One Last Breath by Lisa Jackson (9)

Chapter 9

“So Pete DeGrere is scheduled to be released today,” Shanice Clayburgh announced as she shouldered open the door of Mickelson’s office. Balancing a cup of coffee in one hand and her phone in the other, she plopped into one of the two worn chairs facing the battle-scarred desk.

“Today?” Mickelson repeated, scowling. The senior partner of Mickelson and Hernandez, Private Investigations LLC, Roger “Mick” Mickelson was a big bear of a man. He’d once played college football, a lineman for Washington State, though that had been thirty years and as many pounds earlier. After marrying his college sweetheart, he’d joined the Seattle Police Department where he’d become a detective, before his marriage and career had blown up. He’d started his own small investigative firm four years earlier. Now he was huddled over the scarred top of his desk, papers strewn haphazardly before him, an ever-present oversized soda cup placed within arm’s reach. The office was sparse, a few pieces of battered, used furniture in a suite of three rooms, Mickelson’s being the largest, the one with a view of the dusty concrete building that stood not twenty feet away. “I thought tomorrow or . . .” He glanced at the calendar tacked on the wall near an ancient file cabinet.

“Nope. Today’s his lucky day. As of today, Pete DeGrere is a private U.S. citizen.” She forced a humorless smile and ignored the excitement coursing through her veins. Finally. She had the opportunity to nail the sick dick-wad. “Ain’t we lucky?”

“We sure are.” Mick returned the grin. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his chin where reddish stubble was visible. “Scumbag,” he said with a frown. “No, wait. Sack of shit is more appropriate.” Mickelson was never one to mince words or keep an opinion to himself. He’d retired from the force to open his own PI firm, but even as a cop, his mouth had gotten him into trouble. Hence, his early retirement. “Let’s find him.”

“One step ahead of you,” Shanice said. Her phone vibrated in her hand and with a quick glance she saw a text had come in from Deon, her on-again, off-again boyfriend. She’d thought they were in “off” mode. Apparently not. She ignored the text and said, “I figure DeGrere will find the nearest bar and strip club, spend whatever cash he’s got, then, once he sobers up and realizes he’s broke, he’ll land at his sister’s place, just outside of Tacoma.”

“Why there?” Mick raised an eyebrow, encouraging her. He knew a lot about DeGrere, had made it a personal quest, but he liked it when Shanice got her teeth into a case.

“Because she’s always got his back. One of the few. His best friend, Ralph Stutz? Remember him? Went to high school with Pete back in the seventies? He’s dead. Embolism last May. Out of the blue.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. DeGrere’s only real friend. He’s got no one else to turn to. He’ll look up Sally and she won’t be able to turn her only brother away.”

Mick agreed, but asked, “You know this . . . how?”

“Oh, come on. You know I keep up.”

“Good.”

“DeGrere’s a loser. A braggart as well as a snitch. It’s what got him into trouble.”

Mick grunted his agreement. “He boasted about the Bastian job.”

She took a sip of coffee. “Told his cell mate, who passed it on. Police questioned him but he denied it, and the guy who spilled the beans reneged. Said he was just jokin’, tryin’ to get DeGrere in trouble.”

“I know.”

In prison, Pete DeGrere had boasted about his part in the assault at the Bastian wedding five years earlier, and the man had been a marksman during his stint in the army. A little checking and the police had discovered DeGrere had indeed been in the area at the time. A known thief who had a previous assault charge on his record, DeGrere had been elevated from person of interest to suspect, but there just hadn’t been enough evidence to nail him. Despite the department’s best efforts, the DA wouldn’t go to trial on a case that didn’t look like it could be won. And then DeGrere had been caught on camera breaking into a convenience store and the rest was history: He was convicted and sent up the river, and Seattle PD hadn’t been able to find another suspect, witness, or enough evidence to convict DeGrere of taking part in the Bastian wedding assault.

