  Marlowe leaned harder against me as Tres gave me a yeah, you go ahead and do that smile.

  “Well,” I said with a laugh that came out sounding nervous. “Cantu is waiting on me. When I’m late, he comes looking for me.”

  I stood and gave him my card. “And if you have any more information, you’ll call me?”

  “You bet,” he said, and stood, not taking the card.

  “Oh,” I said. “By the way. Have you heard any more on the girl who was burned in the fire?”

  Marlowe never left my side, his eyes never left Tres. Tres shifted. “No. Why would I?”

  “She worked at your club. Thought you might be interested. I keep wondering why she was at Faith’s at the exact time that a bomb went off.” I said. “That’s been a tough one.”

  “I can see how it would be.” He smiled tightly, hustling me toward the front door.

  He didn’t seem worried, and it pissed me off. He had something to do with Faith’s disappearance, and while I didn’t h
ave any proof, I was pretty sure he was the one who’d broken into my house and attacked me with a dead bird. I wanted him to sweat.

  “There is some good news, though,” I said, and he looked at me impatiently, still heading for the door.

  “What?”

  “They’ve found Tiffany’s BlackBerry.”

  “Her what?”

  “One of those cute portable Internet links. The cops are looking at it right now. They’ve been calling it her own little incendiary device.”

  My heart pounded like thunder as Tres and Chino escorted me and Marlowe out to my topless, doorless Jeep and stood, arms crossed, as I cranked the engine. I pulled halfway around the drive and well out of earshot. I leaned forward and fished a flashlight out of the glove compartment, then I leaned over to Marlowe and whispered, “Marlowe! Search! Search, boy!”

  Marlowe looked at me once, sheer joy on his little puppy face, then he leapt out of the Jeep and into the darkness.

  I screamed, careful not to scream his name, grabbed a flashlight, and took off after the dog, yelling, “Get back here, you dumb dog!”

  I cringed, hoping the dog wouldn’t take it personally. But he was off and in the woods, a dog on a mission. For all I knew, Marlowe thought I was yelling the key code to my office.

  Teetering along behind him on my too-high heels, I followed his fluffy white tail bobbing deeper into the Ainsworth property.

  Flood lights flicked on, and in moments we were bathed in artificial light.

  Marlowe turned, looking at me.

  “Go!” I hissed to Marlowe, and off he went, bouncing down the hill, snuffling back and forth in a perfect search pattern.

  I hit a rock halfway down and fell hard on my butt, scuttling the rest of the way, bumping and scraping and scrambling to get up.

  Tres and his band of vatos were hot on my trail, so I yanked off my shoes and ran full-out after Marlowe, yelling unintelligible things the entire way.

  I winced, trying to ignore the sharp rocks and broken sticks that dug into my bare feet.

  Stumbling, I caught a brief glimpse of Ethan outside the fence, still tinkering with his computer. Ethan gaped, but he stepped behind a boxbush and watched as Marlowe ran from outbuilding to outbuilding, sniffing in the search pattern until he reached the new recording studio.

  Marlowe turned a circle one, two, three then plopped down on his haunches and did his strange little bark. Adrenaline pumped through my veins like Pilar’s high-test lemonade.

  Faith was here. Marlowe knew it.

  My heart kicked into fourth gear, and I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. I wondered if Chino knew CPR. I thought about his skinny, reptilian lips. I sincerely hoped not.

  I tripped again and fell into some kind of shallow pit the kind you get when you dig a hole and there’s never enough dirt to refill it. Scrambling against a rock, my skirt rode about halfway up my rear. Still panting, scrabbling for a handhold, my palm hit something small and hard and smooth.

  A bone.

  The breath strangled in my throat.

  It was tiny and fragile, but there were others. Maybe hundreds. I thought about what Pilar had told me about Hollis out there shooting kitties and teaching Tres to hunt.

  Bile jammed the back of my throat. Get it together, Cauley…

  I scooped up several of the bones and shoved them into the toe of my shoe. All of my internal organs felt like they were going to jump into my throat.

  Scrambling to my feet, I got myself upright, then, stumbling, I rushed toward Marlowe, who was sitting, ears pricked, on perfect alert.

  My heart pumped like thunder as the cholos caught up with me, each of them bearing their rhino-killer pistols.

  I panted, struggling to get my skirt at least halfway down my thighs.

  “Oh, thank you,” I wheezed, holding the stitch in my side. I was panting and sweating and trying to get my breath, trying not to panic. “My dog got away and he just started running. He doesn’t mind very well ‘

  Ah, the truth for a change.

  “Ms. MacKinnon,” Tres panted. “I don’t care what happened.” He wheezed. “You are trespassing.”

  Nice to know I wasn’t the only one who needed to hit the gym.

  The cholos merely seemed amused. They didn’t wheeze. They leered.

  Tres glared at me. “If I catch you out here again, there will be consequences.”

  Blood raced through my body, pooling in my cheeks, and I tried not to seem flushed.

  All three of the cholos had their pistols out, and now they pointed at Marlowe.

