He played a few more games of lane changing, but couldn’t lose the truck.
“Zach, are we being followed?”
“I don’t think so, but there’s a jerk behind the wheel of that semi, and I think he wants to fool around.” He put a reassuring hand on her leg. “Don’t worry. We’ll lose him on 495. This sucker’s built for the autobahn at a hundred and twenty in the snow.” He got onto the interstate exchange and put the Mercedes through its paces, leaving Hanrahan Produce in the dust.
Her phone buzzed again. Picking it up, she let out a frustrated grunt. “Why doesn’t he just call?”
Assuming the question was rhetorical, Zach stayed focused on the road, checking the rearview periodically for a familiar semi.
“He wants to know where I am,” she said after reading the message.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He just says ‘where are you and when can you get here? Need you.’ Oh, Zach.” She put her hand on his arm. “He wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t important.”
Shit. “We can go back.”
“It’s just that this is so unusual. Wait, I have an idea.” She punched in another number. “Hey, Vivi. Where are you?” She listened for a second, and Zach could hear the cadence of his sister’s voice in the phone, but not the words. Then Sam said, “Well, I wanted to ask you to do me a favor, but it doesn’t sound like you have time.” Another beat. “Zach and I are…” She looked up at him. “Taking a long ride and getting reacquainted.”
That made him smile, and if he knew his sister, she was grinning from ear to ear, too. She always loved the idea of them together.
She was always smart that way.
“All I need for you to do is run over to Billy Shawkins’s house and check on him. Oh?” Sam gave Zach a hopeful look. “That’s not too far from Roxbury; could you do it on the way to your meeting? Perfect.”
After listening to Vivi, Sam asked, “Oh, what did you find out? All right, well, we have more to tell you, too. But you’re right, not on the phone. Maybe Zach and I can come over to your apartment tonight.”
Sam disconnected with Vivi and turned to him. “She said she has news. Major-break-in-the-case news, but didn’t want to say it over the phone.”
“Smart.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “You’re sure about Billy? ’Cause we can go back if you want, especially if Vivi has news.”
She shook her head, threading his fingers. “I’m sure, and everything else can wait. But I will say, Vivi sounded very excited.”
“Because she thinks if she cracks this case, she’s going to put her little company in business.” He knew how his sister ticked.
“But that won’t matter to you,” Sam added pointedly. “Because you’re going to run.”
He thought about that for a while. “You know, Sam, it’s not that I hate the concept,” he finally said. “I just want to do it right. Like my cousin’s company. Jesus, you should see his operation. Technology up the wazoo, a war room, private planes—that’s plural.”
“What’s the name?”
“The Bullet Catchers.”
She shrugged. “Eh, I like the Guardian Angelinos better.”
“Whatever you call it, an operation like that needs a lot of cash, an office, staff, computers. I don’t want some rinky-dink security operation run out of a basement.”
“Yeah.” She squeezed his hand. “Now how about the truth, Zach?”
“That’s the truth.”
“You don’t trust yourself.” Her words hit so hard he had no response. “You think because this lady who runs this big, fat, rich security company with plural planes and a war room turned you down, you’re not good enough.”
“No,” he countered. “I think that the fact that I have impaired vision, no license to carry concealed, and a sketchy war record means I’m not good enough.” The truth, bitter pill that it was, tasted foreign on his tongue and lodged in his throat.
“You’re doing a damn good job of keeping me alive.”
“I’d do that no matter…” He glanced into the rearview mirror and muttered a soft curse, peering into the rain to be sure of what he saw.
“The truck’s back,” she said, whipping around.
“Listen to me,” Zach said, calmly putting his hand on her shoulder. “Just stay low in your seat, but stay facing forward. If he’s following us, I don’t want him to know we know.”
She did exactly what he ordered, her gaze locked on the right-side mirror. “He’s catching up with us.”
“I see that.” He reached under the seat and got the Glock 19 Marc had given him, setting it right next to him on the console panel. “You have GPS on your phone?”
“Yep. Want me to find an alternate route?”
“Tell me what happens at the next exit, which is in…” He squinted through the rain, catching the sign just as they passed and the one oversized Mercedes wiper wiped the windshield clean. “Two miles.”
She started clicking away, while he steadily increased to eighty, eight-five, ninety.
Like God was against them, the rain suddenly intensified just as a different truck blew up on their right, damn near matching Zach’s speed and spewing blinding, relentless rooster tails of rainwater from every tire as it passed. The Mercedes swerved, hydroplaning over the shoulder for a fraction of a second, then back on the road.
“Central Street is the next exit,” he told her.
“Got it. It looks either rural or residential. Two lanes, very slow. You could lose a semi out there; the road is windy. He could never keep up. Then we’re going due west to the reservoir.”
He whipped onto the exit, tapping the brakes to slow just enough to not fishtail. At the bottom of the exit, he still didn’t see the truck pulling off.
“Look right for me,” he ordered, not willing to trust his peripheral vision.
“Clear.”
He powered through a red light, spraying water and earning a soft intake of Sam’s breath through clenched teeth as they careened across two lanes to the other side, to the entrance of a small shopping area. He pulled in to hide in the lot and watch if the semi followed them.
