Baddest Bad Boys(36)

He cradled her against his chest, using his shoulders to batter his way out of the snarl of conifers. His eyes streamed. He set Robin gently on the ground, and groped for his phone—

Bam. The gunshot knocked him over Robin’s body and onto his face. His shoulder was numb, burning, ice cold. Jesus. What a brain-dead *. Getting himself shot by a bouncy blond psychopath with a f*cking ponytail. He was dead meat, but the contrary bastard inside him who never knew when he was beat got up, staggering.

The blonde had a wild light in her eyes. She grinned, her teeth bloody and disarranged. The gun shook in her two-handed grip.

“You Geddes’s bitch?” He made his voice hard and taunting. “Were you his little helper? Like a fluffer on a porn set?”

“I wouldn’t expect a pig like you to understand.” The woman’s voice was high-pitched, wobbly. “I was his ultimate work of art. See?”

She yanked up her shirt. Her torso was covered with scars, in a swirling, hypnotic pattern, horribly similar to the bloody welts and cuts on Geddes’s other victims. Her nipples had been removed. Shiny flat scars remained. He didn’t like to imagine the state of her nether parts.

His gorge rose. He was looking at the Egg Man’s first victim. Alive, bugged out of her flipping skull—and holding a gun on him.

“He hurt you too?” he asked. “How long ago did he take you?”

“He didn’t hurt me!” she shrieked. “He saved me! He loved me! He was transforming me, like I was going to transform her.” She stabbed a bloody finger towards Robin’s supine body. The gun’s muzzle wavered in her hand. “You can bleed to death while you watch me do it!”

As if she’d heard, Robin shifted and moaned. In the instant that the blonde’s eyes flicked towards her, Jon’s body was in the air, leg flashing in a whip-swift front kick. Smack, the gun flew out of her hands. Her despairing shriek was like the cry of a prehistoric bird.

Grab the wrist, spin, torque and wrench. Crunch. She shrieked, her arm dislocated and broken. A punch to the point of the chin finished the job. She thudded to the ground. He swayed on his feet.

So his instincts had some basis after all, he thought numbly. The Egg Man had left the zombie bride behind to carry on his evil deeds.

He couldn’t believe he’d missed it. It seemed so obvious now. The last puzzle piece, the fragment that made the whole sick, bloody mess finally make sense. Geddes had an accomplice all along. It was a man-woman serial murder team. A classic scenario, and he’d missed it.

And Robin had almost paid the price for his stupidity. If she hadn’t already.

He stumbled back to her, and thudded to his knees. Made his fingers punch in 911, getting the cops, the EMT’s.

That done, he cradled her against his chest, and cried like a baby as he waited for the med techs to come and do their thing.

8
San Francisco, weeks later…

Jon peered at his watch. 4:20 A.M. Too late for a beautiful girl to finish her second waitressing shift of the day and head home in her piece of shit car to her piece of shit apartment.

It made him tense. As did contemplating activities in which he did not excel, i.e., apologizing, groveling, expressing tender emotions. Being charming and seductive when he felt like hammered shit.

Finding her had been easy. He’d taken some overdue leave and driven down a few days ago. Familiarized himself with her schedule.

Stalking, he guessed. There really wasn’t any other word for it.

A car with a shot muffler pulled into the parking lot. Adrenaline jolted through him. Heels started clicking up the steps. He’d scare her to death if he just waited here with his mouth shut.

“Hey, Robin,” he called out. “It’s me.”

The clicking stopped. He counted the thuds of his heart.

He coughed to clear his throat. “Please. Come up and talk.”

He held his breath, and let it out slowly when he heard the heel clicks begin again. She stopped on the landing below, and stared up.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice hushed.

There was so much to say to that, it bottlenecked in his aching throat. “Can I come in?” was all he could manage.

She marched past, swaying to avoid touching him, and unlocked the rattling, antiquated knob lock. She marched in.

He waited for it to slam. It did not. He moved towards the dim slice of light that came out of the crack, and pushed the door open.

She stood with her back to him, radiating tension. She’d switched on a cheap gooseneck desk lamp that illuminated a dim patch on the wall. She looked hot. Black miniskirt, no hose, those great, slim legs that went on forever. A skimpy blouse. Way too sexy for a work uniform.

“Have you started, the, uh, circus training thing yet?” he asked.

“Soon,” she said distantly. “Next week is the orientation. I’ve just been trying to scrape together some extra money until then. What’s happening with, ah…her?”

“The process is gearing itself up,” he said. “It could take years. I’m sure her team will go with an insanity plea, which usually pisses me off, but not this time. The woman was tortured by that psycho prick since she was seventeen years old. She’s batshit. She needs to be confined, yeah, but not in a prison.”

Robin hugged herself. “That’s so horrible,” she whispered.