Losing Sarah (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 16) Read online

  “Look, I’ve seen that look in Sarah’s eyes before. I think she’s onto something. Either that or she really is trying to get another fix, and she knows how much that would disappoint us, so I don’t see that as a viable option.”

  Aaron remained quiet for a moment.

  “You still there?” Parkman asked.

  “Yeah, just not sure what to think. Sarah’s been through a lot. She endures, she takes it in, moves on, stays strong. This, geez, I just don’t know, Parkman. This might beat her. She is human after all. I think we forget that.”

  “Yeah, and humans need support. Humans need love, caring and understanding. Go give it to her. That’s your job as the man in her life. Do that, and she’ll be eternally grateful. Do it, even when she tells you not to. Sarah only respects people who stand up, and not just stand up, but stand up to her.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Be Gandhi to her. Do what’s right and stand up for what you believe in because you believe in her.”

  “Got it.”

  “Now go. Get that Advil. I’ll be by my phone if and when you need me.”

  “Thanks, man. Couldn’t do it without you in my corner.”

  “Always.”

  Parkman hit end and turned back to the waitress. A pen in hand, she was writing something down on a little wooden stand by the front.

  “I’ll take those toothpicks now.”

  She handed him a dozen or so individually wrapped toothpicks. He thanked her, turned to head for the elevators, and unwrapped one. It was already in his mouth when the elevator arrived. On the sixth floor, nearing his hotel room door, he flipped the toothpick to the other side of his mouth at the sound of his phone’s ring tone.

  “Everything okay?” he asked as Aaron’s number came up on call display.

  “No,” Aaron nearly shouted. Heavy breathing came over the line. Parkman jammed his room key in his pocket and slipped the toothpicks into the other one as he jogged back to the elevator he had just gotten off. It was still there.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Sarah’s gone, Parkman. When I came back up, the room was empty.”

  “How is that possible? You said she collapsed on the bed.”

  “She did,” he rasped. “A ruse, though. Looks like you were right. She’s working something.”

  “What are you doing now?” Parkman jumped on the elevator and headed back to the lobby. “Where do you suspect she went?”

  “No idea. I’m going to the lobby. I’ll ask around. I’ll find her.”

  “I’m on my way. Will be there in less than five minutes.”

  “Hurry.”

  The line clicked off.

  Chapter 9

  Eddie Coleman wiped the sweat from his face and blinked rapidly. The employee door at the back of the casino hadn’t opened. Wallace Stern was late.

  Ten cars over, Mark waited, engine idling. Wallace would die within seconds of exiting the building. Then Mark would die. It was perfect. Eddie would be rich and off on vacation—supposedly to the UK. He loved how he could change the plan on the fly and see that this was the better idea.

  Brilliant.

  But where was Wallace?

  A good-looking, long-haired girl rounded the corner from the front and approached the employee door. She looked over her shoulder once, then again as she got closer to the door.

  What was she doing? Why stop there at the employee door?

  From the other side of the building, Blair Turner stepped out into the parking lot lights.

  Of course. A drug deal in the parking lot. The timing couldn’t be worse. Unless Blair was pushing his trade, this area of the parking lot was only used during shift change. If Wallace came out within the next minute, there would be witnesses. Druggies make unreliable witnesses, but witnesses just the same.

  When Eddie looked at Wallace’s car with Mark behind the wheel, a white face stared back at him.

  “Shit,” Eddie said to himself. “This is the last thing we need.”

  Another man had rounded the corner behind the girl and waited in the shadows, leaning against the brick wall, his face hidden.

  “Who the fuck are you, now?” Eddie shouted inside the empty car.

  Eddie prayed it wasn’t an undercover cop waiting to see Blair do a transaction. That meant a simple drug bust could thwart his entire plan. It would cost him if he couldn’t get rid of Wallace and Mark. He would lose sixty-six percent of the money in one fell swoop. All because of Blair, the girl, and the man watching from the shadows.

  He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. In that moment he hated all drug dealers, far and wide.

  Maybe there would need to be a few more people killed tonight.

  Nothing would stop Eddie from getting what was his.

  Nothing.

  Chapter 10

  A weakness had started in her stomach, moved to her limbs, and everything shook. She definitely needed sleep. She needed to beat the drugs. This was no way to live.

  And now she was seeing dead people. There was no way he was alive.

  Sarah glanced over her shoulder. The man from the lobby had stopped at the corner and was obscured by shadows. He would wait. They would talk. She might even get a chance to introduce him to Aaron. The last time she saw him, they were having dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Toronto after dealing with a serial killer who had kidnapped them. It was several years ago, but Sarah remembered it clearly. He was her first love, her first desire.

