Red Snow (22 page)

“It’s over now.”

“Not till I
eat
your heart.”

Haven’t you already done that? Robert thought. Gill, Joe, Nick, Jenna, Rachel, and Rick were all dead. Katt, Becky, Dane, and Zinc had come close to joining them. If only Mephisto had tried to pull the tab on top of the can, the chief could have put him down like the mad dog he was.

If only.

With so much left to do, Robert couldn’t succumb to grief. Instead, he took a brief break to count his blessings. On exiting the office, where he’d left Mephisto in the custody of two officers who’d come down from rescuing skiers buried by the avalanches, he met Zinc in the lobby.

“Well?” he asked the inspector.

“Ghost Keeper says the cavalry will reach us by morning. They’re going to put a Bailey bridge across the stream to reestablish the road link to Vancouver.”

“And the weather?”

“It should improve by dawn.”

“Knowing Mephisto, he’ll have a backup plan. If we move him to Vancouver by the highway, we’ll be running a gauntlet along one of our most treacherous roads. Who knows what other traps could be waiting.”

“So what’s our plan?”

“Leave that to me. I want you to get some sleep. You’ve had more than enough for one day. If you push yourself further, that could bring on a fit.”

The scar in Zinc’s brain, a souvenir of the Cutthroat case, required him to take several antiepileptic pills a day. Overtiredness was like playing with dynamite. He knew the chief was right. And besides, he had a promise to keep.

The Mounties parted ways in a lobby full of milling people, one of whom was Stopwatch. The mercenary had remained in the village while the Icemen laid siege to Gill’s chalet. Now, his contract unfinished, he watched DeClercq approach the locked door to the Gilded Man and Chandler head for the ballroom.

*     *     *

The bar had stopped serving drinks the moment DeClercq pulled his pistol. Without a reason to be there, the crowd was trickling out. As the chaos around the village came under relative control, individual members of Whistler’s skeleton security crew returned. No sooner did each arrive than he or she was corralled into locking down the hotel. Once the ballroom had been cleared, the doors would be sealed until an Ident team could process the scene. Zinc reached the entrance just as Karen exited.

“I knew you wouldn’t stand me up,” the barkeep said. “Be careful not to step on any ducks.”

“What?”

“Have you got a pair of handcuffs?”

“Sure,” said Zinc.

“Show me how they work.”

Puzzled, the Mountie removed his cuffs and opened the bracelets. “You snap them on each arm.”

“Like this?” Karen asked, cinching one of the cuffs around her left wrist.

Only now that he was free to think about sex did Zinc grasp how
very
attractive the barkeep was. Unlike the Blonde, the Redhead, and the Raven, she lacked artificiality. Her brunette hair was mussed, as it would be in bed, though no doubt teased like that with brush and comb. Her eyes were dark and her lips ruby red, and what Zinc spied down her deep neckline would make any man mortgage his house.

Yep, no doubt about it. The inspector hoped to bed her.

“Three men die in an accident and go to heaven,” she said. “When they get there, St. Peter says, ‘We have only one rule here: Don’t step on the ducks.’

“The newcomers enter the Pearly Gates, and sure enough, they see ducks all over the place. With clouds underfoot, it’s nearly impossible
not
to breach the rule. They haven’t been there an hour before one man steps on a duck.
Quack!

“On hearing that, St. Peter rushes over with the ugliest woman the man has ever seen and handcuffs her to him. ‘Your penance for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this woman,’ St. Peter tells the offender.

“The next day—
Quack!
—one of the others accidentally steps on a duck. St. Peter handcuffs an even uglier woman to him. ‘Your penance for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this woman,’ he repeats.

“The third man—Zinc by name—doesn’t want to spend eternity chained to an ugly woman, so he is
very
careful not to step on any ducks. Days go by and nothing happens. Eventually, St. Peter strolls over with the most gorgeous woman Zinc has ever seen—her name is Karen—and, without a word, chains them together.”

Karen snapped the other cuff onto Zinc’s wrist.

Then she waited.

“Okay,” Zinc said, “what did I do to deserve being chained to you for eternity?”

Karen winked. “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I stepped on a duck.”

*     *     *

The door to the Gilded Man was guarded by an armed cop. Until he was confident Whistler Village was safe, the chief intended to keep the girls locked away in the stockroom at the back of the bar. Inside, Katt sat on one of the tables, while Becky was asleep with her head in the teen’s lap.

