The Violet Hour, page 27
“You told me to be quiet.”
“Good. That’s right. I did. You’re a fast learner. Not such a rookie anymore.”
Hoss dropped his chin to his chest and dug his fingers into his stinging eyes. All this with Riggs, Jen, Busta, it was too many plates to juggle and he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was about to drop one. “I meant what I said, Jimmy. Once we get back, you leave and I don’t hear from you again.”
“I hear ya, Deputy. Loud and clear. You’re a good man, Action Man, I mean that. You’ll get your time in the sun. Karma doesn’t forget.”
“Right now I’d settle for staying alive and free,” he muttered, and Jimmy chuckled.
“Wouldn’t we all? But you love it really. Guys like you always do.”
“Oh yeah? Guys like me?”
“That’s right. I know all about it ‘cause I’m one of them too. What the hell we wanna do normal for, kid, huh? What kind of a life is that?”
Hoss smirked, but right now he wasn’t convinced of Jimmy’s philosophy. “Three hours, Jimmy. I’ll tell you where to meet us when we’re there.”
They hung up and Hoss walked back into the room. It was empty, but the bathroom door was closed and he could hear the rush of water from the shower. He dropped onto the edge of the mattress and thought about what Jimmy had said about payment. First one in the account already. How could that be right? He’d never given Jimmy his bank details. He opened the app on his phone and logged into his and Fletcher’s newly acquired business account.
“Son of a bitch.”
He blinked hard and stared at the balance, then checked the most recent transactions. A payment received yesterday from an individual called RL Browning. Whoever that was, they were generous. They’d forked out a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
A payment every quarter, Jimmy had said, for the next two years. That was a million dollars. A million bucks for bringing his daughter home and reuniting her with her mother in her final days.
Sometimes the job wasn’t so bad after all, Hoss thought.
But that was before he remembered he’d have to explain their sudden wealth to Fletcher. And the tax man. “Ah, Jesus.”
Chapter 33
Traffic was kind to them on the freeway and they made quick time. In large part because Hoss was keen to get this over with. He did his best to keep the agitation he’d woken with to the back of his mind. Told himself that once Vivian and Jimmy were gone he’d go straight to Jen’s. If she walked him through what had happened to her, he might be able to pick apart what game Ike was playing, or whether there was a game at all. Perhaps with the whole federal agent murder thing, the Palmrey boss decided his ex and her father were more trouble than they were worth. Better to save what reputation he had than risk it by putting all his chips on the scalp of a Rosedale. If that was the case, this was already over. But that thought wasn’t enough to settle Hoss’s nerves. Less so when they got to Pinefort and Jimmy didn’t answer his phone.
“Goddamn it,” he cursed, dropping the burner into his lap. They were in the rental in the basement parking lot of his apartment building, and for the last three attempts Jimmy’s phone had gone straight to voicemail.
“He knew I would call. Where the fuck is he?” Hoss tapped out a message with his thumbs and hit send, then checked the mirrors. Again. What for, he wasn’t sure, just that something didn’t feel right. Neither did sitting there in the car waiting for Jimmy to show up. He snapped on the seatbelt and started the engine, almost failed to feel the vibration of the phone in his lap. The screen lit up with the name Dallas, and he snatched it up and opened the text message.
Sorry for the delay. I’m here now.
Where’s here? Hoss typed back, then released the seatbelt and turned off the engine.
Your apartment. Can’t wait to see the look on her face when she sees me.
“Well?” Vivian asked beside him.
“He says he’s here.” Hoss read the text a second time.
“Okay. So, shouldn’t we go then?”
“No.”
“No?”
He dropped the phone into his jacket pocket and scanned the parking lot. The vehicles were those he recognized, the same ones parked in their usual spots. Other spaces were vacant where residents had left for work. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one hanging around who shouldn’t be.
“I’ll go up to the apartment but I need you to stay here,” he said, taking the Smith & Wesson from the side pocket.
“Why stay here?”
