The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(78)

Meadow thought it over.

“All right, fine, I can’t hear shit on this line anyway. You get five minutes of my time. Not tonight. I’m busy making travel arrangements. Tomorrow morning, on my way out of town. Where at?”

“Uh, 14082 Sauk Trail, room six,” Roth said, parroting the address I’d “accidentally” given him when we talked over the tapped line. “It’s a motel off I-15, about ten miles outside Vegas. I’ll come alone!”

“You’d better,” she said. “I’ll be there at nine. If I don’t like what you have to say, I’ll be gone at 9:01.”

“Thank you,” Roth told her.

“Yeah, whatever,” Meadow muttered. “Freak.”

She hung up. I leaned back in my chair and let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

“Nice save,” I said.

Pixie looked as exhausted as I suddenly felt. “You’re welcome. So, uh…you think she fell for it?”

“I think maybe, just maybe, things are going right for a change.”

“Then why aren’t you smiling?” Pixie said.

“I get nervous when things are going right,” I said.

I should have felt good. We had a way in, we had a weapon, and if she showed up to the meeting, we’d have Meadow Brand too. That was three more cards than I’d expected to have up my sleeve.

Even still, every passing minute felt like the countdown to doomsday. Roth’s comments about Lauren left me rattled. What had she done to herself? How close was she to taking the final leap, bridging two worlds and crushing both of them between her greedy fingers?

Was it even possible to stop her now?

That night, I dreamed about Bob Payton. He perched on the edge of Bentley and Corman’s couch, looming over me like a mummified bird and trying to talk through stitched-shut lips.

I woke up a couple of hours before dawn. I didn’t want to go back to sleep, but I didn’t want to get up just yet. I felt bad enough that Bentley and Corman were letting me crash at their place—I didn’t need to wake them up early too. I lay in the gloom and stared at the ceiling, listening to the occasional rumble of a lonely truck on the street outside.

We all get what we deserve, Bob had told me.

What did I deserve?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t care. He was wrong, anyway. Life was a lot of things, but “fair” and “just” weren’t on that list. Every single day good men got kicked in the teeth, while the evil bought mansions in Malibu and slept like babies in their feather beds. I’d learned early on that the only real law was the law of the jungle. Protect your own with everything you’ve got, wake up every morning ready for a fight, and never expect anyone to hand you anything for free. That included justice.

Lauren Carmichael had skated a long time on money and power. Justice wasn’t something she lost any sleep worrying about. She knew the law of the jungle too, and she thought she was the hungriest beast around. Only she’d forgotten one thing: there was always somebody hungrier. Always.

I made a promise to myself in the dark. No matter what it took, even if I had to lay my life on the line, Lauren was finally going to pay for all the wreckage she’d left in her wake.

If I was bound for hell, I’d drag her down with me.





Thirty-Eight



The SandVue Motel was a relic of the sixties, an oasis of aquamarine-painted concrete and white lattice rails out on a hot stretch of empty desert highway. Big magnetic letters on the roadside sign read “Welc me convention-goers we h ve cable TV swimming pool.” Every room had a window, and every window had a chintz curtain pulled tight across it. This was the kind of place people went when they didn’t want anyone knowing their business.

We’d rented two rooms: six, where Meadow hopefully thought she was coming to meet Alton Roth, and the one right next door. The rooms were sparse—a chipboard dresser, a bed that looked like it belonged in a county jail, and a big old TV with a dust-caked screen—but we weren’t planning on staying long.

Caitlin, Jennifer and I were on the scene. Margaux was playing lookout, to give us the heads-up when Meadow pulled in. She’d gone over to the manager’s office on the far side of the motel, pretended she had a busted engine, and asked if she could stay out of the heat while she waited for the tow truck. The pimple-faced kid behind the desk couldn’t have cared less. Simple story, but it gave Margaux the perfect excuse to stand at the window and watch the parking lot like a hawk.

Caitlin brought the hardware, everything we’d need to keep Meadow pacified while we transported her. She carried it in a black plastic garbage bag and emptied it all out on the bedspread: handcuffs, a coil of stout yellow rope, a cotton head sack, and one other thing.

Jennifer held up the bright pink rubber ball, buckled to a pair of black leather straps, and arched an eyebrow. “A ball gag? Really?”

Caitlin shrugged. “It’s all I had in my dresser. Short notice.”

“Let’s run through it one more time,” I said. “Three rings and a hang-up from Margaux means Meadow’s pulling in. Caitlin and I get ready just inside the door. Jennifer, you’ll come out from room five, run up behind her, and give her the bum-rush. We’ll open the door and help pull her in.”