5 Highball Exit (21 page)

CHAPTER 49

I settled my sunglasses over my eyes and was hunting for my keys when my cell rang. Another call from Ryan? Or maybe it was the police saying that Ryan had been picked up and I could sleep without worries for one night at least. It was Cal Vachess.

Good news or bad, I had to know. “What?” I looked out the door of the hospital, searching for danger as I waited for his answer.

“My brother . . .” He didn’t go on.

“What about Ryan?” My voice was stuck high in my throat. “He’s out of control. He doesn’t know where the boundaries areanymore.”

“No kidding!” I scanned the parking lot. There were no red Mustangs. “Are you just discovering that? And then there’s his health to worry about.”

He didn’t answer.

“Holly was
HIV
-positive, and we both know she got it from Ryan.”

“You can’t prove a thing.”

“I’ve been doing lots of reading online. Diseases have markers. Each strain is unique. If the police go looking they’ll find out that Holly’s strain matches Ryan’s. He infected Holly. He should be in jail where he won’t hurt any more women.” I jogged to the truck.

“They’ll never arrest him for that. It’s too hard to prove intent.

The most they could charge him with is assault and in this case there’s no victim to press charges. They won’t even hold him.”

I stopped dead halfway into the truck. “You’ve already gotten legal advice, haven’t you? Probably have the lawyer on speed dial, primed and ready to go. You’re as guilty as he is.” I screamed, “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“You really think I haven’t tried?”

“So he just goes on ruining lives?”

“He’ll stop.”

“Yeah, when he overdoses or drives his car into a concrete barrier because he’s high. And in the meantime he’s out partying. How many more people are going to get sick?”

“Those idiots have to look out for themselves. They know the risks as well as you do. That’s not my problem.”

“Holly was never an escort, was she?”

He took his time answering. “She only went out once. That was months ago and it was a disaster. She ran out of the room and left the guy standing there.”

I started the engine and cranked up the air. “And then what happened?”

He sighed. It took some time before he said, “She was Ryan’s private property for a while and then he sold her to Dusty.”

“But you said she called you.”

“Ryan did. When Dusty threw her out she went to Ryan for help. He called and said she needed a job, said I should put her to work. He put the pictures he took of her up on the website but I never sent her out. I made her get tested, even took her to the clinic myself. That’s how she found out she had the virus.”

“She called you and told you that?”

“Nah, she told Ryan. He called and yelled at me for making her get checked.”

“You wanted her to know. That’s why you made her get tested.”

“If she had it, she had to get treated, but I make sure all the girlsget screened before they work.”

“Ryan knew she had it and he was going to send her out there to infect other people. He wanted that to happen.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t think he really thought it through.”

“And I think you’re just lying to yourself. Your brother is evil.”

“He’s angry that this happened to him . . . he blames people for things, and doesn’t care who he takes it out on.”

“He left me some sick messages. How much trouble is he going to give me?”

“His obsessions don’t last. Just stay away from Ryan and give him a chance to forget about you. That’s what I wanted to say. Go away for a while.”

“How long do you think that might take?” He laughed. “A day or two.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Take a holiday.”

“You knew who I was when I came into your office. You saw my picture, probably heard everything Holly had to say about me. More than that, you knew Ryan killed Holly, gave her pills and watched her die.

“I bet he told you about it and you went over to clean up after him. Someone tidied up even before the cops got there. I think it was you. You’re the careful one. You went through her things, maybe even took her journals and laptop. For sure you got rid of any evidence on her phone. And then you left that message on her cell, trying to get hold of her, in case the police connected Ryan to her. You wanted the cops to think she was just another sex worker. And all that bullshit that you were protecting me . . . you just didn’t want Ryan to do another stupid thing and kill me because that would really screw things up for you. You’re the brains, you’re the one who does the organizing, probably delivering women all over the state. Well, your little empire is coming down. You better call that lawyer you have ready because I told the cops about you and you’re going to be charged as an accessory to murder.”

He hung up without answering. It was my day for having men hang up on me.

Ryan’s messages were still on my phone. I could drive back up to Sarasota and take them to the police, but would they pick him up sooner if they heard what he’d said, heard his threats? And how long would Ryan be in jail after he was arrested? I knew the answer to that. Ryan would probably be out so quick he wouldn’t even have to come down from his latest high, and unless Ryan was charged for murder, Cal would walk as well. What the cops knew and what they could prove in court were two very different things. I hadn’t accomplished anything except to give Ryan a bigger reason to come after me.

Clay would be home soon. I held onto that thought like a lifeline. Things would be fine when he came home. I’d be safe. That’s all I wanted now, to be safe.

CHAPTER 50

“You had your cell off.” Brian opened the door even before I could get the key in the lock. He was beaming at me. “Clay’s on his way home.”

I sagged down on the chair in the foyer. “Thank god.”

“I’m going out to the ranch for the weekend. I’m all ready to go,” Brian grinned. “You and Clay are going to need a little space and I need to go to Lovey’s Café for one of those heart-stopping breakfasts.”

“Thanks, Brian.”

“Do you want me to wait until Clay gets here?”

“No, I’m safe here. No one knows where I am.”

He came over and hugged me to him. “Just remember, I get to be the best man.”

I looked up at him. “How is it that you always know things before I do?”

“It’s because I am the best man. Come on, I’ll pour you a glass of wine.”

A couple of hours later, after I’d told him all about my day, he threw me a kiss and went out to the garage. I heard the garage door go up. My phone rang as I stepped from the shower. I wrapped a towel around me and headed for my cell, already getting angry at Clay for cancelling once again.

But it was Sammy Defino. He was calling to tell me he’d just heard on the ten o’clock news that Rob McCabe had been shot and killed in the alley behind his deli. Police were investigating but they had no one in custody and no suspects.

