Better Off Dead: A Lucy Hart, Deathdealer Novel Read online

  The weight that had been on her shoulders for the last six months, the pressure that had almost snuffed her out completely only a few hours ago, lifted like… like magic. Lucy breathed in the sweet, warm air of the shower. She raised her hot-water-soothed arms up in the air as she took another, and then another deep, wondrous breath. Lucy screamed—screamed long and loud, a joyous, powerful scream. And then she felt the corner of her mouth catch in an unfamiliar twinge.

  She was smiling.

  She was also thinking. Thinking very hard and very fast. She turned and grabbed the shampoo bottle from the rack and started lathering her hair in earnest. The faster she thought, the easier those thoughts seemed to weave together, thoughts latching onto other thoughts, memories of seemingly incidental snippets of information entwining with her long abandoned hopes and dreams.

  If she wanted her old life back, then she’d have to take it back herself.

  All of this spun itself into a plan. And the plan, if she did say so herself, was pretty damn good.

  Chapter 4

  LUCY’S HAIR was still wet, and though she was dressed in a cheap T-shirt and a pair of sweats, she felt like a million bucks. She’d washed and scrubbed herself until not a trace of McDonald’s—or its special sauce—was on her. Also the hot water finally ran cold.

  She’d gone into her mother’s room and rifled through her drawers until she found what she was looking for: a business card.

  Gram was at church, but she’d left her presents neatly stacked on the kitchen table, right next to her birthday cake. A spotless glass dome sat atop the pedestal holding the cake.

  A piece of paper had her grandmother’s handwriting on it.

  Lucybean,

  Called you off from work today.

  Rest!

  Love, Gram

  Cool… I can QUIT tomorrow.

  She was suddenly starved. Her stomach growled as memories of her grandmother’s divine cake floated through her mind. So she fetched a plate, a knife and a fork, then hacked herself off a very large piece of cake. Even the next day the thing smelled like heaven, and as she took a bite it tasted just as good… no, better than it had the night before. Now it tasted like freedom. Now it tasted like having her old life back, and getting back her dreams.

  Having money again. Regaining her dimmed yet still abundant beauty. And going to a good university, and from there having the life she’d always envisioned for herself. To own her own multimillion dollar cosmetics line. Maybe even branch out to movies, music and TV. She, Lucy Hart, would be queen of her own, huge, fabulous world.

  The image of her in a gorgeous Dior gown, on the arm of some handsome A-List movie-stud, gliding across the red carpet of the Grammys, the Oscars, and fashion week in Paris, glowed and sparkled in her head.

  It’s going to be… spectacular. She licked the last of the miraculous lemon cream icing from the tines of her fork.

  But do I know what I’m doing?

  She glanced down at the business card she’d filched from her mother’s room. Frank C Luvici. “The C stands for Crook,” her father used to say about his lawyer.

  Lucy remembered that when he’d come to the house, he always wore expensive though tacky suits, and smelled of Brut cologne. His hair was always slicked straight back, and when he smiled at her it always seemed he was undressing her with his eyes.

  He had really rancid breath too.

  He was scum. And she hadn’t seen him since her father’s sentencing hearing. He’d gotten her father a cushy stint in a minimal security prison—practically a holiday resort with armed guards. So scum or not, he had to be good. And a good attorney, especially a dirty, greasy weasel like Luvici, would’ve not only gotten a sweetheart of a deal for his client, but he would’ve hidden some of his client’s assets, so he would at least get paid while his client rotted in jail.

  Lucy had watched a Law & Order or two, and since her father had been a high class lawyer, the five hundred dollars an hour kind, she’d picked up a thing or two just being around him.

  She grasped the business card in her hand and flicked it around with her fingers, noting the “Home Phone” scrawled on the back. Sure, if Daddy—she cringed just thinking the word. If Daddy has any money at all hidden—for like when he gets out and starts his new life without us!—then his snake of a lawyer would know what rock—or Cayman Island, or Swiss bank account—it would be hidden under.