“How the hell did he find us?” Zach asked, pounding the steering wheel. “It just doesn’t make sense. It’s like we’re tracked.”
She gave him a look of horror. “What?”
“Gimme your phone.”
She handed it to him, tentatively. “No one’s touched my phone, Zach. No one.”
He opened up the back, moved the SIM card, checked it thoroughly. Nothing. Still, his gut burned.
“Let’s go,” he said, giving it back to her. “We’ll need the GPS on the back roads. You can navigate.”
“You want to go back to Boston?”
He considered it. “I don’t want to get back on the highway yet. Let’s be sure we don’t have a tail, then decide what to do. He could still just be some dickhead with a bad sense of humor.”
“Or somebody following Gabe who saw you leave the chip.”
But Zach didn’t think so, on either count. “Go through your purse, Sam. Every inch of it. Tear apart the lining, anything in it, too. Just look for a tracking device.”
She did, while they made it into the forests and the winding roads near the reservoir, barely seeing another car, and he started to relax. They circled part of the massive body of water, not really able to see as the rain picked up.
The truck and the rain had wrecked his plans; now he just wanted to get the hell out of harm’s way. And something told him that Peterbilt was going in the direction of harm’s way.
He saw the truck in the rearview just as Sam shrieked. “Oh, my God, Zach. I found it!”
But it was too late. The Peterbilt was hauling ass, right for them. “Hang on, honey.”
She clasped the seat and armrest as he kicked it up to ninety. The car screamed and hydroplaned again, but he managed to get a grip of the road.
The truck made a vicious and stupid veer around a curve, and Zach half ex
pected it to tip over, but it didn’t, gaining on them. With purpose.
Gritting his teeth, he floored it. “He’s big and he’s slow, so I’m going to lose him, but you take the gun, and get ready to shoot at him if we have to. I need both hands to make sure we don’t lose control.”
She racked the slide. “If only there was a shoulder or side road, you could pull over and he’d fly right by.”
“That’s my plan.” The Mercedes screamed and ate up another corner that would have to slow the semi down.
The fucking truck made exactly the same move.
Ahead, more soup, but no cars. He was kissing a hundred now, the wiper practically useless as they approached a quarter-mile-wide section of the reservoir.
The road was built up to the meet the bridge, with a wide shoulder on either side over the water. They had to get off this road, but a U-turn was virtually impossible except for that shoulder, so he only had one choice.
“Hang on, I’m gonna pull over; then we’ll U and get out of here. He can’t maneuver that fast. There’s nowhere for him to turn after the bridge.”
He jerked the wheel to the right, slamming on the brakes so they screeched toward the edge of the hill, the water about ten feet below a rock embankment. The semi came screaming right behind them, showing no sign of slowing.
“Gimme the gun.” He reached for it, just as he looked into the rearview mirror and saw the truck swerve to the right. Fuck. Twenty tons of steel going eighty miles an hour bearing right down on them.
She turned, her hands covering her mouth. “Oh, my God!” She looked at him with horror in her eyes. “Zach!”
He threw his arms over her to brace for the impact, knowing the only place they could go was sailing into the water.
Her scream was muffled in his shoulder just as the Peterbilt logo smashed into the back, throwing the whole car forward, flipping it ass over front, upside down and airborne for one time-suspended second, then hammering the water roof-first with a brain-cracking jolt.
Vivi wanted to blow off the staff meeting to track down Taylor Sly, but she knew Marc had that handled, and Sam’s request to check on Billy worked better time- and travel-wise, so she caught the Orange Line to Ruggles and headed to Roxbury.
At the Ruggles Avenue stop, she threw her board on the pavement, popped some headphones in even though nothing was playing, and kicked off toward Tremont. She might look like an uninterested skater lost in music, but she was anything but. Instead, she eyed the two men on the corner, checked each car cruising by, gauged the group of students headed up toward Northeastern.
Gentrification had left its redbrick fingerprint on most of Boston, but this section of Roxbury was still pretty rough.
Uphill, she trudged, grateful the worst of the morning rain seemed to be over. The skies were still slate gray and thick with the possibility of rain, but this was Boston, and sunshine was rare, even in July.
She checked the address on her phone again; then, when the road leveled out, she skated down the middle. Billy Shawkins lived in an iffy neighborhood. Not exactly a meth haven, but still not a fabulous place for a woman alone. She scoped the houses, nodded to a few neutral if not friendly faces, and popped the board up when she reached the address Sam had texted to her.
This house looked just a tad more loved than the others. The clapboard had been painted a nice forest green, the lawn was freshly mowed, and the few bushes near the house were neatly trimmed. Not exactly lush landscaping, but no rusting washing machine in the driveway, like the house next door.
Mail had been delivered, along with a Boston Globe, but not yet picked up.
She tried the doorbell, which didn’t sound like it worked, then knocked, rubbing the toe of her black-and-white-checked shoe along the weathered welcome mat. She knocked again, harder.
“C’mon, Billy boy. Sam won’t rest until I tell her I talked to you.” Sighing, she headed around the house, standing on her tiptoes to peer into the empty garage on the way, then to the backyard to see if there was any sign of him there.
