Return to Poughkeepsie (42 page)

Finally the fear was given a voice. Mary Ellen shrieked as she realized her closest weapon was in the bedside table drawer. January grabbed her hair and yanked, revealing her throat.

“Kill me now and my father will hunt down every one you’ve ever met and turn them into dog food,” Mary Ellen spat.

January shrugged before smiling. “Poughkeepsie’s mine.”

The blade was so sharp Mary Ellen couldn’t even feel it as it entered her windpipe.

Eve stood over Mary Ellen’s body and knew she’d made an epic mistake, a horrible miscalculation. These situations were what she was good at fixing, but instead she’d created one. Her mind was like Jell-O between seeing Beckett and managing her feelings for Ryan, which had no place. Both seemed stupid, but the mess at her feet left her no doubts that she was more than a little out of her head.

Shark burst through the door and into the suite. “What the hell did you do?”

Acted like a hotheaded pussy
. “Get Micki and get out of here.” Eve turned to face him. Bart’s dead body was lumped in the doorway. The poison she’d injected had paralyzed him standing and stopped his heart shortly thereafter. The sight of him made her want to puke a little. He’d been nice to her. Shark was still standing there, frozen. “Go!” She wiped her knife off on Mary Ellen’s body and slid it back into her hair.

“You’re staying? ’Cause I didn’t press the panic button—you’re fucking lucky I was on security this morning—but that shit still gets transmitted.” Shark shook his head.

“Is it still on?” Eve looked at Shark. He was wasting time.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I disabled the audio though…You’re just going to stay?” He seemed completely confused.

“Her father would look into me if I ran. He’d find my family, people I care about. I can’t let that happen.” She inhaled deeply and exhaled, knowing she was doing so without pain for a precious few more minutes.

“This was some Kamikaze shit.” Shark advanced on her. “You want me to tell anyone anything?”

She took a swing and hit only his shoulder. “You find my father and Ryan and tell them I’m dead.”

He swung back and twisted her into a hold she didn’t fight. “Shit. I can’t kill you, you know that.” Shark absorbed her less-than-spectacular blows.

“Just knock me out, for Christ’s sake.” Eve managed to twist and meet his eyes.

Shark looked a little sad. “Good luck.”

He was excellent at the maneuver. The black claimed Eve just as she realized he’d choked her out.

The old man paused at the top of the steps. He’d been napping in his favorite chair when he was shaken awake. One of his best bodyguards looked nervous, and that never happened. Apparently Mary Ellen was in a bad way. According to the men on the scene, it had been an assassination.

His people watched him carefully to see how he would react. They were probably all waiting for him to keel over again. But if he’d survived three months of the most ridiculous rehab, he could certainly get through this. He showed no emotion. After all, he was too old to not see this coming. Mary Ellen had made too many rash decisions while he was away, let her emotions get the better of her.

He retraced his steps through her growing-up years on the ride over to her residence. He’d tried to teach her, but she just showed limited capacity for the nuances of their business. She was one of his only two children, and her mother, his darling Diane, had been the one woman he’d ever really loved. Primo was his only boy, so he’d done his best to make him into something even though he came from the loins of the housemaid. Diane had passed more than ten years ago, but every day he wished she were still here. Mary Ellen had been her mother’s spitting image until she began messing with her face.

Once inside her home, he pulled himself up her ridiculously long steps. She was so dramatic, fancied herself a Scarlett O’Hara as she traipsed down this grand staircase every day. His path was littered with dead bodies—men expertly killed. In his business he’d developed an eye for craftsmanship, and this assassin was the Picasso of murder. He held the doorframe at the entrance to her suite and caught his breath from the exertion. His daughter had been covered with a duvet, and a gorgeous woman in jeans lay close by.

“Let me see Mary Ellen.” He nodded at the covered lump.

His bodyguard reverently removed the cover from her face.

“All the way.” He came closer.

Mary Ellen’s eyes were wide open and her mouth a circle. All her color was gone, and the gash on her neck was more of an incision. An expert crime of passion. There was hate in this room with these two women.

“Take a picture of my daughter. Bring the other one to my guest house here.” He turned to leave.

“That’s it? You’re sure?” The mouthy guard was one of hers.

He turned slowly until he found the one who spoke. “My men know what Mary Ellen needs now.”

The man shook his head. “Wow, I expected more.”

Rodolfo looked at his hands. They were old and that still surprised him, even after his body’s recent betrayal. How many men had he killed using only his thumb and forefinger? So many.

“What’s your name?” The man answered a few times before Rodolfo heard him.

“Anthony.”

“Anthony. You’re never to talk to me. Ever. And as far as that one?” He pointed with his cane. “I’ll make pain her god. As a matter of fact, we’re going bring you too and teach you some respect.” He nodded to one of his men and turned away from his daughter’s body. He wished he felt more loss, but her face looked nothing like her mother’s anymore.

