The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(10)

“That good or bad?”

“He’s pretty sure he can squash the lesser charges,” I said. “That just leaves us with the feds to deal with.”

“Don’t worry, kiddo. We’ll figure something out. We always do.” He jerked a thumb towards a stack of envelopes at the edge of the counter. “Somebody called for you about half an hour ago. I wrote their number down and put it with the mail.”

Weird. I couldn’t think of anyone who would be looking for me. I wandered over and flipped through the pile. Gas bill for the building, electric bill, new copy of Publishers Weekly, Stash Tea catalog for Bentley—then I found Corman’s scribbled note at the bottom of the stack, written on the back of a greasy pizza receipt, and I furrowed my brow.

Napa Hospital call re: Dr. Plank.

I dialed the number he’d jotted down. They picked up on the second ring.

“Napa State Hospital, how may I direct your call?”

“Hi,” I said. “My name’s Daniel Faust. I got a message asking me to call about a patient there. Eugene Planck?”

The line went quiet for so long I would have thought I’d been disconnected if it wasn’t for the faint clatter of equipment in the background and the occasional garbled PA announcement.

“Yes,” the voice on the other end finally said. “Dr. Planck listed you as his emergency contact. I have some bad news. I’m afraid…I’m afraid he’s dead. It happened this morning, around eleven o’clock.”

While we were walking into a trap down in Chloride, I thought. I gripped the edge of the counter, holding on tight as the world slid out from under my feet.

“How?” I said.

“It looks like a heart attack. It was very quick. He didn’t suffer.”

Yes, he did, I thought, because I knew what really killed him. Lauren. While we were chasing her shadow two states away, she was in California, tying up loose ends. I knew she had a soft spot for her old professor, and she’d spared his life once before. I’d thought that meant he was safe from her.

So there was one more victim I couldn’t save. One more name for the list of the dead, chiseled on an granite slab and dragging me down.

“Thank you,” I said. The voice started talking about burial costs and Planck’s family in Virginia and did I know—and I just hung up.

Corman read the look on my face. He put down his phone.

“What’s what, kiddo?”

“Eugene,” I said. “The guy who helped me and Caitlin track down the Etruscan Box. He’s dead.”

“Natural causes?” he said, but I could tell from his tone that he knew better.

“Classic one-two punch. While we were chasing our tails and getting shot at in Arizona, Lauren was out in California dishing out some payback. I think she hoped she’d kill us all off at the same time.”

“We’re still here,” Corman said.

I slammed my fist against the counter. A jolt of pain lanced up my arm and left my wrist throbbing.

“He spent twenty years in a mental hospital,” I said, seething, “because Lauren locked a curse around his neck and put him there. Twenty goddamn years in purgatory. All I had to do, the one thing I had to do, was kill Lauren and he would have died a free man. I couldn’t save Stacy Pankow or Amber Vance or any of the other people her cult murdered. She ordered Meadow Brand to torture Spengler and kill him right in front of me. We got to Sophia’s house just in time to find her dead body. Corman, I—”

My eyes squeezed shut. A weak and rotten dam against the tears I didn’t want to let flow. I’d been pushing everything down, bottling it up so I could keep fighting, but Eugene’s death was that one straw too many. I couldn’t keep carrying that weight on my shoulders.

“You’re afraid we’re going to lose,” Corman said.

I opened my eyes, took a deep breath to steady myself, and nodded.

“The only game you can lose,” Corman said, “is a fair game. That’s fine for baseball and poker night, but when all your chips are on the table? That’s when you do what Bentley and I taught you. Cheat. Rig the game. Do whatever you gotta do to come out a winner.”

“What if Lauren cheats better than us?” I said.

Corman snorted and shook his head.

“Son,” he said, “nobody cheats better than us. Now stop worrying about could-bes and what-ifs, because could-bes and what-ifs aren’t worth a damn. You’re burning daylight. Get out there, do what you do best, and find a new angle. Lauren Carmichael’s just one more in a long line of people who thought they were immortal until they suddenly weren’t. Time we proved that to her.”





Five



An hour later, I was sitting in a booth at the Five Guys on Eastern Avenue, noshing on a big, soggy bacon burger and dipping into a greasy brown paper bag stuffed with Cajun fries. I’d rather have gone for Korean with Caitlin, but the fast food quelled the gnawing in my gut. The hunger pangs, anyway. It didn’t do much for the sense of dread that only got stronger when Harmony Black walked in the door.

I’d figured out an angle, all right, but I couldn’t do it alone.

Harmony was a short, full-figured blonde with wire-rimmed glasses and a penchant for men’s neckties. Today’s was forest green. She also had a penchant for putting guys like me behind bars. She gave the clientele a quick frisking with her eyes, making sure I didn’t invite her into an ambush, then slid into the seat across from me.