John Miller - Side by Side

“Don’t make Dixie mad,” the powerful woman warned. “Drink it.”

Lucy wanted to scream, but instead she opened her mouth to allow the thick, sweet liquid to flow down her throat. Dixie didn’t take the mug away until it was empty.

Dixie stood, letting Lucy go back into her curl. “You get some rest, missy. A nice restful sleep is just what you need. You’ll wake up at home.”

Dixie stood in the doorway staring in at Lucy for a long time. All the while, Lucy was visualizing the medicine cocktail working itself into the lining of her stomach.

Keep thinking you’re winning, you muscle-bound freak, Lucy thought. Just keep thinking it.

Eleven-letter word for Dixie.

P S Y C H O B I T C H

Clayton Able knew exactly where Dixie Smoot had called her father from, but he wasn’t going to share that with anybody except the Major. Winter Massey was, as Clayton had insisted from the start he would, proving to be difficult to control. It appeared that if Massey was left to his own devices, he could make a very large mess of things, and generate complications they didn’t need.

He turned to Antonia. “We have to stop Massey.”

“Slow him down,” the Major answered. “It isn’t necessary to do anything so rash. Massey can’t get anything done before tomorrow, and then it’ll work for us. He can die as planned while shooting it out with the kidnappers. No need to change the plan.”

“Randall is hot over what happened at Click’s house. Says we should have warned him that Massey was there.”

“Screw Randall. He didn’t tell us he was going there. This is a two-way street. Max had better not forget who’s calling the tune. Where’s Alexa?”

“Coming here.”

“Good.”

“Massey’s on his way to Laughlin’s.”

“And Laughlin won’t be home. So Massey will go back to see the Smoot kid and-”

“I’ve seen this happen a hundred times and I know in my gut when something is about to go up in flames,” Clayton insisted nervously. “If you don’t let me handle him, I’m not going to stay with this. I’m not going to spend my golden years in prison. We need to let Randall deal with Massey now.”

He heard her exhale loudly. “Go ahead. But it means a change in plan. I’ll work out an alternate with Alexa. Make sure Max understands that Massey’s body can’t be found until Monday. We’ll have to play some hocus-pocus with the forensics. No biggie, since we’ll be controlling the evidence-gathering process and reports.”

“I’ll make the call. You are paying me for my experience with these sorts of matters. It’s the right thing to do,” Clayton said, smiling. “The smart thing is the correct course.”

“It had better be, Mr. Able. It sure as hell better be.”

Winter Massey locked the gate to the closed-down clinic, then waited for Alexa to leave. She had the damned phone to her head before she was fifty feet away, probably calling Clayton Able for advice, no doubt begging him for some intelligence that would negate the necessity of Winter’s trip to Laughlin’s. Winter wasn’t going to run everything he did through Clayton, or wait for him to toss Winter some eleventh-hour bone. Winter didn’t care for men who sat at computers playing with human lives that were no more real to them than some teenage sorcerer in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Clayton was working with Alexa, but the man had worked for Military Intelligence. He gave Winter the creeps, and every bone in his body told him not to trust him.

Something else was bothering him more than Clayton Able or Click’s imprisonment. He couldn’t shake a feeling of unease, a feeling whose source he couldn’t put his finger on. Winter had never gone against his gut without being sorry he had. Right now his gut felt hollow and hot.

He hadn’t wanted Alexa to come with him from Click’s house because he didn’t want her undermining what he was doing with Click. He had told himself that she was better off not being involved in anything that was heavy-handed or illegal due to the consequences to her career. She might want to let go and get down in the dirt with him, but she couldn’t. Still it troubled him that she would bring him in to do something and then block him from doing it.

Winter picked up his own cell phone from the console and dialed Sean.

“Hello, Tiger,” she answered.

“You say that to everybody?”

“Just if caller ID says they’re using your phone,” she replied. “How’s it going?”

“It’s picking up steam,” Winter told her. “I borrowed one of your padded cells. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No,” she said. “If you need it, it’s fine.”

“Your liability paid up on it?”

“Yes. Winter-Is everything all right?”

“Peachy keen. How’s everything at the ranch?”

“There’s a leak in the roof and water is running down the stone fireplace. Olivia has the sniffles. Rush saddled his horse without Faith Ann’s help. Faith Ann cooked speckled trout dinner and it was excellent. Hank’s complaining about everything because he wishes he was with you. This bed is so cold and lonely.”

“Well, if things work out, I’ll be back in it tomorrow night.”

“You’d better be. This hot water bottle doesn’t keep me as warm as you do.”

“I’m glad you need me for something.”

“Massey, I need you for everything. You know that, don’t you?”

“Sure I do.”

“You’d better be careful. You get injured and I’m going to be very angry with you. Is Alexa with you?”

“She’s gone back to the hotel to meet with someone.”

“Who’s watching your back?”

“Doesn’t need watching. I’m just driving around in the rain.”

A horn blared. Winter, realizing he had drifted close to another vehicle, swerved back into his lane. A van sped by, the driver holding his hand out in the rain long enough to give Winter a hand signal not covered in the North Carolina driver’s manual.

“What was that?” Sean asked.

“A Toyota, I think,” Winter said.

“Winter, stay focused,” she chastised.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“That’s not funny. You hang up and don’t split your attention again for a minute.”

“Okay, babe. Go back to sleep.”

“Know what, Massey?”

“Yes, Sean, I certainly do.”

“You’d better.”

He waited until after she hung up to end the call. After this was over, he would tell Sean about the machine-gun attack at Click’s. No sense in giving her something concrete to worry about. He had come within a split second of being cut to pieces. It was nice to know that retirement hadn’t put cobwebs in his reflexes.

If the phone book was correct, Ross Laughlin’s house was a large Tudor near Queen’s College on a tree-lined street where other stately homes were surrounded by manicured lawns. The windows of the lawyer’s home were all dark except for the ones on the back corner of the first floor-probably the kitchen. Laughlin’s outdoors lighting was pooled for dramatic effect, designed more to show off the landscaping than to offer security. Winter assumed Laughlin had at least as good a security system as everybody else on the street. Perhaps, being a criminal as well as an attorney, his was better than anything his neighbors had. Winter didn’t like the setup. There was no good place to park without letting himself be exposed as he approached the house from the front. He kept going and turned the corner and found a narrow service alley that ran behind the houses.

Winter went around the block and spotted a house that was being renovated, one end of it a yet roofless skeleton made of two-by-fours. A large container jammed with debris had been plopped down in the rutted disaster that would become a yard. The house was protected from its neighbors by a stand of bamboo. Winter cut his lights, turned in, and parked his truck behind the loaded dumpster.