Jeff Abbott - A Kiss Gone Bad

Kneeling, breathing through an open mouth, she saw his feet paddle past the other side of the Beetle. ‘Come out now,’ he called. ‘I don’t want to shoot up my nice car and boat, and I’ll make it quick.’

She didn’t move.

‘That other cop, he’s messy but still breathing. Come out or maybe I go back up there and make sure he stops.’

She didn’t move. He began to walk toward the back wall. A few more steps and he would be able to spot her. She braced herself.

As he turned, the barrel swiveling toward the ground, she launched herself up, slamming her forearm against the blued bottom of the shotgun’s barrel. It swept right, exploding, cannonading into the garage wall. She pistoned her legs, driving Buddy hard into the side wall of the garage. She dropped the shears, both hands grabbing hold of the shotgun, trying to wrest it away.

He slammed the shotgun barrel against her head, hard, twice, stars and sharp pain blurring her vision. Shoving up with her arms, she got the gun above her head and powered her knee square into his gut.

He squirmed back, gasping, still holding the gun, and she kicked, hammering him in the mouth. Teeth broke and lips opened under her boot’s heel. Buddy staggered back, blood bursting from his torn mouth. She pulled hard on the shotgun. It discharged once more in the air, deafening in the small space of the garage.

With a scream he yanked the weapon free from her grasp and swung it at her head. She fell to her knees, ducking, taking the blow on her shoulder. He pulled the gun back to its firing stance, squeezed.

Nothing.

Empty, jammed, she thought. Buddy charged at her, raising the Model 870 like a club, and she plowed back into him, knocking him to the dirt floor. She scooped up the fallen shears and vaulted into the narrow skiff to clamber toward the garage doors. He rammed the side of the light boat with his body, and she fell from the prow, diving headfirst, scraping her back against the trailer hitch, hitting the hard-packed dirt. The shears were beneath her and she twisted, trying to free them from her own weight. She saw Buddy squeezing through the narrowed space between the tipped boat and the Volkswagen. He tried to vault it, land on top of her, but he tumbled headfirst as she scrabbled out from underneath the boat.

He grabbed her ankle.

Claudia screamed, trying to kick him again. He tugged her back toward him, the shears slipped from her grasp, and she saw him pull a long brightness from a shoulder sheath. Bowie knife.

He slammed the knife into her calf, and she screamed her throat raw in one second. She felt her own flesh tearing, the knife colder than ice. She kicked hard with the other leg, impacting collarbone, and pushed away, frantically grabbing for the shears. She smelled her own blood as her fingers closed around the shears’ handle. Pain – beyond pain – raced along every nerve in her body.

He lifted the knife from her flesh.

‘Quit fighting, quit fighting!’ he yelled. He climbed on top of her and lifted the reddened knife. Claudia rammed the shears into his gut, hard, feeling Buddy Beere’s innards part before the points. She surged to a sitting position as she pushed, felt the blades slide along rib bone, and the shears vanished into him, all the way to the hafts.

Her face was an inch from his. She felt the bowie tear into her shirt below her arm, the blade catch in the fabric, its edge whisper along her skin.

Buddy did not scream. He fell away from her, hands slapping the shears’ smooth handles. Blood seeped from him and she crab-crawled backward, smelling his blood, her blood, kicking the dirt between them. Buddy lay on his side, blinking at her, mewling.

‘No… Mama, help…’ he wheezed.

‘You fucking loser,’ Claudia gasped. She hobbled to her feet. Agony lanced her leg, blood greased her skin. She staggered toward the cruiser and threw herself inside, glass from the broken windshield crunching under her. Buddy Beere still lay on his side, the shears protruding from his stomach, mouth a wet ruin from her kick, eyes dimming of life.

Claudia flicked at the radio. It still worked. ‘Officer down… help me… this is Claudia Salazar… with David Power. Officer down… officer down… He’s been shot, gunshot… I’ve been stabbed… suspect is Buddy Beere… I think I killed him… officer down… we’re at Buddy Beere’s house off FM 1223… couple of miles past Port Leo on the right

… 4704 FM 1223… hurry, hurry.’

She clutched her leg. Movement at the edge of her vision. Through the shattered windshield she saw a woman, stumbling from the house, naked, bruised, her face a mass of blue.

The county dispatcher’s voice blared on the radio, telling her to hold on, help was on the way.

‘Velvet!’ Claudia called. ‘Velvet!’

Velvet limped toward the car but saw Buddy collapsed in the shadow of the garage. Claudia, clutching her leg, pulled herself out from the cruiser. Velvet stopped, stared at Claudia, then stared back at Buddy.

‘Velvet, honey, it’s okay…’ Claudia gasped. ‘It’s gonna be okay.’ God, she hoped. She wasn’t sure she could stay conscious much longer. And David, oh, babe…

Velvet knelt by Buddy, yanked the shears out with a decisive pull, tore open the scrub pants, and began to perform crude surgery. In the distance sirens roared in their approach.

‘Velvet! Stop! Stop!’ Claudia called.

The blood flew upward with Velvet’s blows, dotting her face, and soaked the ground.

‘I need to talk to Claudia,’ Whit said into the phone.

‘She don’t work here no more. Judge,’ the weekend police department dispatcher, a lady named Trudy, told him. ‘Delford fired her. She went and raised holy hell with the Hubbles, and he canned her.’

‘Hell over what?’

‘That girl they pulled out of the bay… the one that found Pete Hubble’s body, apparently she had something going on with Sam Hubble and Sam’s disappeared, although Delford don’t want to put out an APB. I heard him and Claud arguing about it. Delford’s furious with Claudia, I don’t even dare say her name aloud when he’s around.’ She quickly told him about Junior Deloache, Heather Farrell, all the whirl of death since he left town.

‘God Almighty.’ Claudia fired. Heather and Junior dead. Sam missing. Jesus. His stomach tottered on the lip of a pit. ‘I need Spires’s home and pager numbers.’

Trudy gave him the numbers.

He dialed Delford’s number. No answer. He tried the pager number, keyed in the nursing home’s number, hoping for a quick response.

Think. Think.

Buddy Beere knew about Corey Hubble. Perhaps even assisted in the grand deception. Pete had found out where Corey was and Buddy silenced him. Perhaps silenced Marcy Ballew as well.

But how did Buddy learn that Pete had found Corey? Who knew what Pete knew? Not even Velvet, he’d kept even her in the dark. Not Kathy

… killing Pete meant no money, and Whit didn’t even know if she knew Buddy Beere.

‘They authorized him to be moved,’ Felix Duplessis said again, sitting in his chair, staring at Whit. His face sagged with the worn look of someone who suspects a good day will not come in the immediate future. The call came this morning. She insisted he be moved to a home up in Shreveport immediately.’

‘She?’ Gooch asked.

‘John’s trustee,’ Duplessis said. ‘Laura Taylor.’

‘Let me have her number, please,’ Whit said. Aside from the Austin number was a 361 area code: Texas Coastal Bend.

Duplessis clicked on his speakerphone, and Whit dialed. The phone chirped and a woman’s voice answered.

‘Hello?’

Duplessis said, ‘Miz Taylor?’

A pause. ‘Yes, this is she.’ She sounded tired, anxious, and exactly like Faith Hubble. Whit leaned over the phone, still silent, his eyes closed.