Don't Look Down

  "I know," he said, staring helplessly. "I just wasn't ready for it."

  "J.T.?" Pepper stood up to look around Lucy. "J.T.! We have cake!"

  "Great," J.T. said, still looking at Lucy. "Cake."

  "You'll get used to it," Lucy said.

  "I hope not," J.T. said.

  "Come on, kid, give me your chair," Gloom said, and Pepper stood up so he could slide into her seat and then pull her into his lap.

  "Usually we have root beer and cheese sticks, but today we have cake," Pepper said to J.T. as Lucy slid into Gloom's chair so J.T. could have hers. "And Gloom got me a Wonder Woman Barbie!"

  "Whoops," J.T. said, climbing into the camper. "Guess you don't want this then." He handed her a Jax Comix bag and Pepper ripped it open.

  "It's a different Wonder Woman Barbie" Pepper said, overcome by her good fortune.

  "A different one?" Lucy asked.

  "Jax." J.T. settled into the chair she'd vacated. "I told him to find one so he turned up with some collector edition. He said it was still a Barbie." He grinned at her. "I am learning."

  Lucy smiled back at him, helpless not to. "Well, it's good you can be trained."

  "She has a blue cape" Pepper said, almost vibrating she was so happy.

  "Oh, and this." J.T. unbuckled something from his left wrist.

  Daisy was shaking her head. "You can't give her your watch."

  "It's not a watch," J.T. said. "It's a compass."

  Pepper took it in both hands. "Cool! Can I wear it over the bracelets?"

  "Yes," Lucy said. A Barbie and a compass. And he fell out of a helicopter for me. This is a good guy.

  "I'll show you how to use it," J.T. said to Pepper. "That way you can always find your way home."

  Okay, I'm yours, Lucy thought and tried to look uninterested.

  Across the table, Daisy was grinning at her.

  "Oh, almost forgot." He patted his pocket. "Major LaFavre sent you this." He tossed a package across the table and Pepper tore it open.

  "Oh, cool," she said and put on the mirrored aviator sunglasses, which made her look like a very patriotic little alien. "Do they go with the WonderWear?"

  "Yes," Lucy said.

  "Definitely," Gloom said.

  "You bet," J.T. said.

  "Oh, God," Daisy said, and Lucy looked across to see her smiling at Pepper with tears in her eyes. "You look wonderful, baby."

  J.T. leaned close to Lucy. "I like your hair loose like that."

  "Oh," Lucy said and gave up trying to look uninterested.

  "Cake?" Gloom said to J.T., and somebody knocked on the door of the camper.

  "I'll get that." Lucy got out of her chair to slide behind J.T., trying hard not to brush against him and failing. "Sorry," she said as he slid over into her chair.

  "This is so cool, J.T.," Pepper said and deserted Gloom to crawl into J.T.'s lap, much to his alarm. She turned the compass one way and the other, trying to find north, which was probably a lot harder through the sunglasses. "Do you know what Wonder Woman says when she's surprised'" Pepper looked up at him so that his reflection was mirrored in her sunglasses.

  "Uh…" J.T. looked at Lucy, helpless.

  Lucy smiled and opened the door.

  "I need to talk to you," Connor said, his voice harsh, and her smile evaporated.

  "I'll be right back," she told Pepper, not missing the grim look on J.T.'s face, and then she went down the steps into the darkness. "This is Pepper's party," she said to Connor. "Can't this wait until morning?"

  "What is he doing?" Connor said, looking into the camper, and Lucy turned and saw what he saw, J.T. with Pepper on his lap in LaFavre's sunglasses, Gloom handing him a bowl of cake and ice cream, Daisy laughing across the table at him.

  "Why is he in there?" Connor demanded.

  "Because Pepper invited him," Lucy said. "Because he saved her in the swamp last night when you were rehearsing, and because he brought her a compass today. Because he's a good guy and she likes him."

  Connor slammed the camper door shut, leaving them in darkness. "You get rid of him now. He's fucking up everything."

  "He is?" Lucy felt her temper rise. "He's saving everything. You're the one who's screwing up. You know damn well J.T. didn't sabotage that rope, but I'm pretty damn sure that you did. Which is why he's going to be the one in the helicopter tomorrow night, not you."

