Boyfriend from Hell (Saturn's Daughters) (35 page)

Sarah was totally thrilled that I included her in my quest for justice.

I should have forgotten the whole idiot plan the instant she nodded and tucked a kitchen knife in her beehive. “This is only an evidence-gathering mission,” I warned her. “No killing.”

“Only in self-defense,” she said eagerly.

Crap, I’d seen that scenario countless times. But
beggars couldn’t be choosers and all that. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to pick you up,” I said in resignation.

It would be a little more than a few minutes. I had to run back up to Julius’s and pull on jeans and change out of the mirrored shirt into a henley. Still inappropriate for visiting, but my hideout wardrobe was limited.

Then I had to take the Harley to my old apartment on Westside to pick up the Miata. I didn’t want Sarah turning chimp on me if she took fright at the Harley’s speed. It was after two by then, so I ran up to check on Jane. She greeted me at the door with a whiny blond toddler over her shoulder.

“Tina! I hope you’re not rethinking your move because I can’t help you with chemistry,” she said worriedly. “Come in and let me put Bobby down for a nap.”

Jane’s furniture was as worn as mine, but she had an eye for design. She’d stuck dried wildflowers in a mayonnaise jar and hung old photos with frames rescued from trash bins and spray-painted in glossy red. Clever.

She’d hung bright red plastic plates on the walls in the kitchen. Maybe I should hire her to do my place should I survive long enough to ever have money.

Jane returned and filled a couple of red plastic glasses with iced tea. I complimented her on her décor, and she cheered up.

“It’s a pity people who live on nothing can’t afford interior designers or I’d have my niche,” she happily agreed.

“Write a blog about designing on the cheap and
ask for donations. When you get readers, sell ads,” I suggested. “Anyhow, I just stopped in to give you a heads-up; I didn’t dare speak on the phone. I don’t know what’s going down at Acme Chemical, but I think Max was killed to keep it quiet. And I think Dane Vanderventer knew about it.”

I didn’t mention the connection with the kids, not wanting to stretch credulity too far. The kids were my own personal vendetta, a wrong maybe I could right, even if I couldn’t bring Max back.

“Warn your boss,” I continued. “And when it turns out you’re right, maybe you’ll get credit for being in the know.”

She shrugged. “Unless I give him proven facts, he won’t listen, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Facts and evidence were damned difficult to locate. I couldn’t off a senator on suspicion of rottenness. I grimaced at the reminder. “I’m just keeping you current. Andre has the keys to those files I told you about. If I get blown sky-high like Max, you can tell Schwartz what I was doing. He’s one of the good guys.”

She nodded uncertainly. “You’re not planning on getting blown up, are you?”

I grinned and bounced the Miata keys in my palm. I’d finally turned a corner, picked up my chin, and seen the light. Or gone around the bend. Whatever. I was tired of being intimidated. To hell with cops and administrative control freaks. A brand-new Clancy was emerging from my self-imposed chrysalis.
Max’s bitch, indeed.

“I turned the tables and may have made a few
people mad. Now I have to up the ante or run. I’m not running.”

Jane grimaced at my challenging grin. “I’d run.”

Fair warning. But it felt soooo good not to keep my head down any longer. I’d been repressing a lot of steam.

• • •

Out in the parking lot where Andre had left my car, I noticed my little Miata had a new windshield and the convertible roof was up and working. I was pretty sure Papa Saturn hadn’t fixed my vehicle, so I figured I owed Andre again, drat the man. He still hadn’t returned my call.

I wondered if I should worry about him but decided he could take care of himself. Besides, if he’d figured out what had caused his sudden urge to enrich his employees, he was probably plotting ways to kill me. Or sobbing in his beer. His fault, entirely. He’d dared me to experiment with my visionary powers. He’d been warned.

Looked like I couldn’t delay any longer. It was time for a showdown at the OK Corral. Even though I knew the real history of the famous shoot-out was messy and no one came out a hero, the movie version worked for me. I put the top down and breezed over to pick up Sarah. She was ready and waiting. She hopped in, and we headed for the highway.