Mick refused to give up on DeGrere. And though others in the department thought DeGrere might be good for it, too, no one could get any traction. Mick had left the department for a lot of reasons, but his immediate superior’s remarks about Mick’s “bull-headed resistance to a full investigation,” had been the icing on the cake. Bullheaded resistance? He’d been trying to nail the perp, for God’s sake.

And now DeGrere was going to be set free. Even after bragging to a cell mate about his part in the attack. Not that the snitch was reliable. The man was a con who knew the system, having been in and out of jail. He was a guy who would do anything to get out of prison, a problem which was only complicated by the fact that DeGrere was known to stretch the truth more than a little himself. An argument had been made that it was just bravado talking, good old Petey DeGrere spewing yet another lie to elevate himself within the shady circles of the prison community. And that argument still stood.

“DeGrere’s our man,” Mick said.

“I agree,” Shanice said. “No one wants to nail his skinny ass for this as much as I do.” She’d been chasing leads on the assault ever since she’d learned of it, five years ago. She’d known Aaron Stemple, who had been killed at the wedding. He’d transferred to her high school their senior year and he’d been a shy kid in a dysfunctional family. His older brother had been a juvenile delinquent and petty thief, his father a criminal who’d been in and out of jail, his mother having bailed on the marriage when he was a kid, and he’d ended up murdered at his step-sister’s wedding. Shanice had felt bad about that. Aaron hadn’t deserved to die so young, so violently. Her heart still turned cold at the thought of it. She’d been his secret girlfriend in school and had willingly lost her virginity, well, really handed it over, to him one glorious summer night. She wanted to know who’d killed him. Maybe as badly as Mick wanted to find the assassin as well.

And DeGrere had been in the area when the assault on the wedding had gone down, but before a case could be built against him, he’d been picked up for another charge and sent to prison. Though Mick believed DeGrere was a hired gun for someone else, there was no evidence. If DeGrere had been paid for the shooting, he’d kept the money somewhere safe and hadn’t had a chance to spend it before he ended up behind bars.

If, as Mick believed, DeGrere was the shooter, why had he chosen the Bastian wedding as the venue? Who was he really trying to kill? More than one person? DeGrere wasn’t the most stable guy, but he had no personal motive to try to harm the Bastians that could be discovered. Mick’s feeling about DeGrere was more gut instinct than dogged police work; he could admit that. But DeGrere had committed crimes for payment in the past, and he’d been near the wedding site on that day, and he’d bragged about the shooting to his cellmate, whether Seattle PD believed him or not . . . it all just fed Mick’s and Shanice’s suspicions.

But if DeGrere’s motive was money, what was the person’s who’d hired him? Who was the intended victim, or victims?

Mick and the other Seattle PD detectives had initially floated the idea that Rory Abernathy was the target since the shooting started soon after the first notes of the Bridal March, but nothing had ever materialized from that theory. They also considered that the bullets were meant for Aaron Stemple. Though there was no video footage outside Rory’s room—it was learned afterwards that cameras weren’t working on several of the hotel’s floors—Aaron had been caught racing along the outside walkway toward the ceremony from the bride’s room’s general direction. It was postulated that he’d seen something or someone or knew of the shooter, but he was killed before he could explain why he was running, and to date no correlation to the theory had been found, either. Though Mick was sure the answer lay with Pete DeGrere, the lack of hard evidence had thwarted an indictment against DeGrere, and the investigation had subsequently stalled.

But now DeGrere was being set free.

“I’m going to find him, talk to him,” Shanice said determinedly. “Maybe shake something loose.”

Mickelson looked at her over the tops of his readers and fixed her with an icy glare. “Be smart,” he said, as if he’d ever followed that advice himself when it came to DeGrere. “Go easy.”

“Always.”

He gave her that I-know-better stare. “I’m serious. We want to put him away forever.”

Shanice’s smile was cold. Mick was warning her to rein in her emotions, to think with her head, not her heart, to tread lightly so they could take the jerk-face down and not make the same mistakes he had.

“I got this,” she said, standing. Then with a sly grin added, “Trust me.”

As she breezed out of the room she was half-certain she heard, “I wish I could,” muttered under Mickelson’s breath, but for once, she let it go.

