The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(74)

“You don’t sound broken up about it.”

“He was a soldier. He did his duty.”

“Meaning he handed off his daughter’s soul before taking the permanent high dive.”

“You’ve figured it out,” she said.

“More than you. I’ve been doing some digging. The thing in the Box, it’s not what you think it is. The ring won’t work on it.”

“Of course it will. This has been in the planning for decades.”

“Planned by who? You’re being played, Lauren. You can’t imagine the size of the shitstorm you’re about to unleash.”

“Some collateral damage is expected, but my assistants and I will be well protected, I assure you. We have everything under control.”

I sighed. It was the answer I expected, but I had to try reasoning with her. Plan B was a lot more violent. The speaker over my head chimed, and the gentle voice of the stewardess called for everyone to turn off their electronics.

“You hear that?” I said, taking the opportunity to toss up a smoke screen. “I’m sitting on a plane at McCarran International, bound for Miami. I want to be on the other side of the country when this goes down. Think about that.”

“Meadow’s going to be disappointed. She wants to kill you for what you did to her face.”

“She murdered a buddy of mine. I think I’ve got the bigger grievance.”

“I agree with you,” Lauren said, “but life is rarely just or kind, is it? I’m a rational woman, Mr. Faust, and I believe you’re a rational man. Go to Miami and stay there. If you’ll keep out of my affairs, I’ll keep out of yours. We’ll both sleep much easier that way. Do we have a deal?”

Not a chance in hell.

“Deal,” I said and hung up the phone.

Lauren and her pals wanted to do things the hard way. I was fine with that. For Caitlin, for Stacy Pankow, for Spengler, for Amber Vance…I’d make sure they got exactly what they had coming to them. Every last bit of it.





Thirty-Seven



I flew home, went back to my apartment and paced in the dark. I’d had enough sleep. My brain tugged at the problem like a kitten with a ball of twine, tossing it around and getting nowhere fast. Lauren had the Box and her harvest of souls, but there had to be a way to get close to her, to track her down and put a stop to this.

I laughed out loud when I figured it out.

My phone rang at half past sunrise. Caitlin sounded worn down, like she’d run a marathon and lost.

“I just landed at McCarran. Come pick me up?”

I pulled up curbside and she got in, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

“Something tells me you don’t have good news,” I said.

“The Box,” she said, “until last month, was kept in a place of honor in Prince Sitri’s personal trophy room. He never even knew it was gone until last night because someone not only stole it out from under his nose, they replaced it with a cunning counterfeit.”

I merged into traffic, my brow furrowed. “Sounds like an inside job.”

“We concur. There’s going to be an inquisition, but that doesn’t help us right now. It just confirms that the faceless men orchestrated this entire charade from the beginning. They spread ridiculous myths about the Box around the world for decades, stole it from hell, and dropped it in Lauren’s path. They groomed her for twenty years just to be sure she’d be ready to unlock it. Bloody thing’s not even Etruscan.”

“So what’s Sitri going to do?” I asked. “I mean, if Lauren opens it.”

“Wage war. As he is bound to do, even knowing he’ll herald the apocalypse. Making sure that doesn’t happen is on my shoulders.”

“And mine.”

She smiled, reaching over and touching my arm.

“Our shoulders,” she said. “Take me home? I need a shower and a change of clothes. Then we can plan our next move.”

“I think I know who can help us. It’s a gamble, but if you’re up for it, we might have an inside line on finding Lauren.”

“What do you have in mind?” Caitlin said, tilting her head curiously.

When I told her, she laughed louder than I had.

? ? ?

The Gentlemen’s Bet was a dive strip club in a stretch of town where the tourists didn’t go. The noonday sun baked down on a couple of battered cars and a semi tractor in the litter-strewn parking lot. The neon silhouette of a naked woman perched on a pair of dice sat lifeless over the front door, looking down over a tattered red carpet made of painted AstroTurf.

I’d suited up for the occasion with a forest green shirt and a metallic tie. Caitlin opted for a slender black dress with a short, cropped jacket. The throwing knives sewn into the jacket’s lining didn’t even make a whisper as we walked to the door.

“You clean up nicely,” she said.

“I can’t go making you look bad, now can I?”

“So what do you think our odds are?”

I opened the door for her, thinking it over.

“Fifty-fifty. In this town, that’s not a bad proposition.”

A lethargic, barrel-chested bouncer gave us a casual once-over and nodded over his shoulder. The sun vanished, replaced by stuffy darkness and the stink of cheap beer. A few patrons loitered in the near-empty club, each of them alone, watching a bored-looking stripper gyrate out of time to a hair metal song. We made a beeline for the hallway at the back of the room.