Even as I listened to Sammy, even before I started crying, I headed to the bedroom for Clay’s revolver, hidden in the top drawer of the night table. I’d left it fully loaded, all six chambers. Both of those things were going against everything Clay had ever lectured me on about gun safety.

I finished talking to Sammy, swore I’d take care, and then I dropped the phone on the bed and opened the drawer. The gun wasn’t there.

I stared in disbelief. Had Brian taken it? He’d warned me more than once about carrying concealed, told me that more people were shot by their own weapons than by armed intruders. But surely he wouldn’t have taken the revolver.

I smelled his aftershave. I turned slowly around. Ryan smiled at me and said, “Looking for this?” His eyes burned with a mad fire as he held up Clay’s gun, wagging it back and forth in the air. The butt of a second gun showed above his belt.

I dove for my phone but Ryan was quicker, backhanding me across the jaw and driving me sideways into the wall. And then he hit me again. My head slammed into the drywall. Dazed, I crumbled to my knees.

His fingers caught my wet hair and pulled me sideways and onto my back. And then Ryan Vachess was on top of me, his fingers around my throat. His face was jammed up against mine as he hissed, “I saw the boyfriend leave with an overnight bag. Going away, was he?” He laughed. “We’ll have all night. I’m going to take my time, going to really enjoy this.” His hips worked up and down against me. He was already enjoying this.

He shoved the barrel of the gun under my chin, stopping my breath.

“You’re going to pay for misbehaving.” He got to his feet. Standing over me, the gun pointing down at me, he kept mefixed to the floor with his foot on my chest.

I wrapped both hands around his ankle, trying to lift it and lessen the pressure.

He smiled cruelly and pressed harder, like he was squashing a bug.

“How . . . ?” I gasped.

“Oh, you’ll see fast enough how I’m going to make you pay.”

“No,” I panted. “How . . . find me?”

“Why do you care? There isn’t going to be another time for you to hide better.”

I couldn’t answer.

His lips twisted in delight. “A neat little device . . . a GPS tracker. There’s no need to follow anyone anymore. Just put one of those on their vehicle and you have them on your computer. Of course the law says you’re only supposed to put them on cars you own.” This struck him as profoundly funny.

Still laughing, he took handcuffs from his back pocket and jangled them above me. My expression must have shown my terror because he threw back his head and howled in exaltation.

“You and Cal, so easy . . . and that fool who just left? Earlier, before you got here, he came back from next door and punched in a code for the garage. I was watching. No problem . . . just follow the pattern, straight across the top from left to right and down one. So simple, no numbers to remember, and he doesn’t lock the door from the house to the garage. Did you know that? He just lowers the garage door. He likes life easy . . . so easy and so careless.”

He reached down to touch my face and I bit him.

He jerked away from me, a reflexive reaction, and I kicked out with both feet, sending him backwards over the bed and onto the floor on the other side. I heard him strike the night table, heard his curse, but I was already on my feet, already gone.

Naked and running, a bullet sent splinters flying from the door frame as I burst into the hall. In the living room, a lamp exploded but I didn’t stop.

Out through the lanai, bolting through the dark, I crossed the velvet grass without a plan. I just ran. Ahead of me, on the concrete walk by the sign, the long ribbon of moonlight streaking the water ended at a long dark shadow ten feet in front from me. The sinister outline rose and grew larger.

I stood very still, a monster in front of me and a monster behind me.

The silhouette in front edged towards me as I heard Ryan panting at my back. I spun around and started pleading with Ryan.

“Please don’t hurt me.” Begging and being submissive was the only way to stay alive. And it was so easy to do. “Please, no pain.” I stepped sideways, away from the water.

“Pain is only a little part of what I have in mind for you.” Inching sideways, towards the house, I edged away from thegator, while Ryan turned his back to it.

“Bitch. I knew you were trouble the minute I walked into Cal’s office and saw you. But he wouldn’t listen. Oh, no, he thought it was all in my head.” He tapped at his head with the barrel of the gun. “But I knew I had to deal with you.”

Slowly Ryan moved with me, circling around me, corralling me and herding me back towards the house. Now he stood between me and the shadow.

I raised my hands in supplication. “Please . . .” I moved towards him. “Please, I’ll be good.”

“Damn right you will.” Behind him something moved in the moonlight. “Good . . . and obedient.”

My hands went out in supplication. Close to him now, near enough to smell him, I jammed my fists into him, driving him down to my revenge.

He stumbled backwards, arms windmilling, but not quite losing his footing until there was a violent movement behind him. Ryan screamed. It was like no other sound I’d ever heard before.

Thrashing on the grass and then pleading for help, his hands stretching out for me, he was pulled backwards.

The gun lay on the ground between us. I didn’t pick it up.

His fingers raked through the lawn as he was dragged towards the pond. At the water there was one more “Help me.”

I watched the gator slip back into the water with Ryan struggling and screaming in its jaws.

There was a last shriek of terror and then the gator started to roll and Ryan disappeared.

The water was still roiling when the neighbors arrived, but only one snake-skinned loafer and the gun remained of Ryan.

A man said, “Why didn’t you shoot it?”

“Leave her be!” a woman said. She wrapped some rough material around me. “You can’t expect a woman to know how to do that.” Someone else suggested I was afraid of hitting Ryan.

I gave a soft hiccup of a laugh and covered my mouth before the truth popped out.

The reality was I’d never be safe with Ryan alive. It came down to Ryan or me and I liked me better than him . . . simple self-preservation. Besides, Ryan and the gator deserved one another. The wildlife people captured the alligator the next day. I never asked what was found in its stomach. I have enough nightmares with the things I already know. And I really don’t think about Ryan too much anymore. I’ve got a bar to run.

The End