* * *

The address Jacoby had provided belonged to Maude Sutter, and when Liam introduced himself, she was nothing but gracious, even asking him in and offering him iced tea, which he’d declined. She’d smoked a cigarette on the back porch and admitted to not only knowing Kent Daley but confiding that they’d been “a couple,” for years. But that was as far as Liam had gotten. As for Daley, he didn’t appear to be around. No sign of him, at least not that Liam could discern.

Maude said not one word about Rory Abernathy or Heather Johnson, and no matter how many ways he’d asked about her, the answer had always been the same. “I don’t know anything about her, other than what I read in the papers. What was it? Five years ago or so?”

Nor would she say much about Kent either. When Liam had pressed, she’d stubbed her cigarette out in a tray positioned on a wicker outdoor table and leaned in close enough that he could smell the lingering smoke that clung to her. “My relationship with Kent is very private and we both have pasts that . . . well, we just don’t talk about. You don’t reach our age without accumulating baggage. But we feel, or at least I do, that the past is in the past and that’s where it’s going to stay. Now, I don’t think I can help you anymore.” She’d stood and waited.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Daley.”

“I would, too. When you see him, let him know.” She’d smiled at him and he’d reluctantly gotten to his feet and followed her as she’d led him through the house to the front door. But as they passed by the stairs, he’d spied a tiny pink sock on the landing.

“You have any visitors lately?” he asked, plucking the cotton stocking from the stair at his eye height and holding it out to her.

She didn’t so much as blink, just held his gaze as her fingers curled over the tiny scrap of clothing. “Always someone, it seems,” she said enigmatically. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

He could have been rude and pushed it, but he’d sensed she wasn’t a woman who could be bullied. She’d been steadfast in her denials. And she’d been alone; he’d sensed the house was empty. Kent Daley obviously hadn’t been in the house, nor had Rory, but the little sock was a clue. Liam would bet that Rory had been there with her kid—probably a daughter—but had been spooked and taken off. Daley, too, maybe.

So he was back to square one, and as he drove south toward the border on his way back to Portland, he felt more than a little bit of disappointment. He’d really thought he might see Rory again, that this would be it, his quest at an end. That he’d finally be able to confront her. Demand answers for questions that had festered for five years. But as the miles rolled beneath the tires of his Tahoe, he realized it wasn’t going to happen now, maybe ever. He could chase down Kent Daley but wasn’t sure that would help, either. Rory clearly wanted to stay missing. That was something he’d learned years ago, though he still persisted for reasons that seemed less clear-cut as time went on. It was time to forget her. Go through the legal motions of divorcing a missing person. Give up this endless chase.

He’d told himself the same thing countless times.

He needed to heed his own advice.

“Forget her,” he said aloud, yet his hands tightened on the steering wheel, almost of their own accord. He needed to know what had happened. What was the shooting about at the wedding? Why? Why had someone opened fire on his family? And what did it have to do with Rory?

He switched lanes and increased his speed, plagued by the same questions that had dogged him since that terrible day.

Stella had always insisted he was the target, that Aaron had just gotten in the way. In his mother’s twisted mind, she was certain that Rory had only married him for his money, then had tried to kill him off so that she could inherit his share of the family fortune as well as collect on a healthy insurance policy in which she was named Liam’s beneficiary.

Liam had dismissed that theory immediately. If Rory had really wanted to kill him, which he didn’t believe for a second, why go to all the trouble and risk of hiring an assassin like DeGrere for a very public and bizarre shooting? Why not just quietly take him out sometime later into their marriage?

Stella, bullheaded as always, had stuck to her guns, telling him often enough that the only reason Rory hadn’t collected on the insurance was because her plans had gone awry and Liam had survived.

He shook his head and twisted on the radio, trying to find a decent station, giving up when all he could find was country music or rap. As he snapped off the radio, he thought of the terror of those heart-stopping moments when bullets rained down on them. Automatically, he rubbed his thigh, thinking of the wounds he’d sustained in the attack, as if the pain still persisted. It didn’t. At least for the most part.

