Sandra Brown - Lethal

Tori hadn’t had an occasion to test the gossip about their propensity for meanness because she rarely crossed paths with them. When they were in school, she had gone out with Doral a few times. He had grown mean and nasty when she’d stopped him at second base and wouldn’t let him go any further. He’d called her a cunt, and she’d fired back that even cunts had standards. He had disliked her ever since.

Now he looked mean and dangerous, and he was hurting her. She’d had enough experience with men to know that showing fear was as good as inviting more abuse. She’d been down that rocky road with husband number one. She’d be damned if she’d go down it again. Even with a cretinous thug like Doral, the best defense was an offense.

She shoved her knee into his crotch.

He yelped, dropped his hands from her face to cup his genitals, and hopped backward out of harm’s way.

“Don’t touch me again, Doral.” She grabbed the workout top she’d discarded moments before and pulled it on over her head. “You’re ugly, and you’re stupid, and what makes you think I know where Honor is?”

“I’m not fucking around, Tori.” He pulled a handgun from a holster at the small of his back.

“Oh no, a gun!” she said in a high falsetto. “Is this the point where I’m supposed to faint? Plead for mercy? Put that thing away before you hurt somebody, namely me.”

“I want to know where Honor is.”

“Well join the freakin’ club!” she shouted. “Everybody wants to know where she is. It appears she’s been taken hostage by a killer.” She could coax tears from her eyes whenever it was convenient to do so, but the ones that flowed now were for real. “I heard about it on TV and came straight here from the club.”

“What for?”

“To get ready in case-”

“In case of what?”

“In case of anything.”

“You expect to hear from her.” He made it sound like an accusation.

“No. I hope I do, but from what they say about this Coburn guy, I fear the worst.”

“Like he’ll do away with her and Emily.”

“Jeez, you’re a genius.”

He didn’t address the insult. “Has she talked to you recently about Eddie?”

“Of course. She talks about him all the time.”

“Yeah, but I mean, has she told you something about Eddie? Something important. Did she share a secret about him?”

She tilted her head to one side and peered into his eyes. “Are you still smoking dope?”

He lurched toward her threateningly. “Cut the crap, Tori. Has she ?”

“No!” she exclaimed, giving his chest a shove. “What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about a secret. What kind of secret?”

He studied her for a moment, as though trying to spot signs of deception, then muttered, “Never mind.”

“No, not never mind. Why’d you come here? What are you after? The same guy who shot your brother took Honor and Emily. Why aren’t you out looking for them?”

“I’m not sure he took them.”

That stunned her. “What do you mean?”

He bent closer still. “You and Honor are like this.” He held his hand within an inch of her nose and crossed his middle finger over his index. “If she knew this guy-”

“You mean Coburn?”

“Yes, Coburn. Lee Coburn. Did she know him?”

“Where would Honor have met a freight dock worker turned mass murderer?”

He stared at her for a moment longer, then spun away and left the room, sliding the pistol back into the holster at the small of his back as he lumbered down the hall.

“Hold on.” Tori grabbed his elbow and brought him around to face her. “What are you getting at? That the kidnapping is some kind of hoax?”

“I’m not getting at anything.” He yanked his arm free of her grip and wrapped his fingers around her arm instead. “But I’m gonna be on you like white on rice. If you hear from your pal Honor, you’d do well to let me know.”

She hiked her chin up in defiance of the implied threat. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll hurt you, Tori, and I bullshit you not. You may be rich now, but you got that way by selling your pussy to the highest bidder. One dead tramp would be no great loss to the world.”

S on of a bitch !”

Coburn hissed the profanity under his breath out of deference to the kid. As for her mother, who’d already frowned at him for a slipped bullshit earlier, she was now staring at him as though a horn had grown from the center of his forehead.

He waggled the cell phone. “I guess you heard that.”

“That Agent Lee Coburn has been dead for over a year? Yes, I heard that.”

“Obviously she hasn’t got her facts straight.”

“Or I bought into your lies and now I’m-”

“Look,” he said, angrily cutting her off. “I didn’t ask for you either, okay? You want to go back to your house, take your chances with Doral Hawkins and anybody else who’s in The Bookkeeper’s pocket? Fine. Go. I’ll hold the door open for you.”

It wasn’t fine, of course, and he wouldn’t let her go even if she chose to. On her own, she wouldn’t live long. He’d been described as cold and heartless, and the adjectives fit. But even he would be uncomfortable sending a woman and four-year-old to certain death. Besides, she would be useful, now and later, toward building a case against The Bookkeeper. She probably knew a whole lot more than she was aware of. Until he’d wrung every last ounce of information from her, she stayed with him.

On the other hand, she and the kid were going to be a major pain in the ass.

He hadn’t counted on having to take care of anybody but himself until Hamilton could bring him in, and that was going to be dangerous enough, what with every gun-wielding yahoo within a hundred miles believing him to be a killer and kidnapper. He’d more or less resigned himself to not making it out of this intact, if he lived through it at all.

But now he was responsible for Honor and Emily Gillette, and with that responsibility came the commitment to seeing that they survived even if he didn’t.

Essentially taking back his offer to let her go, he said, “Whether you know it or not, you hold the key that will bust open The Bookkeeper’s crime ring.”

“For the umpteenth time-”

“You’ve got it. We just have to figure out what it is and where to find it.”

“Then drive me to the nearest FBI office and escort me in. We’ll all look for it together.”

“I can’t.”

“Because?”

“Because I can’t blow my cover. Not yet. Right now Hawkins and The Bookkeeper think that I’m just the freight dock worker who was lucky enough to get away. An eyewitness to the mass murder. Which is bad. But not nearly as bad as an eyewitness who’s also an undercover federal agent. If they discover that, the target on my back gets bigger.”

“But the FBI would protect you.”

“Like Officer Fred Hawkins of the Tambour P.D. was going to protect you?”

He didn’t have to spell it out. She connected the dots. “The Bookkeeper has local FBI agents on his payroll?”

“I’m not willing to bet my life against it, are you?” He gave her time to answer. She didn’t, which was as good as her saying, No, I’m not . “You wouldn’t be sitting there if you didn’t believe at least some of what I’ve told you.”

“I’m sitting here because I believe that if you’d intended to hurt us, you would have done so as soon as you arrived yesterday. Also, if everything you’ve told me is true, then our lives, mine and Emily’s, are in danger.”

“You’re right so far.”