Boyfriend from Hell (Saturn's Daughters) Read online

  I wondered if I should worry about him but decided he could take care of himself. Besides, if he’d figured out what had caused his sudden urge to enrich his employees, he was probably plotting ways to kill me. Or sobbing in his beer. His fault, entirely. He’d dared me to experiment with my visionary powers. He’d been warned.

  Looked like I couldn’t delay any longer. It was time for a showdown at the OK Corral. Even though I knew the real history of the famous shoot-out was messy and no one came out a hero, the movie version worked for me. I put the top down and breezed over to pick up Sarah. She was ready and waiting. She hopped in, and we headed for the highway.

  Milo rode with his fur blowing in the wind, admiring the scenery.

  “What will we do when we get there?” Sarah asked excitedly.

  She’d brushed her wiry hair into a knot at the back of her head, but the wind was whipping it loose already, revealing the blade. I wondered for a minute if hairdresser Sam could fashion hair sheaths for knives.

  The north side of the harbor was another world, one with yacht clubs, glass-walled, high-rise condos, designer boutiques, and beautiful people sipping ten-dollar coffee in open-air cafés. They had no problem growing trees. Planters spilled over with colorful flowers tended by an army of landscapers.

  Sarah read my Google directions while I maneuvered narrow, hilly, unfamiliar terrain. My jeans and shirt looked out of place among nannies strolling down the middle of quiet lanes in designer sundresses, pushing SUV strollers that cost more than the Miata. Oh well.

  We located the Vanderventer mansion in a cul-desac on a hill overlooking all the nouveau riche below. Nothing screams old money more than a fenced park of a yard in the middle of real estate that sells for a thousand per square foot. The Vanderventers had probably made half their fortune by selling off strategic parcels as the city moved in this direction.

  The drive was blocked by a guarded gate, of course. I cruised past without stopping. The only ID in my possession had mud written on it as far as the Vanderventers were concerned.

  30

  I hadn’t thought the back gate would go un-monitored, but I’d hoped Gloria Vanderventer knew nothing about me or my pretty red Miata and that her security guards would have no reason for concern when we drove up behind the FedEx delivery truck.

  I was wrong.

  The black suits emerged from the shrubbery as soon as I turned off the ignition behind the pool house. I’d hoped to do a little exploration first. So much for that theory. I reached for the keys to back out, but I had the top down. One thug leaned over and snatched them from my hand.

  I eyed their big black automatics with skepticism. “Look, fellas, I’ve tried to be polite,” I told them, doing my best John Wayne drawl. Beside me, Sarah was shaking in her high heels, and Milo was growling like a wildcat in the backseat. I figured I didn’t look much like John Wayne, but I had the attitude. I wasn’t mad yet, and I wanted to give them fair warning.

  “At Chesty’s,” I continued explaining with deliberate patience, “I let the cops handle it so you could bail out. But if you keep pointing those things at me, I’ll get really pissed and do something drastic.”

  The tallest thug was talking into a headset and not paying attention. The other two sported grim expressions that said they’d like to use me for target practice. All black suits looked alike to me, especially the Caucasians. Looked like Lady Vanderventer wasn’t so much into color. They weren’t the suits from Chesty’s, so maybe they weren’t smart enough to be afraid. How many damned bodyguards did these people employ?

  I slipped my cell from my bag, punched speed dial for Andre’s number, and hit speaker so they wouldn’t see the phone. I got voice mail. Maybe I should have let Techie put a tracking device on me. “Hey, the goons have me cornered at Gloria’s,” I said. “You might want to bring in the cavalry.”

  At least Andre would have a good idea where to find my remains.

  The guy with the headset reached over, found my cell, and crushed it in one fist. Damn, I’d have to dip into the grocery funds to buy a new one.

  I swung the door open hard enough to take out his midsection, but I wasn’t wishing any more deaths just yet. Sarah was still looking terrified enough to turn into a chimp, which would set the goons back a step or two.

  Headset Guy grunted at the impact of my plastic door, but he’d jumped back enough that I only bruised his thighs.

  “He says to take her over to Max’s place,” he said, signaling the armed two not to shoot. “Wrap her up and haul her out.”