Was it possible, after all, that Aaron Stemple had been the target? Liam had floated that idea at a family barbecue around his parents’ swimming pool, and his mother had snorted her disgust. “Why?” she’d demanded, pouring herself a glass of wine from a chilling bottle of Chardonnay on the serving cart parked near the arborvitae hedge, a living, green wall that offered privacy. “Why go to all the trouble and danger to attack him at the wedding?” Liam had been seated at the table a few yards away from his mother, his gaze on the aqua water and his sister’s young children, Landon and Estella, as they’d splashed around and laughed and shrieked, their arms in floaties. “Did he have any enemies?” Stella had asked, eyebrows arching as she sipped from her glass.

Liam admitted, “I don’t know.”

“We all have enemies,” his father had cut in. “I didn’t get rich making only friends.” Geoffrey had been seated in his wheelchair, which he’d rolled to the table, positioning himself in the shade offered by the striped umbrella. Sunglasses covering his eyes, he’d stared out at the pool and the splashing children. Vivian, stretched on a lounge chair beside her husband, Javier, had flapped a bored hand at them.

“Don’t talk about it,” she called.

“Well, I don’t think they were after Aaron Stemple,” his mother had said in that freezing way of hers that cut off all conversation.

Bethany had been there that day, and she reached under the table to link her fingers with Liam’s, as if to somehow reassure him, while Stella, in that Stella take-control way of hers, changed the topic of conversation and began nattering on about a new variety of roses she wanted to plant in the coming year, a subject that had bored the hell out of everyone there but had effectively shut down all talk of the assault at the wedding.

Now, at the border crossing into Washington, the cars were idling and Liam suddenly wanted the trip over, to get back to his life—his job, his upcoming marriage to Bethany and a future with children, where the tentacles of the past couldn’t reach him.

Of course, that was unlikely until the mystery of who had attacked the wedding party was solved. Maybe Pete DeGrere, maybe not. Whoever he was, the shooter had fled, leaving his rifle behind, an unregistered weapon that, as far as the police had been able to determine, had never been used in another crime. An older model, it could have been bought and sold a dozen times. Untraceable. Not a fingerprint on it—wiped clean. Nary a hair caught in it. And there had been no cameras in the parking garage, or any on the hotel property that had caught a clear image of the perpetrator. Though the police had been careful about everything they said, Liam thought they were working on the theory that Aaron had been the target, too, or perhaps Rory, who was supposed to be on his arm. That theory had initially gained credence from the bloody wedding dress left at the scene and the fact that Rory had disappeared. Maybe the shooter, waiting for Rory, had developed an itchy trigger finger and had shot Aaron before she appeared. But why hadn’t she shown up? Had she been tipped off? Waylaid by the killer? Why was there blood on her dress? It was too bad the hotel cameras hadn’t all been working. She’d just disappeared. Escaped the bloody scene and never returned. Not a text, phone call, or any goodbye. She’d just vanished.

His lips tightened. She had to have had an accomplice to escape so completely, and if so, then logically she had to be guilty. But why? Stella assumed Rory had been after the Bastian fortune. Had she hired a sniper to . . . what? Take out his entire family? His father, mother, brother, sister, and himself, so that she could inherit? That idea had been posed enough by his own family to surface again in his mind, but it was ridiculous.

“Is it?” he could almost hear his mother say as he was allowed to cross back onto U.S. soil. “What if everything went wrong? The shooter missed and Rory, realizing she would be a suspect, quickly covered her tracks and ran? She had to have an accomplice, of course. How else would she get away without a trace? Hmmm? And if she had an accomplice, she had to be guilty.”

His fingers gripped the steering wheel more tightly as he drove into Washington and envisioned his mother, sipping from her stemmed glass, the expensive Chardonnay catching in the sunlight, Stella’s eyebrows arching over the tops of her sunglasses as she made her well-honed point.

