Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(59)

I back out of her driveway and pull onto the road, passing up a black SUV blinding me with its bright lights as I leave. Tomorrow I’m going to put a lot of money into her bank account; set her up for life. I know it’ll never make up for what I put her through, but I have to start somewhere.

Fifteen minutes later, just as I’m reaching for my phone to call a number back that I’d missed—it could be Izzy—Jackie’s name lights up on the screen.

“Changed your mind?” I say with the phone pressed to my ear as I take the exit heading toward my room above the bar.

“You have forty-eight hours,” a man says in Italian on the other end of the phone. “I want you for this whore.”

I pull onto the side of the road; my tires skidding to a halt on the pavement. The SUV…Jackie mentioning unfamiliar cars had been the talk of the trailer park as of late…I should’ve known. I should’ve fucking known!

“Who the fuck is this?” My heart is hammering in my ears.

There’s a pause, and then the voice: “You murdered my daughter,” he answers. “Francesca Moretti.”—(my heart stops)—“And in precisely forty-eight hours if you’re not at the address I will text you following this call, this woman will be at the bottom of the ocean.”

No…

My mouth is dry; my mind is racing; I hear Jackie’s muffled cries in the background.

I don’t even have to think about it. “I’ll be there,” I tell Mr. Moretti. “Bet your ass I’m coming.”

He ends the call and three seconds later the address comes through, and I’m on my way to the airport again, even faster and more reckless than I had been when trying to get to Mexico for Izzy.

And for the first time in my life, I feel like…I might not make it out of this one alive.





Izabel


Mozart is one of the top surgeons in the United States, and while although he performs surgeries on average Americans, he is paid amply to be on-call whenever one of us needs him; and to keep everything he sees and hears and does off the books.

I’ve never personally met him before—only seen him once—and his real name isn’t Mozart, of course.

I pull into the driveway of his modest little house on the lake—really, it’s quite a nice house, with an enormous window overlooking the water, and a koi pond alongside an extravagant mosaic walkway, but for the money this guy makes, anything one-story is considered modest.

Rapping my knuckles on the front door, I feel like he’s taking too damn long to answer when it’s literally only been two seconds, and I start to invite myself in.

The door opens just before my hand touches the knob.

Mozart is standing there looking at me; not a maid or a doorman or anyone else, but Mozart himself—modest.

“Can I help you?” he asks; he eyes me with that look of knowing he’s seen me before but can’t quite remember where.

“I’m Izabel,” I say, “Victor Faust’s…girlfriend.” Wow, I didn’t expect that to feel so awkward. Not that I don’t love being his girlfriend, but the word just feels so…High School; I don’t know why that even bothers me.

“I need to see him.”

Again, I start to invite myself inside, intent on pushing my way past him since he’s taking forever, but again I’m stopped.

“No one can see my patient,” Mozart says flatly; he’s standing with one hand on the door, the other on the doorframe; his body language is casual, but clearly, he has no intention of stepping aside to let me pass. “Doctor’s orders.”

Gritting my teeth, I step up to Mozart, my eyes blazing into his. “Move aside or I’ll move you myself.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

Judging his posture and the lackluster tone of his voice, he’s telling the truth. You smug little shit!

Cocking my head to the side, I look him over; he’s a handsome man of fifty-something, with dark salt-and-pepper hair, scrawny build—I could easily take him without a gun, but he’s Victor’s doctor, and that kind of puts me in a tight spot.

“Then tell him I’m here,” I demand sharply. “He’ll definitely want to see me.” The first thing that crosses my mind after that comment is that it’s not because I’m his ‘girlfriend’ he’ll want to see me, but because I have information he’ll want; this hurts a little, like a realization biting me in the ass, but I ignore it.

“Victor doesn’t want to see anybody,” Mozart says, and my heart falls. “Technically, the doctor’s orders came from Victor Faust.”

I can’t speak for a moment; not only because I have no idea what to say to that, but my chest feels heavy, and there’s an ache in my heart, twisting and squeezing the life out of it.

I shove him to the side and push my way past anyway.

When I make it into the room, I expect to see Victor laid-up in a bed with tubes hanging from him, but that’s not what I see at all. Victor is standing near the bed, and he’s putting on his dress shirt, with difficulty. I go over to help him, glad that he doesn’t push me away like I halfway expected him to do. His midsection is bandaged all the way around; over the gunshot wound, blood had seeped through the gauze and dried.

“What are you doing, Victor?” I try to lead him back to the bed, and this time he pushes me away.