Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(47)

This was getting creepy now. Whatever Julia had been reaching for, this was not it.

“I’m . . . sorry.” Julia tried to put herself into mentor mode. It was the only kind of training she could fall back on. Get him to talk. Put him at ease. A lot of kids . . . people . . . came from really bad homes.

“I got a sister,” he continued. “Thirteen. Looks just like my mom. Doesn’t even remember her, though. Not even a f**king memory.”

“I’m sure your sister . . . really loves you, Frankie.”

He stared at his hands, corpse-pale in the moonlight. Julia could see the anger draining out of his shoulders. She thought the dangerous moment had passed.

“She hates me,” Frankie muttered. “Get me arrested if she could. Sometimes I wish I could bring her here. Show her . . .”

His voice trailed off.

Julia didn’t know what he was talking about. She just wanted out.

“Look . . .” She tried to sound upbeat, not at all afraid. “I told my friends I’d call them, you know? Would you mind—”

“You told them you’d call.”

“Yeah. Kind of silly, but, ah . . . we had a bet.”

He stared at her as if there were an insect crawling over her face, something poisonous. “A bet. About me?”

She tried to keep her mind on good things—next semester, the children she tutored, getting her own apartment and a part-time job, moving to the East Coast. All that was waiting for her, just a few miles back down the road.

“It was just a joke,” she managed.

“You bet your friends I wouldn’t be able to perform?”

“No! Nothing like that.”

He slapped her. It surprised her more than it hurt, but she saw a flash of yellow. Her mouth stung.

“Stop it!” She used the same tone she’d used on her boyfriend whenever he got out of hand. “Take me back—right now.”

“You don’t give orders,” he said. “You don’t even look at me.”

He grabbed her by her hair and opened his car door.

The next thing she knew, she was being dragged outside, the grass scratching her legs. She kicked helplessly at the gravel. Her scream sounded thin in the night air—no one around to hear it. He threw her down, straddled her. His hands closed around her throat.

“Shut up,” he warned.

She couldn’t breathe. He was a black shadow above her, moonlight glinting on blond hair. Her throat turned to cement, a fire building up inside her chest.

If I just don’t fight, she decided. He will let me go.

He kept one hand around her throat as he ripped open her blouse, then began tugging at her skirt.

He will let me go.

She prayed those words, over and over, but her hands still clawed weakly at his face. The gravel and barbed wire dug into her back.

His hand tightened on her throat, and she wanted to tell him she would behave herself. She needed to breathe. If she could just get his attention, he would surely remember that.

She felt herself catching fire, as if her whole being were made of tissue paper. Her eyesight turned red, and the world faded into one small ember, slowly being smothered under Frankie’s hand.

Chapter 11

ETCH ARRIVED AT THE CRIME SCENE HOPING TO FIND MAIA Lee dead.

Dispatch hadn’t told him much over the radio. A shoot-out in King William between a man and a woman. Lucia’s old address. Etch prayed Titus Roe had done his work.

Inside the yellow perimeter tape, the tow crew was loading a shot-to-hell Volvo sedan onto a flatbed trailer. The media vultures had cameras rolling. Neighbors wrapped in blankets shivered on their front lawns.

No ambulance or ME van.

Maybe the body was en route to the morgue.

Kelsey waited at the curb, his slacks splattered with what looked like coffee. He was holding his jacket over his crotch, as if that would hide the problem.

Etch gritted his teeth. Kelsey had been enough of an embarrassment for one day. Cops all over the city were already talking about his debacle of a car chase.

“So,” Etch said. “The old lady you pulled over must’ve looked pretty dangerous.”

Kelsey’s ears turned purple. “We were baited. It was Arguello.”

“You sure?”

“The old lady described the guys who switched cars with her. Arguello and a white guy.”

“Navarre?”

“Maybe.” Kelsey didn’t sound convinced. “Whoever he was, he gave the old lady a hundred bucks and told her to keep the van. No VIN. Engine block numbers erased. Completely untraceable.”

“Christ.”

“And then we got this.” Kelsey waved toward the shot-up Volvo.

Etch scanned the scene, trying to read what had happened. The Volvo had been hit at least four times by a large-caliber gun. No sign of Lee’s black BMW.

The shooting had started in the driveway of Lucia’s old house. Forensics had circled a spent casing on the concrete. Skid marks in front of the house indicated where the Volvo had peeled out.

Perhaps Lee had parked the BMW somewhere else—around the block so it’d be out of sight. She commandeered the Volvo, and Titus Roe had taken her down as she attempted to flee.

Etch tried to like that scenario.

He forced himself to look at Lucia’s house.