He didn’t believe Rory was guilty. Didn’t want her to be guilty. But his mother’s insinuations lived beneath his skin, making it impossible for him to completely dismiss them. There was a reason for the shooting. And maybe it did have something to do with Rory. That much he would allow.

* * *

“Charlotte?” Rory said, glancing over her shoulder to the car seat where her daughter was nodding off. “Are you hungry?”

No response.

Maybe that was good.

Charlotte was sleeping and had been since before the border crossing. Now they’d driven halfway across the state of Washington, heading toward Oregon. She would have liked to stay in Seattle, but there was a chance someone would recognize her, someone from her past. The chances were slim, but she needed to drive as far south as she dared, to put distance between herself and Point Roberts. Fleeing to Oregon wasn’t safe in that Portland was Liam’s hometown, a place where his family lived, but few of them would recognize her on the off chance she was spotted. She didn’t intend to stop. No, she would sweep through the city and continue south to Salem, where her mother had ended up. Fifty miles south of Liam’s home, it would be a safe haven for a few hours before she continued toward California. San Francisco sounded good, or even farther to Los Angeles or some smaller city in between.

“How about McDonalds?” she said over her shoulder, trying to rouse her child. “For breakfast . . . or, I guess, lunch?” Since they’d escaped from Maude’s town house in a hurry, Charlotte hadn’t had a bite. Nor had she eaten much the night before. Rory bit her lip and waited, casting glances into the rearview mirror. The little girl just wasn’t like herself. “I can run through the drive-through and get you a McMuffin?”

No response.

“Sausage? Or maybe pancakes? You like those.”

Still nothing. Not so much as a flicker of an eyelid.

“Charlotte?” she said a little more sharply.

The girl’s little lips moved, but she didn’t wake.

With one eye on the mirror, Rory glanced ahead and saw the signpost indicating she was within thirty miles of Portland. Good. Or was it? Her phone buzzed and she answered quickly, expecting her mother as, just after crossing into the U.S., Rory had called and hung up rather than leave a message. Darlene knew the number.

“Hey, finally,” she said and switched into the slower lane.

“You called me?” Darlene asked, and there was always that hint of worry in her voice. It brought tears to Rory’s eyes, but she blinked them back quickly as she held the phone to her ear and scanned for cops. She couldn’t afford a ticket now, and being on a cell phone was like waving a red flag if she passed any police cruisers tucked into their hidey-holes along the freeway. Wouldn’t that just be the worst? Forced to try to explain herself, to either lie and use her fake ID, or admit that she was Rory Bastian, the missing bride whose disappearance was connected to a murderous assault on the wedding party?

She put the cell on speaker and set it in the cup holder. “I’m in the U.S., darn near the Oregon border. Heading your way,” she said. “I think Liam found me.”

“What?” Darlene asked, shocked.

Quickly Rory filled her in, talking fast as she realized the damned phone was nearly out of juice. “. . . so I need a place to lie low.” The Columbia, a huge river that separated Washington from Oregon, came into view and traffic thickened.

“You could stay with me—”

“No, no. Not your house. God, no. That’s the first place he’d come looking, but maybe a nearby motel? Or something, I don’t know, about ten or twenty miles from your place?” The more she thought about it, the more she thought some distance would be a good idea. “Like maybe in Albany? Or Eugene—”

“That’s a long ways from me.”

“I know, but I won’t be staying long anyway.” She switched into the middle lane, a semi on her right, cars whipping past her on the left.

“I’m sure Liam thinks I’m still in the Seattle area. I only moved this past year and, well, I’d thought he’d moved on.” Darlene added tentatively, “He’s with Bethany Van Horne, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Rory snapped, hoping she didn’t sound as if she cared. “I heard. But he did come looking for me. Somehow. So he might know where you are, too.” As much as she wanted to believe differently, she couldn’t take that chance. Meeting Darlene was a little risky, but staying at her home would be downright dangerous. She eyed the upcoming span across the river, then glanced at her kid again. Still sleeping. “I think I’ll go through Portland and stop somewhere south, maybe around Woodburn.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Darlene said with uncharacteristic decisiveness. “I can be out the door in five. I’ll keep my cell on. Call me when you’re through Portland.”

