Laszlo Read online

  “Or who knew Andrew and knew maybe other charges were pending against him or other people were pissed off about him.” Laszlo shrugged. “Or you could have just had a young cop who didn’t know how to handle this.”

  “Well, you can bet he didn’t ask anybody for advice,” she said drily. She glanced over at the laptop. “What about Lance? Did you find out any more about his family?”

  “Yeah. He did thirty days for drunk driving, but all the other charges were dropped—charges like shoplifting, drugs, and he got caught up in a sting at a gay bar for prostitution.”

  She stared at him. “Really? Lance? His family was wealthy.”

  “I know. Apparently his grandfather didn’t want him in the family business, and he was an embarrassment they did their best to keep undercover.”

  “I can see that. They never accepted Mouse either. They were two peas in a pod. Only they came from completely opposite backgrounds. What about the guy who seduced him in the first place? I know Mouse never would let me say anything against him. But then he had a long-term relationship with him.”

  She watched as Laszlo tapped a notepad beside him. “He’s next.”

  “Good. Because some guys just shouldn’t get away with what they do.”

  “Mouse would never see it that way though.”

  “No, I think he actually loved him. Now whether it was sexual love, a displaced father-to-son love, I don’t know. But it was definitely a twisted relationship. And like so many others in Mouse’s world, I don’t think he understood what a healthy relationship was at all.” She watched as Laszlo stared off in the distance, his laptop open in front of him. “It’s hard for you to recognize your friend in this, isn’t it?”

  He slid a gaze her way and nodded. “Very hard. That’s not the Mouse I knew. Yes, he was definitely insecure, not terribly social, didn’t do well with people in large groups and, of course, myriad other issues due to his sexuality and general lack of acceptance within the navy.”

  “I’m sorry. I would love it to be my Mouse. I would love to know he made it into the navy. And, if he told me that he had become a SEAL, I would be overjoyed. Because that was his dream,” she said in a soft voice.

  “And he deserved to have some dreams and to reach some too.” He looked at her for a long moment. “If your Mouse is my Mouse, then I need to tell you that he was a SEAL.”

  She stared at him; then tears came into her eyes. She burst out crying, threw her arms around him and just hugged him close.

  Instantly his arms came around to bring her closer.

  She squeezed him hard, wishing she could snuggle in deep. After a moment, Minx pulled herself back. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I’m so sorry.” With her hands waving in front of her, as if she didn’t know what to do with them, she quickly retreated to her chair. She ran her fingers over her face. “I’m not normally physically demonstrative like that.”

  “It does show the depth of your feelings for Mouse,” he said quietly.

  She nodded. “And, yeah, those feelings are from a long time ago. There’s no way to know if he and I would even like each other now. We were comrades in a war not of our choosing. We were helpless in a state of living we couldn’t—yet—get out of. And, when he did leave, I was both bereaved and felt abandoned. I was joyous and lost at the same time.” She shook her head. “It was so very difficult to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t in my life anymore.

  “There was one time, months down the road, that I wondered if he’d passed. I woke up that night with this really weird feeling that I needed to go to the tree house. I slipped out of the house and crept into the backyard to climb up that tree, thinking he was there. The feeling had been so very strong, but no one was there. Still, I had to wonder.” She smiled at him as she brushed away the tears. “I know that sounds like emotional hoo-ha crap. But honestly that’s how I felt at the time.”

  “Any idea how long after he left?”

  She shrugged. “I think maybe six months, but I can’t be sure. It was a long time ago. But I remember standing in the tree house, realizing he wasn’t there, feeling devastated all over again.” She took a deep breath and sank back, picking up her hot lemon tea. “I’m a mess tonight. I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing,” he said. “We’re all entitled to our emotions. I’ve cried plenty in the last couple years.”

  She studied him over the rim of her cup. “I imagine you had darn good reason to.”

  He shrugged self-consciously and looked at his laptop.

  “That means you’re a SEAL too?” she blurted out suddenly.

  He lifted his head and turned toward her. “Former. I’m not any longer.”

  “I sure hope it’s my Mouse. He really wanted that.”

  “And yet that seems completely at odds with him being terrified of water,” he said calmly. He closed his laptop and leaned back on the couch. “I can’t quite reconcile that.”

  “Neither can I.” She frowned. “It certainly seemed he was way back then, but I was a child at the time. Still Agnes says the same thing.”

  “Is there any chance he was either blowing it up for attention or to avoid something?”

  She stared at him with a frown. “Honestly I have no idea. Like I said, he liked to make up stories.”

  “And you patched up his wounds after he was beaten? Enough to know he wasn’t making any of that up?”

  She nodded emphatically. “Absolutely. I also saw her hit him several times. Once with a chair. I wondered at that time if she didn’t do some serious damage to his head. He didn’t lose consciousness on me, but he didn’t talk right for a couple days.”

  He stared at her.

  She shrugged. “I tried to tell my mother about it, but she told me to leave it be.”

  “What did you do?”

  She glared at him resentfully. “I did the only thing I could do. I walked him to the clinic and asked them to take a look at him.”

  “And did they?”

  She frowned and played with her bathrobe lapel. “Yes and no. I made quite a scene and a big stink. First, there was no insurance. Second, they wanted to contact his mom. But then he tried to tell them how they couldn’t reach his mom, and they realized his speech was off.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “He had a concussion. I ended up calling Agnes, and she came and got him.”

  “How long did he stay away?”

