New York to Dallas

elevator.
    “Hold the elevator!” someone sang out.
    “Fuck off!” she snarled at the woman and her snot-nosed kid when the doors shut in their faces.
    She only had to ride one floor, but every second was its own separate agony. Teeth clamped, she dragged herself down the hall.
    “Isaac.” Voice hoarse, she punched at the security plate. She couldn’t remember the code; everything jumbled together in her head.
    She needed a hit. God, God, she needed a hit.
    Needed Isaac.
    When he answered, she wept out his name, fell into his arms. “I’m hurt. She hurt me.”
    “Aw, baby doll.”
    He rubbed her back.
    She stank, he thought, stank of sweat and hospital. Stank of stupidity and age. Even her hair stank, the tangled, matted mess of it.
    Her face was pinched, white—old again.
    “You didn’t answer. You didn’t answer.”
    “I was . . . involved. I didn’t hear the signal, and I didn’t want to tag you back in case. How did you get here, sweetheart?”
    “I stole a car, right out of the hospital lot. Right under the cops’ noses. They were waiting for me, Isaac, waiting for me outside the duplex. But I got away. Fix me up, Isaac. They wouldn’t give me anything.”
    “Fix you right up.” He helped her to the sofa where he’d already prepared a pressure syringe. “Quick and good,” he told her. “Poor baby doll.”
    Her hands shook as she snatched at it, and he watched her jab it in the crook of her elbow, as he’d watched his mother countless times.
    Like his mother, she let out a harsh, guttural grunt—almost sexual—as the drug punched into her bloodstream.
    “Gonna be better now.” Eyes glazed with pleasure, she smiled at him. “Gonna be better.”
    “Absolutely. What did you tell her?”
    “Tell who?”
    “Dallas.”
    “Didn’t tell her shit. She tried to turn me against you. Lying whore. I spit in her face, told her you were going to pay her back good. You pay her back, Isaac.”
    “Of course.”
    “I want to cut her.” Cruising now, Sylvia leaned back, face going slack. “I want to cut her first. She looked at me—you know how she looked at me? Like I made her sick. Tried to tell me she didn’t need me anyway ’cause they were close to finding you. Lying cunt.”
    “Said that, did she?”
    He rose, wandered.
    All the work, he thought, the time, the money, the preparation. And worse, all the hours he’d spent with this dried up, stupid junkie.
    He wanted to beat her face to pulp with his fists. Saw himself doing just that. Caught himself turning toward her with his fists bunched, his breath coming fast.
    She sat, glassy-eyed, smiling, unaware.
    Bringing himself under control made him shudder.
    “How did they find you, sweetheart?”
    “I dunno. They were just there. Want more candy.”
    “In a minute.”
    The van, he decided. They’d managed to track the van. He’d really thought he’d had at least another week there. He should have had another week.
    Ah, well, on to Plan B.
    “Suitcase,” she muttered.
    “Hmm?”
    “We going? We packing up, and going somewhere nice?”
    He followed her stare. He hadn’t meant to leave the suitcase out in plain sight. He’d just been so rushed. Had so many things to think of, to decide on.
    “Mmm,” he murmured, strolling behind the sofa.
    “Get a nice new place, and when we get that Dallas bitch, you’ll let me have her first. Bleed her good. Make some money off her, right, Rich? Make a whole lot of money off her.”
    He lifted his brows at the name she called him. That was women for you, he supposed, couldn’t keep their men straight.
    “I’m going to have to disappoint you there.”
    He yanked her head back, slit her throat with quick, almost surgical precision.
    Good, he thought. Good. Now he felt much better.
    When she gurgled, tried to clutch her throat, he shook his head, let her slide to the floor. “You’re useless to me. Absolutely useless.”
    He pulled off his shirt, tossed it aside as he went to the kitchen to scrub his hands and arms.
    He’d already carried most of what he needed to the car, though he intended to travel light. He changed his shirt, brushed a hand over his hair. Slipped on his sunshades.
    Picking up the suitcase, he blew a kiss toward the door, toward Melinda and Darlie.
    “Fun while it lasted,” he said, and strolled out without a backward glance toward the woman bleeding on the floor.

16
     
    A s Roarke drove, Eve worked the ’link, coordinated with, strategized, updated the team