Queen Of Blood Part 7

The black woman slapped her. "But it is. It's real as a motherf.u.c.k. h.e.l.l, I'm getting more real by the G.o.dd.a.m.n minute. You didn't see me last night, but I was here all the time."

Marcy couldn't deal with this. It felt like the very fabric of the world was unraveling. Soon she would go spiraling away into some unfathomable void. Which would kind of be okay at this point.

The black woman grinned again. "And speaking of insane, that was some wild display of bats.h.i.+t crazy you just put on, girl."

Marcy felt bile rise in her throat. "I shouldn't have done it. Any of it. Something's really wrong with me."

"Don't you second-guess yourself, baby." The black woman wrapped her arms around Marcy and pushed her rotting flesh against her. "You did what you had to do, and you know it. h.e.l.l, it's the main reason I've decided not to kill you."

Marcy s.h.i.+vered in the dead woman's sickeningly intimate embrace. "What do you mean?"

The black woman laughed softly. "We're all going on a very long trip together. Just us girls on the road. Won't that be fun?"

"Where are we going?"

"To a bad place, Marcy. A very bad place." She smiled in a way that might have been intended to rea.s.sure, but the effect was offset by the sight of more wriggling maggots. "But along the way we're going to have big fun and see many wondrous things. You have my word on that."

Marcy frowned. So much for an escape to a tropical paradise. She felt a vague instinct to fight against this, but she recognized the idea as futile and it quickly withered. And anyway, maybe this was the true unescapable destiny she'd sensed was waiting for her beyond this place. "So when are we leaving?"

The black woman's smile widened. "Oh, soon. Now give me a kiss."

Marcy sucked in a breath. Then the dead woman was kissing her.

Maggots fell into her mouth and slid down her throat.

Marcy closed her eyes and prayed for an end to the nightmare.

CHAPTER NINE.

The old Ford pickup slowed as it pa.s.sed a green highway sign announcing the last rest station for fifty miles. When its turn signal began blinking, Chad flicked on the Lexus's blinker and glanced at Allyson. She looked disheveled and tired. They'd talked very little during their three hours on the road, with Allyson sitting very still the entire time and staring straight ahead at the unfurling highway.

He supposed he couldn't blame her for not wanting to talk. She was a young woman from the suburbs used to a life of relative peace and quiet. Chad, however, had some experience with sudden, shocking violence, mostly from his time in the place called Below, the cavernous underground prison beneath the House of Blood. Even now, three years later, nightmares of that time still occasionally jolted him out of sleep.

And now Allyson, who had swept into his life like some divine angel of mercy, had likely been condemned to years--and perhaps a lifetime--of similar nightly tortures. The thought of it made him grip the steering wheel harder as his anger began to build again.

He hadn't known the dead men in his kitchen; Jim seemed sure they were emissaries of the long-missing Ms. Wickman. And Chad had believed him. Which was why they were on the road now, bound for some vague destination Jim had a.s.sured them would be a safe haven. Citing "security concerns," he refused to specify the precise location of the place, asking that they instead follow him to wherever it was they were going. It wasn't that Jim didn't trust Chad and Allyson with the information. Rather, he refused to allow even the remote possibility of the location being extracted from them via torture should more of Ms. Wickman's agents intercept them en route to the place. Which was paranoid as h.e.l.l, but Chad didn't blame the man.

The old Ford slowed some more and eased off the highway onto the curved white lane that led to the rest station. The parking lot was about half full. People were milling about around the vending machines and talking to each other on the long sidewalk. Other people were having lunches at the nearby picnic tables. A dog ran across the sloping lawn to the left of the rest station, chasing a yellow Frisbee that arced across the sky. Chad felt the knot of tension in his gut ease a bit. After the long, silent hours on the road, it felt good to be among people again. Normal people doing normal things.

He followed Jim's brown-and-tan truck to the end of the lot. Then he shut off the Lexus and twisted in his seat to look at Allyson. She still had that stunned animal look, her eyes dull and staring at nothing at all.

He put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Honey? Let's get out and stretch for a bit, okay?"

Her head swiveled toward the sound of his voice. The corners of her mouth dimpled, a smile so soft and weary that it made Chad's heart ache for her. "Sure."