  But then he was killed and dumped in Lake Ontario by Toronto. She had forgotten the exact details because that was the year Dolan Ryan and Esmerelda were murdered. It was a terrible year. A time when Sarah felt like she was the victim.

  But here he was, in the flesh, waiting by the corner of the building for her.

  She looked over her shoulder one more time.

  He was still there.

  She spun around at a noise behind her. Blair stepped out of the shadows and pointed at a black Camaro parked under an overhanging tree.

  As she trudged to the Camaro, something caught her eye to the right. A man, white as a ghost, sat behind the wheel of a late model Buick. A small plume of exhaust billowed out from behind the car.

  She glanced away. He was waiting for someone to get off shift. No big deal. Nothing to do with her. She was about to get a fix. She was about to do a deal she never thought she’d do unless she was going to bust someone. But what the hell. Vivian called, Sarah answered.

  Blair waited to open the car door for her. She walked around him, checked the backseat, then eased down into the low passenger seat. Blair closed the door and walked around the hood to get in on his side while Sarah checked out the guy behind the wheel of the Buick five cars over. She scanned the rest of the cars, hoping this wasn’t a sting operation of some kind. Getting busted for buying drugs in Mexico would piss Aaron off and probably disappoint a few people who had risked their necks to get her clear of Enzo and his people, not to mention Casper. After all they’d been through in Amsterdam and Athens, this would really disappoint Casper.

  Thinking of him saddened her. She hadn’t given him a proper goodbye when she left the RV.

  “What is your fancy?” Blair asked.

  “My fancy? Is that what you call it?”

  Her eyes stopped on another car about a dozen down from the white face in the Buick. Another man sat behind the wheel of that car, his face hidden in shadows. What tipped her off were his hands on the wheel at ten and two.

  “Blair, when’s shift change at the casino?”

  Blair was fiddling with a black case behind his seat. He stopped and faced her. “Why? You nervous?”

  “There are two men sitting in cars. One’s idling. Like they’re waiting to pick someone up. Or are they with you?”

  Blair straightened in his seat and looked back and forth, studying the cars in the lot.

  “Where?”

  “The Buick, five cars down. Then another dozen to the right. I c
an’t tell what kind of car that one is from here.”

  In his hand, resting on his lap, was a small bag of white powder. Sarah’s eyes honed in on it and forgot about men in cars and men waiting to talk to her. For a moment, everything Vivian had said dissipated and she was back in Enzo’s place, feeling the rush in her blood as the heroin coursed through her.

  “There’s nobody there.” Blair tapped the top of his steering wheel. “You had me there for a second. I hate getting arrested. Angers my mother and when she’s angry—” He stopped talking when he looked her way. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the bag.

  “How much?” she asked. Vivian had told her to buy something from the dealer.

  “Depends on how much you want.”

  “All of it.”

  “You’ll need a bank machine then. By the looks of you. No offense. Just saying.”

  The employee door at the back of the casino opened. Sarah glimpsed the movement and looked up. A man holding a black briefcase stepped into the parking lot.

  The Buick to her left started out from its spot too quickly.

  And the rest of Vivian’s message played through her mind.

  …A man will die. Stop it … another man needed to die …

  “There’s Wallace,” Blair said. “Saw him in the cage tonight. He looked sick or something. Preoccupied. I need to talk to him.”

  “Shit.” Sarah grabbed the door handle and jumped from the Camaro as Blair did the same.

  Chapter 11

  Blair and the girl had disappeared in his Camaro. As long as Eddie stayed in the shadows, there was a good chance neither one would be able to recognize him as he drove into the driver’s side door, killing Mark on impact.

  He would aim his back their way as he jumped out and retrieved the briefcase. If only Wallace would hurry up.

  It occurred to Eddie that Wallace might have gotten cold feet. If so, this was all over and he was in jeopardy as two other people, Wallace and Mark, could finger him in an attempted robbery of the casino.

  But the employee door opened and Wallace stepped out.

  “Finally,” Eddie whispered.

  Mark’s car started forward. Everything was a go. In under a minute, two men would be dead and Eddie would be free and clear. A cool wave of relief passed over him. It was his time. He deserved this.

  “Fuck the casino.”

  He grabbed the keys in the ignition and was about to turn the car on when the employee door opened again and Hank Olsen stepped outside behind Wallace.

  “What the fuck?”

  Eddie waited. Mark advanced.

  Would he run Wallace down in front of Hank?

  Hank looked right at Eddie. He had scanned the parking lot and found Eddie’s car. Hank pointed and started across toward him.

  “Shit! He thinks I’m waiting for him. Fuck off, Hank.”