  As one of the suits came around the car to grab Sarah, she squealed like a pig, and, as I’d feared, shifted.

  “Watch out! That thing killed Ralph!” Headset yelled.

  A gun went off, and chimp Sarah crumpled in the driveway.

  I screamed bloody blue rage, with a curse on my tongue, but before I could spit it out, a fourth goon stepped out of the shrubbery and jabbed a needle in my arm. I went down wishing them to hell, but I had a fuzzy feeling I wasn’t connecting.

  I thought I heard a man scream and another shot ring, but I was beyond reacting. My last thought was of my cat. Where was Milo?

  • • •

  I couldn’t say what my first thought was as I started to wake. I smelled kimchi cooking and groggily gagged until I recognized the stench. It took a bit longer before I correlated the cooking with Max’s apartment and his Korean neighbors, then another bit before I deduced I was on the broken-down couch that came with the apartment. By that time, I had enough marbles to realize I wasn’t alone. I kept my head down and my mouth shut—and listened.

  “Just find out where she hid Max’s papers and get rid of her,” said an authoritative voice I’d heard last from a hospital bed. “Do I have to lead you by the hand?”

  Huh, they wanted the papers, not me. How humiliating. And here I’d thought I was special. Guess my new superpowers weren’t as scary as I’d thought if Senator Vanderventer had put in a personal appearance to say farewell, even after I’d tried to put the fear of God in him. Maybe I should have called on Satan after all. Damn, now I’d never learn how to use my gift for good. Evil triumphed again.

  My brain obviously wasn’t in full gear.

  “There was a shitload of boxes, boss,” a male voice protested. “She ain’t gone anywhere that can hold those boxes. The trucks at her place only had furniture. Something is fishy.”

  “The damned boxes didn’t disappear on their own,” Dane shouted. “Max wasn’t a magician! What good does it do to get rid of the witness if you leave the evidence?”

  “He wasn’t supposed to wait until rush hour to leave,” one of the goons whined. “We didn’t have time to make it to his place. You should have hired more men.”

  Nice to know that Max’s chronic lateness had a purpose. Okay, did that count as evidence that the senator had killed Max? Well, had Max killed, since I couldn’t envision a Vanderventer crawling under an Escort.

  Could I whack him now?

  Probably not. Focus, Tina. I’d developed a resistance to drugs in my year of hospitals, so I was probably awake faster than they expected, but I was still pretty woozy. Just forcing myself to lie still took all the concentration I possessed.

  “Hire more men, so I could have an entire army of complaining morons?” Dane thundered in irritation. “Make her talk. She knows.”

  Hmm, yeah, I recalled the boys had taken the boxes and probably anything alcohol-based before Dane and family cleaned out all but the ratty furniture. This crappy couch smelled like beer.

  Focus, Tina. Papers?

  Andre had hidden the papers. Hadn’t a clue where, though, I thought woozily. One storage shed looked the same as another to me, kind of like these black-suited goons. I kept my eyes shut rather than get dizzy watching their shiny leather shoes pace the shag carpet.

  “She’ll be out for a while,” one sounding like Headset Thug said. “Maybe we ought to send someone to search her computer like I said last time. Check her
contacts.”

  “Ralph said she didn’t have a computer! And if you hadn’t played ape man and crushed her phone, we’d have her contacts,” Dane said caustically.

  Huh, they’d searched my place as well as bugged it. Good thing I usually carried my little netbook with me. I fuzzily tried to remember if it was still in my bag. Well, before they’d had a chance to look—damn them all to hell.

  And nobody went anywhere.

  Apparently I hadn’t put enough force behind my wish, I started to think, but then it occurred to me that the first time I’d done that, I’d blown up a car and a bank. So maybe not a good time to damn anyone if I didn’t want to blow up myself. Wow, that was one nasty drug they’d used on me.

  “Just call Legrande and you’ll have all her contacts here in minutes, if that’s what you want,” Dane continued. “Just get me the damned boxes and get rid of her!”

  Ouch. Not good. I didn’t want thugs hurting my friends. Maybe I should wake up. But I couldn’t tell them what they wanted, so things would turn nasty if they knew I was awake. Where was the red rage when I needed it? Probably drugged, like me.

