Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

“Red Hill International,” Faroe said.

“The high-ticket security outfit out of Las Vegas?”

“The same.”

“They have a pretty good rep,” Zach said. “What are they doing working for an arsonist and shooter?”

“Best guess? They’re getting hosed by a lying client.”

“God knows that never happens in this business,” Zach said sarcastically. “The really bad news is that friendly fire kills just as dead as the other kind.”

“The ambassador is talking to General Meyer of Red Hill as we speak.”

“Screw talking. I’m taking this bird down,” Zach said. “Jill isn’t armed to go up against Red Hill.”

“Neither are you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Zach disconnected and switched frequencies to talk to the pilot. “Take me down.”

“Which part of the highway?”

“The cop car with the flashing lights is the upwind end of the runway.” Zach pulled his duffel from behind the seat and took out a long-barreled pistol and spare magazines. “The downwind end is behind us, where the RV is parked across the highway. From the dust I’ve seen in the headlights, I’m guessing we’ll get occasional gusts of wind from southwest to northeast.”

Not good news for a landing.

“I’ve noticed.” The pilot’s voice was flat.

He turned the plane into the wind and lined up with the highway. He dropped into a zone where the air wasn’t quite as bumpy.

But it was still a long way from smooth.

“I’m glad St. Kilda will be the one explaining this to the FAA,” the pilot said.

“Engine trouble, what can I tell you?” Zach said. “Put me as close as you can to the ranch entrance.”

That meant a really short landing. The pilot hissed a word not approved by the FAA.

“Can you do it?” Zach asked.

“Tighten your harness” was all the pilot said.

Zach looked at the buildings coming closer with every second. Jill wasn’t anywhere in sight.

She’d already gone in.

Be smart, Jill, Zach prayed silently. Turn around and run like hell to the Escalade.

But he knew she wouldn’t. Worse, he knew it wouldn’t make any difference if she did.

Red Hill wasn’t a bunch of amateurs.

BEAVER TAIL RANCH

SEPTEMBER 17

6:31 P.M.

The gaping door of the fourth cottage opened into a room that looked cheap and hard-used. Jill stood to one side of the doorway and glanced around. The carpet was faded and stained, but the coffee table had been dusted recently. Two cheap cast-iron chairs huddled around an equally cheap ice-cream table. The TV was on, picture only. The sex tape that was running showed Tab-A-to-Slot-B graphics for the sexually stupid.

Despite the lack of landscaping and the dry pool, it looked like the room was still being used by working girls. The bed was made. The table and the TV had been dusted. The electricity was on.

A half-wall across the rear of the room partially concealed an oversize spa tub. The tub was full, but unoccupied. The jets were off. The sharp, unmistakable smell of chlorine hung in the air.

Maybe the women make their tricks sluice off in bleach before they climb on.

She certainly would.

“Anybody here?” Jill called out.

In the bathroom, Score wanted to laugh. He finally had the bitch within reach. He’d been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Too long.

“Come on in,” he snarled. “Close the door.”

Jill thought the voice was almost familiar. Blanchard without the cold? The mysterious caller without the filter?

“Do you understand that there are people who know exactly where I am?” Jill asked, not entering.

“Just get your ass in here,” Score said, scratching his face through a ski mask. “You’re wasting my time.”

Like you haven’t wasted mine? Jill thought.

Slowly she stepped just inside the room. One of her hands was around the suitcase handle. The other was very close to the unzipped belly bag. Her heart was trying to crawl up her throat, but her stomach kept getting in the way.

“I said, close the door.” Score said roughly. “You have a problem with your hearing?”

Jill’s adrenaline turned into anger. “You want it closed, you close it.”

Score stepped out of the bathroom. “You didn’t learn much in Mesquite, did you?”

“Much what?”

“Fear.”

“If you want to scare me, take off the mask. I bet I’ll be terrified.”

Score came around the half-wall and stood close to her. He was about her height, twice her weight, and three times her muscle. He glared at the single suitcase in her hand.

“Where are the rest?” he demanded.

“I have two paintings with me. You can inspect them, but only if you show me the money first.”

“You think you clang when you walk?” Score asked.

Jill struggled with an unholy cocktail of fear, adrenaline, and anger.

She lost.

“Is that what happened to Modesty?” she taunted. “You didn’t like listening to her clang?”

Score laughed despite the rage sleeting through his blood. “She was stupid. She jumped me, fell, and knocked herself right into the next world. You feeling that kind of stupid?”

The man’s casual summary of her great-aunt’s death was like a bucket of ice water in Jill’s face.

“No,” she said. “I’m feeling like getting this done and getting on the road.”

“Don’t want to play, huh?” He licked his lips slowly.

His tongue looked thick and wet in the slit of the black mask. She simply stared at him, suspended between adrenaline and disgust.

Score laughed, knowing he was scaring her. He went to the closet, yanked out a briefcase, and walked over to stand close to her.

Real close.

Jill wanted to back up. She didn’t.

Ski Mask knows I’m sickened by him. He’s using it to intimidate me.

She took the briefcase and handed over the suitcase, not even flinching when his latex-gloved fingers slowly stroked over her hand.