“Will do.” Rory hung up, dropped the phone in the cup holder, and tried to rouse Charlotte again. No luck. She drove across the Glenn Jackson Bridge that connected Washington and Oregon and felt a chill down her spine.

Welcome to Oregon, the state of the Bastian empire. Her jaw tightened as, still in the center lane, she drove just under the speed limit and past the exit to the airport, its control tower visible to the west while Mount Hood loomed to the east, miles up the river. Biting her lip, she intended to skirt Portland, hoping to stay on I-205 until she saw the backup of cars through her bug-spattered windshield.

No good.

She didn’t like the prospect of sitting in traffic. No, no, no, she needed to get past Portland and fast. The quickest route seemed to merge onto I-84 and go right through the heart of the city to I-5. “Great,” she muttered and eased into the exit lane where she at least could keep moving.

Even if it was through what she thought of as Liam’s territory. She touched her toe to the accelerator, then eased back moments later when she realized she was traveling fast enough to alert a cop. No. No mistakes. She had to be careful, especially now.

Rory held her breath as the traffic clogged again as she neared Portland’s city center. She crossed the Marquam Bridge, which spanned the Willamette River that divided East from West Portland. The bridge curved downward onto I-5, heading south and offering a display of the skyscrapers standing like windowed sentinels on the banks of the river, the forested cliffs of the West Hills rising behind them. “Oh, God,” she whispered and thought of the Portland attractions: Pittock Mansion and the Rose Garden on the upper hills, Voodoo Doughnut, a favorite visitors’ haunt in Old Town, the Eastbank Esplanade on the east side of the Willamette. Her heart twisted at the thought of the places she and Liam had planned to explore in this, his town, and she cleared her throat, telling herself that she would be through Portland within minutes.

Good!

Liam might be chasing her in Canada, but being so close to where he lived gave her the heebie-jeebies.

As she began to merge with other traffic on the west side of the bridge, Charlotte cried out, “Mommeeee!”

Glancing into the rearview, Rory spied Charlotte heaved forward against the restraints of her car seat. Her face was white, her eyes wide, her mouth rounded. In a rush, vomit spewed from her mouth.

“Oh, God! Sweetie!” Rory gasped. Frantically, she looked for an exit. “Hang on!” Charlotte was sobbing between bouts of coughing and vomiting.

“Mommee—oh!” She threw up again.

Rory was frantic as she cut through traffic, easing past a small white sedan, while the driver, an older man in a baseball cap, laid on his horn. “Sorry!” she said as if the jerk could hear her, and sped off the freeway.

She knew little about the city, but saw a sign for Barbur Boulevard and headed in that direction. Now, Charlotte was sobbing hysterically.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Rory said.

“No it’s not!!! Oooh.”

Spying a taco shop, Rory sped into the parking lot and hit the brakes, parking at one edge where there were no other cars. Cutting the engine, she threw open the door and jumped out, then disengaged the car seat and gathered her crying, scared daughter close, rocking her from side to side, smelling the sour odor of vomit. “Shh, honey. Shh. You’re okay.”

But was she?

Oh, God, why hadn’t she taken Charlotte to a doctor in Vancouver?

“Shhh.” She kept rocking and hugging her daughter, as slowly her daughter’s shaking shoulders finally quit quivering and her gasping sobs became brittle, foul-smelling hiccups.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said, barely conscious of a man and woman stepping from a nearby battered pickup. In their seventies, they cast concerned glances in Rory’s direction, glancing over their shoulders as they slowly made their way up to the brightly painted door of the restaurant.

What was wrong with Charlotte? Half a dozen illnesses flew through her brain, all of them horrible. Meningitis? Severe flu? Lyme disease? Something horrible she couldn’t even name?

A warm breeze scattered pebbles, dry leaves, and a bit of trash across the dull asphalt. Charlotte sighed heavily against her. This was all so wrong. As much as she needed to escape, to run fast and far, she had to put Charlotte first. And second and third and so on. “Come on, sweetheart,” she whispered into her daughter’s curly hair. “We’re going to see the doctor.”