  Nash leaned closer. "That stunt is mine. Tomorrow is mine."

  "No." Lucy took a step toward the camper. "J.T.'s the only one I know for sure didn't sabotage that rope, so he—"

  Nash slapped his hand on the camper beside her head, close enough to make her ears ring. She froze as he glared at her, breathing heavily, no shock of apology in his eyes. "He's not going to take this away from me. He's not going to take you away from me. I have plans, Lucy."

  "I don't belong to you," Lucy said steadily. "I never did. Any thoughts I had of coming back to you were gone the moment I knew you put that look in Daisy's eyes." He flinched and she kept going. "She trusted you and you set her up, you're setting them all up, and I'm stopping it n—"

  He grabbed her arm and yanked her to him, and she said, "Ouch!" as the camper door opened. She wrenched away and saw J.T. standing there, tense and still.

  "You're ice cream's melting," he said to Lucy after a long moment, but his eyes were on Nash.

  "Can't have that," Lucy said, trying to keep her voice light.

  "I'm going to be there tomorrow," Nash said to Lucy. "We're not through with this."

  Lucy ignored him and walked back up the steps into the camper, J.T. moving back to let her in.

  "You're missing the cake, Aunt Lucy," Pepper said, then squinted at her. "What's wrong with your arm?"

  Lucy looked down to see the red splotches where Nash's fingers had bitten into her. "Nothing. Did my ice cream melt?"

  "Almost," Pepper said.

  "That chair," J.T. said, pointing to the one he'd just left, and Lucy sat down in it, putting her arms around Pepper as the little girl slid into her lap.

  J.T. took the chair by the door.

  I shouldn't like that but I do, she thought, and then she ate her ice cream, relaxing in the warmth of the camper filled with the people she loved, trying really hard to pretend that tomorrow was just another day.

  Wilder left the camper around ten, after Gloom but before Daisy and Pepper. It had been nice in there in an off-the-wall kind of way. He and Gloom had gotten into a discussion of the classic Western showdown in the street ("That never happened in real life," Wilder had told him, "the movies invented that, it's a really stupid way to fight."; Gloom had said, "I don't care, I like it.") and had agreed that High Noon was the greatest Western of all time, with Pepper chiming in that she thought so, too, although it appeared it was the only Western she'd ever seen. Daisy had told him that their expletive of choice was now "Sufferin' Sappho," and Pepper had told him that she was his egg, both of which confused the hell out of him. Then Pepper said she'd seen the ghost again, this time in a building, and he paid attention, but she didn't seem as sure as she had before, distracted by her Wonder Woman stuff, so he let it go. He could have her point out the building tomorrow, maybe take a trip over there, see if there was any evidence somebody had been there.

  But it was hard to concentrate on anything but Lucy, laughing and calling him "J.T.," and he realized that he didn't give a damn about much of anything if he could watch Lucy laugh, all the tension lines gone from her face, her eyes lit up and smiling at him, her dark hair fi-nally out of that braid, spilling over her shoulders onto that Wonder Woman WonderWear. Pretty damn good.

  But when Gloom left and he was the only one not wearing the underwear, he thanked Pepper for the party and left, feeling both relieved and disappointed when he was alone out in the dark again. It was simpler alone in the darkness, but Lucy wasn't there. He thought of her in his Jeep, in the passenger seat with her shirt open, that Wonder Woman thing underneath, her hair free and blowing as they drove down so
me two-lane road in the Southwest heading due south toward Mexico where there were no satphones with alerts for war or the CIA. The desert. No one around. The sun warm on their faces. Listening to Jimmy Buffet. Beaches, bars, booze, and just one woman. Just—

  His eyes adjusted to the light and he saw Nash over by the side of the lot, punching numbers into his cell phone, looking mad as hell. Good, Wilder thought, and settled in to wait until he left. He tried to decide if Nash approaching Lucy's trailer again was a killing offense. If he touched her, he was dead, but…

  Perhaps a warning. The man was on edge, so Wilder was prepared for the worst when Nash saw him.

  "What the fuck do you want?" Nash growled as Wilder approached.

  Wilder couldn't see his hands, so he kept his own close to his sides. He could hear Nash's breathing. Damn, the man was pissed about something. "Heard you did a stint or two working for Blue River."