She unbuckled her seat belt and reached for the door handle, stepping out of the car before Chad could reply. She threw the door shut and moved rapidly to the sidewalk, where she paused to stretch her arms and neck. Chad remained behind the wheel a moment longer and watched her, enjoying the simple, supple grace of her lithe body. She caught him looking at her and smiled. Chad smiled back as she reached into her handbag, retrieved a pair of black sungla.s.ses, and slid them on. She waved at Chad and headed for the rest station's main building.

Chad watched her go, the slight sway of her hips beneath the thin fabric of her dress making his heart race just a little faster. She slipped into a small throng of people standing beneath the building's pavilion and disappeared from sight.

Then he got out of the car and threw the door shut. Jim was leaning against the side of the old Ford, one booted foot raised and braced against a rust-flecked door. He was wearing dark sungla.s.ses and smoking a cigarette. He turned his head slightly and blew a stream of smoke up at the clear sky. "Nice day." He tapped the cigarette and ash fluttered to the faded asphalt."When I was young, days like this would inspire me to write poetry." He smiled. "Or chase girls."

Chad raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

Jim chuckled. "Oh, yeah. That or get drunk. Or all three at once."

Chad grinned and shook his head. "Sounds a little tricky. You know, there are still times when I can't get over the fact that I know you. Did you ever see that movie made about you, the one where that pretty-boy actor played you?"

Jim smiled. "Yeah. Wasn't bad...for such a load of s.h.i.+t."

"Yeah, well, I was a kid when that came out. I saw it a bunch of times. There was a scene in there--"

"You should believe only ten percent of any given scene in that film. There's some truth, sometimes just a grain of it, but much of it embellished and manipulated for dramatic effect." Jim flicked away the cigarette b.u.t.t and reached again for his Winstons. "I don't mind, of course. It's what filmmakers do with works based on the lives of real people. The same thing happens in real life. People tell stories intended to convey a particular image or idea about themselves. From what we might call white lies, basically harmless fictions, to wholesale, malicious untruths meant to dupe the victims of con artists and other criminals."

A frown stole across Chad's face as he listened to Jim's seemingly incongruous oratory about truth and lies. "Um...what's this got to do with the movie?"

Jim took a drag on his fresh cigarette and said, "Can I ask you a question?"

Chad hesitated. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, but he didn't want to hear it. It was something insane, a thing he'd attempted to relegate to the darkest, remotest recesses of his mind. But it had remained just beneath the surface, a niggling nag of a notion that kept trying to capture his attention. He wanted more than anything to keep pretending it wasn't there, and he certainly did not want the idea verbalized. But an image that made the ground beneath him feel slippery intruded on his thoughts--Allyson shoving an overstuffed black travel bag he'd never previously seen to the back of the Lexus's trunk, then quickly covering it with two more hastily packed bags.

He sighed. "Ask me."

Jim removed his sungla.s.ses and nailed Chad with his piercing dark eyes. "How well do you really know Allyson?"

Chad felt dizzy. He put a hand to his head and said, "I have to sit down."

Jim nodded in the direction of the picnic tables. "Over there. We'll get out of the sun and talk this out."

He flicked away the cigarette and set off toward the tables.

Chad numbly followed.

Allyson brushed past a pair of doddering elderly ladies and banged open the restroom door. It was a long room with a line of gleaming silver stalls against one wall. Nearly all the stall doors stood open, indicating disuse. Two of the nearest were closed. A woman in her thirties leaned over the basin, checking her makeup in the long mirror. Allyson kept her head down and strode quickly to the very last stall, stepped inside, and shut the door behind her. She sat on the toilet seat, fished her cell phone from the depths of her pocketbook and thumbed the red power b.u.t.ton.

She'd turned it off at some point after killing the intruders, fearing a call she wouldn't be able to explain to Chad and the annoyingly suspicious old rock star. A displayed message informing her she had received seventeen missed calls and had three voice mail messages. She was not surprised to find each call was from the same number. Allyson's heart pounded as she pressed the b.u.t.ton to dial her mailbox. She drew in a calming breath and raised the phone to her ear. The first message was a brief burst of shrill panic. "What the f.u.c.k is going on out there? Call me back."

The caller's voice was more relaxed during the second message. But the content of his message sent a bone-sc.r.a.ping chill winding through her:"Ms. Vanover, we know you have betrayed us. This is not a very smart thing you have done. Those who betray us are always made to pay the highest price. Rest a.s.sured, I mean to hunt you down and exact vengeance personally. I have a lovely picture of you right here, by the way. It appears to be a still from a p.o.r.nographic movie. Your hair was different then, but the image is unmistakably that of Allyson Vanover. Or as you were known then, Sinthia Fox."