  That brought me to my senses. “Hey!” I gasped. “He’s just a dog. He got away. He does that sometimes.”

  I winced. My feet and arms were scraped and scratched and I was very aware of the bones in the shoe I was carrying.

  I panted, bending a little to catch my breath, petting Marlowe between his ears. “Dogs are like men. They run off sometimes. It’s their nature.”

  Tres’s gaze slid toward the studio. “We’re all victims of our nature, aren’t we, Ms. MacKinnon?” he said.

  I thought about the bones in the shallow pit, and my blood ran cold.

  Tres smiled a bone-chilling smile. He reached for the hem of my skirt, his fingers brushing the flesh of my upper thigh.

  Fear, hot and bright, flashed through my chest. I thought about his fondness for Veronica’s Angels and bit back the scream in my throat.

  Tres leaned very close to me, his lips grazing my ear. His breath was hot and wet and coming more regularly.

  I flinched. Near the studio, I caught a glimpse of something white gleaming in the moonlight. Another little bone…

  Tres snapped his teeth, his finger lingering on the inside of my bare thigh. “Now see here? You’ve gone and torn your skirt…” His cologne surrounded me like a toxic cloud.

  My heart thumped hard and I lurched away from him, nearly falling onto the tiny bone. Marlowe leapt toward me, growling at Tres.

  “We have to go,” I said. “Dinner with Cantu.”

  His jaw muscle worked hard and he glared at me.

  “Just so we understand each other,” he said, making a little gun sign with his thumb and forefinger. “This is private property.” He let the hammer down and made a “pop” sound with his lips.

  Hugging Marlowe closely to me, I nodded.

  So much for my lucky skirt.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Well hello, Logan. Glad you called. I’m doing fine, thank you,” I said and flopped onto the sofa with the dog and cat as I made a face at my cell phone.

  “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you since Cantu called me. Where have you been?”

  “If you talked to Cantu, then you know where I was. And I had my cell on vibrate because I was with Tres, and I didn’t want him to get nervous.”

  “You have no authority to run around questioning people,” he said, and I could tell he was angry, which ignited the last drop of adrenaline I had left.

  “Excuse me,” I said, my voice rising. “I may be an obituary writer, but I am still a journalist, and it is my job to interview people. And if I have half a chance in hell of getting off the Dead Beat, this is exactly the kind of thing I’m going to be doing.”

  He was quiet, and I knew he knew I was omitting key details of my adventures with Tres and his minions.

  “Logan,” I said, feeling bad about snapping at him. “You told me there would be times we would be at crosspurposes. This isn’t a crosspurpose, but don’t you think I’m worried about you, too? I mean, you’re outside the country chasing a beautiful, deadly killer. She’s like a praying mantis she’ll seduce you, then rip your head off and eat it.”

  “You’re worried she’s going to seduce me or that she’s going to bite my head off?”

  “Both,” I snapped, annoyed at the streak of envy flashing up my spine.

  He seemed pleased that I was worried that Selena Obregon might get him h
orizontal. “Okay,” he said. “In the event you decide to go snooping around in dangerous places when I’m not there, you’ll call Cantu, and I promise not to let Obregon bite my head.”

  I smiled for the first time in a long time. “Deal,” I said. “Are you any closer to finding her?” I said.

  “Nearly knocking on her door.”

  We were quiet, the line buzzing with things unsaid. “Logan,” I said, not kidding around. “Be careful.” “Hey,” he said. “I’m FBI.”

  I went and poured myself a Diet Coke and called Cantu, who yelled at me until he was interrupted by a kid with a runny nose.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” he said.

  “And I’ll email you what I found out about Faith.”

  I disconnected and all of the energy that I’d been relying on left my body with a whoosh. It was late. All I wanted was a hot shower and to sleep until next week.

  I waved at the cop out front. It was Bushy-Mustached Man, but I was glad just the same.

  The adrenaline was gone now, replaced with ice water, and despite the heat, I felt cold and tired. Trudging down the back hall of my little bungalow, I peeled off my torn, dirty clothes and turned on the shower to let the water get hot. The dog and cat took their ceremonial seats to watch.

  I never understood their fascination with water. Neither one of them liked a bath, and I suspected they wondered what I’d done to get in so much trouble that I’d need such a big bath. Apparently, I’d done a lot.

  After all the hot water ran out, I toweled off and got my notepad. I was exhausted, but I needed a plan.

  I knew Faith was in that studio. Marlowe had made that clear.

  I had to figure out a way to get her out without any of us winding up in that shallow grave of tiny bones.

  In my bedroom, I glanced at the analog clock ticking away on the nightstand. Ten o’clock. I knew Dr. T never went to bed before eleven, so I called her. I needed advice. And I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t going to flip out when I told her what I’d done or what I needed to do.

  She answered the phone on the first ring, and I said, “Hey, Dr. T, what are you doing?”

  “Teaching myself to write left-handed.” That threw me. “Why?”

  “Life is unpredictable. If something happens to my right arm, I want to be able to use my left.”