Milo rode with his fur blowing in the wind, admiring the scenery.

“What will we do when we get there?” Sarah asked excitedly.

She’d brushed her wiry hair into a knot at the back of her head, but the wind was whipping it loose already, revealing the blade. I wondered for a minute if hairdresser Sam could fashion hair sheaths for knives.

The north side of the harbor was another world, one with yacht clubs, glass-walled, high-rise condos, designer boutiques, and beautiful people sipping ten-dollar coffee in open-air cafés. They had no problem growing trees. Planters spilled over with colorful flowers tended by an army of landscapers.

Sarah read my Google directions while I maneuvered narrow, hilly, unfamiliar terrain. My jeans and shirt looked out of place among nannies strolling down the middle of quiet lanes in designer sundresses, pushing SUV strollers that cost more than the Miata. Oh well.

We located the Vanderventer mansion in a cul-desac on a hill overlooking all the nouveau riche below. Nothing screams old money more than a fenced park of a yard in the middle of real estate that sells for a thousand per square foot. The Vanderventers had probably made half their fortune by selling off strategic parcels as the city moved in this direction.

The drive was blocked by a guarded gate, of course. I cruised past without stopping. The only ID in my possession had
mud
written on it as far as the Vanderventers were concerned.

I hadn’t thought the back gate would go un-monitored, but I’d hoped Gloria Vanderventer knew nothing about me or my pretty red Miata and that her security guards would have no reason for concern when we drove up behind the FedEx delivery truck.

I was wrong.

The black suits emerged from the shrubbery as soon as I turned off the ignition behind the pool house. I’d hoped to do a little exploration first. So much for that theory. I reached for the keys to back
out, but I had the top down. One thug leaned over and snatched them from my hand.

I eyed their big black automatics with skepticism. “Look, fellas, I’ve tried to be polite,” I told them, doing my best John Wayne drawl. Beside me, Sarah was shaking in her high heels, and Milo was growling like a wildcat in the backseat. I figured I didn’t look much like John Wayne, but I had the attitude. I wasn’t mad yet, and I wanted to give them fair warning.

“At Chesty’s,” I continued explaining with deliberate patience, “I let the cops handle it so you could bail out. But if you keep pointing those things at me, I’ll get really pissed and do something drastic.”

The tallest thug was talking into a headset and not paying attention. The other two sported grim expressions that said they’d like to use me for target practice. All black suits looked alike to me, especially the Caucasians. Looked like Lady Vanderventer wasn’t so much into color. They weren’t the suits from Chesty’s, so maybe they weren’t smart enough to be afraid. How many damned bodyguards did these people employ?

I slipped my cell from my bag, punched speed dial for Andre’s number, and hit speaker so they wouldn’t see the phone. I got voice mail. Maybe I should have let Techie put a tracking device on me. “Hey, the goons have me cornered at Gloria’s,” I said. “You might want to bring in the cavalry.”

At least Andre would have a good idea where to find my remains.

The guy with the headset reached over, found my
cell, and crushed it in one fist. Damn, I’d have to dip into the grocery funds to buy a new one.

I swung the door open hard enough to take out his midsection, but I wasn’t wishing any more deaths just yet. Sarah was still looking terrified enough to turn into a chimp, which would set the goons back a step or two.

Headset Guy grunted at the impact of my plastic door, but he’d jumped back enough that I only bruised his thighs.

“He says to take her over to Max’s place,” he said, signaling the armed two not to shoot. “Wrap her up and haul her out.”

As one of the suits came around the car to grab Sarah, she squealed like a pig, and, as I’d feared, shifted.

“
Watch out!
That thing killed Ralph!” Headset yelled.

A gun went off, and chimp Sarah crumpled in the driveway.

I screamed bloody blue rage, with a curse on my tongue, but before I could spit it out, a fourth goon stepped out of the shrubbery and jabbed a needle in my arm. I went down wishing them to hell, but I had a fuzzy feeling I wasn’t connecting.

