Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(104)

She took a picture with her cell phone and texted the image to Van Sciver. As she shoved the material back into the trash, she noted the ditched license plates in the bottom of the container.

She exited the structure through a side door, slipped past a break in the cordon, walked across the plaza, and got into the backseat of one of two Chevy Tahoes waiting at metered spots. They were heavily armored, just like the one in Richmond.

Van Sciver and Thornhill occupied the seats in front of her.

Thornhill held up his phone with a location pin-dropped on Google Maps. “Full Auto WrapAttack,” he said, “At 1019B South Figueroa. Los Angeles. One shop, they custom-make their own materials on site. What do you think?”

Van Sciver weighed this a moment. “It’s not a sure thing,” he said. “But it’s the best bet. Let’s move headquarters.”

Thornhill said, “Good thing we’re mobile.”

Candy turned to look into the Tahoe parked one spot behind them. Through the tinted rear window, she could barely make out the outlines of the eight freelancers crammed into the bench seats. “Which one’s the pilot?” she asked.

“Guy in the passenger seat,” Van Sciver said. “I have a Black Hawk on standby. We’ll set up downtown, striking distance to most points in the city. The minute X eats or drinks something, we’ll have ten minutes to scramble to his location and put him and the girl down.”

“You think the girl’s worth killing?” Candy said.

“Why take the chance?” Thornhill said.

Candy said, “You pay him extra to answer for you?”

Van Sciver met Candy’s stare in the rearview.

She knew she had overstepped her bounds, and she had no idea what might happen next.

Van Sciver said, “Step out of the car, Thornhill.”

Thornhill obeyed.

Candy could feel the pulse beating in the side of her neck. “Let’s skip the part where you beat your chest and I back down,” she said. “Consider me backed down. Why don’t we think about this. And by ‘we’ I mean you and I—the ones with brains. Thornhill’s a blank space. A good body and a nice set of teeth. There’s nothing there.”

She pictured Van Sciver wheeling around in the driver’s seat, his hand clamping her larynx, squeezing the air passage shut. But no, he remained where he was, a large immovable force, his eyes drilling her in the mirror.

“He’s an extension of me,” Van Sciver said. “He’s a scope.”

“And scopes have their use,” she said. “But we’re talking strategy. It’s a surgical operation. We want clean margins. What is unnecessary brings with it unnecessary complications. We X out Evan, we leave no trace. We kill a sixteen-year-old girl, that makes a bigger ripple in the pond. Which means unforeseen ramifications. Then who do we have to kill to take care of those?”

That blown pupil in the rearview seemed to pull her in. She found herself leaning back to avoid tumbling down the rabbit hole.

“I don’t care,” Van Sciver said.

“But the man in charge might.”

For the first time, Van Sciver looked away. His trapezius muscles tensed, flanking the neck. She was certain he was going to explode, but instead he gave a little nod. Then he gestured at Thornhill, who was waiting patiently at the curb. Thornhill climbed back in, started up the nav on his phone, and both Tahoes pulled out in unison.

The two-SUV convoy headed for Los Angeles.





69

A Drool Not of Saliva

By the time they returned to Castle Heights, Evan and Joey were ragged from the drive and the detour to switch vehicles. Evan pulled his trusty Ford pickup into his spot on the subterranean parking level, and they climbed out. He took a moment to stretch his lower back before heading in.

They heard the voice before they stepped through the door to the lobby.

“—just saying you should go easy on the carbs at your age. I mean, have you seen you? You could stand to tighten up.”

As Evan and Joey came around the corner, Lorilee and her boyfriend came into view standing before the bank of mail slots. Her head was lowered, her cat eyes swollen. The boyfriend swept his long hair off his face with a practiced flick of his head and continued flipping through the stack of mail in his hands.

“And where’s my new credit card?” he continued. “I thought you said you ordered it already.”

As Evan came up on them, Lorilee wouldn’t meet his gaze. Evan thought about what Joey had just confronted on that porch in Phoenix and how an argument like this would sound to her ears. He felt bone-tired and angry.

Lorilee’s reply was soft, the voice of a little girl. “I did.”

“Yeah, well, then is it magic that it’s still not—”

Evan’s elbow moved before he told it to, knocking the boyfriend’s arm and dumping the sheaf of mail onto the floor.

“Oops,” Evan said. “Didn’t see you.”

He crouched down to gather the envelopes, reading the boyfriend’s shadowy reflection on the polished tiles.

“No worries, man,” the boyfriend said, leaning to help.

Evan rose abruptly, shattering the guy’s nose with the back of his head.

The boyfriend reeled back, leaning against the mail slots, hand to his face. Bright red blood streamed down his forearm.