McGregor was too horrified at what he’d just witnessed to respond. Yeah, he’d done his research. He’d thought about walking away, but the temptation to kill Gedeon Volkov was too much to give up.
“Those women you killed for Hawkins, you want to tell me where you buried them?”
“Fuck you, Volkov,” McGregor snapped, trying to think of how he was going to get out of the mess he was in.
Gedeon was a few feet away from him one minute; the next, he was so close, McGregor could smell the leopard in him. Volkov moved so fast, he was a blur. McGregor’s clothes were in tatters, strips floating in the air as the leopard tore them from him in a fury. His skin was next, long rakes, deep, his chest and back, his neck, those terrible claws sinking into him and ripping through his flesh.
Gedeon was on him in a flash and gone just as fast, so at first McGregor thought he’d gone crazy, that the manhadn’t morphed into a partial leopard and ripped him into pieces while the ground held him captive. Looking down, he saw that it was true. The pain was excruciating.
That wasn’t even the worst. Tiny flies and other bugs found their way into the open wounds and began to feast. He felt as if he was being eaten alive. He looked down at the floor of the island. The leaves had come alive with ants. They formed bridges and crawled up his legs to find their way into the wounds. Beetles joined them. He heard the flutter of wings and found large birds with thick curved beaks and shiny eyes staring down at him from the branches above him. He was surrounded.
“Just kill me, for God’s sake,” he yelled at Gedeon.
“Why would I show you one ounce of mercy, McGregor? Did you show those women any mercy? Any of the victims you murdered, did you show them one moment of mercy?”
“Kill me.”
“Where are they?” Gedeon persisted.
In the end, McGregor made up several locations before he told the truth. Gedeon moved fast, using his knife to make the kill, opening the jugular, not wanting Slayer to make the kill. He made his way back to Meiling, afraid she would reject the man he was. She saw him at his worst, when the monster was out, but she simply put her arms around him and held him before asking him to take her home.
***
HAWKINS,”Gedeon greeted. “You look smug sitting there reading that text from your number-one man, McGregor. Looks like he found Laverne and took care of her and Edge for you right along with my woman, Meiling, and, of course, me. But then, if he did, how am I sitting here in your grandiose bedroom that’s more for show than for reality?”
Hawkins slowly lowered his tablet and stared at Gedeonas if he had two heads. He looked around the large room. “It is ostentatious, isn’t it? I hire designers and this is what I get.”
“It’s always someone else’s fault, never your own,” Gedeon said. He held up McGregor’s phone. “Your man missed this time. You should have done your homework before you sent him after me and mine. I spotted the shadow the very first night. I knew then I was going to kill him. And then I was going to kill you.”
Hawkins chuckled. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Gedeon. I’ll be the first to admit I could have made a mistake about you. There’s always room for negotiation.”
“We can negotiate pills or knives. Either is acceptable. There are a couple of pills on your nightstand. You can take one now and we keep talking. Or I can slice a knife across your belly, not too deep but enough that you feel it and we keep talking. Your choice.”
“What’s the pill?” Hawkins picked it up and looked at it.
“It’s Percocet. Right out of the bottle on your nightstand.” Gedeon held a knife up so the blade caught the light from the lamp on Hawkins’s nightstand. “The blade is sharp. Goes in clean. You’ll barely feel it at first.”
Hawkins sighed, put the Percocet in his mouth and tossed it back with water from the glass on his nightstand. “Is Laverne dead? Did you wait to kill McGregor so he could do his job?”
“No, Laverne is alive and well. She’ll inherit everything when you’re gone. She’s a good actress. I imagine she’ll garner a great deal of sympathy, being such a young widow. Such a young,wealthywidow. It was a good thing you insisted she inherit everything if you died.”
“That’s just bullshit, and you know it. They’ll suspect she murdered me. She’s been gone for this last week with no explanation.”
“She went to a women’s retreat. All the women therewill testify to her being there.” Gedeon watched him closely. “She’s going to come home early when she’s contacted by the police. They’ll find you dead. Your prescription drug habit was kept under wraps. Tight. She wasn’t aware of it. Only a close few knew. Sadly, your Percocet was laced with fentanyl. You should have been more careful, Hawkins.”
For the first time, the smug smirk was wiped from Guy Hawkins’s face. He looked from his nightstand to Gedeon and then touched a hand to his throat, or tried to. His head lolled back on his neck against his pillow.
Gedeon stood up and walked across the room, shoving his knife back into the scabbard at his belt. “Your reputation will suffer just enough in the media to start the rumor mill gossiping, and your widow will defend you. This way to die is far too easy for you, Hawkins. If I had my choice, I would have made it a hard one. You would have paid for every single woman you had killed. As it is, you can die knowing Laverne will have your money. The gossipmongers will chew on your reputation. A really shrewd homicide detective is unraveling the deaths of those women you had murdered by McGregor, all of whom he can tie back to you. McGregor gave up the location of their bodies so the police can recover them. You’ll be dead, but your music legacy will be marred by your image.”
Hawkins couldn’t speak clearly. His words were slurred. Gedeon smiled at him. “Don’t worry about me, Guy. No one saw me come in and they won’t see me slip out. I’ve got an alibi even if they thought they saw me. I won’t leave behind any trace of me. It will look as if you were completely alone in your room. There will be no evidence of the last message between you and McGregor, but I find it nice you would have concerns.”
He waited for Hawkins to stop breathing, confirmed it by taking his pulse and then took his time hiding Hawkins’s prescription drugs all over the suite. He had the prescriptions filled from all different pharmacies from variouscounties and states. All were opiates. Some were obtained from unknown sources. Once Gedeon had placed evidence of Hawkins’s drug use throughout the suite, he left the music mogul slumped over in his bed, dead, to be found by his staff in the morning.
Slipping out into the night was easy enough. Meiling waited for him, sliding down from the rooftop of the mansion across the way after breaking down a sniper rifle and placing it in her case. He took her hand and walked around the block to their car, avoiding the street cameras and the door cameras that seemed to be on every door nowadays. Laverne and Edge were safe. Hawkins and McGregor were dead, and the women Hawkins would have marked for death would be safe. It was the best they could do. The job was finished and there was satisfaction in that.
18
A VERYsmall female leopard darted swiftly across the open meadow, where streaks of early morning light illuminated her thick, pale coat with its startling black rosettes. She was a gorgeous female, perfectly proportioned, her body sleek and balanced. When she ran, the muscles beneath her fur rippled and flowed, accentuating her beautifully marked pelt. Even with the meadow being open, the spotted coat of the leopard in the shadows and light managed to camouflage her, so she seemed to be more illusion than reality.
