What if the kidnappers got the million dollars and killed Max anyway? And left him to rot in the desert sun somewhere for hunters to find six months from now?
Fortunately, there was a Plan B.
“You remember Shaun?” Gordon said. “She’s Mickey Barron’s granddaughter. The stunt man.”
“I thought she was a stunt woman.”
“That’s right, Jer. It runs in the family.”
Jerry said, “But she’s the one who—” He lowered his voice. “The one, who, you know, at Big Bear Lake?”
“Why are you whispering?”
“You know people listen in on cell phones.”
“How’s this? She’s the one who looks like a man. You met her when she was here one time.”
Jerry did remember meeting her. How could he ever forget? Jerry suppressed a shudder. When he had first met her, he really couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman. Not because she was ugly—she wasn’t—but because of the vibe she gave off. The way she carried herself, the way she walked. Maybe it was her center of balance. Little things, all put together to create an odd, well, dissonance. But that wasn’t the worst thing. What really got to Jerry was the feeling that she was sizing him up for a coffin. She spooked the hell out of him, and that was even before he learned about her résumé.
“Are you listening, Jerry?” Gordon said. “This is important. She’s going to extract him from the kidnappers. And the good news? She’s already there. I sent her to find him.”
“In Paradox?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s still dangerous, though. What if he gets killed in the crossfire?”
“You ever look on the bright side?”
“Just hedging my bets. That’s what I wanted to tell you about—I’m in the middle of something here. I’m writing an alternate storyboard. And you know it could work, especially if we don’t have the body. It might be easier too.”
“Shaun’s going to get him and bring him back, Jerry. Everything’s going to be fine. These guys who took him sound like Grade A dildos. They’re in too deep and they don’t have any idea who they’re dealing with. Nobody messes with Gordon White Eagle.”
Jesus, Jerry thought; he really takes himself too seriously. He wondered if Gordon was using a little of his own product—the pot he supplied some of the underage counselors with. That, or all that guru happy-crappy had gone to his head. “I’ll write the alternate scenario, just in case.”
“It hasn’t been researched, Jer. You can’t just come up with something off the cuff and think you can fool the cops. Everyone these days is a forensic expert after all those years of watching CSI. We have to get this right the first time, because there won’t be another. I worked damned hard to get Max to where I wanted him psychologically, and in my professional opinion, he’s primed. I put a lot of work into him, Jerry, and I’m proud of my work. He’s more than just a soon-to-be-dead movie star. He’s proved my thesis!”
Jerry laughed out loud. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to patent that, Gord.”
“No, but I’ve proved to myself I can do it,” Gordon said—a little prissily, Jerry thought. “And you’re not going to mess it up for me. We agreed this was the way to go.”
“It sure is fucked up now, though, isn’t it, Gord? How’d he get away from you? Now we’ve got kidnappers demanding money, and what if they hack him to little pieces? Talk about a damn clusterfuck!”
“Shaun’s good. She’ll get him back, and she’ll get him back in one piece.”
But Jerry heard a smidgen of doubt in Gordon’s voice. And anyone who knew Gordon knew he never suffered from doubt.
After Jerry ended the call, he went back to his new storyboard. It was beginning to take shape—simple, elegant, with a logical explanation for the lack of a body.
He liked it.
He liked it a lot.
GORDON STARED OUT at the beautiful Verde Valley and the distant red rocks of Sedona, and thought, It’ll work out.
But in his heart of hearts, he was worried. The first time Gordon had met Shaun, he’d thought she was beautiful but unsettling. He hadn’t liked the way she’d looked at him, as if he were a specimen in a petri dish. If she were an owl, he’d thought, she would eat him.
Gordon had known then that Shaun was as dangerous as nitroglycerin.
Shaun had helped him out a few times, mostly by intimidating her prey, like the socialite who claimed Gordon had fondled her while she was sleeping. Whether he had or he hadn’t was immaterial. The woman was a hysteric, threatening to bring down the whole enchilada—the beautiful healing center he had built up from nothing. The Desert Oasis wasn’t just a business he loved. In many ways, he was the Desert Oasis. He could work a Hollywood party like nobody’s business, but he was at home here in the Arizona desert. He felt a spiritual call from the baking red rocks, the deep blue skies, the hawks and eagles that inspired him, and the very wealthy and fucked-up people who came to him for help.
Shaun had a talk with the woman, and that was the end of that.
Mickey Barron’s granddaughter put the fear of God into people. Usually, it was no big deal. But there were a couple of times when Gordon needed a…permanent solution, distasteful as that was. Shaun was good at what she did. She’d done a spectacular job on the Russian mobster who had threatened to kill him over a debt. Gordon would be eternally grateful to her for that one.
And the DePaulentis situation had gone off without a hitch.
But Gordon couldn’t help but feel that under Shaun’s cold, unruffled, professional exterior beat the heart of a lunatic.
Chapter Twenty
“MATERNAL” WAS NOT a term Shaun would have used for herself five months ago. In fact, she had never even thought of having children. Children slowed you down. They dulled your instincts. They were something that could be held over your head. They had to go to school, or be homeschooled. They had to be fed, clothed, entertained, cajoled, raised from mewling little creatures that were, face it, ugly. She never oohed and aahed over a baby like most women did. More often than not, she ignored them. They could do nothing for her.
She’d been in a relationship once with a woman who’d had a little kid. The kid had been whiny, and worse, the woman had always put him first.
But now, watching her son creep quietly over and around broken glass, seeing the concentration on his face, his hair falling over his brow, Shaun felt her heart bloom.
From the moment she’d met him five months ago—he’d actually tried to rob her on the street one night—Shaun had felt an immediate jolt of recognition. He was like her—they were two peas in a pod. After she’d subdued him (falling just short of breaking his arm), she’d sat him down and told him the facts of life. Then she’d asked him about his family and he’d said he had none.
Turned out that was a lie. (Jimmy was a very convincing liar.) But as their relationship deepened and he came to see her as his true mother, he admitted that he’d lived with his aunt for three years. His father was in prison, and his mother died of a drug overdose.
Poor kid needed a real family.
They’d been together ever since.
The night before they left on this trip, they’d had popcorn and watched an old western. The hero stood up against the bad guys after they harassed his son, and said, “You stay away from my boy!”
My boy.
Now she asked him, “What do you think happened here?”
“There was a gunfight. But where is everybody? You checked the house, right?”
“No one there.”