The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 6

  “You wouldn’t do that either. And it wasn’t the whole unit. You let one get away.”

  “I…” Even though he knew she was pushing buttons, going for a reaction, he felt the heat swell up his neck and through his face. “Your mom might not mean it, but I don’t bluff.”

  She stared him right in the eye. “Prove it.”

  He tore off his seatbelt, got out of the car, and stalked over to her side. He grabbed her arm and easily tugged her out of the vehicle.

  She shrieked, tried to wriggle free, but his grip didn’t slip. He pulled her, scuffling, away from the car and swung her around then gave her a gentle kick in the butt.

  She staggered forward then whirled around to face him, lip curled and jaw dropped all at the same time. “You kicked me?”

  He marched back to the car and slammed the passenger door closed. “Good luck finding a ride.”

  “This is bullshit. You aren’t going to leave me out here.”

  “Yes I am.” He got back in the car, turned up the radio, buckled his seatbelt. When she came over to the car he hit the power locks.

  She tugged on the locked door and shouted at him through the window. “This isn’t funny anymore.”

  He gave her a dopey fake smile, waved, put the car in gear, and left her behind in a cloud of dust.

  He watched her screaming after him in his rearview and getting smaller with distance. He felt quite satisfied with himself. Teach her a lesson. See that? Dealing with teenagers wasn’t so hard.

  She was almost too small to see when it hit him.

  Aw, hell, I just left a thirteen year-old girl out in the middle of the desert.

  He slowed down and made a U-turn.

  Man, but he was making a hell of a first impression for his daughter.

  Chapter Ten

  They made the rest of the trip in almost total silence. She spoke to him only once to tell him what to order in the drive through of a fast food taco joint. The desert of California gave way to the desert of Nevada, and before long Vegas itself shimmered on the horizon, the first glimpse like a mirage flickering in the heat waves.

  “This is it?” Jessie said, her voice rough from so much silence.

  Lockman stole a glance and found her staring out at the city growing closer. “Doesn’t look like much from here, huh?”

  “Trying to figure out why Alec comes out here so often. He says business trips.”

  “Alec?”

  Her eyes crinkled at the corners, mischief all over her face. “My step-dad.”

  Lockman’s throat closed up on him a second and he choked on his words.

  Jessie turned away, but he could see her smirk reflected in her window.

  “Your mom’s married now?”

  “Three blissful years.”

  “You like him?”

  Her smirk wavered. “He’s okay. We don’t hang out much, you know?”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think he likes kids. He’s not mean or anything. Just…not there.”

  “Doesn’t sound right just the same.”

  She burst out a loud “ha” and rolled her eyes. “You should talk.”

  Lockman breathed deeply through his nose. He wouldn’t let her get to him again. “Since we’re chatting, you think you could tell me—”

  “How I found you? Nope.”

  “You’re being immature.”

  “I’m thirteen. I’m supposed to be immature.”

  He shook his head and gave up. The Agency would have to deal with her. Somehow he had a feeling the presence of a bunch of federal agents in dark suits might make this a little more serious to her. Though how much more serious could something get than machine gun toting vamps?

  “You do realize we’re still in real danger? Those vamps didn’t show up the same time you did by coincidence.”

  Her brow creased. She folded her arms and stared ahead.

  “If you don’t tell me, you’ll have to tell someone. They’ll make you.”

  “They? You mean this agency you keep talking about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell them.”

  “But you won’t tell me.”

  “You left me in the desert.”

  “I came back.” He pointed a finger at her. “Besides, none of that would have happened in the first place if you’d just answered me.”

  “You can’t bully me.”

  “I’m not trying to bully you. I’m trying to protect you.”

  She sighed as if he was asking her to get out and push the car the rest of the way to Vegas. “If I tell you…”

  “What?”

  She shrugged.

  “What’s going to happen if you tell me?”

  “It’s all I’ve got, okay? I tell you what you need to know, you won’t have to tell me anything more.”

  “I answered your questions. What more do you want to know?”

  “Don’t you want to know anything about me?”

  He felt a pinch in his chest and actually winced. He took a moment to choose his next words. “I have a thousand and one questions I want to ask you. Finding out you exist…that’s huge. But I have to think of your safety and the greater good.”

  “Greater good?”

  “The world doesn’t revolve around what we want. There are bigger issues. I have to stay focused on the larger picture here.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “It’s called being responsible.”

  “For a secret agent dude, you are totally lame.” She went back to looking out her window. “Forget it. I’ll tell your agent buddies when we get there.”

  Lockman just drove, baffled. He was never that crazy when he was a teen, was he? Unfortunately, much of Lockman’s childhood memories carried a lot of static and fuzz. For some reason he could never remember his younger days like others he knew. But there was no way he had ever acted as irrationally as this girl. Jessie had to have gotten that from her mother’s side.

  While Lockman had long ago memorized the address to the safe house, he had no idea how to get there. He stopped at a gas station inside the city’s limits and bought a street map, then spent a moment in the car with the air conditioning blasting while he figured out his route. A few moments in the afternoon sun had roasted him to the bones. Sweat pooled on his upper lip by the time he got from the gas station’s door to his car door.