Allyson felt the earth s.h.i.+ft beneath her. She closed her eyes and gripped the phone tighter as the man's calm voice continued. "I'm going to show this picture and others like it to your boyfriend just before I go to work on your delectable body with a knife. I wonder what he'll be thinking as he watches you suffer and die. Will he be crying out for blood and revenge when I shove the knife up your c.u.n.t? Or will he still be too stunned by the images of double penetration and girl-on-girl p.u.s.s.y-licking to care?"

The message ended and Allyson sat there shaking for a time before working up the nerve to hear the last message. She didn't want to hear the man's insinuating tone again, but she knew she had to hear what he had to say. So she pressed a b.u.t.ton and heard the following:"I imagine you are very frightened now. Afraid not only of what's coming for you, but hoping against hope that Chad doesn't begin to piece some things together. But he will, Allyson, and you know it. He's a smart man. Even now he is thinking hard about many puzzling things, and in time he will ferret out the truth about you. And when that happens, you will be tossed out like the trash you are."

There was a silence then, the recording continuing as he paused long enough to allow her time to think about what he was saying, the obvious truth of it. She worked hard to imagine an alternative possibility, but every time she tried to see a happy future with Chad the forced images glimmered with a plastic sitcom phoniness for a fragile moment before dissolving.

Then the man drew in an audible breath and slowly exhaled. "Not a pretty picture. But you know what, Allyson? I'm feeling generous today. I'm going to offer you a way out of this mess."

Allyson tensed and closed her eyes again.

"Call this number when you arrive at your destination. Tell us where you are, then slip away when no one's watching. If you do this, your death sentence will be rescinded. You will not be getting the hundred thousand dollars originally promised you, but you've probably already figured that out. You'll get to keep the ten grand we fronted you...if there's any left, that is. Which I doubt, if you've still got that nasty p.o.r.n star c.o.ke habit. So that's the deal, b.i.t.c.h. Take it or die. Remember ...before sundown."

The message ended and Allyson pressed a b.u.t.ton to delete it. She did not dismiss out of hand the offer she'd been given. It was a simple way out of a very complicated situation. One phone call. She could do that and haul a.s.s out of Jim's "safe haven," whatever or wherever the h.e.l.l that was. She still had every penny of the ten-thousand-dollar advance. She'd shed her c.o.ke habit prior to coming to Georgia and had successfully resisted every temptation to dip into the fund. Ten thousand dollars wasn't as comfortable a stake as the one hundred thousand dollars upon which she'd based her original plans, but it would be more than enough to start a new life somewhere else.

Allyson flipped the cell phone open and punched in a number. She held the phone to her ear and listened as it rang. The man answered on the second ring. "h.e.l.lo, Allyson. Have you accepted my offer?"

Allyson allowed a moment to pa.s.s before responding. She was still thinking. Still unsure. She didn't know what she would say until the words came out of her mouth. "You'll never find us, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," she said, voice emerging without even a slight quaver. "And there's not a threat in the world you can make that scares me. I've told Chad everything and he's forgiven me. And even if you do figure out where we're going, I'll kill anyone you send after us, just like I killed those men last night."

There was a long pause from the other end. Then the man grunted and said, "Next time you won't have the advantage of knowing my men are coming. One night when you're sleeping they'll slip into your room and take you. And then they'll bring you to me. And then--"

A soft laugh.

And then the line went dead.

The phone slipped out of Allyson's hand and landed with a clatter on the floor. She stared at her shaking hand, willing it to be still again. The man's final, implied threat had rattled her more than she would've expected given everything else she'd been through. The voice of cowardice rose within her again, imploring her to pick up the phone and call the man back to tell him she'd reconsidered.

Allyson did pick up the phone. Then she stood up and smashed the delicate device against the concrete wall. The casing cracked, but that wasn't good enough for Allyson. She wanted to destroy the thing completely, to vent her fear, frustration, and rage on this symbolic link between herself and the bad people she'd so foolishly aligned herself with all those months ago. So much had changed since those early days in Georgia. She no longer felt dead inside. The world was wide open and alive with possibilities she'd never imagined for herself. And she'd be d.a.m.ned if she'd allow that snide c.o.c.ksucker and his threats to taint that. So she flipped the phone open. The hinge connecting the two halves of the device let go with a snap as she smashed it against the wall two more times. Then she separated the two halves with a savage twist and stood there breathing heavily for a moment.