  The nightmare went from bad to worse as Blair and that girl exited Blair’s Camaro and started toward Wallace, who stood by the door, the million dollar briefcase in his hand.

  Eddie caught sight of Mark’s worried face through the driver’s side window. Eddie turned his car on, then flashed the lights as a message for Mark to continue with the plan. The plan was still a go. Kill Wallace and kill Hank while he was at it. Who cared? It was a briefcase full of money they were dealing with. The body count mattered little once you added them up. This was Mexico. El Chapo never worried about body counts and neither did Eddie Coleman.

  He dropped the car in gear, and put his foot on the gas as Mark accelerated the Buick toward Wallace who stood dumb as fuck right in its path while Eddie started toward Hank Olsen.

  “This ought to be good,” Eddie said to himself.

  At that moment, the stupid girl with Blair shouted something and started running.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Eddie shouted in a shriek of frustration.

  Chapter 12

  They were too far away. Shouting would only make them turn toward her. The guy had to get out of the car’s path. He had to jump back inside the building or run, because the driver of the Buick wasn’t there to pick him up. He was there to run him down. Everything Vivian told her came together in an instant.

  “Blair!” Sarah shouted. “What was that guy’s name?”

  The Buick’s engine revved and shot forward.

  “Wallace,” Blair hollered behind her.

  The man looked their way. Another guy had exited the building behind Wallace.

  As Sarah’s energy waned, she yelled, “Wallace, get out of the way or you’ll die.” Her voice cracked and she almost bent over at the waist, but somehow managed to stay upright and continue running at half her normal speed.

  At first, Wallace frowned, then turned to the Buick. He took a tentative step back and held the briefcase up in the air.

  The second man who had exited the building walked out into the middle of the parking lot.

  The Buick veered toward Wallace at the last second. Simultaneously, Blair issued a warning too late, saying the name, Wallace several times.

  Like a perverted game of Grand Theft Auto come to life, the engine revved, metal en route toward flesh.

  Seconds before impact with Wallace, someone leapt out of the shadows and bodily knocked Wallace aside. The car veered hard, but not fast enough, clipping nothing but the brick wall immediately to the left of the employee entrance door.

  Wallace got to his feet and scrambled away from the man who dove on him. Sarah slowed her step so as not to fall. Her physical state couldn’t be trusted.

  The other car’s engine revved behind them. The car where she’d seen hands on the steering wheel. It raced toward the man—the name Hank popped into her mind—in the middle of the parking lot. He wasn’t so lucky. The grill struck him mid-thigh and he cartwheeled at least twenty feet to the left, before the driver of the car veered toward the Buick that rested against the brick wall.

  “Really, Vivian? What the shit is this?”

  Chapter 13

  Eddie Coleman was in shock. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. That stupid girl had shouted Wallace’s name. She had warned him of Mark’s intent and somehow someone came out of nowhere and dove on Wallace getting him out of the Buick’s way in time.

  Mark had missed.

  All he succeeded in doing was ram the casino’s brick wall and jeopardize the entire plan. He should have never involved Mark Struben. Mark’s involvement had worried Eddie from the start.

  He needed to have those two men dead. There was just no way around it. And if a car accident didn’t accomplish that task, then he would have to use another method.

  That’s what the gun in the passenger seat was for. He wouldn’t stop until he had the briefcase full of money and both men were dead.

  If anyone got in his way, that would be unfortunate for them. Once he murdered Mark and Wallace and the police were looking for him, it wouldn’t matter how many were dead. The police would still be looking for him.

  He pressed the accelerator to the floor and aimed at Hank Olsen first. It was time to get that meddling ass fucker out of the way, then kill his partners in crime.

  Hank Olsen hit the grill, bounced off the hood and flew to the left. A quick pull on the steering wheel aimed his heavy weapon toward the driver’s side door of the Buick.

  Mark rammed his shoulder several times into the crumpled door, unable to exit the damaged car.

  “Fuck you guys,” Eddie shouted as he raced across the parking lot toward Mark.

  Chapter 14

  “And now a man dies,” Sarah whispered.

  Blair said Hank over and over before he turned a pained glance her way. Something had clouded his eyes. Like shock settled over his system. “How do you know? You think Hank is dead?”

  “There’s nothing we can do to stop that car.” She clung to Blair’s shoulder, trying to catch her breath. Holding him helped her stay upright. “Look away. You won’t want to see what comes next.”

  They were still twenty fe
et from the Buick. The driver had been unsuccessful in his attempts to exit the car. Wallace had gotten to his feet and retreated from the cars about to collide. The man who had knocked him out of the way, stayed close to the brick wall of the casino.