  He also came back to discover Jessie had changed the radio station to classical. He almost commented, but didn’t want to risk stoking her teenage ire. Nothing wrong with classical.

  Route mapped, he started the car and pulled out of the gas station.

  Jessie shifted in her seat as if uncomfortable. Lockman could tell she wanted to say something.

  Did he dare ask? He kept his mouth shut.

  She crossed and uncrossed her arms. Sighed. Tapped her feet. Drummed her fingers on her knees.

  “Fine,” Lockman said. If she kept fidgeting like that the friction might set her on fire. “What’s eating you?”

  She lifted her chin. “Nothing.”

  “You’ve got something to say. Just say it, okay?”

  “What happens when we get to this place?”

  So she was nervous. Reality finally setting in maybe? “Well, my people will be contacted. Agents will probably be dispatched to Vegas. They will need to debrief both of us.”

  “They’re going to interrogate me?”

  “They will ask a lot of questions and expect you to answer without giving them trouble.”

  “Am I going to get in trouble?”

  “Kate doesn’t know you’re out here, does she?”

  Jessie shook her head.

  “You came all the way from Michigan by yourself? How did you even afford the plane ticket?”

  “I run my own business. I make movies and post them online.”

  Lockman’s gut did a twist while the hairs on his arms stood at attention. “You what? You’re thirteen.”

  “So what? I’m
too young to run a business?”

  “Too young for that kind of business. How in hell does Kate not know what you’re doing?”

  “She knows all about it.”

  He almost had to stop the car. His eyeballs throbbed in his skull. The air conditioner at full blast didn’t touch the heat rising inside of him.

  “You look like your head’s about to explode. What’s your deal?”

  He sputtered and fumbled for words. The very idea of this little girl—his daughter—posting movies of herself online made him want to hunt down every pervert who downloaded one of those movies and rip their testicles through their nostrils.

  “I don’t even know what to say.”

  She gave him a furled-brow look that clearly said she thought he was crazy. Then a light came in her eyes and she smiled. “Oh, you think…” She broke into laughter so hard it sounded like she might choke.

  “How is child pornography a laughing matter?”

  Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes. Her face turned a purplish red from all the laughing. She put a hand on her chest and took a deep, exaggerated breath. “I guess I should be flattered you’re so interested in protecting my dignity.”

  “There is something seriously wrong with you. Not all teenagers can be this weird.”

  “You’re right. I’m weird. Everyone says so.” Her laughter sputtered out like a stamped fire. “I’m the class freak.”

  “That’s not how I meant it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I like who I am and have no desire to be anyone else but me.”

  They had strayed a bit from the obscene topic and Lockman was tempted to let it go. But he couldn’t let something like that go. “It’s good you have high self-esteem. But that’s no excuse to…make videos.”

  “It’s not porn.”

  “Okay. Even if you’re not having sex in them, it’s still not right.”

  “No. Listen up, Mr. Clean. I’m not even in most of the films. I write and direct them. They’re short films. Stories. No nudity, but occasionally some violence and fake blood.”

  Lockman felt his face flush. “Oh.”

  She laughed again, not as hard. “Yeah. What kind of sicko do you think I am?”

  “The way you said it. You made it sound like…never mind.”

  “I see why Mom liked you.”

  He hadn’t expected a comment like that. He tensed, afraid to ask the obvious question, but unable to hold back. “Why’s that?”

  “You’re all uptight like she is.”

  “Kate’s not uptight.”

  “You’re right. More like totally anal to the nth degree.”

  Lockman shook his head. “Kate was free spirited. Sometimes she didn’t know when to rein it in.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes way. This is the woman who ran the naked mile in Ann Arbor every year. This is the girl who stole a rare orchid out of a neighbor’s yard to wear as a corsage to her prom. The painter. The poet. The part-time Wiccan who said she had cast a love spell on me the night after we first met.”

  Jessie stared at him with her mouth open. She scrunched up her face. “My mom ran the naked mile?”

  “Every year.”

  “Bull.”

  “Doesn’t she still?”

  “Oh, hell no. Woman dresses like a nun’s conscience.”

  “Does she still write and paint?”

  “There is no way she ever did anything creative like that. She works on spreadsheets crunching numbers for some company that makes widgets or some crap.”

  For a second Lockman thought this whole thing was a mistake. This wasn’t his daughter. They were talking about two different Kates. But Jessie had known his name. No. They were talking about the same Kate. The girl had a skewed vision of her mother was all.

  “I think you’d be surprised by how free spirited your mom really is.”

  “I think you’d be surprised how crazy that sounds.”

  They didn’t have time to argue over whose view was right. They had arrived.

  Lockman pulled to the curb in front of a small white chapel. A sign out front declared it Las Vegas’s premiere chapel for true lovers. Apparently all the other chapels in Vegas catered to fake lovers. Not that the city hadn’t earned that reputation for its local chapels.

  Jessie peered out her window. “I don’t think it’s legal even in Vegas for thirteen year-olds to marry their fathers.”

