Brian Freeman - The Bone House

He thought about Hilary Bradley and realized he was annoyed with her. He was used to being the smartest person in the room, and he had the sense that she was every bit as smart as he was. He didn't like it that she had put a finger squarely on his vulnerability without knowing anything about him. It also bothered him that he experienced a glimmer of jealousy at the idea that she was so deeply in love with another man. It was an unwelcome reminder that his own life was emotionally and sexually barren. When he did have sex, it was generally the end of a relationship, not the beginning. He'd even gone so far as to pay for sex on a few occasions when he was living overseas, in order to be free of any complications.

'Cab.'

He heard the voice, but he didn't move or look around, because he knew it wasn't real. It was just the echo of a ghost. Vivian had always had this way of wrapping her Spanish-tinged British accent around his name, so that it came from her lips like a prayer. She'd said it that way so many times. When she recognized his voice on the phone. When she was under him and her body was arching with one of her violent orgasms. When she was on her knees on the beach, pleading for her life. Begging him to spare her.

Cab .

That was the last word she'd ever spoken.

She disappeared on a Tuesday.

They had planned to meet for paella and Mahou at a street cafe north of the Diagonal, but Cab sat there alone for an hour, watching the crowds for her face. She never arrived. When he walked to her apartment six blocks away, everything personal to her had been stripped. The kitchens and bathrooms stank of bleach. It was as if she had never existed. She left nothing behind.

The next morning, black smoke poured skyward from the shattered windows of the Estacio-Sants train station. Twenty-seven people died.

The Spanish police needed only four hours to identify the terrorist behind the bombing. Cab knew he'd been played for a fool when he saw the CCTV feed from inside the station. The grainy footage showed Diego Martin, an American fugitive wanted for gang murders in Phoenix, arm in arm with Vivian Frost.

Diego Martin, who had led Cab and the FBI on a chase to Barcelona. Diego Martin, who had used Vivian to spy on Cab.

There had never been any love in Vivian's heart. Only sex and betrayal. Only lies.

That night, Cab drove north. He brought his gun. He knew what no one else did; he knew where they'd gone. A few days earlier, he'd found reservations for a rented house on a secluded beach near the rocky coast of Tossa de Mar. It was the ideal hideaway for two criminals on the run.

Vivian and Diego.

He arrived after midnight on one of the most serene nights imaginable. The gentle breeze off the Mediterranean was warm, the air was scented with flowers, and moonlight flooded the beach. He climbed down the sharp hillside to the sheltered cove and quickly realized that he wasn't alone by the still water. They were there. He could see them on the sand. Entwined. Vivian on top, her back to him, displaying an ivory expanse of naked skin sloping from her neck to the cleft of her buttocks. He heard the guttural noises from her throat, so intimately familiar to him, and even now, after everything, her abandon could arouse him. They were fifty yards away, in the wet sand, close enough for the surf to lap at their bodies.

He lifted his gun as he walked closer. He thought he had the element of surprise, but he was young and out of his head with anger.

Diego's hand moved with the speed of a snake. Cab dove into the surf as bullets screamed past his head. When he spun back with his own gun, Diego already had Vivian in front of him. His gun was at her temple. Diego lurched out of the sand, dragging Vivian with him.

'You want to kill me,' Diego said, 'but you have to kill her first.'

'Do you think that's a problem for me?' Cab asked.

'I know this woman. I know what she does to you.'

'Cab,' Vivian pleaded. 'Cab, I'm sorry. Let us go.'

He stared at her. She was naked, her body lit up by the moonlight, shadows under her breasts. Streaks of sand clung to her damp skin. The natural thing would have been to fold her up in his arms and lower her to the beach and make love to her.

'Drop the gun,' Cab said, 'or I'll kill you both.'

'I don't think you will,' Diego replied calmly. 'You'd let me kill you if it meant saving this wonderful whore.'

Vivian begged. 'Cab, please.'

He kept the gun steady in his long, outstretched arms. 'Viv, you know he's going to kill you, don't you?'

'Cab,' she whispered. 'Just go.'

'Why do you think he brought the gun to the beach, Viv? Just because the police might come? Come on, you're smarter than that. This man travels solo. He was going to let you make love to him one last time, and then he was going to put a bullet in your head.'

Diego began to back up in the sand.

'Once he's safe, you're dead, Viv,' Cab told her.

He could see her blue eyes. They were always the same — smart, cool, and infinitely calculating. She knew he was right. It made him feel good to realize that she'd been betrayed too. Her eyes dipped to the sand, and he understood; she was about to drop out of his arms. Her legs buckled, she fell, and there Diego was, head and torso exposed. Cab fired four times, in his chest, neck, eye, and forehead. What he enjoyed most was the surprise. The disbelief. As if it had never occurred to Diego that this woman could ever betray him.

Diego lay on his back in the water, dead. Vivian sprang to her feet, crying, as if in relief, as if he'd freed her from a monster. 'Oh, God, Cab, thank you, thank you.'

She took a step toward him, her arms wide.

'Stop.'

Vivian froze. 'Cab, what are you doing?'

Cab aimed his gun again, this time at her head. 'Get on your knees,' he told her.

She stood in the sand. 'Cab.'

'Do it!' he shouted.

Vivian's knees sank into the dark sand. She squared her shoulders, as if to show off her breasts to him. She was beautiful, even with her white skin splattered with Diego's blood.

'So what happens now?' she asked him.

'Now I take you to the police. Now you spend the rest of your life in a stinking hole.'

'You can't do that to me.'

'Watch me.'

'I lied to you, Cab,' she admitted. 7 cheated on you. I betrayed you. But the rest? I didn't know. Diego was running from you, but I had no idea what he was planning. I would have told you if I'd known.'

'Twenty-seven people died, Vivian. The police won't care. No one will care.' 'Just let me walk away. You have Diego. He's dead.'

'You can mourn him while you sit in your little box.'

Vivian's face screwed up in anger. 'Is that what this is about? I fucked you, and now you fuck me back?'

'This isn't about you and me.'

'Oh, like hell it's not.' Vivian spread her knees wide, exposing the shadow between her legs. She leaned backward, stretching her torso, balancing on her palms. 'Is this what you want? You want a last ride, like Diego?'

He felt his fury resurfacing. 'Shut up.'

'Come on, Cab. I'm just a whore. I'll do whatever you tell me to do.'

'Stop it. How could you do this to me?'

'I'm sorry. We were both fools.'

T loved you,' Cab shouted. 'I still love you.'

She bowed her head. Her hair fell across her face. 'Then let me go. Don't put me in jail for the rest of my life just because I lied to you.'