  “But why would he help me?” Lucy mumbled as she sifted through everything she could remember about one Frank C. Luvici. A dirty piece-of-crap lawyer like that… well, any lawyer, crooked or respectable, would only help you for three reasons. If you can pay, if it’ll make great PR for him (which equals more clients and billable hours), or…

  Lucy pinned the card down to her grandmother’s weathered kitchen table with her index finger, digging her uneven, dull nail into the C as her mind snapped on the little nugget of memory she was looking for.

  They only help for money, good press… or blackmail. Lucy smiled as her plan formed in her head.

  She wouldn’t be calling him at home. No. She remembered her father used to say that Luvici was so greedy he went into the office even on Sundays. That, and he liked to bang his weekend secretary—the one his wife had never seen—after putting in his billable hours, and before trekking out to the golf course for a quick nine holes.

  Lucy knew something very interesting about Frank C. Luvici. A couple very interesting “somethings.”

  Leverage over your opponent can be as easy as the element of surprise, her father had told her often, and Lucy had used that strategy against upstart wannabees, teachers who were trying to take her down a peg—which never worked out well for them—and against embittered ex-boyfriends. So Lucy knew it worked, and she’d already practiced it in a real life setting.

  He’d also said, Always have a back-up plan for negotiations. A nice, fat killer of a second surprise.

  Lucy tapped her finger against the business card until there was a notch under that stupid C.

  She knew what her first piece of leverage would be. And she knew the schtupping your secretary thing would make a pretty good plan B. But this was a lawyer. He breathed, ate, and slept slippery, weasely moves. She needed something that would knock him flat. Something that would put him in the way of not only legal detriment, but bodily harm.

  Something candy-apple red shimmered in her mind, a memory that she’d all but forgotten. And she smiled as she ran upstairs to get dressed. She’d have to get moving if she was going to get the jump on her prey.

  *

  Gabriel was on edge. Delia didn’t understand what was taking so long finding a suitable fake fiancée. Uncle Dante was being aloof about Cousin Francis’s progress on said subject. And his mother was sniffing around him like a freaking bloodhound. He was staying later at the office to steer clear of her.

  All this was making him start to feel like a caged animal. Or at the very least, like one being hunted, hunted slowly by a predator that knew it didn’t need to hurry, that its prey would be all the more appetizing after a long chase.

  And what was worse, Dante wasn’t answering his calls, which was a first. Dante was punctual, never absent, and always at his beck and call. So why was he suddenly not returning his phone calls? It had only been a few hours, yet his imagination had started running hard and fast. He imagined his mother chaining Dante to the wall of her kitchen, and torturing him with a red hot poker.

  The thought alone made him want to claw his eyes out, yet there it was. Only a few hours out of touch and he was already contemplating the worst. He breathed in harshly, and then tried to push all thoughts out of his head. He needed to center himself. Being undone by his fear would help nothing. He needed to stay calm and together. There would be a perfectly simple, banal explanation for his uncle’s absence.

  When Dante pushed through Gabriel’s office door, looking not only tired but rumpled, Gabriel jumped to his feet and went to the older man. “What’s happened?”r />
  “Your mother,” Dante said, pulling out a linen handkerchief and blotting the beads of sweat on his brow. Gabriel had never seen his uncle sweat before, not even on the few occasions where he joined the family for the hunt.

  “Shit! What did she do to you? Does she know?”

  Dante gracefully lowered himself into the chair in front of Gabriel’s desk, but the sudden jerk of his head to face Gabriel was the only thing that seemed startled about Dante.

  “What are you talking about? She knows absolutely nothing of our dealings.” His tone was cold, and Gabriel got the distinct impression that he was affronted by the mere idea he’d been rolled by anyone, let alone Gabriel’s mother. “She had me held captive in her kitchen—” Gabriel shook his head, trying not to picture his uncle chained to the wall again. “She’s really lost it when it comes to your father’s retirement.”

  “Retirement?” Gabriel felt his body relax as the tension melted from his muscles.

  “Yes, Vivian thinks your father is still spending far too much time at the company, and she wants to know why.”