Charlotte protested without much enthusiasm. “No.”

“It’ll be quick. I promise,” she said, setting Charlotte back into her seat.

“Nooooo!” Charlotte wailed more loudly as Rory opened the passenger door and, grabbing some napkins from the stash in her glove box, cleaned off the little amount of vomit that had caught in her daughter’s hair. “No doctor!” the little girl cried.

“We need to get you well.”

“No!”

Rory tossed the napkin down on the floor with the rest of the mess, then pressed a kiss to her daughter’s sweaty forehead. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine,” she said, buckling Charlotte into her car seat.

The little girl began whimpering and tears streamed down her cheeks.

Rory climbed back into the driver’s seat and checked her cell phone for the nearest hospital. She was heading toward the city of Laurelton, which had its own hospital.

For the moment she didn’t care about the fact that she was running from the law, that all of her ID was fake, that Liam would find out that he had a child, even if the assassin found her and Charlotte. Not now. All that mattered was that a doctor made sure Charlotte was going to be all right.

Laurelton General was a couple of miles southwest. She aimed her vehicle in that direction.

* * *

Nothing tasted sweeter than freedom, Pete DeGrere thought as he tossed back a double bourbon neat and savored the warmth of the alcohol sliding down his throat to hit his welcoming belly. It had been far too long since he’d had a shot . . . make that several . . . but those days and prison were now in the rearview mirror. As he’d heard the gates clang shut behind him, he’d offered a mock salute to the final guard and thought, Fuck you all, suckas. Pete DeGrere is on the outside. For goddamned good!

Now, as he contemplated another drink, he eyed the dancer who was going through the motions of making love to a long, shiny pole. Her heart wasn’t in it. She wiggled and stripped, acted as if she were really getting off as the music pounded—some kind of tribal beat overlaid with something kind of techno, but she, a bleached blonde, gyrated without much enthusiasm. Her painted-on smile looked as phony as a three-dollar bill, but she had great tits, and, well, Pete didn’t much care anyway. He was just grateful to be here, watching her, drinking bourbon, being on the fucking outside. Yeah!

The place was pretty empty in the middle of the day. Just a few losers, regulars he guessed, wetting their whistles and maybe privately jerking off in the darkened room. Yup, some of ’em had that glassy-eyed stare that comes with self-stimulation. Then again, maybe they were all just wasted on bad drugs and weak drinks.

But who cared? He was free. Free after nearly five years, which was over eighteen hundred days. What a waste in that shit hole! And for what? They hadn’t even gotten him for the really big stuff.

Holy shit, he thought with a grin he couldn’t quite swallow. He glanced around the cavernous room. Yeah, just a few sorry souls, though he felt as if there was something off about the place, got a creepy sensation that he was being watched. But hey, they were all watchers here, right?

Probably just jangled nerves. He’d been on tenterhooks, hoping for, living for, this day.

Less than three hours earlier, he’d boarded a bus and sat in the back, his knee bouncing, his blood singing, anticipation making him sweat. He hadn’t made it all the way to Seattle. Instead, somewhere south of Sea-Tac Airport, he’d spied a titty bar, one of those long, low, dark buildings with a bright yellow neon sign of a curvy woman over arched, foreign-looking lettering: THE NILE. Yeah, like they were talkin’ about that damned river somewhere in Egypt. Over the yellow panels were silhouettes, not just of the girl with the big tits, but some alligators—or were they crocs over in Africa? didn’t matter—and some palm trees and a pyramid. Like you were in fuckin’ Egypt instead of the good old U.S. of A. Well, everybody had to have a theme, he supposed. So the Nile it was. As long as inside there were strong drinks and a lot of hot women, he didn’t give a rat’s ass what you called the place.

