Lethal(105)

“I’m telling you, he didn’t see me, and I never mentioned you.”

“You’ve never left a victim alive. Why now? Why have you gone soft?”

“I haven’t. But I haven’t lost my marbles either. Killing Wallace would be risky because I can’t just sneak away. Once I open a door to this place, all hell’s gonna break loose. If I can’t outrun the police, I don’t want to be caught with a dead man.”

“You’re refusing to deliver what I asked for?”

“What you asked for can’t be had. It would be a waste to kill a man over information he ain’t got.”

There was a long silence on the other end, then, “This is the second time this week that you’ve disappointed me, Diego.” The silkiness of The Bookkeeper’s tone sent a tingle down Diego’s spine.

Anyone who knew anything about The Bookkeeper knew what happened to people who disappointed or failed. Diego didn’t fear being rubbed out. He was too talented to be squandered. No, The Bookkeeper would use some other means to punish him, some other—

Sudden realization came crashing down on him like a ton of bricks. This is the second time.

Diego’s stomach lurched. He thought he might vomit. He disconnected and, without even considering the consequences, opened the kitchen door. Alarm bells went off. The noise was deafening, but it barely registered with Diego. The fear clamoring inside his head portended something far worse than arrest.

He sprinted across the stone terrace and over the lawn. By the time he reached the estate wall, he was winded, but he didn’t even pause to catch his breath. He scaled the wall using the leafy vine for footholds and handholds. When he reached the top, he threw his legs over and jumped. He landed hard on the ground twelve feet below. His knees absorbed the impact, and it hurt like hell, but the pain didn’t slow him.

He heard the whoop-whoop of approaching police car sirens, but he took the most direct route to his stolen car, even though it meant being out in the open as opposed to keeping to the shadows.

No one apprehended him. When he reached the car, he was wet with sweat and shaking so uncontrollably he barely managed to get it started. Heedless of it drawing notice, he pulled the car away from the curb with a squeal of tires.

He leaned into the steering wheel, gripping it with fingers that had turned bone-white with fear and fury. He’d never been taught to pray and knew no god, so he bargained with abstractions and fervently appealed to whatever unnamed supreme power was listening.

He broke his unbroken law and drove directly to his building. The tires smoked when he brought the car to a jarring halt. He bolted out, not even bothering to cut off the engine or close the door.

A cutting torch had been used to excise the lock on the exterior door, which stood ajar. Diego plunged through it into total darkness. He raced through the dank corridors and bolted down the staircases that he knew by feel.

When he reached the lower level and saw the door to his domain standing open, he drew up short. His breath made a horrible sawing noise, and that was the only sound in the entire building. He thought he might die from the pain in his chest. He almost hoped he would, so he wouldn’t have to know.

But he had to know.

He forced himself to walk to the lighted doorway and look into the room that had been his safe haven. Until tonight.

Isobel was lying on her back on the bed. She’d been stripped naked and obscenely positioned. Her face had been brutalized. Her limbs were bruised and bore scratches. There were bite marks, so deeply impressed that they’d broken through her golden skin. There was dried semen. And blood.

He’d been kept away all day so that The Bookkeeper’s facilitators could take their time terrorizing, torturing, and killing Isobel and, by doing so, teach Diego a hard lesson in blind obedience.

Only her beautiful, silky black hair had escaped the assault. When Diego knelt beside the bed, it was her hair he stroked, her hair that he crooned to, that he held against his face and cried into.

His knees had grown numb by the time he finally got to his feet. He rearranged Isobel’s body to restore her modesty. He gently unclasped her silver crucifix. He kissed her cut and swollen lips, their first kiss also being their last. Finally, he pulled a blanket over her.

He surveyed the room, taking account of everything in it, and deciding there was nothing there he cared to salvage, not even the expensive rug. He poured the goldfish into the toilet and flushed. It was a mercy killing. Better that than to boil to death.

He made a pile of his belongings in the center of the room, set a lighter to them, and waited to make certain that the fire would catch. When he turned his back on the room, flames were already licking at the covers on the bed, Isobel’s funeral bier.

Slowly, laboriously, he made his way up through the former factory to street level. He could already smell smoke, and reasoned that it wouldn’t take long for the blaze to eat the building whole.

The car was gone, of course. It didn’t matter. He struck off down the sidewalk, staying close to the buildings, keeping his right hand around the razor in his pants pocket, thinking that possibly The Bookkeeper wasn’t finished with him yet.

He for sure as hell wasn’t finished with The Bookkeeper.





Chapter 41





When Bonnell Wallace regained consciousness, he was lying face up on the floor of his bathroom. Someone was bending over him, shining a flashlight into his eye, which he held pried open with a gloved hand.