Easing out from under the girl, Katt used her ski jacket as a pillow. She followed Robert to a far corner of the stockroom.

“I’m proud of you,” the chief whispered. “Improvising with the icicle was using your brain.”

“So was Becky’s use of the skates. She saved my life.”

“Still want to join the Mounted?”

“Hell, yes,” Katt replied. “In fact, I’ve been thinking about making some changes. Let’s face it, the last thing my mom needs while she’s enjoying a new love affair is me hanging around. Would it be okay if I lived here instead?”

“Your room’s waiting. Napoleon and Catnip will be pleased.”

“You forgot Waif.”

“So I did. The last waif I took in turned out well. So yes, Waif can stay.”

“Do me a favor, Dad?”

“Anything you want,” he said, choking down emotion. It suddenly struck him how very close he’d come to losing her.

The teenager nodded toward the sleeping girl. “Can we find room for another waif?”

*     *     *

Karen’s room in the El Dorado Resort had a hot tub instead of a sauna. Naked, the two of them bubbled away like cartoon missionaries in a cannibal’s pot.

“How’d you get all the scars?” she asked. That’s what they always asked. Zinc satisfied her curiosity by describing his day, while the hot water relaxed his tension.

“Sounds exhausting,” Karen said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I came up here planning to seduce you, but I’ll probably sleep instead.”

“You don’t get off that easily.
I’m
seducing
you
. And anyway, I can’t let this opportunity slip away. It sounds like your odds of survival decrease with each passing day. When your number inevitably comes up, I want to be able to say, ‘I fucked him, you know.’”

“I don’t think I have the energy.”

“I’ll do all the work.”

Karen stood up in the hot tub, water running down her curves, and loomed above him. “Going once … going twice …” she said, stringing it out. “Going … going …”

“Sold!” said the Mountie.

*     *     *

This deadly game DeClercq was playing with Mephisto had been an uneven contest from the start. It was a steady onslaught, not the balanced match most rivals wage. Robert could not afford to lose the last move.

Moving Mephisto out.

He would spend the rest of the night setting it up. There would be no run down the Killer Highway. Better odds were to be had by playing the shell game. Beneath the El Dorado Resort was an underground parking lot. The chief gathered every available police car there, then had the security cameras disabled and the lot sealed from sight.

He found every field where a helicopter could land and assigned a police car to each one. In the hour before dawn, he and a few carefully chosen officers would stash Mephisto, in a straitjacket and leg shackles, in one of the cars. All the vehicles would leave the subterranean lot together and drive to the scattered fields. A helicopter would land at each field, and any would-be rescuer would have no idea which shell hid the pea.

The cops who actually had Mephisto would shove him into the chopper and off he’d go.

A tracking device was the only potential glitch. So before the psycho was taken to the car, he would be scanned with a debugging gizmo that would catch any radio signals emitted by a GPS.

Skin …

Teeth …

The works.

Karen entered the bathroom and faced Scarlett in the mirror. Blindsiding Zinc had been easy.

Boomer’s death was certain to lure a Mountie to the Gilded Man, and Scarlett—as Karen—had been waiting for the bait to walk in. Since Mephisto was the hospitality manager, it was simple to get Scarlett a job at the pub. And as barmaid, part of her job was to clean up after the trio of vamps, who often left unused assignation notes on the table. That’s how she got hold of the Post-it Note she later stuck to the keycard and slipped into Nick’s pocket.

It was Scarlett whom Nick met in room 807, not Jessica. And while there, she’d overheard the call from Jenna Bond that told Mephisto Becky was coming to Whistler. That set up the attack at Alpha Lake. And of course, Nick’s murder was sure to bring another Mountie to the bar, and once again Scarlett had been waiting.

She’d watched Zinc remove three business cards from his wallet and jot a note on the back of one. When he distributed his cards, Scarlett knew the assignation went to Jessica. Once again, it was easy work to slip the hypodermic needle with its loose cap into the bag on the back of Jessica’s chair. The next time the redhead plunged her hand into that bag, she spiked her palm on the needle and was poisoned.

With Nick’s supposed killer dead, Zinc had lowered his guard. He was currently stretched out on the bed in the other room, about to fall prey to the same trap that had caught Nick.

Scarlett shivered.

Killing men with an ice pick was an orgasmic experience. It was like fucking them with a steel cock and watching them die in your arms. But the device Mephisto had created was even better.

