Page 75 of Edge of Ruin
“It couldn’t be more rickety than my van was,” Vivi said, wistfully. “My poor, beloved, drowned van. I owe that van. It gave its life for me.”
My urge to fight drained away. I was whipped. I was following that chick around like a panting hound, doing exactly as I was told. But the thought of a night in absolute privacy with her alone in a hotel room was too tempting to resist.
I wanted to have that talk that she had promised me. To thrash things out between us, so I could just go buy her a goddamn engagement ring already.
I wanted to close this deal and move forward, with her. Into our shared future.
But my patience came dangerously close to its end when I realized that she intended to stop at Lucia’s house in Hempton on the way.
“There’s something I need to pick up there,” she insisted.
“At a time like this? What in holy hell could be so important?”
“It’s a secret!” She frowned at me. “You’ll understand later! Now just take this exit, turn to the right at the bridge, and stop arguing with me!”
I snarled obscenities as I flicked on the turn signal, and guided Nancy’s battered, coughing little car off the highway, following Vivi’s directions to the quiet street where Lucia’s house was located.
I jerked to an angry stop in front of it. “So? Now what?”
“Thank you,” she said primly. “You’re very obliging. So polite, too. Do you want to wait here while I run up and get it?”
“You think I’d let you go into a dark, abandoned house all alone?” I pulled out my gun. “Bring those sketches in with you.”
“As if I’d leave them in a car,” she scoffed. “Let alone a car that has its back window held together with duct tape.”
I kept hold of her arm. The street was quiet at this hour, just a few of the houses lit, the bluish flicker of televisions here and there. But my senses were buzzing, my hairs on end. There was no way anyone could know we were here—unless Lucia’s house itself was watched. But who would watch an empty house? For weeks?
Get real, I told myself, as Vivi pushed the door open.
She didn’t waste time in the sad, quiet house, just flipping on the light over the stairway, and then the light for a steeper stairway leading up to the attic. I followed her up, fuming. My discomfort grew as she pried open box after box. “What the fuck are you looking for, Viv? Christmas decorations?”
“Shut up and let me concentrate,” she replied calmly.
She finally found what she sought, although she would not let me see it. She hid it with her body, wrapping it in a big plastic sack.
“Okay,” she announced. “We can go now.”
I led the way down the stairs, muttering imprecations as we went back to the car.
Vivi frowned as I opened the trunk for her. “I wish you’d relax a little,” she complained. “You’re making me tense.”
“I’m making you tense? Jesus.” I opened the car door for her, circled around, slid in, and started up the engine in one movement. “Let me tell you about my tension level, Viv.”
That instant, I registered the smell. Sour halitosis, heinous body odor. But it was already too late. There was a rustling sound, like a flock of bats. Panic exploded inside me—and Vivi’s gasp choked off into a squeak.
A heavy arm was clamped across her throat. A gleaming blade was pressed beneath her eye.
John grinned from behind Vivi’s car seat, a panting, stinking death’s head, his face swollen, bruised and shiny. The point of the blade traced its slow, cruel way down over her cheek, leaving a thin red line in its wake. It ended up jammed against her throat. Point digging in.
“One move, and she’ll bleed out in forty seconds,” John rasped.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Vivi
My system was so burnt out from adrenaline overload, I barely reacted. I felt blank. Empty. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I fought, the way out of this trap was always barred to me.
“I’m sure it would be fascinating to hear about your tension level,” John said, with a wheezing laugh. “We can compare it to your tension level while you’re watching me cut your little fuck buddy here into bite-sized bloody pieces.”