32

Unbreakable

A L
ITTLE
A
FTER
N
OON
, Beckett pulled into Jared’s driveway. Chaos met him with a shaking head.

“Still singing the same tune?”

“Says he hasn’t seen her. The whole place smells like bleach.” Chaos gestured to the house. “Vere is still at the place. I spoke to Florence, the director. And your dog is fine.”

“Anyone call the cops yet?” Beckett pulled on fingerless leather gloves. They were the style he used to buy all the time when he was busting skulls.

“No. Right now she’s not even missing. She’s a grown-ass woman. She can go where she wants.” Chaos looked pissed.

“You got a thing for Chery?” Beckett went to the front door and “knocked” with his shit-kicking boots, splintering the shitty door.

The tattoo artist shifted from foot to foot. “Nah. Just seems like a nice girl.”

Jared didn’t answer, so Beckett kicked the door in the sweet spot as hard as he could. It flew open, bouncing off the wall inside. “Knock, knock, twat taffy. I’m here to murder your goddamn ass.” He inspected the house while Chaos crowded in behind him. “He’s still here, right?”

“Yeah. Should be in the back bedroom cuddling a gun.” Chaos sounded fired up.

Beckett kicked in a second door, and there was Jared: sitting on the bed, cuddling his gun.

“Where’s Chery?” Beckett scanned the room. It was neat and tidy, unlike the rest of the shithole he’d just walked through.

“I ain’t seen her. Go look at the store.” Jared sniffed and tried to look manlier, aiming the firearm at Beckett’s chest.

“Point that gun at me, and I’ll shove it up your fucking ass.” Beckett opened the bathroom door and the smell of fresh bleach was strong enough to make him gag. “You motherfucker. Where’s her body?”

Beckett’s heart sank. He knew. He’d known as soon as he heard from Chaos in Poughkeepsie—she was dead. He’d known since he decided not to kill Jared weeks ago that it was the wrong choice. Maybe that was his only gift: knowing when a murder
should
be committed.

He spied a toothpick on the bedside table. “Chaos, go get me a handful of toothpicks from the kitchen.”

“What the hell do you want? Get out of my house!” Jared scrambled to the other side of the bed and stood.

“Do you know who I am?” Beckett crossed his arms in front of him.

“No. But I heard stories. And I told a shit-ton of people all about you.” Jared was obviously used to setting the tone of the fear in a room.

“Where’s her body?” Beckett acknowledged Chaos and took a handful of toothpicks.

“You got to the count of three to get out of here. And take the fucking toothpicks with you.” Jared settled into a stance, holding the gun in front of him.

“You’ll answer my goddamn question. You can do it now, or you can wait until I get creative. Do you remember how I almost killed you with a motherfucking hamburger? Imagine what I can do with these.” He fanned the little splinters of wood in his fingers like Edward Scissorhands. “Never mind, don’t hurt yourself. I’ll let you find out.”

Chaos relieved Jared of his gun. The man had spent so much time in jail, stealing shanks from murderous bastards, disarming this still-drunk was a cakewalk.

“Tell me where you put her body.” Beckett nodded at Chaos, and the man threw Jared to the bed. There was some serious anger in his movements.

“Give me your hand.” Beckett nodded at Jared.

“Fuck you!”

Beckett smiled. “You’d like that too much.”

When Beckett was done with Jared, the whimpering man was willing to tell him every secret he’d ever had. They went to the backyard, and Jared opened the combination lock to his shed with bloody hands, some fingers missing nails entirely.

Beckett took a breath before stepping inside. All the things ahead of him flashed in his mind: telling Vere, figuring out how to make her comfortable—it was mind-boggling. Thinking of taking on her needs sent a new wave of respect for Chery flowing through him.

Chaos began slamming at a huge wooden storage crate with a sledgehammer. Jared tried slipping out the door. Beckett caught him by the nape of his neck and squeezed.

“The only reason you’re still alive is because I need to see how much pain you caused her. I’ll multiply it by a million before I kill you.”

Jared still looked shifty, despite the pain he’d endured.

The storage crate had been soldered closed—the hinges now nothing but melted lumps. But Chaos busted into it, forcing the lid open and cracking the wood. Inside, wrapped in a bedspread covered in blood, was the small shape of a woman. Chaos reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. He cut the ropes around the neck and body.

The gasp from the form made them all jump. Chaos reacted quickly, slicing carefully though the blanket until he got to her.

“No. No. No. That’s not right,” Jared murmured.

Chery’s eyes flew open, and she began to cry when she saw Jared’s face.

Chaos stepped in front of her line of sight. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Beckett’s here, and Vere’s okay, yeah? Don’t fear him. You have help.”

Beckett turned and smiled at Jared, throwing a punch that would put his lights out for a long time.