  "Fuck you."

  "Excellent vocabulary."

  "Why are you here?"

  "Same as everybody else. Make some money. Get laid." Fuck you over.

  Nash took a step forward. "Leave."

  Wilder grinned. "Right. That'll do it."

  "You have no idea what you're messing with," Nash said.

  "Oh, I have an idea," Wilder said, his left hand sliding around and getting close to the butt of the Glock. But he did not touch it, there was the rule, and he knew that Nash knew the rule, too. It was good to deal with another professional. Bryce would have tried to hug him by now.

  Nash's hand was hovering near his quick-draw rig. And the Australian had a crooked grin on his face. "Your call," he said in a voice that was void of accent or emotion.

  Wilder looked into his eyes and reevaluated his assessment of dealing with a professional.

  Nash was bonkers.

  He'd done a good job of passing for sane, but Wilder had seen eyes like his before and it was never good. Plus, Nash had probably spent thousands of hours drawing that damn howitzer, honing his fast draw. Wilder figured he needed to apologize to Gloom: there might never have been a showdown in the Old West but there was one here in the low country. Right now.

  "Draw," Nash said in that same flat voice. "I'm waiting, hero."

  "Whatever you're planning—" Wilder began, but he could see Nash's fingers beginning to twitch.

  "Draw," Nash repeated, the twitching getting faster. Wilder saw his eyes shift ever so slightly and he knew that was it.

  Then somebody moved behind them.

  He drew the Glock, but Nash's gun was already out, the fastest draw Wilder had ever seen, aimed at Mary Vanity, who was crossing the parking lot, oblivious to them both, her shoulders hunched as she talked on her cell phone. Nash met his eyes for a moment, and then they both straightened and holstered their guns, Wilder thinking, Well, that made us look fucking stupid.

  "Pretty good, huh?" Nash said, his voice thick with pride and accent again. "Ever see anybody faster than me?"

  "Fast doesn't mean good," Wilder said. "Ask any woman."

  Nash started to laugh. "That's what this is about? Lucy? Hell, I don't care about Lucy, you can have her." His eyes slid left, like a rep-tile's. "Listen, here's a deal you'll like. I'll give you fifty thousand if you take Lucy and split tonight. You and Luce could have a real good time on fifty thousand."

  Wilder wanted to reach for the Glock again. Arrogant asshole—as if Lucy were something he owned and could keep or give away.

  "It's a good deal, mate," Nash said.

  "I'm not your mate."

  "Screw you," Nash said, his face tensing again. "Go back to Bragg. You're not part of this."

  "You're not part of anything," Wilder said. "What happened, the SAS throw you out for faking it? Got no use for the fastest gun in the West?"

  "I'm real SAS," Nash spat.

  " Were real. You aren't one of them anymore. No team. You're a gun for hire, mate."

  "Fuck you." Nash stepped forward and Wilder tensed just as the camper door opened and Lucy came out, jeans and a shirt over her Wonder Woman stuff.

  "What the hell are you doing?" she said, and both men eased back. "Whatever it is, knock it off. Gloom just called and said Stephanie passed him on the highway, going hell-bent for leather away from the hotel. Driving your van, Connor. What's going on?"

  "My van?" Nash asked, eyes sliding left again.

  That's a tell, Wilder thought and saw Lucy press her lips together; she knew it, too.

  "Don't lie to me; what's going on?"

  Nash shrugged. "I don't know. The van was missing when I came to get it. I was going to get Doc and look for it but then Wilder here—"

  "What's in the van?" Lucy said.

  "Stunt equipment," Nash said. "Prop guns."

  "Why do you have the prop guns?" Lucy said, coming closer.

  "Because I'm the propmaster on this shoot," Nash said. "Jesus, Lucy, stop micromanaging."

  "Then you start managing," Lucy snapped and turned to Wilder. "] have to find her. If she takes that stuff and dumps it, we don't shoot tomorrow."

  Then why isn't Nash going nuts? Wilder thought, but he jerked his head toward his Jeep. "Come on, I'll drive."

  "Wait a minute," Nash said, but Lucy was already heading for the Jeep. "Oh, relax," he called after them. "Just let her go, she'll bring it back."

