Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(70)

Instead he walked toward Joseph, hypnotized by the cash. “That’s all for me?”

“All for you,” Joseph agreed.

He picked up my Beretta from the coffee table and shot Eric in the head.

The Beretta was loaded with .40 caliber hollow-points. A very destructive round. The bullet blew out the back of Eric’s head. He was dead instantly. Blood spattered the scuffed white paint behind him in a five-foot radius. The McDonald’s bag dropped to the floor. Fries spilled out of greasy paper as blood pooled around the food. My brother was screaming again. “You didn’t have to do that!”

I was trying to figure out how this changed things. The gunshot had been loud, but this neighborhood was no stranger to gunshots. Gang and drug shootings happened all the time, and many of the residents had a distinct aversion to police involvement no matter what the reason. There was always a chance that if someone had heard the noise they’d call it in, but I wasn’t counting on this. These three men, though, had flown in from somewhere else. Hired guns. They probably went all over the world doing this kind of work. They didn’t know the area. And they were in an apartment with a dead body and enough incriminating evidence to put them away for life on a dozen different charges. Joseph had to be in his midforties and looked like he’d already done plenty of terrible things in his career. Hitmen didn’t tend to make it to their forties unless they had at least a modicum of caution.

The three of them, whispering urgently, seemed to reach a decision. Joseph looked over at me. “You two are lucky. You just avoided a very long night.”

“You’re letting us go?” Brandon asked. His voice was charged with relief.

The big guy laughed. “You can think of it like that, if you want.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to do what we came here to do,” answered Joseph. “We’re going to use you to tell a story. The only difference is we’re just going to skip to the last chapter.”

The big guy removed two other objects out of the briefcase. A small leather case the size of a hardcover and a narrow, two-foot tube wrapped in cloth. Joseph unzipped the case. A row of syringes gleamed against the black interior. “What are those?” asked Brandon.

The big guy snickered. “Should look familiar, junkie.”

Joseph addressed my brother. “A synthetic opioid compound. Chemically almost indistinguishable from heroin. A toxicology report won’t even show a difference.”

“Why?” I asked, feeling sick.

Joseph looked to me. “You showed up tonight and found your little brother, overdosed.” He jerked his head over at Eric’s body. More blood pooled, the face an awful, unnatural shade of white. “You saw the scumbag who sold it to him and flew into a rage, pulled your gun, and shot him dead on the spot.”

“Very likely. And then what?” I challenged.

“You realize what you’ve done. And you realize you only have one option left.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“That should be obvious.” He smiled thinly. “Suicide.”

“Right. People will believe that.”

“Of course they will. After all, you showed up here already a murderess, already knowing they were closing in on you.” He gave Eric’s body another glance. “This one doesn’t really change anything. Your brother was always going to OD tonight and you were always going to find him. And you were always going to have Karen Li’s blood on your hands.”

Now I was confused. “What?”

Joseph was unwrapping the cloth.

We all watched as the object was revealed.

A crowbar.

One end stained with what looked like spilled paint. I understood. He could tell. “Now you see, right? You’d been stalking her, out of control.”

“That kind of cheap trick isn’t something you’ll get away with.”

The big guy grinned. “We get away with way, way worse. You wouldn’t believe what we get away with. This is nothing.”

“I talked to the FBI. They know all about you. They know who you are.”

Joseph shook his head. “No, they know who you are.”

“They’ll know it wasn’t me.”

“How hard will they bother to even look? Finding you in this slum, drugs everywhere, practically on top of a dead man who was killed with your gun. Finding the crowbar with the Li woman’s blood all over it. That’s what they call open and shut, I believe.”

He was more right than I cared to admit, but it didn’t matter. He thought he was, and was confident enough to move forward with the plan. If things didn’t work out for them down the road, that wouldn’t do Brandon or me much good.

“Which one of you actually killed her?” I wanted to know.

Joseph shrugged. “Questions like that—what’s the point?”

I looked at the big guy. Thinking of the bookstore, his kick to the office door. “You?”

He grinned at me. Not denying. “What makes you say that?”

“Because you like it. I can tell.”

His eyes flicked over me with that same hungry look. “You think I like it?”

“Yes.”

He took a step closer. “I wish we had more time. I could have so much fun with you.”