His inspiration for the
vagina dentata
, or “toothed vagina,” was the anti-rape condom. Inserted with an applicator, like a tampon, it was a latex sheath embedded with rows of sharp barbs. When a rapist stuck in his penis, he got a painful surprise. And because the barbs were like fishhooks, the device pulled out with him and could only be removed by a doctor.

In Mephisto’s version, the barbs inside an impenetrable sheath were brittle needles filled with curare that snapped off as the penis slipped in. The barbs were made of a compound that dissolved after half an hour, leaving no trace but tiny pinpricks in the folds of the non-erect penis. By gilding Nick, Mephisto and Scarlett had lacquered over the holes. It would take one hell of a forensic scientist to figure out the means of death. Macbeth and the Russian were both dead. So that was that.

Now, having carefully inserted a second poisoned condom, Scarlett opened the door.

Want to play motorboat, Hake? she thought.

*     *     *

“My God,” said Zinc. “You have a stunning figure.”

“Would you believe I used to be a showgirl in Vegas?”

“What brought you to Whistler?”

“It’s a long story,” Scarlett said, climbing onto the bed. “Lie back and let me do all the work.”

“Actually, my energy is coming back,” said Zinc.

“So I see,” said Scarlett. “That’s what I call a second wind. If you had your shorts on, the sail would billow.” She grabbed hold of his cock. “Let’s skip foreplay. I want you
now
!”

Zinc was up for that. Tension still rippled his body from the action at Gill’s chalet, and he could think of no better way to work it out than to enjoy a roll in the hay with this woman.

Karen had a condom in her other hand. She tore the square packet open with her teeth, removed the ultra-thin sheath, and rolled it down his penis. Then she swung a long leg over his hips and straddled his groin.

From the smile she flashed, you’d think she was Eve handing Adam that apple. Gripping the snake in her palm, she poised his cock under her vagina.

“That condom looks
awfully
thin,” Zinc said, running his eyes down her body to her crotch. “Aren’t you afraid it will break?”

“Don’t worry. There’s backup. I have a diaphragm.”

Die
…

Ah!

Frame
…

Holy shit!

That’s what Joe had been trying to say through his pain and his accent. What he and DeClercq had thought was a gasp was actually a syllable. What Joe was trying to blurt out was “Diaphragm!” Whatever had killed Nick was inside his killer’s vagina!

What banged these thoughts together like boxcars in a shunting yard was the mark Zinc saw on the inside of Karen’s thigh. Nobody her age had a vaccination scar.

Not unless they’d been immunized by Mephisto!

Zinc grabbed Karen by the waist to stop her from sinking his cock into her body.

Reacting, Scarlett punched the cop in the nose, drawing blood. She never let go of his penis.

The Mountie’s palms flew wide from her waist, seeming to release her so she was free to plunge, before slamming together like cymbals on both sides of her head.

Scarlett screamed like a banshee as her eardrums blew, baring her teeth in a twisted snarl that brought to mind every female monster buried in the male psyche: Lamia, vampire, succubus, fury, harpy, Gorgon, and the like.

She released his cock …

Grabbed it again …

And this time, sank in her claws.

His left hand grabbed the back of Karen’s skull, locking it in his grip. Then he slammed his right palm against her chin with every fiber of his strength. Her spine didn’t stand a chance. Scarlett’s neck snapped like a breadstick as Zinc hurled her out of bed.

*     *     *

At dawn that morning, the snow clouds over Whistler parted, allowing three helicopters the visibility to land. They set down on the scattered fields, just as the chief had planned.

The two cops who’d won the lottery to transport Mephisto hauled him out in the straitjacket and leg shackles. As they led him toward the chopper, both thought he was clenching his teeth in anger. What they didn’t know was that one of his molars hid a spring-driven GPS bug. When his jaw was slack—as it was when the Mounties had searched his body with the scanner—it emitted no radio signals. Once he was in the trunk he’d bitten down, activating the tracker so Stopwatch could follow.

Because the
über
-mercenary knew which shell hid the pea, he’d had time to crawl into range with his high-powered sniper’s rifle. The whirlybird in the crosshairs was a Eurocopter. Stopwatch could fly it. As a planner who allowed for all that might go wrong, Mephisto had mapped out an intricate escape plan.

Just in case …

The door to the chopper opened. Its solitary occupant stuck out his head. Having a single pilot was part of the low-key blind.

The telescopic sight zeroed in on the pilot’s bare head.

Stopwatch pulled the trigger.

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!