Lethal(46)

“I could have, but the scenery is better in here.”

She rolled her eyes. “Again… what are you doing here? You know about Fred, right?”

“I found his body.”

“Oh. That’s awful.”

“Tell me.”

“Sorry.”

“Thanks.”

She was becoming so exasperated, she wanted to shake him. “Maybe I’m dense, Doral, but I still don’t get why you’re here when your brother’s just been murdered. Seems to me like you’d have other things to do besides ogling my tits.”

“I have some questions to put to Honor.”

“Honor?”

“Honor?” he repeated, mimicking her. Dropping the amicable pose, he advanced on her, took her face between his hands, and mashed her features together until they were distorted. “Unless you want that Botoxed face of yours squashed like a ripe persimmon, you’d better tell me now where Honor’s at.”

Tori didn’t frighten easily, but she wasn’t a fool either.

She was well acquainted with Doral Hawkins’s reputation. Since losing his charter fishing boat to Katrina, he had no visible means of support, beyond the small stipend the city paid him. Yet he lived very well. She had nothing on which to base her suspicion that Doral was participating in something illegal, but she wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that he was.

He and Fred had been perpetual troublemakers in grade and middle school, bullying fellow students and faculty alike. By high school they were committing petty crimes: stealing hubcaps, knocking out the stadium lights with their deer rifles, terrorizing kids who didn’t kowtow. Had it not been for Stan Gillette reining them in, they’d probably have gone off the deep end. Some said his influence had saved them from certain incarceration.

To their credit, they had been very good to Honor after Eddie was killed. But rumors had circulated that, despite Stan’s intervention and influence, the pair hadn’t been altogether converted to the straight and narrow, and that Fred’s becoming a police officer had only served to legalize their bullying.

Tori hadn’t had an occasion to test the gossip about their propensity for meanness because she rarely crossed paths with them. When they were in school, she had gone out with Doral a few times. He had grown mean and nasty when she’d stopped him at second base and wouldn’t let him go any further. He’d called her a cunt, and she’d fired back that even cunts had standards. He had disliked her ever since.

Now he looked mean and dangerous, and he was hurting her. She’d had enough experience with men to know that showing fear was as good as inviting more abuse. She’d been down that rocky road with husband number one. She’d be damned if she’d go down it again. Even with a cretinous thug like Doral, the best defense was an offense.

She shoved her knee into his crotch.

He yelped, dropped his hands from her face to cup his genitals, and hopped backward out of harm’s way.

“Don’t touch me again, Doral.” She grabbed the workout top she’d discarded moments before and pulled it on over her head. “You’re ugly, and you’re stupid, and what makes you think I know where Honor is?”

“I’m not f*cking around, Tori.” He pulled a handgun from a holster at the small of his back.

“Oh no, a gun!” she said in a high falsetto. “Is this the point where I’m supposed to faint? Plead for mercy? Put that thing away before you hurt somebody, namely me.”

“I want to know where Honor is.”

“Well join the freakin’ club!” she shouted. “Everybody wants to know where she is. It appears she’s been taken hostage by a killer.” She could coax tears from her eyes whenever it was convenient to do so, but the ones that flowed now were for real. “I heard about it on TV and came straight here from the club.”

“What for?”

“To get ready in case—”

“In case of what?”

“In case of anything.”

“You expect to hear from her.” He made it sound like an accusation.

“No. I hope I do, but from what they say about this Coburn guy, I fear the worst.”

“Like he’ll do away with her and Emily.”

“Jeez, you’re a genius.”

He didn’t address the insult. “Has she talked to you recently about Eddie?”

“Of course. She talks about him all the time.”

“Yeah, but I mean, has she told you something about Eddie? Something important. Did she share a secret about him?”

She tilted her head to one side and peered into his eyes. “Are you still smoking dope?”

He lurched toward her threateningly. “Cut the crap, Tori. Has she?”

“No!” she exclaimed, giving his chest a shove. “What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about a secret. What kind of secret?”

He studied her for a moment, as though trying to spot signs of deception, then muttered, “Never mind.”

“No, not never mind. Why’d you come here? What are you after? The same guy who shot your brother took Honor and Emily. Why aren’t you out looking for them?”

“I’m not sure he took them.”

That stunned her. “What do you mean?”