“When I get out, you lock all the doors, jump in the driver’s seat and get the hell out of here. Anywhere. Just drive until you hear from me.” From his back pocket he took the whalebone knife and held it out to her. “If you haven’t heard from me within the hour, drive to Cass’s cabin in Fallmarsh. Do you think you can remember where it is or shall I put it in the GPS?”
She didn’t answer. Nor had she taken the knife from him.
“Vivian,” he prompted, but she shook her head.
“I’m coming with you.”
He thought he saw fear in her obstinate glare, but he couldn’t be sure because she was already opening the door and getting out.
“Jesus,” he seethed, jumping out of the driver’s seat, his right hand going to the gun in his jeans as he closed the door with his left. “Keep close to me,” he directed, as they crossed the parking lot to the elevators.
Once they were in the elevator and beginning their ascent to the tenth floor, Hoss felt Vivian’s eyes on him. Tightening his grip on the gun handle in his waistband, hidden from the security cameras by his jacket, Hoss told her about the message. And his concerns that Jimmy wasn’t the one who sent it.
“So we’re walking into a trap,” she said, her tone matter of fact. Hoss bristled.
“You should have stayed in the car. Did as I said.”
“No. If Ike’s here, I’ll deal with him.”
She dragged her hard gaze to him when she felt him watching her. “What?” she asked.
He looked back at the digital screen ticking away the floor numbers. “Nothing. Just sounded like your old man there for a second.”
He didn’t wait for her comeback because the elevator had reached their floor and he stepped up to the doors as they parted. There was no one in the hallway. From the elevator it was only a short walk to his apartment. Three other apartments on the same floor, all of them with their doors closed. Stairwell empty. No sound other than the hum of the air conditioning overhead. Was it always this quiet? Or quieter than normal? Every step they made echoed around them.
As they drew closer he kept his eye on his front door. Closer again, he noticed the thin slice of light running down its edge that told him the door didn’t quite meet the frame the way it should. He stopped, holding up his palm for Vivian to do the same. Reaching into his pocket, he eased out the blade and, without taking his eyes from the apartment, passed it to her. This time she took it. Despite the security cameras in the hallway, Hoss pulled up his jacket and took out the gun, gripping it in both hands as he edged toward the door. When he was inches away, he listened. Silence. He turned to Vivian, indicated she stay quiet and close behind him. Then he turned back to the room and took one more steadying breath to relax his shoulders but heighten his senses as his boot touched the bottom of the door and he pushed it open.
It swung inward without a sound. Hoss snapped his gun up, but at nothing. The living room was empty, no one in the kitchen, or sitting at the dining table.
He stepped inside, pointing the gun along the hall to his left. No one there either.
He scanned the open-plan space a second time. Nothing out of place. Signaling to Vivian to stay by the door, he went down the hallway, checking each room as he passed. The bathroom, Busta’s room, his own bedroom, finally the store cupboard. All empty. It didn’t look as if anyone other than Busta had been there.
Returning down the hall he relaxed his gun arm, noticed that the bedding he had left on the couch two nights ago was neatly folded on the edge of the cushion. That would be Busta. Breakfast dishes on the kitchen counter. That would be Busta, too. But he wasn’t here now. No one was.
As Hoss returned to the living room, he was about to tell Vivian to close the door when he saw what was on the coffee table. He hadn’t noticed it before because it would have been obstructed by the couch when he first came in. Now it couldn’t be more obvious. Whoever had chosen it had taken great care. They wanted something that would stand out.
“What is it?” Vivian asked, stepping into the room, but Hoss shot his arm out to stop her.
“Stay right there.”
He didn’t know why he gripped his gun. It was just a box. A square gift box decorated in pink, white and green flowers with a large red silk ribbon lying open around it as if someone had already untied it. Between him and Busta they didn’t get too many pink gifts. Even if Busta had done, he’d have likely kept it in his room rather than leave it out here. Besides, Hoss couldn’t see either a delivery label or a gift tag. Maybe his roommate had bought it for the new woman in his life. But then there was the smell…
Could have been something Busta cooked for breakfast. Could have been a piece of food he’d left in the refrigerator. But Hoss didn’t think so. In fact he knew so, because Busta didn’t eat meat anymore but this smell was certainly not vegetarian.