He hadn’t been disappointed. Okay, some of the dancers looked like they’d been around the block more than a few times, but they still looked good to him, horny as he was. And the liquor was smoky and gave him an immediate buzz that he liked. He liked a lot. He’d forgotten how good it felt. Only trouble was, a guy had to go outside for a damned smoke, and that bugged him. Was nothing sacred anymore? He loved looking at naked boobs through the haze of smoke. Loved letting the cigarette dangle from his lip and just draw on it and squint at a twentysomething chick making love to the pole. Got him hard and aching for a good fuck.

Shit, he’d settle for a bad one right now. As long as he’d been away, what did it matter, good or bad? As long as it was pussy, he was in.

He motioned for another drink and a waitress in heels that elevated her at least four more inches quick-stepped his way. One eye still on his surroundings, Pete said, “Another,” motioning with a finger to his drained glass.

“Sure.” She smiled brightly and he almost thought she was coming on to him, then realized it was because she was hoping for a healthy tip. Forget it. If he was giving out some of his few dollars, it was going to be to stuff them into that tiny scrap covering her twat. Yeah, that G-string was a little bit of nothin’, but it did manage to conceal her most private of parts. He wondered, knowing she was shaved or waxed or whatever, if the thatch of curls that had once been at the juncture of those long legs was anywhere close to the pale blond color of the mane of curls surrounding her Kewpie-doll face.

He figured not.

As his fresh drink arrived, he saw a shadow move in the back corner, behind the stage. Probably the manager or a stagehand of sorts. Right.

So why did he feel as if he was being watched?

So what?

He was keeping his nose clean.

At least so far. His sister had said she’d lined up employment of sorts for him, something about being a neighborhood handyman. That was good. He liked it. What better way to case a joint than to be hired to clean up the yard, or fix a fence, or unplug a toilet? He chortled, low in his throat. Yeah, it would work out just fine.

Blondie’s music stopped and she sashayed her tired but tight butt off the stage. While there was a break in the action, he decided to go out for a smoke. After an hour and a half of staring and drinking, he definitely felt a buzz. More than a buzz. He was on the verge of being shit-canned drunk, but he slid off his stool, hiked up his pants, patted his breast pocket to assure himself that his trusty pack of Winstons was still tucked safely away, then eased his way outside. He had to be careful about how he walked through the tables, didn’t want anyone to know he couldn’t hold his liquor like he used to.

Shit, he already needed to take a piss.

“Candy ass,” he muttered under his breath at himself and stepped outside to the cool of the evening. Maybe he’d just pee outside. If no one was around . . .

He felt a presence, the same kind of tingling against the back of his neck that he would feel on the inside when Fuck-Face Frank used to troll through the cells at night. Fuck-Face, named due to the fact that his features were messed up from a knife fight and botched surgery, was a favorite of the guards and had his freedom to wander the corridors but had never taken an interest in Pete, thank the gods.

A glance around showed that he was alone in the back lot where the asphalt was a crumbling layer of dust over the potholes. A solitary tree grew on the other side of a high fence of rotting boards. The fir offered some shade and two Dumpsters gave him a little privacy, so he lit up, took a deep drag, and with the Winston still between his lips, sauntered over to the man-sized space between the two huge, smelly bins and unzipped his fly. Sighing, smoke filtering from his nostrils, the end of his cig burning, he let his bladder release. He still had a good stream, he was thinking when he heard something—a footfall?—behind him. Oh, shit. He’d be caught for indecent exposure or some other penny ante—

And then breath against his nape.

Warm.

He started to turn, to look over his shoulder, when he felt the blade. Swift and sharp, slipped smoothly between his ribs.

“’Bye, asshole,” a harsh voice whispered as he started to shriek and the knife, pulled out of his back, was slashed across his throat and blood—oh, shit, his blood—sprayed the rusted, graffiti-marred Dumpster in a vibrant red splatter.

He tried to scream but failed. He caught a glimpse of dark sunglasses and his own horrified reflection in the gogglelike lenses. Then he fell forward, his body sliding down one of the Dumpster’s metal sides, his cigarette expelled, his life ebbing as he hit the dirty, crumbling asphalt with a bone-jarring thud.