“Can I help you?”
She startled at the voice, a middle-aged blond man who looked wicked sophisticated for the proud owner of a rusty washer in the driveway.
“I’m looking for Mr. Shawkins.”
“He’s at work.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to check out the backyard, because a friend of mine says he didn’t go to work today and I want to make sure he’s okay.”
“I saw him leave.”
She shrugged and held up a friendly hand. “I’m not trying to rob the place, honestly. Just checking for him.”
She continued to the back, and when she got to the tiny deck that had been obviously built by hand, she turned to look through the shrubs to give one more “I’m not a criminal” wave to the neighbor, but he was gone.
Just as she lifted her hand to pound on the back door, she stopped, staring at the latch. The door wasn’t completely closed. Probably not the most brilliant move in Roxbury, but she tapped anyway.
“Billy! Mr. Shawkins, are you in there?”
Silence.
She nudged the door farther, her body tensing. “Billy? It’s Vivi Angelino, Sam’s friend.”
Still silent. She dropped the board on the deck and reached deep into the pocket of her cargo pants to pull out the little pistol Marc had given her while he was passing out weapons like they were business cards at their first meeting, a few fingers of anticipation and nerves walking up her spine.
Should she go in? Should she flip the safety and aim the gun? The role of PI and crimesolver still felt a little strange to her. But this was like a test run. Billy had nothing to do with the Sterling murder, right? Maybe he was hurt, or sick, or maybe something serious had happened, like a heart attack. Maybe that’s why he wanted Sam to come over, but he didn’t want to alarm her with the details.
She called him one more time, then pushed the door open and stepped inside a tiny mudroom, with a few jackets on hooks, a closet. The door on her left probably led to the garage, and beyond that was a tiny kitchen, made nighttime dim with drawn blinds, smelling faintly of last night’s chicken, but pristine and orderly.
“Billy?” she called, loud enough to be heard throughout the small house.
Still quiet. The gun felt heavy in her hand, like maybe she’d watched one too many reruns of Spenser for Hire on the WB. Through the kitchen, she headed past a miniature dining room with a table for four covered in a lace tablecloth. Billy mustn’t live alone. Cheap silk flowers in the living room confirmed that a woman’s touch was in this house.
She checked out the darkened hallway. One of the doors must be the basement; the others led to two bedrooms and a hallway bath. That was it. That was the whole house.
One more call out, then she headed down the hall. One bedroom was full of boxes and junk, clearly a storage area. The other had room for nothing but a dresser and double bed, which was turned down neatly, as if someone was about to climb in. A book lay open on the spread—no, not a book. The book.
Billy had been reading his Bible when he called Sam? Didn’t seem like an emergency, that’s for sure. The bathroom was empty, a dry but used towel hung neatly by the tub.
Unless he was in the basement, Billy was definitely not home. Maybe he’d straightened up and decided to go to work after all. Or maybe he was on a bender and wandered out, leaving the back door open.
A bender after Bible-reading.
Something was definitely weird about this situation.
At the basement door, she turned the handle and called again, tapping for the wall switch, but couldn’t find one.
No way she was going down there. She didn’t love Sam that much. Hell, she didn’t love anybody that much. Just as she took a step back, she heard a sound. A scratch? A… tap against metal.
God damn it. “Hello? Billy, are you down there?” Please don’t be down there. She so didn’t want to go down there.
Anther tap, definite
ly something or someone was alive down there. Chills went zinging up her spine, her heart ramming her ribs. “Billy?”
She stood stone still, everything in her being rebelling against what she knew she should do. What a good Guardian—
“Help me.” The words were barely a whisper of air.
“Billy? Oh, my God.” He must have fallen down the stairs. She took a few steps down, reaching for the wall, searching for a light switch. “Billy? Are you down here?”
The power of the punch in her back stole her breath, knocking her forward with so much force that she flew off the stair and hung in the air before landing and rolling and crashing to a stop.
The basement door above her slammed with a thud louder than her cry of outrage and pain, followed by footsteps down the stairs.
Pain shot from her knees to her brain, white-hot electrical jolts of agony stealing her breath and ability to think.
“You’re not Samantha.”
The voice was over her, low and menacing, and really pissed off.
She spread her empty hand, the gun tossed in the fall. Nice work, Spenser.
“No, I’m not.” She tried to stand up, but a powerful hand clasped her shoulder and pushed.
“I want Samantha.”
Jesus God, what was going on here? This wasn’t Billy Shawkins!
“What do you want?” She used every available cell in her body to sound unafraid and ready to fight.
“I want Samantha. Give me your phone.”
No fucking way, dude. “I don’t have—” The barrel of a gun pressed on her temple.
“Five. Four. Three. Two—”
“Here.” She handed him the BlackBerry. “But she’s not around today.”
The only answer was footsteps up the stairs. She stared in the direction of the sound, desperate to at least get a silhouette when he opened the door, then ready to pounce on every inch of the place to get her weapon.
For a moment, she heard and saw nothing, waiting for the even the briefest glimpse of her captor. Then he opened the door a crack, enough for her to see him bend over.