  “Why?”

  “With a Masters in finance from Columbia and another in business, I’d hoped you’d have better questions to ask me.” Dante sounded pissy.

  “Oh, I just…”

  “She wants to know, is the time he’s spending here warranted, or just superfluous? If he’s needed, then what are we—as in you and I—doing wrong? And if he’s not needed, then is it simply habit or over protective behavior, or is he hiding something more covert and lecherous, or…” The look on Dante’s face was lugubrious.

  “There’s a possibility worse than Father having an affair?”

  Dante nodded. “She’s afraid he’s tired of her.”

  “What?” Gabriel jumped back out of the chair he’d finally just sat in. “She thinks he’s tired of her?”

  “She thinks he’s using the company as a way to avoid her. She’s as human as the rest of us. She has her own inner demons.”

  Gabriel had never considered his mother to be insecure in the least. She’d always been as strong as… well, she was a force onto herself. It never seemed to faze her that her husband spent laborious hours at work. And she was never weeping, or even moping around the house, waiting for him to come home. She was always busy with the country club, or arranging her family’s futures. She didn’t even seem ruffled when either of her sons had gone off to college for four years or more.

  And now she was being anxious about her marriage?

  “What gives?”

  Dante raised his eyebrows. “What gives is that she obviously had plans for when your father retired, and those plans have fallen far short of what she’d expected.” Which made sense. Vivian Enoch had planned everything out for the family so well, that she even planned on giving his brother Micah a few years to sow his wild oats before he fell in line.

  “How bad is it?”

  Dante finally looked flustered. “My phone rang too many times while I was with her. She fed it down the trash compactor.”

  That alone made him wince. His mother was stern and unflappable. To do something so out of character meant she was at the end of her rope. And the thought of that made Gabriel cringe.

  “We have to get your father to spend more time with her,” Dante said. “Before she has a meltdown.”

  “You really think Mom would lose it?”

  Dante’s expression was stone cold serious. “I think we don’t want to find out.”

  Gabriel gulped, but then a smile spread across his face. “At least, with her paranoid about Dad’s free time, she won’t be scrutinizing me and my love life so much.”

  “No.” Dante shook his head. “She’s still brow beating me about this secret paramour of yours.”

  Gabriel flopped down into the chair behind his desk again, deflated. “Call Francis and light a fire under him.”

  *

  Lucy used her mother’s flat iron to tame her still fly-away tresses. She even used her mother’s makeup. Cheap stuff from Wal-Mart, of course, but since she hadn’t bothered buying her own, she had to make do. She burgled her mother’s room again, this time taking a faux silk blouse that her mother wore to waitress in. It was ‘ho-ish and almost too big in the bust, but Lucy tucked it into the vintage Calvin Kleins, and finished the look off with the rip-off Jimmy Choo heels.

  She looked in the bathroom mirror to check her makeup, and decided she didn’t look bad at all. It’s a start. But she didn’t check out her ass. Hopefully, I’ll still be hot enough to throw that perv Luvic off balance.

  She grabbed her driver’s license and the two hundred and fifty dollars she’d managed to save from working at McDonald’s, and stuck it in the front pocket of her jeans. Walking to the bus stop seemed much easier. She naturally walked better in heels, and for the first time since they’d moved to the sleepy, crappy little town of Four Corners, she felt like her old self again. Not the dowdy, plain Jane who tried to stay faded into the scenery.

  No.

  She walked down the street with her old swagger, her posture perfect, her bright hazel eyes meeting the eye of everyone she passed by. Her smile grew with every step, becoming luminous and beautiful. She noticed every man—young, old, or downright ancient—smiled at her with puppy-dog interest. She could feel their stares as they turned to watch her walk away.

  Good, I’ve still got it. Always best to go into battle with your weapons sharp.

  Lucy stood leaning against the bus stop sign, going over in her head what she’d say to the scumbag lawyer. A bus stopped in front of her, its brakes whining from wear. The door opened with a creak and Shirley peering down at her from the driver’s seat. She smiled but there was no recognition in her expression.