“Stay where you are,” he repeated, his voice hoarse as he approached the box with the muzzle of the gun and hooked it underneath the lid. He swallowed hard, the smell he identified so readily from his days as a cop passing through his nostrils to hit the back of his throat and turning his stomach to mush. He steeled himself, flicked his wrist upward in one sharp movement. The cardboard lid nudged open an inch but didn’t come off. A rancid stench flooded out, though, and he knew then. He knew for sure what was inside the box. But he still wished with everything he had in him that he was wrong.
Fighting a rising nausea, he used the gun barrel to bat away the lid, which this time went toppling to the floor. Hoss gasped and stumbled backward a few steps, the back of his gun hand going to his mouth, but he couldn’t make his eyes look away. Could still see it. See him. Jimmy. Though at the same time not Jimmy. Because in death, this Jimmy stared back at him from pale, empty eyes. His once chiseled jawline was gaunt and empty of all color. Thin wisps of fair hair fell directionless over his white, liver-spotted scalp. Smoke-stained teeth and a blue-gray tongue poked between dry lips pulled back, mouth frozen open in a lurid death grimace.
They had severed his head at the throat. The tissue paper in which he lay was stained with dark blood that couldn’t have been more than three hours old at the most. A fresh kill. Perhaps the freshest Hoss had ever seen. The stink of it was cloying in his mouth and choked his chest. He took another step back, and then Vivian screamed. A sound so harsh and sudden that it tore through Hoss’s skull like a blade.
She was standing less than a few feet from him, her eyes fixed on what they saw inside the box. Hoss snatched up the lid from the floor, pressed it back on and turned to Jimmy’s daughter. As he did, a figure appeared in the doorway. Hoss stepped in front of Vivian and raised his gun, but the man coming into the room was nothing to do with Isaac Scott.
Busta had his arms crossed over his t-shirt. His cheeks and neck were flushed a deep pink but somehow the rest of his face was white, as if he’d been violently sick. He looked at Hoss with a dull expression that could have been hatred, or disgust, or hurt, or any one of those, and as he came closer he reached into the front pocket of his sweatpants and pulled out a square piece of card. He didn’t take his eyes from Hoss or blink once, and when he spoke his voice was low and raw and sounded nothing like him.
“Apologies for opening your gift. It arrived an hour ago, but it wasn’t labeled, so…” He held out the card between his fingers.
Hoss looked at him, trying to find something in his features reminiscent of his old friend, because he could sure as hell do with one right now. But there was nothing. Busta’s shutter had come down. Only this time it looked like it had been locked, bolted, and the key thrown away.
He sensed Vivian move beside him to lower herself to the arm of the couch, heard the chatter of her teeth as he reached out to take the note Isaac Scott had delivered with his gift. And what a gift. What a fucking gift. Hoss’s eyes stung as he tried to focus on the handwritten words.
Dear Detective,
Thank V for the thrills. I’m done with her. She’s all yours now. You gave us a much bigger plaything with your pal Rosedale Snr. Got some great photos. That’s one I’ll be dining out on for a while. Next time you see me, Detective, you can call me Boss.
See you around, Larry.
Or maybe not. I’m not all that keen on the company you keep.
Hoss nodded. This was what it had all been about. Taking Jen might have been the initial plan – a ploy to get him and Vivian back to the coast and at Ike’s disposal – but those plans had changed. Whoever Ike sent to watch Hoss’s apartment got an unexpected bonus. They got Jimmy himself, knocking on his door, waiting to be let in. No wonder Ike didn’t want Vivian anymore. He’d found something a lot more satisfying.
