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He practically stumbled over his own feet running out the door, his wheeled suitcase bouncing in one hand, phone clutched in the other. I was glad to see him go.
It didn’t take long to get to Lake Sammamish. I parked on the street, since a black Mercedes was parked in the driveway. The car door hung wide open.
The place was very fancy, lots of artful stacked glass and steel cubes. The lake was on the other side of the house. I glimpsed it through the trees, and through the transparent house, itself. The front door hung slightly open. Never a good sign.
I walked in and looked around. The place was in disarray. Things knocked over, a glass coffee table smashed. The wind blew right into the place. A picture window had been shattered. The lot was big, so maybe the neighbors were too far away to hear it.
I drew my SIG P226 from the holster under my jacket, even though I was pretty sure whatever had happened here was long over. I stole quietly through the place. Nudged the door open with my shoe. There was blood. Not fresh. My boots crunched on broken glass as I followed the dark droplets.
I found Hugh about two thirds of the way down one path to the boat dock. Sprawled face-down. Shot in the back five times. He lay in what had been a puddle of blood, now dried and dark.
I just stood there, staring at his body, though I knew I should leave. It would look bad for me, if Meechum told the cops he had been forced to give me this address, and if any security cameras placed me near the scene. I hoped Meechum was at least smart enough to understand his best hope lay with me.
I’d find some way to give the police an anonymous tip, so Hugh’s body could be properly attended to, but later for that. The living came first.
I got back into my car and sped away as if fleeing a pursuer. Clemens had been a sleazy, manipulative user, but he hadn’t deserved that. Disgrace and jail time, maybe. A good, hard, ass-kicking, certainly. But not being shot in the back and left in the mud.
It triggered all my worst nightmares about Shane’s fate. The ones that had haunted my waking and sleeping moments ever since they took him. I’d learned to function at a high level through them. Both Freya and I had to keep our shit together for Holly’s sake. But looking at a dead man lying in the mud stripped away the hopeful masks. The keep-on-keeping-on bullshit. It exposed the bloody skeleton of raw fear beneath it.
They’d made me feel it, those filthy motherfuckers. They’d scored a point, and I fucking hated them for it.
I was back on the highway, driving well over the posted speed limit, when the call came in. It was Shelby’s number on the screen. I hit “talk.” “Yeah?”
“Kat’s gone,” Shelby blurted out. “She flew the coop. I don’t know what the fuck she was thinking. What, that we were holding her hostage? Jesus!”
I was horrified. “What…fuck! How?”
“Trey came back with all the stuff he bought to secure her house, and we knocked on the door so we could start installing it. She didn’t answer. We waited for a while, in case she was in the bathroom. Then we went in. She’s gone. Purse gone. Bedroom window open. She left money and a note for the landlady. A note for you.”
“What did it say?”
“Just ‘Sorry, thanks for everything, it was wonderful.’ Real touching. Real useful.”
“What about Joanna? What does she say?”
“A whole hell of a lot, and it’s pissing me off! She’s right here, boss. Goddamn it, hold still…shit!That hurt!”
“Don’t manhandle me, you overgrown prick!” Joanna’s voice was shrill.
“I’m outside her mother’s house now,” Shelby said. “She told her demon cat to bite me.” Bumps, thuds, raised voices, as Shelby argued with Joanna. Shelby got back on the line. “Talk sense into her, if that’s even possible,” he snarled. “Which I doubt.”
“Screw you, too!” Joanna yelled. “Dick!”
“Joanna?” I made my voice even, soothing, “Do you know where Kat is?”
“I don’t! But I wouldn’t tell you even if I did!”
I let out a silent sigh. “We’re not the enemy,” I told her, keeping my voice as even as I could. “We’re trying to protect her.”
“Guess what, buddy? She’s trying to protect you, too! She said, yeah, you’ve got your enemies, and they suck, but she says hers are worse!”
“This is a game I really wish I could lose, Joanna, but my enemies would wipe the fucking floor with her enemies,” I told her.
“Well, Kat doesn’t think so! And it totally breaks her heart to leave, ‘cause she’s totally in love with you, but she can’t stand to see more people she loves killed!”
“Joanna. If you want her to live, tell me where she went,” I pleaded.
“She didn’t tell me, ‘cause she’s protecting me, too!” Joanna’s voice was froggy with tears. “Kat wants to protect everybody. That’s just who she is, in spite of all the bad shit she’s been through. She tries not to make friends, because she’s trying to protect them, but people glom onto her anyway. But she’s so freaking stressed, you know? Everything’s a threat, with her. She always does these crazy rituals when she leaves her house—”
