The cinder-block cube they’d assigned to her was the last in the row. Tiny and cramped, and it stank of cigarettes, damp, and, faintly, of urine. The ceiling was so splotchy, it looked like it would fall down right on top of her. The curtains were full of cigarette holes.
She pulled into the Acres, parked her van next to her wretched little abode, and stared at it, dispirited. Back to roughing it. Making do.
Well, then. Chin up. Feeling sorry for herself would not help. She’d learned that lesson so many times, in so many ways in her life, it still amazed her when the “poor-little-me’s” took her by storm.
She let Edna out of the van, and they headed down to the creek, so Edna could stretch her legs. After that, she would clean up, change, organize her stuff, and get motivated for some tight-assed, one-dollar-a-day grocery shopping. Not that she had any appetite, but still. Starving herself would not help matters. She had to be a grown-up.
She flung the stick for Edna until her arm felt like it was about to fall off, and decided to stop procrastinating. She walked back to the cabin. Staring at the flimsy door with the knob lock that a credit card could swipe open in one pass. At the single-paned windows with the warped, swollen wood sills that she was not able to wrench closed.
She hadn’t known how safe Jack’s infrared alarm and his tough, stalwart presence at her side had made her feel until now. She’d been so relaxed, soft and open inside, for weeks. Now that it was taken away, she felt like a snail with no shell. With fear her constant backdrop.
She shoved the key into the lock. Edna stopped at the threshhold and shrank back, whining, but Vivi was trying so hard to be tough and grown up, and not cringe at the stinky little room, she didn’t register the dog’s gesture until she’d stepped in, flipped on the light—
And found the two men lurking in the dark on either side of the door. Their pistols pointed straight at her.
Jack drove by the highway interchange for the third time, scoping out the parking lots of the budget hotels clustered there, scanning for her van. Her shop was locked up, at four p.m. Usually, she stayed there working until dark or later.
He could hardly breathe, he was so fucking scared. And furious at himself. So wound up in his self-pitying bullshit, he’d lost sight of the danger. He should have known a guy like Rafael would spew Vivi’s location to the four winds. He should have taken steps, been thinking clearly. About her. Not himself. Dick-brained asshole.
He pointed his truck back up the hill to Pebble River Heights, where the commercial district and Vivi’s shop were located, hoping this was just a paranoid freak-out. But the image of Wilder spitted like a hot dog on a stick jangled his nerves. Could be the fuckhead had other enemies, of course. But an enemy like that was rare and special.
He jerked the truck to a stop in front of her store, deciding to make the rounds of all the shops. He got lucky on his eighth stop, at the Bakitchen lunch counter. Myra, the proprietor, gave him a smile.
“Hi, Jack. Coffee?”
“Not now. Quick question, Myra. Do you know where Vivi D’Onofrio is staying?”
“Thought she was staying with you, honey. Had a fight?”
Jack clenched his jaw. The older woman crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, she was in here yesterday morning,” Myra conceded. “Asking about an inexpensive place that would let her keep her dog. The only thing I could think of off the top of my head was Evergreen Acres, but it’s such a dive. It should be condemned. Hope she didn’t go there.”
He tensed. Evergreen Acres? He hadn’t even checked there, it was so unthinkable to him that Vivi be in a place like that. The Acres was an end-of-the-line place, frequented by bums, drunks, addicts, down-and-outs, prostitutes and their clients. Visited often by police cars in the middle of the night. Jesus. Of all places.
“Love problems. That would explain why she looked like she was coming down with the flu,” Myra said knowingly. “Come to think of it, you don’t look so hot yourself. Hope you work it out.”
He barely heard her words. “Later, Myra.” He turned for the door.
“Nice girl, Vivi. Sweet little shop she’s got. Sure is popular today. You’re the second one come in asking for her in the last two hours.”
He spun on his heels. “Who? Who was looking for her?”
Myra smiled, archly. “A man. Not surprising. She’s a hottie. If you’re not careful, some other guy’s going to snatch her right up and—”
“What guy?!” he bellowed. “What does he look like?”
Myra looked affronted. “Do not yell at me, Jack Kendrick!”
His teeth ground. “Sorry. Please. It’s important.”
Myra grunted. “Well, he was no good-looker, I’ll tell you that much,” she said. “Big, heavy guy with squinchy little eyes. He said he’d heard she was opening a shop, and would I tell him where it was.”
“And did you?”
“Of course I told him! She can’t afford to lose any business. She’s just starting out.”
Panic swept up, threatening to engulf him. “Myra, do something for me.” He struggled to control the shake in his voice. “Call the cops. Send them down to Evergreen Acres.” He bolted out the door.
“But why?” Myra shouted after him. “What do I tell them?”
He leaped into the truck, started the engine. “Whatever the fuck you want!” he yelled back. “Just tell them quick!”
His truck surged forward with a roar. The urgency inside him was building so fast, he felt like his chest was going to explode.
Vivi felt strangely calm. Numb, even.
Finally, the other shoe had dropped. There was a sense of colossal inevitability to it all. Like continental drift, this moment had been coming her way all her life. All the anxious scrambling and scurrying in the world could not have stopped it.
“I was wondering when you two gentlemen were going to pay me a visit,” she said. “I was starting to feel left out.”
She was proud of how her voice did not shake. Not yet, at least.
Edna was growling, fangs bared, head down. What a strange spectacle. Vivi had never seen her bouncy retriever in defensive mode.
“Take the animal. Put it in the bathroom,” said the old guy with the accent. Ulf Haupt, she presumed. Just as Nell had described him.
She hesitated, and the other, younger guy pointed his gun at Edna. “Now,” he snarled. “Or I shoot it.”
That broke Vivi’s paralysis. She gripped Edna’s collar and dragged the growling, barking dog toward the tiny bathroom in the corner.
She closed the door. Edna whined and pawed at the door.
“Come back to the center of the room,” Haupt ordered.
Vivi did as she was told. “How did you find me?” she asked.
“With difficulty. But we prevailed at last.” John gave her a wide, manic grin. “We found the shop through your old boyfriend, Wilder.”
“Brian?” She was astonished. “But how did Brian—”
“Your friend, Siebling,” John taunted. “He went to Wilder’s gallery. Told him all about this big, randy stud who’s been servicing you. That you were all pink and juicy, getting it left, right, and sideways ten times a day, huh? Filthy slut. Dirty little cocksucking whore—”
“Enough!” Haupt’s voice was shrill. “Do not get distracted. Please excuse him, my dear. John is a bit single-minded when he gets worked up. I have to constantly remind him, work before play, no? Vivien, your cell phone is in your purse? Give it to John.”
She picked up her purse from where it had fallen and passed it over. She’d turned the thing off the previous day, not wanting to deal with any calls from her sisters. She was too raw to face even them.