Killing Bliss (36 page)

He walked past her, looked around the room. When he spotted her bedroom door, still open, and the bathroom beyond it, he headed toward it.

Addy grabbed his leather-clad arm, gripped it tight. "Answer me. Where's Beauty?"

He glared down at her, pulled her hand from his arm, then squeezed her fingers until she thought they'd break. "My guess? She's as dead as she tried to make me. And you know what? I don't give a shit." He twisted her wrist, nearly took her to her knees, then pushed her aside and headed for the bathroom only a few feet away. "Stay where you are. You and me have some talkin' to do." He stared at her, his blue eyes hard, then he gestured at the phone. "I can either tear that sucker from the wall, or you can be smart enough to not even think of making any calls. 'Cause if you do, I'll come back in here and wring your skinny neck." He pulled a gun from his jacket pocket. "Or use this." He walked into the bathroom dangling it from his hand.

She couldn't have moved if she wanted to.

Dead. Beauty was dead. No. She couldn't be. Beauty couldn't die. Couldn't be... gone forever.

Addy slumped back against the wall, numb, paralyzed.

For years, she'd wondered what happened to her friend, and angry and hurt as she was when she'd taken off, she'd missed her, worried about her, and somehow always believed she'd see her again. Alive. And with all the recent phone calls, the sound of her voice across the line, the connection between them had reestablished, grown strong again. Beauty was right; they'd been sisters, and nothing could change that. Thinking of her as dead, it was as though a part of her had been ripped out. And it was all her fault.

If it hadn't been for my stupid scheming...

Tears muddied her vision, and she brushed them away, tried to think. Her plan in ruins, another thought forged through: when Gus found out Bliss had killed Beauty, nothing under the sun would stop him from killing Bliss.

"My guess
..." Bliss's words poked up in her brain, and her breathing stilled in her chest.

He'd said "guess." Which meant he wasn't sure. Which meant there was a chance Beauty was alive.

Addy pressed a hand to her chest, told herself to calm down. She brushed away the moisture on her cheeks, sniffed to clear her nose, and squared her shoulders. This was no time for tears. She would not cry for her friend until hope was dead.

If she could reach Cade... she glanced at the phone, then at the open bathroom door, a few feet away.

Too dangerous. Bliss would kill him on sight.

No. Finding out about Beauty, keeping Bliss occupied until Gus got here was her job. And she wouldn't let Bliss—or her own fear—get the better of her. If he smelled her weakness, she'd be useless.

Adrenaline replaced pain, and she hurried back to her drafting table, rifling the surface papers for anything she could use as a weapon. Her hand touched the six-inch scissors she used to cut out pictures from her magazines, and she shoved them hastily into the back pocket of her jeans and tugged her long-tailed shirt down to cover it. As protection they weren't much, but they'd have to do.

Bliss came out of her bedroom, holding a towel to his ravaged face. He went to the sofa and slumped into it as though he were exhausted. He even rested his head back for a second or two; obviously, he didn't consider Addy a threat.

It didn't surprise her. He'd always ignored her, even back then, always focused on Beauty. And after what he'd done to her, Addy had counted herself lucky. Being ignored, or better yet underestimated, had its value.

She took a deep breath, her mind going at the speed of light. She wanted information, and she wanted it now. "Beauty do that?" She pointed at his ravaged cheek.

He grunted.

"Why? What did you do to her, Frank?" She kept her voice flat, deliberately used his first name.

He scrunched his eyes together before opening them and, exhaling a long noisy breath, said, "I didn't do nothing. She asked for it." Her question appeared to rattle him, and his response sounded oddly defensive.

"Asked for what?" Addy took a step closer, stood over him. Her skin felt like a blanket of fire over her flesh.

Bliss surged to his feet, towered over her, his face dark with rage. "Quit with the fuckin' questions or I'll fuckin' show you what I did to her." He shoved her aside, ran his hands through his hair. "When's Vanelleto coming?"

Addy crossed her arms. "You don't answer my questions, I don't answer yours." She met his gaze, her heart a fear-tightened knot in her chest.

He backhanded her, the blow so sweeping and powerful that the bones in his knuckles cracked. She tumbled backward, her ear slamming against the metal edge of her drafting table, sending a sharp, intense pain deep into her head, before she crumpled to the floor.

Addy panted a second or two, got her bearings, then surged to her feet, the action more reflexive than courageous. If that was the back of Bliss's hand, she didn't look forward to meeting the front.

She leaned against her table, took another couple of breaths, and clutching the back of her chair, she rolled it between them. The side of her face pulsed from his blow, and blood ran warm and thick down the side of her neck.

"I said where's Beauty?" she repeated, clinging to the paltry protection of the old office chair.

"Jesus, bitch, you want more of the same?" He frowned.

"No, although I'm sure you'll be happy to provide it. You always did like beating up women... among other things." She paused, told herself to shut up, not to goad him too far. But, dear God, she'd forgotten what a beast he was. She tightened her grip on the chair. "Now, let's talk about Beauty."

He took a couple of steps toward her, then stopped in front of the chair separating them. He smiled, his lips twisting cruelly. "You really want to know?"

"You really want your money and for Gus to let you live long enough to spend it?"

He gaped at her.

"Talk, Bliss," she ordered, and kept up her pretense of courage, even though it seeped steadily into the floor beneath her like oil from a leaky tanker—like the blood from her torn ear.

He studied her face, his own a ravaged carcass. "Let me see if I remember now. Oh, yeah... Beauty made me stop at this real nice motel—said she couldn't wait to get in my pants, ya know." His smile was malicious, his voice low. "Said she never forgot what I gave her at Ma's house. That nobody afterward measured up." He rubbed his crotch boldly and narrowed his gaze on Addy. "How about you, you want some, Wart? Plenty to go around."