Then she stepped out of the stall and strode to the end of the bathroom, where she dropped the pieces of the ruined cell phone in a waste bin. She moved to the basin and examined her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, but otherwise she looked okay. Definitely nothing like a woman who'd just been forced to make a potential life-and-death decision. She slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder, slid her sungla.s.ses back on, and exited the bathroom.

Remembering what she'd said about getting a soda, she paused at one of the vending machines and fed change through a coin slot. A can of c.o.ke thunked into the slot. As she bent to retrieve the frosty cold can, she glanced in the direction of Chad's car and dimly perceived a shape behind the wheel. Jim was leaning against his pickup and smoking a cigarette.

The old man made her nervous. She was certain he suspected her of something. It was in the way he looked at her and the subtly doubting tone of his voice when he questioned her. In the aftermath of her confrontation with the intruders, he'd asked her a series of questions that made her uncomfortable. He wanted to know why she'd been up at that late hour. Wanted to know every tiny detail of how things went down. She explained everything in minute detail. It helped that much of it wasn't made up. She'd been restless and had come into the kitchen for a late night snack, she'd told them, and that was fiction. The rest was stone cold truth.

More or less.

So it was aggravating that Jim clearly wasn't buying it. This despite understanding why he was suspicious of her. She was an unknown quant.i.ty as far as he was concerned. He was a hard guy to figure out, not much at all like the wild rock-and-roll madman portrayed in movies and books. He was calmer, quiet, and coldly a.n.a.lytical. He'd hauled the dead men away in the bed of his pickup and disposed of them somewhere. It was chilling how unfazed he'd been by that.

Once the cleanup ch.o.r.es had been completed, Jim made the offer of sanctuary at his "place in the mountains." He made the offer explicitly to Chad, pointedly leaving her out. But Chad would only go if Allyson accompanied him. Jim acquiesced without argument, but his demeanor told the real story--he'd didn't trust her.

Allyson straightened and took a large gulp from the can. The cold soda felt good going down. Slightly invigorated, she set off toward Chad's Lexus. She smiled at Jim as she pa.s.sed him and he nodded, his eyes unreadable behind his dark sungla.s.ses. Then she opened the Lexus's pa.s.senger door and slipped inside.

"Thanks for stopping. I feel so much better after getting--"

Then she saw the thing propped on the dash and her voice died in her throat. It was an ID card with her picture on it. At the top in cobalt blue block letters were the words FRANKLIN SECURITY CONSULTANTS. Beneath her picture in small black type was the name Jennifer Campbell, and beneath that the t.i.tle Senior Solutions Specialist.

The back door on her side opened and someone slid into the seat behind her. The door thunked shut and Allyson detected a faint scent of tobacco. Jim. No one said anything at first. Allyson's face reddened as sweat appeared on her forehead. The air in the car felt close and hot. The slick c.o.ke can began to slide from her fingers. She set it in the cup holder with a shaking hand and tried to think of something--anything--to say.

Chad cleared his throat and said, "Is there anything you want to tell us, Allyson? Or should I call you Jennifer?"

His tone thrummed with equal measures of anger and hurt. Hearing that hurt snapped her out of the state of speechless panic. The partial admission that followed came before she could take even a moment to consider it. "I'm an ex-p.o.r.n star and drug addict. Allyson Vanover is my real name. I'm from Los Angeles originally, but I ran away from my life there because it was out of control. I did twenty-four p.o.r.nos in just under two years, and the ten thousand dollars is what I had left from that when I met you. I used to do so much c.o.ke my nose bled all the time and I wouldn't sleep for days. I had to get away from that or I was going to die. Jennifer Campbell is the alias I came up with in case I needed a new ident.i.ty to really start over."

The words had come out in a rush, tripping over the tip of her tongue like pebbles tumbling wildly down a waterfall. As with her previous explanations in the aftermath of last night's carnage, her story now was comprised of interweaving strands of truth and fiction. And, again, much of it was truth. But she had no faith at all they would buy the whole package this time. She suspected the combination of Jim's paranoia and Chad's hurt feelings would conspire to put her out on the street. The thought filled her with a black despair. She'd done many bad things, but she was doing her d.a.m.nedest to make up for them. The unfairness of it burned, coming so soon after taking her stand against the bad guys.

Chad blinked slowly, his face registering shock. "Um...p.o.r.no?"