  I suddenly remembered Sarah, and my gut lurched. My blood started to heat. They’d killed a harmless chimp! Well, not so harmless, but certainly an animal.

  “Maybe Max didn’t have the boxes,” Headset suggested. “Or he gave them to his biker friends for one of their bonfires. We can just get rid of Clancy and be done.”

  A familiar growling from a distance caused the hair on my nape to rise. Milo! Had they brought Milo here to kill him, too? That fed the fires of rage nicely, but my head wasn’t quite on straight yet. I knew I didn’t have evidence for a court of law, but I was going to have to act to protect my friends and the Zone.

  “We can’t take that risk,” Vanderventer said dismissively. “The media would have a field day if they got their hands on my father’s lab reports. Wake her up.”

  Someone kicked the couch and shoved my shoulder. I rocked my head groggily but kept it down. These goons had killed Max and shot Sarah. Vanderventer was paying them. They’d kidnapped me and threatened murder. I was fully justified in sending them all to hell—which would certainly be the easiest thing to do.

  But I wasn’t a fan of the death penalty even when it had the full force of the court behind it. I was pretty certain condemning people to death similarly came under the heading of one wrong not correcting another, and probably worked in the devil’s favor. I didn’t want to end up like Max. Max hadn’t deserved to end up in limbo like that.

  So I needed to find an alternative. If I sent them to some war-torn country in Africa, would that be enough? Could I do it? I wished I’d had more training before being dumped with this much responsibility.

  Someone smacked my face, and I almost sent him up in flames right then and there. Smoke should have been pouring out my ears, except I bit back my fury, lifted my chin, and glared. I wasn’t certain I could sit up yet. Given how quickly the rage was building, I figured they’d keep smacking me until I killed someone.

  Insanity Is Me.

  “Where are Max’s papers?” Dane asked, not even bothering to pretend he was a nice guy, which told me he didn’t intend me to leave here alive.

  Nastily, I noticed he was wearing a special boot on one burned foot and wasn’t walking so well on the other. He’d ripped the bandage off his hand, and it looked red and painful. I’d done that. I could do it again. I just needed to concentrate.

  “Storage unit on Westside,” I lied from my prone position. I was getting damned good at lying. “But we’ve made copies of the important stuff.” We hadn’t had time to read it to know there was important stuff. Oh well.

  “What unit, and where are the keys?” Headset demanded, looking as if he’d like to smack me again.

  Lying there trying to look limp and brain-dead, I took my time answering, I studied their weapons while straightening out my buzzed brain. “You won’t find the keys unless I show them to you,” I stalled. “Let me go, and I’ll take you there.”

  “Dump out her bag,” Vanderventer said in disgust, waving his good hand to indicate the bag on the floor. So much for hiding the netbook if it was in there.

  Max had said, Use me. Could I call on him for help? I needed my compact.

  One of them emptied my messenger bag. No computer. Nice. Headset began to sneeze as cat hairs sprayed the room. The compact landed in the middle of the room, out of my reach unless I wanted to stagger up in front of all those guns. “This is a stupid place to kill me,” I said conversationally, looking for a way to take out three automatics and a senator.

  “True. That’s why we’ll just blow out your brains, leave the gun in your hand, and the police will call it love-struck suicide,” Goon Number Two said cruelly.

  I snorted. “Yeah, right. You just keep on believing that. And you won’t find my keys.”

  I struggled to sit up, desperately wanting my compact. It was really hard to focus with so much happening at once. I was plenty mad enough to kill, but practicing restraint required more thought than I currently possessed.

  Goon Number Three used his big foot to scatter the contents of my bag around the floor. The compact landed near my feet, begging to be picked up. It was the only weapon I had. Even if Max couldn’t help, I’d practiced throwing ninja stars. I wasn’t good, but my choices were limited.

  “Why won’t we find the keys?” Goon Number Two asked, picking up my beloved messenger bag and trying to tear it apart. The steel reinforcement caused some consternation.

  “Hidden pocket,” I said nonchalantly, trying not to accidentally activate a wish to blow off his head, and not sure I could, given my hazy state.