Addy dug her nails so deeply into the cheap vinyl on the chair back that her knuckles hurt. "I'm interested in Beauty, Bliss. Not the tinker toy in your pants."

"You got a smart mouth. Always did have."

"And you've got a hearing problem. Always did have." To keep him at a distance, she pushed the chair forward until he stopped it with his foot.

"You want to know about Beauty? I'll tell you about Beauty." He put his knee on the chair seat, anchored it, and leaned over until his face was inches from hers. "After I fucked her blind, I tossed her over a cliff a few miles back."

"What cliff?"

He paused, but didn't seem to hear her. "She died one happy hooker. Did her a favor really, because after you've had true Bliss"—he grinned, a cold twisted grin, and rolled his hips suggestively—"heaven's the only place higher. You be a good girl and maybe I'll do you a favor, too." He chucked her under the chin.

Somehow she managed not to move back, continued to stare into the threatening face inches from her own, but her breath shortened to a series of gusts and backed up in her throat. Her face was hot. Jesus, even her eyes were hot, but she refused to take them off Bliss. "What cliff?" she repeated.

"Jesus." he looked angry, but amused now. "Aren't you a goddamn dog with a bone." He studied her from under lowered lids. She saw his mind chugging at a snail's pace, then he took his knee off the chair and a step back. "About a half hour or so before here, near that long skinny lake," he said. "Maybe a sixty, eighty-foot drop, I'd guess." He made a diving gesture with his hand, watched her. "Long way down."

Addy loosened her grip on the chair, her brain worked to place the cliff he was talking about. Sixty, eighty-foot drop? Mentally tracing the roads leading to Star Lake, she blinked.

She shouldn't have.

Grover finished the last of his hamburger, his second one, and wiped the drippings from his mouth. He folded the dirty napkin, crushed the empty paper cup that held his cola, and put everything back in the serving bag.

He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight, which he'd been smart enough to get new batteries for at the last gas station. He got out of his Honda, pulled his raincoat over his head, and walked through the wet grass and low bush to the Lexus, where he let the air out of all four tires.

He trained the flashlight on his handiwork and stood back to admire it. Instead, he found himself admiring the car, allowing the focus of light to play over the silver grill, the brilliant red hood.

Red. The color of power. The color of blood.

He plodded back to his car, got in, and wriggled himself out of his damp coat. When he'd reclined the seat as far as it would go, he rested his head back.

No need to hurry.

He'd give Bliss enough time to either kill or be killed, then he'd go in and clean up whoever was left.

He closed his eyes. It was good to be in charge, good to have a plan.

* * *

About the time Cade figured Vanelleto was never going to speak again, Gus said, "This grandmother. Why did she let the state take her grandson?"

"She didn't know they had." Cade ran through Susan's story quickly, no embellishment, ending with, "By the time they found her, put two and two together, Belle Bliss had been dead for two weeks, and the boy was gone. She's been looking for him ever since."

"Enter ex-cop Harding to save the day," he said flatly. "And maybe pick up a few bucks along the way."

"Ex-cop—and family, Vanelleto. A nonprofit enterprise."

He didn't reply. As smart as he was cautious, Vanelleto obviously intended to stay one step ahead of the conversation. Hell, Cade knew less about him now than he had when he walked into this room a half hour ago.

"You know I'm the one they say killed Belle," Vanelleto went on.

"So I'm told. Did you?" Cade asked.

"I thought you said you weren't interested in the murder, that your only concern was the missing kid."

"It started out that way, but... things changed."
I met Addy.
He looked toward the cabin's night-darkened window, heard the rain running off the cedar-roofed porch, and rubbed his chin. His feelings for Addy weren't up for discussion, nor was showing vulnerability to a man like Vanelleto. "Turns out one is pretty much linked to the other."

"Which puts you and me in a real interesting place, doesn't it? You, the bloodhound all primed to sniff out a murderer. Me, by all accounts, the guilty party." He lifted his brows, looked faintly amused. "Complicated."

"Only if you are guilty."

Vanelleto eyed him for a long time. "And if I'm not?"

Cade took the few steps to the counter, flattened both hands on it "If you're not, you've been spending a lot of years running from something you didn't do and wasting a hell of a lot of time pretending to be somebody you're not." He stopped, added, "If you're not, I'd like to help you, Addy, and Beauty set the record straight." Cade was certain Vanelleto knew more about that night than he was letting on. He'd also noticed he talked easier about the murder than he did the missing boy, so he went there. "You may not know anything about the boy, but I think you know who killed Belle Bliss."

Silence.

Cade fired his last salvo. "And I know you've come here to kill her son." He smiled at him for the first time. "A pretty bad plan, by the way."

Vanelleto's head came up, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Our little chat has been swell, Harding." With the barest shift of his chin, he gestured toward the door. "You know the way out."

Cade stared at the hard-edged man in front of him. Talking to him was like whispering into a black vortex that sucked everything in and gave nothing back. Pushing any harder—right now—was nothing but a waste of Cade's time.

He headed for the door, opened it a crack. A slice of wet night air sliced into the cold cabin. "I'll tell Addy you're here." He shot a glance over his shoulder. "We'll be talking again, Vanelleto. If not about Belle, about the boy." Opening the door fully, he looked out at the black, mist-shrouded night His eyes immediately shifted their focus to the light in Addy's window.

His blood pooled in his veins.

"Jesus. No." He took off in a full-out run.

Chapter 24