Hoss’s hand with the note dropped to his side as the events of the last twenty-four hours fell into sequence. If only Jimmy had stayed away from the apartment. If only Hoss had considered that they hadn’t really taken Jen out of the city. If only Jimmy had put money on his phone before the damn thing ran out… He looked up at his friend whose features were set in stone, gray eyes leaden even while a hum of energy emanated from him. It wasn’t a good energy, Hoss could sense that much. What he couldn’t sense, though, was whether Busta was waiting for an explanation or not.
“Josh…” he tried, but there was no need to go on. His roommate dragged his eyes away and strode down the hallway to his room, slamming the door behind him. He hadn’t looked at Vivian once.
Chapter 34
“Drink this.”
Hoss held out the glass of neat whiskey to where Vivian was sitting on his bed with her back against the pillows and her legs tucked beneath her. Her face was ashen but her eyes dry. There had been no tears shed for her father.
“I don’t want anything,” she said, looking past him to the window.
“Drink it anyway.” He left the whiskey on the bedside table. “Then we’ll talk later about getting you home to your mother.”
“Home?” She lifted her head to look up at him. “And do you think I should take my father home to my mother, too?”
The eyes that met his weren’t just empty of tears, they were empty of everything. Yet somehow he felt it wasn’t grief that robbed them of life; words of sympathy wouldn’t cut it. He wasn’t sure if Vivian would, or even could, grieve for her father – had he grieved for his? Instead there was something much more complex than grief about her vacancy. Something he couldn’t possibly comprehend because he had never grown up with a dad like Jimmy Rosedale, whose life was always fated to end this way.
“Vivian—” he began, but stopped when she returned her gaze towards the window, signaling the end of the conversation.
He left her alone, gently closing the door and crossing the hall to the second bedroom. He stood outside that door a moment, his gaze on the floor but the bright pink gift box taunting him in his peripheral vision. He hadn’t figured out what to do with it yet, but calling the cops wasn’t top of the list. It didn’t look like Vivian would have any practical suggestions either, she looked like she didn’t care either way. Hoss wondered how Jimmy felt about the ocean, because right now a sea burial was probably on the cards. More than likely, that’s what the Palmrey Green boys had done with the rest of him. Hoss stared at the door to Busta’s room and speculated if, by the end of this conversation, he’d be going the same way – swimming with the fishes, just like Jimmy the Drain. If Busta didn’t take his head off, then Fletcher certainly would. It felt like he had only one shot to get this right. Trouble was, he had no idea where to aim.
Busta didn’t look up when Hoss entered the room, nor when he closed the door behind him and leaned against it. He was too busy stuffing clothes into his backpack and slamming drawers. Hoss watched him long enough to realize this was it, he was about to lose everything. More specifically, everyone.
“You look like shit,” Busta said without looking up. He was down to the last drawer in the closet. “Your mate Dallas keep you up all night?”
The bed was unmade, the air in the room musty with a combination of sweat and body deodorant, the window closed. It had taken Hoss a while to get used to having a roommate after living alone for so long, but Busta was easy company, kept his own schedule, did his own thing, never brought trouble to the door. Which was just as well. Hoss brought enough of that all by himself.
“You should bring him round here. Change of scenery for him. Oh, wait a minute. I see you did that.” Busta paused in his packing to force a grin, but his eyes were harder than Hoss had ever seen them. Until now they had only ever looked at him with respect. “Well, at least his troubles are over now, eh?”
“Busta—”
“What?” The grin faded. Not the glare, though – that looked like it could hold for days. “You must think I’m pretty dull.”
“Far from it,” Hoss said, adding nothing more. If he rode out Busta’s anger, maybe they could get over this.
“Dallas? Really?” Busta frowned. “You’d be right, I am dull. How stupid was I not to have put it together? Dallas, JR, Jimmy fucking Rosedale. Could you have made it any more obvious?”
“You’re not stupid, Josh.”
“No, you’re right, I’m not. I suppose I just thought you wouldn’t be in any way involved with the man who fucking killed my best friend.” His voice had risen, so that the last words rang out around the room. “Or if you were, you’d at least have the decency to tell me. But what do I know? Not a lot, it seems.”
