Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(134)

“That’s a lie. He’s coming. The power of love, or perhaps just sex, but power is power, hmm?” He patted her face, pleased with himself. “We know everything. We have a listening device on Rosa Ranieri’s phone. She’s the kind of woman who calls every hour, demanding a status report. He’s coming for you. In the area already.”

“What area is that?” She had no real hope that he’d answer.

“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you,” he said. “You’re over an hour north of New York City, in a nineteenth-century railroad baron’s country estate, perched on a cliff over the Hudson. Lovely place. Sadly, you will probably never see it. Someday I mean to remodel it, return it to its former glory, but I have other priorities right now. Melanie, my dear, upload the loop of her father’s extortion videos. It’ll entertain her while she waits. Lily, this just might give you some insight into your father’s breakdown, his drug addiction. Perhaps it will give you some closure?”

His benevolent smile flicked off like a switch when the door opened and a woman came in. It took Lily a moment to recognize her, she was so changed. Wizened, jaundiced, like something had sucked all the juice out of her, revealing a frame made out of bent wire. Her cheeks were caved in, her burning eyes sunken in darkened sockets. But it was her. Miriam. Or Zoe. One of the nameless ones.

Their eyes locked. The woman’s face contorted with rage. She launched herself at Lily with a raptor’s keening shriek of rage.

Her body connected, flinging Lily and her chair to the floor. The coffee cup flew, lukewarm coffee spattered everywhere, and Lily gasped for breath as Zoe’s thumbs bit down on either side of her voice box.

She clawed at Zoe’s hands, but they were like steel. The woman’s bloodshot eyes protruded from her wizened death’s head of a face, lips drawn back over her teeth as her fingers dug, crushed . . . the world retreated . . . going dark, silent . . .

It came swinging back, brutally vivid, along with air sawing painfully into her damaged throat. They were lifting Zoe, kicking and flailing. Lily lay on the ground, clutching her throat, coughing.

“Zoe! Zoe!” King grabbed Zoe’s shoulders, shook them, switched to a language Lily could not place. He shouted out a thundering phrase.

Zoe’s legs buckled. She sagged, boneless, whimpering.

King offered Lily his hand. “So sorry about that,” he said. “Zoe’s been confused since that incident at the cabin. A sequencing problem, I think. She can’t quite track the passage of time right now, poor thing, so she thinks she’s still supposed to kill you.”

“Aw. Really,” she croaked out. She ignored his proffered hand, scooting back until she could use the wall for support. “How upsetting for her. Wow. My heart just bleeds.”

He grinned in appreciation. “Ah, that’s the ticket. The sarcastic comeback, no matter what. I can see why Bruno’s so taken with you.”

“But he’s not,” she repeated, grimly. “He’s not. Dream on.”

King turned back to Zoe, intoning another phrase in that incomprehensible language. She appeared to come to her senses, shaking off Melanie’s and Hobart’s grips with a petulant jerk of her shoulders.

“Zoe, my dear,” King said. “You came to give us news?”

“Yes,” she said. “Julian told us that Ranieri is inside his grandmother’s house in Newark. The two McCloud men are waiting in the car outside. Julian’s circling the place, awaiting instructions.”

“Hmmm,” King murmured. “They must be looking for this jewelry box. The one he found the key for. In the locket. Next to Rudy’s skeleton. Hmm?” He gave Lily a smug, sly smile.

“How did you know that?” she whispered. “From Zia’s phone?”

“We’ve been watching carefully. Hobart, call up a satellite view of the house and get a webcam ready. Melanie, get me an untraceable line and call Pina Ranieri’s home phone. And Zoe, my bloodthirsty darling, do you have a knife handy?”

A smile stretched her wizened features. “Of course.” She crouched, pulled one out of a sheath on her ankle. An evil-looking thing, with notches and a curved five-inch blade.

“Excellent,” he murmured. “Bruno is sure to remember you from the cabin. Lily, sit down in your chair again, that’s a good girl. Hobart, get the webcam right in front of her, yes, just so . . . and Zoe, get behind her. Put the blade up to her face . . . yes, just like that, right under her chin. Excellent. Oh, yes, that’s just chilling.”

The cold steel pushed against her flesh, pressing every time she swallowed over the bump in her aching throat. “What is this?”

King dimpled, boyishly. “This, my dear, is showtime.”





“It’s for you!”

Bruno’s gaze jerked up from the description of Mamma’s ruptured spleen and the internal hemorrhaging that it had caused. “Huh?”

Grandma Pina was at the top of the stairs, holding the cordless handset high like she wanted to chuck it at him. “You gave my phone number to your lowlife friends?” she scolded him. “How dare you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “I never gave your number to anybody. I don’t even know your number.”

“That’s a lie, or else how would this person know that you’re here?” She shook the thing accusingly.