  Headset Guy stood over me with his ugly weapon. “Tell us, or I can make you suffer before you die.”

  I was running out of delaying tactics—and restraint. Pain was not my friend, and the inside of my skull was pounding like a timpani now that I was sitting up. My head might not have been working, but hundreds of hours of training had honed my kicking reflexes just fine. I’d kicked his popgun from his hand before either of us knew what I was doing.

  Goon Number Two dropped my bag and fired, but I was already on the floor, grabbing my precious compact to my chest. Showed my brain wasn’t functioning. I needed to go after the gun.

  Headset Guy tried to stomp me, but I got his kneecap with my next kick, and he went down hard, screaming in agony. Old knee injury, I thought smugly, rolling across the nasty carpet.

  Shots rang out over my head, but this wasn’t a large room and I was a moving target. They were as likely to hit each other as me. The good senator was screaming curses. I tried using them inside my fuzzy head, cursing the thugs, but apparently trying to dodge bullets limited my rage. I needed an instruction manual for my useless talents.

  I hooked my heel behind Goon Number Three’s knee and tugged him off-balance. His shot rang wildly, and I heard a scream from Number Two. Score two for the babe.

  A bullet scorched my ear before digging into the floor, and I shouted “Dammit!” to the Universe. Apparently I wasn’t clear enough. The Universe didn’t provide. Headset Guy returned to stomp my wrist, and my compact skittered away.

  Goon Number Three yanked me upright, giving me time to look around.

  Shithead, otherwise known as Number Two, was nursing a bloody shoulder. Headset could barely stand. The senator was so red with fury, I thought the top of his head might blow off. Three held a gun to my already wounded head. Not good.

  The compact was surrounded by big, heavy shoes. It called to me. Maybe Max wanted me to join him in hell.

  “All this firepower for little ol’ me?” I taunted. If I was going to die, it was going to be with my head up and my mouth flapping.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, let her loose, and maybe she’ll pull the keys out of her magic bag of tricks.” Limping awkwardly, Dane paced the small floor while he waited for his henchmen to produce the magic key.

  “You’d bette
r find those keys or we’ll whack off your hands at the elbows,” Headset growled, nursing his damaged knee as he retrieved the bag.

  I was too focused on the compact to be intimidated. The mirror was right there, at my feet. I could practically feel Max’s energy bursting at the seams. Ninja star, here I come.

  I hadn’t given up on blasting them to hell yet. I had a plan now.

  I dived for the compact the instant they let my hands loose.

  That’s when all hell really broke loose—and I didn’t even conjure it up.

  31

  The front door slammed open. Dane’s goons reacted by spraying the entrance with bullets.

  I dropped and hit the floor on my shoulder, clinging to my compact and Max while thinking as fast as my dead brain allowed. Maybe the floor position got my neurons jumping, because the wheels were back to spinning.

  Apparently smart enough to stay out of bullet spray, Andre waited before appearing in the doorway, wielding his AK-47 and looking invincible. After he saw I was down, he unloaded his lethal weapon on the bullies diving for cover.

  Once the bullets stopped, hulking Bill the bartender climbed in the window and began swinging a bludgeon at Goon Number Two, who was plunging in his direction. Schwartz kicked in another window, police automatic drawn. My heart beat a little faster knowing I had friends willing to risk their lives for me, but this wasn’t over yet.

  Just like at the OK Corral, there would be no winners if I didn’t do something soon. I’d never had many friends, and I kind of wanted to keep these.

  “Hold your guns, or I’ll shoot her!” Dane shouted, pulling a pistol from his pocket and aiming it at my head. I froze. So did everyone else.

  I had no idea if a little thing like a derringer could kill, but my rage had reached its limits.

  Besides, Andre had turned his wicked weapon at the senator. I’d owe him into eternity for killing for my sake. Not happening.

  Deciding that if I was going out, I might as well go with malice aforethought, I brushed a kiss across my compact. “Assholes like you, Senator, belong in hell, not good men like Max!” I cried, then flung the compact straight at Dane’s pretty head just as Andre pulled the trigger.