  Wilder got in the driver's side and started the engine, and Nash ran up and swung himself into the backseat at the last minute.

  "You're overreacting," he said to them both.

  "Where was she going?" Wilder asked Lucy.

  "Gloom said she turned onto Route 17."

  "Just let her go," Nash said, and Wilder took off for Route 17.

  Tyler was having a good night.

  He'd gone into town and gotten some real food—fuck the Boss, he wasn't living on warm beer and stale Cheetos—ogled some waitresses, gotten the DVD with the Actress in it, and then come back in time to get new orders: stop stunt van—route 17.

  He was humming Warren Zevon's "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"—a classic song and one his sniper unit in Iraq had favored before going out to blow some heads off—as he cut the wire leading to the warning lights on the drawbridge. He wrapped black electrical tape around both ends and connected them with a rubber band so he could find them later. Then he walked back toward the bridge along the two-lane road, breathing the cool night air blowing over the marsh, feeling the water soaking his wet suit.

  He reached the bridge, unzipped the waterproof pack around his waist, pulled out a small GPS tracking unit, backlit it, and peered at the screen. It showed a small blinking dot moving along that road, about a mile away and approaching fast. The Lojack on the van. He looked to the north and saw the slightest tinge of glow.

  Everything was set.

  Tyler walked back to the northern end of the bridge onto dry land and then climbed over the guardrail and slithered into the muck until he found a solid perch where he could watch the road to the north. He could see the headlights clearly now. On high beam. Coming fast. He pulled out a small transmitter and pressed the red button. With a groan of metal gears grinding, the bridge began to turn on the center pedestal, opening without the warning lights alerting the driver.

  Tyler's head went back and forth, as if he were at a tennis match, watching the progress of the bridge opening and then the van approaching. He was up and moving toward the road as the van smashed full speed into the right steel truss, moving so fast it actually slid up the truss about five feet before smashing back down and coming to a halt in the center of the bridge.

  Tyler was still whistling as he hopped the railing and ran toward the van. Just before he reached the van, he glanced north and south, checking for lights. Nothing. He had thirty seconds, he estimated, in order to be safe. He hit the button and the bridge slowly began turning back to its normal position.

  He reached the van and looked in the driver's window. The driver was wearing a seat belt, her body held upright in it. A woman. Dressed in black
. Unconscious. Too bad that little snot with the binoculars was too young to drive. He'd snap her like a twig.

  Tyler grabbed the woman's jaw, twisted her head, and checked the pulse in her neck. Faint but there. The distant sound of a car startled him. Glancing back, he saw headlights. He ran to the place where he had cut the wire and unpeeled the black tape, splicing the wires together and then wrapping the tape around them. He climbed over the railing and slid into the Savannah River. Then, as he heard a car pull up, brakes screaming, he began swimming with the current, away from the site of the wreck, toward the waiting warm beer and laptop with the DVD loaded in it. It was a damn good night.

  Wilder had tried to be businesslike as they sped down Route 17. He was helping the boss find some missing equipment, that was all.

  He stole a look at Lucy in the moonlight. She was staring straight ahead through the windshield, her long hair blowing back, un-braided, just the way he'd imagined it, except that instead of the desert they were driving across the lowlands of South Carolina and they had that dipshit Nash in the backseat. This fantasy needs work, he thought.

  "If you'd just let me handle this," Nash said.

  "You're never handling anything of mine ever again," Lucy said.

  All right, Wilder thought, and felt much better about Nash being in the backseat.

  Then Lucy leaned forward and yelled, "Stop," and Wilder saw it, too, Nash's van smashed in the middle of the bridge.

  "What the fuck?" Nash said, finally sounding mad.

  "Stephanie," Lucy said as Wilder braked at the last second, sliding the Jeep to a halt a few feet shy of the wreck.

  "My van," Nash said, and then Lucy was out of the Jeep—Wilder following—afraid of what she'd find.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  Lucy saw Stephanie bloody behind the wheel, and said, "No!" She yanked open the door and then J.T. grabbed her.

  "Don't touch her," he said, and Lucy stopped, knowing he was right.

  He reached across Stephanie carefully, turned the engine off, and pulled out the keys, and Stephanie groaned and tried to straighten against the seat belt that held her.