Tears for the Dead by Michael Prescott

Author:Michael Prescott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael Prescott
Published: 2021-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

18

The limo rattled over the railroad tracks and continued west. Dancer watched her steadily, with a kind of lazy hunger that felt predatory. He was lanky and loose-limbed, and somehow he gave the impression of sprawling in his seat even while sitting upright. His body odor, concentrated in a confined space, was more objectionable than before.

“I know why your boss picked you,” Bonnie told him as the car crossed Highway 71. “It’s the language barrier. He doesn’t want me spilling any details about his main squeeze. With you, I can blab all I want, and you’re none the wiser.”

“Sus mna, tsakhu kin,” he said with a twist of his lip that was both a scowl and a smirk.

It was the fourth time he’d referred to her by that term, tsakhu kin. She didn’t know what it meant, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t complimentary.

She gave him a good looking-over. He wore a rumpled suit jacket, showing the obvious bulge of an armpit holster. Sloppy. These days, with all the high-quality concealment holsters available, there was no excuse for letting your gun print through the fabric.

Highway 35 came up next, but Prancer didn’t take it.

“Yeah,” she went on, “he’s worked it all out. Now either you’re taking me to see him, or you’re taking me for a ride. I mean, you know, a ride, like in the movies. You like movies, sport?”

Dancer drummed his long fingers on his knees, looking bored. Or impatient, maybe. The way she always got before doing a hit.

The car was warm, too warm, overheated. She was sweating inside her coat.

She crossed her legs, resting a fur-lined boot on her knee. An epitaph flashed through her mind: She died with her boots on.

A cigarette would help. She fished a lighter out of her purse. Dancer smacked it down. Non-smoking car? More likely, he didn’t want her handling anything that could be used as a weapon, even a flickable Bic or a lit cigarette.

Which meant he anticipated resistance. A struggle. She didn’t like that.

The car passed an on-ramp to the parkway without slowing down. Not going north, then. Straight west. By now it was clear that they weren’t going to Petrossian’s estate. Of course, he’d never actually said he would be meeting her at the house. But where else would he be at this hour of the morning?

They were past Farmdell now, heading deeper into the countryside. She didn’t even know the name of the town they were in, if it was a town. All she saw was pine woods, densely overgrown, the high branches bristling with needles, crowding out the sky.

Visitors from out of state, who saw only the refineries along the turnpike near the airport, would never guess how much rural country was left in New Jersey. The limo was heading into miles of forest, undeveloped, seldom visited in winter, completely deserted on Christmas morning.

A good place to make somebody disappear.

Her stomach clenched. She tasted something sour at the back of her throat.

“I am deep in the suck, aren’t I?” she asked her uncommunicative friend.

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