Bad News Travels
- Автор: Суэйн Джеймс
- Серия: Lancaster & Daniels #3
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: Thomas & Mercer
- ISBN: 978-1-5420-1644-5
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Bad News Travels». Краткое содержание книги:
No sooner do they arrive than suspicions are aroused. There’s the pair of Russians who seem to be watching every move the family makes. A final, cryptic phone call Martin Daniels made to his granddaughter. Strange blood evidence on his estate. More than $1 million missing from Martin’s account. And his cell phone, wiped clean, along with clues to a double life. To Beth, it’s disturbingly clear: the man she loved was a stranger.
As she and Jon delve into Martin’s past, they have no idea where the secrets will take them. Or how dangerous it will be to expose the conspiracies, the cover-ups, and the terrible truths of Martin’s life — and death.
From her purse she removed a Swiss Army knife. It had seventeen different functions, including a locking screwdriver, a wire stripper, and a two-point-five-inch double-cut wood saw. She’d gotten it after graduating from the academy. It had been a present from her dad.
She opened the wood saw and locked it into place. She dug the saw’s tip into the adhesive at the mirror’s corner, and began to saw away. It was slow going, and after a minute she was forced to stop to shake away the cramping in her fingers.
But she didn’t quit. There was no doubt in her mind that behind the vanity was a hidden camera. Once she found it, she would bust Carrie and her brutish son, and turn their lives into a living hell.
It took another minute to cut away a small section of adhesive. She was growing impatient, and she gently pulled the mirror back a few inches. Placing her cheek against the wall, she stared behind it with one eye.
“Yes,” she said.
There was a hollowed-out section with a camera pressed against the mirror, just as she’d suspected. A red light was flashing, indicating the camera was filming. She shuddered, and backed away.
She’d been caught in the act.
She grabbed her purse off the bed and removed her cell phone. She needed to send Jon a text, and alert him to the danger.
She felt a breeze, and looked up. Dalton had silently entered the honeymoon suite with a house key, and was pointing a gun at her.
A long moment passed.
“You’re a cop,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daniels said.
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Ordinary people scream when you point guns at them. Cops don’t. They play it cool, and try to talk their way out of it. You’re a stinking cop.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you came here to arrest us, and I’m not going to let you do that. Open your purse and empty it on the bed. Nice and slow.”
She did as told.
“Now kneel, and put your hands behind your head.”
Again she obeyed.
Dalton jammed his gun behind his belt, and sifted through her things. He ignored the pepper spray in the small, stainless steel container, possibly thinking it was perfume. He pulled her ID from her wallet, and whistled through his teeth.
“FBI. Wow.”
“You want to talk this over?” she asked.
“Talk what over? You don’t have any chips in the game.”
“You planning to kill me?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“The bureau doesn’t take it well when one of their agents is murdered. They’ll come after you, and they’ll do it hard. I’ll cut you a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“A detective from Saint Augustine named Sykes was secretly filmed in this suite having sex. If you tell me who was behind that, we’ll go light on you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll talk to the prosecutor, and ask that you get probation for helping me. You won’t spend a day in prison. Come on, Dalton, work with me.”
“You can’t guarantee that, and you know it.”
“I’ll fight for you.”
He laughed silently at her, his eyes dark and soulless.
“I’m going to make you suffer, just like your partner,” he said.
Something inside her snapped.
“What did you do to Jon?” she said.
Carrie leaned against the counter to wait. She used both hands to hold her weapon.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said.
“Does that thing have a safety?” he asked.
“Hell, no. A safety on a gun will only slow you down. I learned that in my first concealed weapons permit class. Safeties are for wimps.”
“I guess that makes me a wimp, then.”
“Do your guns have safeties?”
“You bet. I don’t want one accidentally going off, and shooting someone when I’m out in public. Whoever told you that about safeties was an idiot.”
“You’re just afraid I’m going to shoot you.”
“You have no reason to shoot me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You’re looking to cause trouble. That’s enough reason for me.” She reached beneath the counter and touched a control on the monitor. The picture changed, and they both watched Dalton enter the honeymoon suite and draw his weapon. Beth emptied her purse on the bed, then sank to the floor with her hands on her head.
“Looks like he’s going to shoot her,” Carrie said.
Lancaster swallowed hard. “Why?”
“He did time in prison, swore to me he’d never go back.”
“He’d kill a person for that?”
“Damn straight.”
He jumped up, turning sideways as he did. She pumped a bullet into the chair’s upholstery, missing him by inches. He grabbed her wrists and twisted them so the gun’s barrel was pointed at the floor. She got off another round, which sounded like a cannon going off. They wrestled, and he pulled her down and brought his knee up into her face. It produced the desired effect, and the gun fell from her hands and her eyes rolled back into her head. He couldn’t tell if she was out cold, or faking it, and he put her down on the floor and placed his foot on the back of her head and kept it there.
He looked at the monitor, fearing the worst. Beth was standing, and holding what looked like a lipstick in her hand. She used it to spray Dalton in the face with a foreign substance that he guessed was pepper spray, causing Dalton to hold his face in agony.
Make the bastard pay, he thought.
Carrie let out a pitiful groan. “I can’t breathe.”
He pulled her off the floor. Blood soiled her face and ran down her chin. He pulled a tissue from a box and gave it to her. She tore it in half and plugged her nostrils. It made her look grotesque.
“You broke my nose,” she said.
“Be thankful I didn’t break your neck,” he said.
A loud noise interrupted their conversation. The couple who’d just checked in came barreling down the stairs with their luggage, and hustled past them.
“You folks have a nice night,” he said.
The front door slammed shut. Carrie had started to sob. He handed her another tissue and saw that her face was starting to swell. Carrie pointed at the monitor.
“What is she doing?” she asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Look.”
He shot a glance at the monitor. Dalton was on his knees, his head rocking from Beth’s ferocious blows. He wondered what Dalton had said to provoke her.
“Make her stop,” she pleaded.
“How do you expect me to do that?”
“Call her! She’s going to hurt him.”
He called Beth on his cell phone. On the monitor she paused, and started to answer the call. Seeing his chance, Dalton struggled to his feet. Beth grabbed a brass lamp off the nightstand, and smashed it into his skull, then used the lamp to beat him some more. Dalton went into a fetal curl and didn’t move. The punishment was over the top, and bordered on sadistic. It wasn’t the Beth he knew at all.
“She’s killing him,” Carrie wailed.
“Sure looks that way,” he said.
Chapter 36
It wasn’t long before the inn’s remaining guests departed, the sound of Dalton getting the daylights beat out of him too much to bear. One couple stopped at the front desk to make an inquiry. They were Asian and appeared to have just rolled out of bed.
“Can you recommend a place not so noisy?” the husband asked.