I thought I heard a man scream and another shot ring, but I was beyond reacting. My last thought was of my cat. Where was Milo?

• • •

I couldn’t say what my first thought was as I started to wake. I smelled kimchi cooking and groggily gagged until I recognized the stench. It took a bit longer before
I correlated the cooking with Max’s apartment and his Korean neighbors, then another bit before I deduced I was on the broken-down couch that came with the apartment. By that time, I had enough marbles to realize I wasn’t alone. I kept my head down and my mouth shut—and listened.

“Just find out where she hid Max’s papers and get rid of her,” said an authoritative voice I’d heard last from a hospital bed. “Do I have to lead you by the hand?”

Huh, they wanted the papers, not me. How humiliating. And here I’d thought I was special. Guess my new superpowers weren’t as scary as I’d thought if Senator Vanderventer had put in a personal appearance to say farewell, even after I’d tried to put the fear of God in him. Maybe I should have called on Satan after all. Damn, now I’d never learn how to use my gift for good. Evil triumphed again.

My brain obviously wasn’t in full gear.

“There was a shitload of boxes, boss,” a male voice protested. “She ain’t gone anywhere that can hold those boxes. The trucks at her place only had furniture. Something is fishy.”

“The damned boxes didn’t disappear on their own,” Dane shouted. “Max wasn’t a magician! What good does it do to get rid of the witness if you leave the evidence?”

“He wasn’t supposed to wait until rush hour to leave,” one of the goons whined. “We didn’t have time to make it to his place. You should have hired more men.”

Nice to know that Max’s chronic lateness had a purpose. Okay, did that count as evidence that the senator had killed Max? Well, had Max killed, since I couldn’t envision a Vanderventer crawling under an Escort.

Could I whack him now?

Probably not.
Focus, Tina.
I’d developed a resistance to drugs in my year of hospitals, so I was probably awake faster than they expected, but I was still pretty woozy. Just forcing myself to lie still took all the concentration I possessed.

“Hire more men, so I could have an
entire army
of complaining morons?” Dane thundered in irritation. “Make her talk. She knows.”

Hmm, yeah, I recalled the boys had taken the boxes and probably anything alcohol-based before Dane and family cleaned out all but the ratty furniture. This crappy couch smelled like beer.

Focus, Tina. Papers?

Andre had hidden the papers. Hadn’t a clue where, though, I thought woozily. One storage shed looked the same as another to me, kind of like these black-suited goons. I kept my eyes shut rather than get dizzy watching their shiny leather shoes pace the shag carpet.

“She’ll be out for a while,” one sounding like Headset Thug said. “Maybe we ought to send someone to search her computer like I said last time. Check her contacts.”

“Ralph said she didn’t have a computer! And if you hadn’t played ape man and crushed her phone, we’d have her contacts,” Dane said caustically.

Huh, they’d searched my place as well as bugged it. Good thing I usually carried my little netbook with me. I fuzzily tried to remember if it was still in my bag. Well, before they’d had a chance to look—
damn them all to hell
.

And nobody went anywhere.

Apparently I hadn’t put enough force behind my wish, I started to think, but then it occurred to me that the first time I’d done that, I’d blown up a car and a bank. So maybe not a good time to damn anyone if I didn’t want to blow up myself. Wow, that was one nasty drug they’d used on me.

“Just call Legrande and you’ll have all her contacts here in minutes, if that’s what you want,” Dane continued. “Just get me the damned boxes and get rid of her!”

Ouch. Not good. I didn’t want thugs hurting my friends. Maybe I should wake up. But I couldn’t tell them what they wanted, so things would turn nasty if they knew I was awake. Where was the red rage when I needed it? Probably drugged, like me.

I suddenly remembered Sarah, and my gut lurched. My blood started to heat. They’d killed a harmless chimp! Well, not so harmless, but certainly an animal.