Allyson's nod was emphatic. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning, imploring him to believe her. "I swear to G.o.d." She glanced at the rearview mirror, met Jim's stoic gaze, and looked again at Chad. "I don't know what you guys are thinking or what you suspect, but I swear it's f.u.c.king wrong." A quaver entered her voice and tears began to roll from the corners of her eyes. "I'm not a bad person. I love you, Chad, and I didn't tell you the truth about my past because I knew you wouldn't want anything to do with someone so...trashy."

The tears gave way to sobs, a display of genuine emotion devoid of even the smallest hint of fakery. She had known all along the real Allyson Vanover was not the kind of person who could ever hope to move in the same circles as a Chad Robbins, much less ever hope to marry a man of his quality. And now that this part of the charade was over, she felt like crawling into a hole and never coming out.

Jim s.h.i.+fted in the backseat and spoke up: "I don't suppose you have proof to offer of the veracity of this tale?"

Allyson's eyes went wide and she said, "Chad! Your laptop, please get it."

Chad's brow furrowed and he stared at her in a searching way for a moment. Allyson expected to see judgment in his eyes, but it didn't seem to be there. Or maybe he was merely holding everything in for a big explosion to come. But then he sighed and got out of the car. He popped the trunk with the electronic key fob, and Allyson glanced again at Jim as she listened to the rustling sound of baggage being moved around. His sungla.s.ses were off now and he was staring hard at her.

She made herself hold his as gaze as she said, "I'm telling the truth."

Jim's nod was barely perceptible. "I'm sure you are." Then he smiled, an expression untouched by humor. "But I don't think you're telling all of the truth."

Allyson looked away from those cold eyes. "I'm not lying. You'll see."

Jim didn't reply.

Chad returned to the car, sliding back behind the wheel and moving his seat back before flipping open the laptop. The computer came out of hibernation mode, its screen a bright glare in the sunlight. Chad tapped some keys and said, "Lucky us, there's a wireless network in range. We're connected." He glanced at Allyson. "What are we looking for?"

Allyson swallowed hard before replying. She didn't want Chad to see the things she was about to show him. But she knew she'd been left with no choice. "Do a Google image search on Sinthia Fox. That's S-i-n-t-h-i-a Fox."

Her fingernails etched grooves in her palms as Chad tapped the keys. The search immediately produced pages of results. And though the glare of the sun obscured the shameful images somewhat, she was able to see enough to know she'd delivered her promised proof. Her hair had been a darker shade of blonde then, the sandy shade that was her natural color, and the makeup she'd worn for the movies and photo shoots had been starkly whorish and s.l.u.tty. But it was her. Chad stared at the thumbnail pictures without saying anything for long moments before clicking on one that showed her fellating a d.i.l.d.o. He winced at the enlarged image and flipped the laptop shut. Then he looked up and stared straight ahead, eyes focusing on nothing at all.

"I'm sorry, Chad." Allyson's voice sounded small, defeated. "I understand if you kick me out now."

Chad finally looked at her again. She saw pain in his expression. The withering aspect of judgment she expected was still missing. "I'm not kicking you out." His voice was softer now, entirely devoid of the rage and implied accusations of before. "I wish you'd told me the truth before. It would've saved us all some grief. But I understand why you didn't. It'll take me a while to come to terms with this, but I want you to know that I care about you, too." He indicated the closed laptop with a nod. "I know how hard it must have been for you to show me those...things."

He reached out to her, stroked her cheek with the back of a hand, and Allyson melted inside. She grabbed his hand and held on for dear life. "I'm so sorry. Chad, I'm so sorry."

Jim said, "I take it you're satisfied, Chad?"

Allyson blinked her tears away and watched Chad as he hesitated for only a moment before nodding. "Yeah, Jim. I'm satisfied."

"Fair enough."

Jim opened the rear door and swung his legs out. He paused before getting the rest of the way out. "I trust you, friend, and if you choose to place your trust in this woman, I'll abide by that. But we're going to a place I can't afford to compromise. We'll stop ahead of arriving there and blindfold young Allyson. She'll ride the rest of the way in with me. That condition is non-negotiable. Understood?"

Allyson answered before Chad had a chance to open his mouth. "Understood. I'll do whatever you say."

Jim nodded. "Good."

He departed without another word, throwing the door shut and returning to his pickup. Allyson settled back into her seat and felt her eyes flutter shut. There was so much else she wanted to say to Chad about her old life in California, so much she needed to explain, but she didn't have the energy now.

Darkness took her as the Lexus followed the old Ford back to the highway.