  “Funny.” He surveyed the sidewalk in front of the chapel, then the street, looking for any sign of something off. In the distance he could see a tower with a roller coaster at its peak. Locally, he spotted three other chapels all proclaiming they had Elvis. Cars lined the street on both sides, parked at meters. A number of cabs made up the bulk of traffic along the strip. No peculiar vehicles parked nearby. No black clad figures lurking in the shadows, not that there were many shadows to hide in. Even through the tinted car windows, the sun’s glare looked brutal.

  “Okay, let’s go. Stay close.”

  “Paranoid much?”

  He ignored her and got out of the car. She was out and waiting for him when he rounded the car and reached the sidewalk. He hovered a hand inches from the center of her back, ready to pull her down if he needed to.

  Jessie noticed and stepped away from him. “Quit crowding.”

  “Could you stop being so pointlessly difficult for a minute?”

  “You really know how to sweet talk a girl. Mom never stood a chance.”

  He threw up a hand in surrender. “Do what you want. I’m done going out of my way to protect you.”

  “Yeah, like how you protected me by leaving me in the desert.”

  He turned his back to her and strode into the chapel. The air conditioning hit him with a chill that reminded him of how hot it really was outside. He waited a second by the door, expecting Jessie to join him shortly. She didn’t.

  Fine. She could stand out in the sun if that’s what she wanted.

  The chapel entrance led to a foyer about the size of walk-in closet. A framed photo of a black Jesus hung on the wall, his pious eyes seeming to judge Lockman.

  He stepped through the foyer into a larger receiving area. A glass display case along one wall featured a variety of headpieces—everything from the traditional veil to an ornate, golden crown, to what looked like some alien contraption meant to microwave a human’s brain. What could be more fun than a theme wedding?

  With an almost painful suddenness, he found himself back at the night he’d asked Kate to marry him. They had playfully thrown back and forth ideas for their wedding. She became obsessed with having a Star Wars wedding where she would dress like Princess Leia and he as Han Solo.

  But who’s going to be the wookie? She’d asked.

  I think your mother would be perfect, he’d said and got a soft punch in the arm for it.

  “May I help you?”

  Lockman looked up from the display case to a woman in a pinstriped pantsuit that probably cost more than Lockman’s entire wardrobe. Especially considering he now wore his entire wardrobe since he had to leave all his things behind.

  “I’m looking for Schmitt.”

  One of her eyebrows lifted. “I’m sorry, who?”

  “Schmitt.” Whether there was such a person, Lockman doubted. This was the code, though, to alert the contact to his association with the Agency.

  Only she continued to stare at him as if he had asked her to lick the bottom of his boot. “There is no one by that name here.”

  Possible she worked the legitimate side of the chapel’s business without knowing it was a cover. “Is the manager or owner around?”

  “Yes. I’m she.”

  “Oh.”

  “There are a lot of chapels in Vegas. It’s easy to get confused. But I’m sure whatever Mr. Schmitt is offering, we can meet or exceed your expectations. Is the bride close by?”

  “I…uh…”

  The door banged open and a second later Jessie rushed in from the foyer. Her chest heav
ed. “I think they’re here. They found us.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kate turned on a cheesy soap opera in the spare bedroom and cranked the treadmill up to a comfortable jog. Some sweat and melodrama might take her mind off of how incredibly powerless she felt. But less than a half-mile into the run she lost track of who was pregnant with whose baby and who had returned from the dead. Her mind kept falling back to him.

  She couldn’t even get herself to think his name.

  That’s ridiculous. Why fight it?

  She swiped some sweat off of her forehead and adjusted the incline on the treadmill. The burn in her calves started almost immediately.

  God, she hated running. But it was the only kind of exercise she could find time for, and part of doing it had to do with the self-torture. Her own private punishment for all the mistakes she’d made along the way.

  She said she was going to meet her real father.

  Real? As if she had a fake one. Kate had never fooled herself into thinking Alec would fill that void for Jessie. All she had ever asked was that Jessie accept Kate’s own need for companionship. Something she hadn’t even realized she was missing until she bumped into Alec at the grocery store.

  Kate dialed up the speed a notch.

  The burn moved up her calves into her thighs and buttocks. Her breathing inched toward ragged.

  How could Jessie have found out where to find him? How far away was she? How had she gotten there? The questions opened up possibilities that turned Kate’s stomach just thinking about. Hitchhiking? Some seedy bus station? Some older friend with a driver’s license Kate didn’t know about?

  After four miles, Kate gave up and abandoned the treadmill and soaps. She got in the shower, let the spray caresses her scalp, and remembered his strong fingers running through her hair, how he could work those fingers over the top of her head and get a near orgasmic reaction from her. He knew exactly how to touch her, no matter where he put his hands.

  She stepped out of the shower spray, her naked back pressed against the cold tiles. Jesus, what was she doing thinking about him like that?

  Out of the warm water she began to shiver and her skin turned to gooseflesh. She quickly rinsed and got out of the shower. She had just finished toweling off when Alec knocked and peeked in.