“Stay here,” he said. “Count your money. Throw it on the bed and get off on it. Just don’t try to leave before I tell you to. You’ll get hurt. I’ll enjoy that, but you won’t.”

“Where are you going?”

“To make sure the paintings are real.”

The instant the door closed behind him, Jill raced to the window and pulled the heavy, faded curtain aside just enough to peek through.

The man stripped off his mask, walked toward the crib two doors down, knocked, and entered.

But not before she memorized his face in the last cool gasp of sunlight.

The angle of view she had was tight, but she could see another man step out of the other cottage into the dying day. The second man was well groomed, freshly shaved, dressed in black slacks, charcoal shirt, and no tie. His loafers screamed of city sidewalks and money, a lot of money.

He had the self-assurance to go with it.

Art buyer? Lawyer? Sleazy millionaire?

Whatever, he wasn’t wearing exam gloves, which might put him a step out of Ski Mask’s gutter. Then again, maybe not. The biggest thieves hired the most expensive lawyers.

The man in the exam gloves signaled toward the barn. She caught a flash of movement-sun on glass or metal-in the hayloft.

She brought out the BlackBerry and spoke clearly. “I’m in the number four cottage, no names exchanged. There’s a well-dressed lawyer or art buyer or city millionaire waiting two doors down. The muscle-bound thug who met me in a ski mask is talking to him. There are more men out in the barn. I don’t know how many. Whoever the opposition is, he has money to spend.”

Jill let go of the curtain. “I’m alone right now. I’m checking to see if there’s a back way out.”

No such luck.

Above eye level, over the toilet, there was a sliding frosted glass panel. Jill stepped up onto the lid of the toilet and eased the panel open.

“No back door, but there’s a small window over the head. I see a barn and-” Her voice broke. She swallowed. “There are two really big black SUVs, smoked windows, waiting in the barn doorway. And what looks like the rotor of a helicopter. Are you listening, St. Kilda? This is a trap.”

And she couldn’t see a way out.

BEAVER TAIL RANCH

SEPTEMBER 17

6:34 P.M.

A white Lincoln Navigator wheeled up beside the Skymaster almost before the plane stopped. Zach flung off his seat harness, shoved open the door and leaped out, duffel in hand.

All the windows of the Navigator were rolled down. You could shoot into a car with closed windows, but it was hell to shoot back that way.

A man bailed from the front seat and pushed into the already full backseat, making room for Zach next to the driver.

Zach jumped in front and slammed the door. He didn’t recognize anyone, and didn’t need to. Their weapons were clean and carried professionally. Body armor bulked up their clothes.

Zach wished he and Jill were wearing some. But he hadn’t taken his on the vacation that had become a job, and Jill probably didn’t even know what body armor looked like.

The Navigator turned onto the ranch road and accelerated, its headlights looking frail against the dusk.

“Red Hill still in place?” Zach asked the driver.

“Last I heard,” she said.

“Craptastic.”

“That’s what Faroe said.”

“Anything new?” Zach asked.

“The client-”

“Jill,” Zach cut in. “Her name is Jill.”

The driver gave him a sideways glance. “The BlackBerry bug on her works fine. She spotted the Red Hill vehicles and helo and described them. She’s in the fourth cottage on the right. She looked for a back way out. Didn’t find one. There’s an extra com rig for you in the glove compartment.”

Zach opened it, put on the familiar lightweight headset, and adjusted the voice pickup. Now he could communicate with the rest of the team, as well as with St. Kilda.

“Any idea who hired Red Hill?” Zach asked.

“If Faroe knows, he isn’t sharing.”

“Then he doesn’t know,” Zach said.

The Navigator hit a rough patch and shuddered hard.

The driver kept the accelerator halfway to the floor.

Jill’s voice whispered through Zach’s earpiece. “Ski Mask is coming back toward me. His body language is all about rage. So is the gun in his hand. Whatever happened in the sixth cabin really punched his buttons.”

“Faster,” Zach snarled.

The accelerator slammed to the floor and the Navigator surged forward.

Zach had a cold feeling in his gut that it wouldn’t be fast enough.

BEAVER TAIL RANCH

SEPTEMBER 17

6:35 P.M.

Score yanked the ski mask back over his face and stalked toward the fourth cottage. Rage surged through him at being chewed out by some candy-ass lawyer half his age who thought a private investigator was another name for dumbshit errand boy.

Stupid lawyer about wet his pants when he saw my gun. Does he think the world is run by big words in his lying mouth?

The lawyer was a mistake.

Score figured he’d have to be the one to fix it. The thought made him smile.

A million bucks and South America was looking better every second. He’d eaten enough crap from way too many smart-mouthed suits.

He opened the door on cabin number 4 hard enough to bang it back on its hinges. Part of him was worried that his temper was slipping out of control.

The rest of him just wanted to bring it on.

The gloves are finally off. Any more shit goes around, I’ll be the one sending it.

Jill looked up from the briefcase full of bundled, used hundred-dollar bills. She didn’t know how much money was there, but she doubted it was two million. Even in hundreds, two million bucks was a lot of bills.

Twenty thousand, to be precise.

“Where are the rest of the paintings?” Score demanded.

“Where’s the rest of the money?”