Dreaming Death (Krewe of Hunters #32) - Heather Graham Page 0,102

thing going—a bizarre ménage à trois, if you will. Billie, me and my beautiful, darling witch of a wife. We found the clients and the victims. Henry Lawrence did the transplants. He liked money, and he was never the man you thought he was. But enough of this. Shoot me, or let this woman live. Your choice. Otherwise, I’m out of time. Put the gun down. Hey, you’ll have some hope! I’m not slicing you up here. There’s a charming little building where I keep an empty loft for...storage.” He grinned. “Not in my own name, of course. You’ll have a chance... We’ll see if your heroic agency can do something fast enough. I really had wanted to take my time with you. Really. Chop, chop, slice, slice, get all gooey and sticky with your blood...but I’m afraid that it’s time to get away. Still, you’ll have a chance.”

“They have your wife.”

“Yes, God bless them! I’ll be heading off to a South American beach without her! Oh, I won’t be alone, but I won’t be with that virago! So, you tell me, how do we do this? I’ve been a politician, Special Agent Hanson. I play for keeps. I’m sick enough, you know, not to care if I die with a blast to my head if I get to watch Detective Channing’s blood spurt everywhere as I do. It’s all or nothing for me, now.”

“I guess you’re not winning the next election.”

“No problem. People whining, whining, whining. One wants to control climate change, another is crying over bears in caves, another wants more drilling rights... Politics! Hey, it was fun when I needed to be in it, and now...all or nothing.”

He’d grown deadly serious.

“Wait!”

“For what? She and I die—or you try to save her.”

“Why did you target me?”

“You—and your father. There were whispers in the courtroom about PI Hanson having a daughter who warned her dad he was going to be killed. Henry Lawrence heard that. Funny thing is, he told us that McCarron never knew that he had killed Vargas. Of course Vargas knew. That Henry Lawrence is another delightfully sick man—he enjoyed watching Vargas die!”

He laughed.

She couldn’t make him laugh. The ring around Jean’s neck was growing brighter.

“Didn’t you brilliant people figure that out yet? Henry Lawrence killed them! Oh, not that McCarron wasn’t guilty of a dozen murders—just not those murders! Lawrence hated Vargas; he’d been approached by McCarron because McCarron needed to buy a liver or something for a cousin of his, and Vargas had said that he had to match all the criteria, that organs were precious. Lawrence was up for it. All he had to do was get rid of Vargas.”

She felt sick. Emotions raced through her despite the desperation of the situation.

“You’ve been killing people...since that trial?” she asked.

“Only a few at first. And of course, I wasn’t in on it at first. Billie came to me, and then to our other accomplices!” He smiled cruelly. “Let’s see how noble you really are. Your life...or her life? Detective Jean Channing—well, she’s had a good run of it!”

Stacey had played for time.

And time was up.

“Shoot him!” Jean insisted. Then she screamed, “Watch out!”

There was someone behind Stacey.

And now, it was all or nothing. She fired a shot and spun around, just as something cracked down hard on her head.

* * *

Keenan fired several shots, breaking the storm windows at Anita Kendrick’s house.

He’d seen the woman hurrying to help Colin Smith, and he’d known then that, while he couldn’t see Stacey or Jean, he had to get to them.

He leaped through the window and rushed to the next room.

Jean lay on the floor.

He swore, leaning down to her. She opened her eyes. “Out the back. Go!”

“Jean—”

“She wouldn’t let the bastard kill me. There’s a van out back. Go.”

“Help is on the way.”

“Go!”

He raced on through the house, reaching the back door just in time to see a van driving away. It was an off-white color, dirty, but with designs beneath the dirt with splashy colors and a lot of green.

The license plate was covered by vines that escaped from the back door. He couldn’t see the numbers, but the vines suggested a florist’s or gardener’s van.

He pulled out his phone and called Jackson. He was already running, back to the front of the house and the street, desperate to reach his own car to follow the van. As he slid into the driver’s seat, he was asking Jackson to get an APB out on the