Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

He would adapt. He always did.

“Kill him.”

“The feds are with him now.”

“I don’t care. Find a way. You always find a way.”

He slammed his phone shut.

In fifteen more minutes Kate would be here. She’d better show. He was in no mood for any bullshit.

At least Ullman knew nothing of importance. Except the truth about Trevor’s death, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to talk about that.

Trask opened his computer and hacked into Ullman’s accounts. He needed to save most of his money before the feds cut him off. He’d lost millions of dollars a few years ago when they’d uncovered one of his accounts. But they’d never made the Ullman connection before.

This was definitely going to be a problem.

He turned and faced the restrained fed in the back-seat. Mick Mallory stared at him with hatred.

Trask laughed, went back to his computer.

Hate. What a wonderfully empowering emotion.

Quinn Peterson had just landed in Seattle when his cell phone rang. “Peterson.”

“It’s Vigo. Good news, bad news, worse news.”

“Give me good news. I need some.”

“We have all Adam Scott’s finances. Paul Ullman has been laundering money for years. We’ve seized his accounts, have computers and e-mails that I’m transporting to Quantico right now.”

“Fabulous. What’s the bad news?”

“Scott transferred more than half the accounts to unknown sources before we could seize them.”

“Someone tipped him off.”

“We think the attorney, but we can’t prove it.”

“What’s the worse news?”

“Ullman is dead.”

“ What ? You were supposed to sit on him!”

“We did!” Vigo said defensively. “He went to meet with the attorney-we obviously couldn’t sit in. But we flanked the room. He came out of it, nodded to us, went over to his balcony, and jumped.”

“Jumped?”

“Thirty-six stories, right there on Madison Avenue. Splat.”

“Innocent bystanders?”

“He hit a parked car. Totaled it.”

“Anything else about Trevor Conrad’s death?”

“We’re on our way to talk to his parents.”

“Keep me informed.”

Jack circled around the meeting location. He saw a Hummer but no Adam Scott, no people at all. They could be inside the vehicle-he didn’t have a good view of the rear seat because of the shaded windows.

The coordinates Scott had sent to Kate were for a closed campground at the base of Mount Baker. An avalanche during the winter had made this area treacherous, so park rangers had closed it off until they could clear the roads. The work was nearly complete, but the road hadn’t been opened to the public yet.

Scott had told Kate there was a cabin at the site, but there was no cabin.

Though Jack had backup a few miles away, for this leg of the operation, he was on his own.

Just the way he preferred it.

Jack faded back into the trees and waited. He was good at it.

Trask glanced at his watch. Kate had five minutes.

He slapped the leg of the man next to him. “I would tell you I was sorry, but I’d be lying,” he said. “You’re nothing but a fucking, stupid cop. They’re better off without you.”

Mick Mallory didn’t respond, barely moved. He couldn’t, of course, as he was drugged and barely coherent, his mouth taped shut, and his feet and hands restrained.

“The irony of this whole situation is that April Klinger’s death was an accident. I didn’t mean to go that far. She completely consented. Not to being strangled, of course, but to being raped. I paid her for it. She signed a contract.” Trask looked out the window. Saw nothing but trees and bark and two unused campfire pits.

Would Kate show?

Yes. Unless something happened, she would come.

He logged onto his pocket PC and checked the cue. Kate wasn’t online, hadn’t sent him any messages.

“April was unusually beautiful. I admire beautiful women. Really, what else are they valued for except their physical appearance? Which is exactly what they want. They like having men lust after them. They love showing their bodies to the world. My actresses enjoyed every minute because in the end, women are simply whores here to service our needs.”

When his father disowned him, Trask plotted his murder. He would kill the judge, find a way to regain his inheritance-through his mother, who would welcome him home no matter what.

Then he came up with an even better idea. He’d been working on the side distributing snuff films-mostly fake, but a few real gems nonetheless-when he saw the future of the Internet. To have a system where anyone could simply download a murder appealed to him.

In a few short years, he had made a fortune. Making his money from online pornography was nothing compared to the first film he’d produced.

Of a judge being spanked by two whores.

Trask had embellished it, but used much of the same choreography as real life. Found someone who looked, more or less, like his father.

When it was complete, he put it on the Internet and sent his father the link. Watched online as the message was opened, the link clicked.

A month later Judge and Mrs. Scott died in a car accident. Their deaths stolen from Trask. He’d wanted his money and instead got nothing.

When his father disowned him, it wasn’t in word only. He cut him off completely, changing his will.

The bastard.

Trask pushed the foul memories of his dead father away and logged onto his own webcam. Lucy was there, alone. He called Roger.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“We had to take a break. Frank almost killed her when she kicked him in the balls.”

“Why weren’t her legs restrained?”

“We wanted to try something different.”

“I’m the director, remember? This is my show. Keep her tied down and don’t be stupid. Give Frank a few minutes to cool off, then get him back in there.”

He slammed his cell phone shut, looked at his watch.

Kate was late.

He slapped Mallory next to him, and his victim moaned. “Show’s on, Mick. Get your ass in gear. I think Kate is playing with me, and I don’t like being jerked around.

“Wait until she sees what I have planned for her.”

He took out a syringe and injected the contents into Mick’s arm. “This should wake you up.”

THE NOISE OF THE HELICOPTER made it impossible for Kate and Dillon to talk, which was probably for the best as they both thought through the plan. Dillon put aside the trauma Lucy had suffered and focused on the rescue. The pilot was landing on an island less than a mile from Lucy’s suspected position. A boat was waiting for them. They would pose as lost tourists if necessary, but Dillon felt that the disguise wouldn’t work if one of Trask’s men saw them. Trask-Adam Scott-would most certainly have done his homework. He knew what Kate looked like, and Dillon wouldn’t be surprised if he had files on all the Kincaids, including himself.

If they were wrong about Lucy’s location, then they’d lost hours of time. It could be a trap, or it could be a wild-goose chase.

But Trask had given Kate a location only eighty miles away. Close enough that Dillon believed that Lucy could be on this island, or one nearby. And that they had time to save her.

He looked at his watch: 2:10. Less than ten hours and she would be dead.

Dillon considered what he knew of Adam Scott. Expelled from high school for the mysterious death of a student who had supposedly been his best friend. A lab explosion? He wondered what was missing from the story. His two friends, Roger Morton and Paul Ullman, had been reinstated to the school, but not Adam. Because of the school? Or perhaps Adam’s parents? Or maybe the school was covering up a crime, claiming it was an accident and handling the “punishment” themselves.