  “You gettin’ on, sweet thing? I’ve got a schedule…” Shirley’s eyes widened as Lucy stepped up the stairs and fed a dollar fifty in quarters to the toll machine.

  “Oh—my—goodness… Mary and Joseph!”

  “Hey, Shirley.” Lucy smiled and took a seat up front, right across from her.

  Shirley turned in her seat and just shook her head. “I didn’t even recognize you, baby girl.”

  “It’s just a little makeup.”

  “Shit!” Shirley whooped. Her green eyes jerked as she took in the sight of Lucy. “It’s a hell of a lot more than a little makeup. You look like a completely different person.”

  This made Lucy smile more than anything. She wanted to be another person. She wanted to be who she used to be.

  “You wearing that to work?”

  Lucy shook her head. “Off today.”

  “Then where in God’s creation are you goin’?”

  “San Bernardino,” Lucy pursed her lips as a thought occurred to her, and Shirley‘s eyebrows knitted in consternation. “You wouldn’t happen to know when the next bus runs there, would you?”

  *

  Things ran smoothly. No more than ten minutes after Shirley left her off at the bus terminal, Lucy boarded the bus to San Bernardino. It wasn’t crowded, so she had an hour to sit and think, without anyone trying to strike up a conversation with her.

  Every so many miles there would be a sign, counting down the miles to journey’s end. At first those miles were trudging down far too slow. It made Lucy feel more and more impatient. But by the time the signs started ticking down from fifty, Lucy started getting nervous. Butterflies from hell fluttered in her stomach, and her mouth felt as dry as the bottom of Death Valley.

  But why am I getting nervous? she thought, chewing absently on one of her ragged nails. I can do this. That sleaze bag is toast. After I’m done with him…

  But as each mile marker declared San Bernardino closer and closer, her nervous stomach, and her fidgeting hands got worse and worse.

  Get a grip! Lucy pinned her shaking hands under her arms. This is nothing. I can do this… I’m going to do this…

  It’s illegal, the mean little voice whispered.

  So? Lucy shot back. So is what
he’s been up to. Otherwise I wouldn’t be going to blackmail him with it.

  Yeah, but… Lucy held her breath, waiting for the mean little voice to finish. What if he decides to pay you off with a bullet in the brain?

  Lucy’s entire body turned cold, every molecule in her stiffening.

  A bullet in the brain…

  She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe. Sure, he’s a crooked lawyer, probably deals with thugs and hoods and… and gangsters? Lucy gulped at the thought of any of those kinds of people. But murder? He’s a lawyer, not a hit-man.

  Lucy finally relaxed enough to shift in her seat and crack her aching neck. Her arm and head were starting to hurt again too.

  He’s like Daddy. Lucy scrunched her eyes closed at how wrong those words felt rolling around in her brain. He’s just a cheap, tacky version of… of him. Yeah, sure. He’s immoral and should be in jail with Daddy, but that doesn’t mean he’d…

  “Kill me…” Even as she said it, she couldn’t dispel the uneasiness, the uncertainty. Sure Daddy cheated the IRS, and probably his clients. And he more than likely really did deal in slave labor. Lucy still couldn’t wrap her heart and mind around the fact that her father had sold PEOPLE. But Daddy couldn’t have… he just couldn’t kill someone. So crooked Frank Luvici wouldn’t either.

  Of course he wouldn’t, princess.

  Lucy was getting pretty sick of that mean little voice.

  Chapter 5

  THE AIR smelled better, richer, the sun was warmer, and just being back in her home town… correction, the city, made every step Lucy took better. Her nerves were still there, but after she stopped at Starbucks for the first non-fat caramel-mocha latte she’d had in six months, and took that first, heavenly mouthful as the taste burst on her tongue, a surge of absolute certainty rose in her.

  She would get what she wanted. There was no two ways about it.

  She was going to win.

  Luvici’s office was on the third floor of a rundown brownstone building. The elevator creaked and hadn’t been cleaned in about a gazillion years, but it was better than huffing it up three flights of stairs.