  “Just a couple days. When he felt better, he left Agnes’s and went home to his mom.” Minx could see from the look on Laszlo’s face that he didn’t understand that kind of devotion. That kind of relationship. “I know it’s hard to understand, but it was something he knew. The big world out there was something he was scared of because he didn’t understand it. Neither of us were prepared for what life threw at us.” There was a note of bitterness in her tone. “My boss being a good case in point. I knew that happened in my neighborhood. I didn’t realize it happened everywhere.”

  “It happens wherever bullies get a strong-enough toehold where they feel their power and can flex their muscles.” He reached for his mouse and his laptop and moved both to the coffee table. “Unfortunately it happens way more than we’d like to think.”

  “I can’t imagine there could be someone impersonating Mouse.”

  “It happens, not very often,” he admitted. “And it does seem far-fetched. But, at the same time, to think of someone with a panic-stricken fear of water becoming a SEAL … We’re known for all manner of water skills.”

  “And your Mouse was a SEAL, so he was good at that,” she groaned. “There has to be an answer.”

  “I know. I just don’t know what that answer is.”

  She finished her lemon tea and put the cup down. She could feel the fatigue once again pulling at her. “I think I’ll try to sleep again.” She stood, picked up her cup, walked to the sink, filled her cup with water and turned out the lights. “What about you?”

  He shut off the living r
oom light. “I’ll try too.”

  She headed into her bedroom, laid her bathrobe across the foot of her bed and crawled under the covers. She could only hope she got some sleep because tomorrow was likely to be stressful at work and at the police station as well. There didn’t seem to be any end to this. Yet, as she fell asleep, she was traumatized by images of Mouse’s childhood. Injuries she tended, bandages she stuck on him.

  Images of the times she’d tried to get her mom to help, and the times her mom had brushed her away, sometimes hitting her. It hadn’t been just Mouse’s life that had been difficult; hers had been too. But she’d been lucky in one sense: her mom was mostly drugged out, and it had been up to Minx to worry about making sure there was food in the house. And that hadn’t been easy either, but her mother wasn’t somebody to keep money hidden. As soon as she did a deal, cash was tossed on the table, and more drugs were purchased.

  Any time she could, Minx had taken the money and hid it away, so she could buy food when the money got short again. Most of the time her mom would order in something, or johns would bring a meal. Sometimes Minx would get a delivery from a grocery store. But she hardly ever went out. They had no wheels, and Minx had to take a course in high school to learn to drive. Once she started, her uncle had taken over her training. He’d been aghast at how little of the real world she understood. She didn’t even have a bank account when she had moved to Maine. Or a cell phone.

  He’d taken care of all those basics real fast. “You’re way past the point when you should have learned about this stuff,” he said quietly. “So you’ll get a crash course on everything all at once.”

  And, true enough, he’d bought her a laptop and a cell phone. She’d been set up with a savings account and a checking account, and he even got her a credit card. And then he taught her how to use them all.

  She smiled as she lay here, once again awake, thinking about her uncle. He was as good as her mom had been bad. And yet her mom hadn’t been bad; she had just gone down a bad route and had never been able to crawl back out again.

  Her uncle had stayed clean and had become something. He had never married, never had any kids of his own, and she liked to think he enjoyed the time she’d been there with him. He called often now and told her that she should come back and visit, but she hadn’t yet. And she wondered why. There was so much unfinished business here that she didn’t want to deal with. When her mom had died, her uncle had taken care of the arrangements.

  He’d wanted to bring her ashes back to Maine, but, for some reason, Minx had fought the idea. Her mom had wanted to stay in Texas. Although, the Lord only knew why because she’d had a terrible life here.

  Minx fell back under again. This time she saw Mouse, but, instead of his mom strangling him, he was strangling Minx. Long fingers wrapped around her neck, not giving an inch.

  She woke up gasping and choking as a shadow above her was ripped away and flung hard across the room. She sat, her hands on her neck, as she realized it hadn’t been a nightmare. Instead, a stranger was in her room trying to strangle her. She heard blows and thuds as the men fought outside her room. She scrambled out of bed, still gasping for air, and raced out to the living room. The last thing she wanted was for this guy to get away or to hurt Laszlo.

  As she turned around, a fist came out of nowhere and clipped her in the jaw. She slammed into the wall and fell to her knees. In the dim background she could hear another fight, swearing and cussing, and then finally silence.

  The silence was the scariest of all. She struggled to her feet, holding on to the wall in order to stay steady, her head pounding, her vision almost blurry. Whoever the hell had hit her had one hell of a punch. She peered around the kitchen to see someone collapsed on the floor and Laszlo struggling to get himself onto a kitchen chair.

  He collapsed at the table and looked at her. “Are you okay?” His voice was low, pained.

  She rushed toward him.

  He held up his good hand and said, “I’m fine.”

  But she didn’t believe him, watching as he flexed his damaged fingers. She stepped forward cautiously. “There’s a cut on your forehead.”

  He nodded. “But everything else appears to be working.”

  “Your leg?”

  He shot her a look, bent down and pulled up his pant leg and showed her a metal leg she hadn’t taken a close look at before. Of course why would she? He’d been fully dressed. He stood up slowly and moved around the kitchen. She watched as he bent and twisted. “Have you done much fighting since you lost your leg?”

  He gave her a raw grin. “Only in the gym. I used to box. I loved it. I had a wicked left, but that’s the hand that was badly burned.” He reached out and stretched. “It doesn’t have the same impact.”

  “Did he know you had a prosthetic?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But he could have known from the fight?”

  “I suppose. Geir is missing his lower right leg. He hides it well.”

  She stared at him wordlessly. What must that be like? And how had they survived an accident that caused these horrific injuries?

  As she watched, Laszlo gave himself a bit of a shake, then walked over to the unconscious man, rolled him over while she hit the light.

  With the bright light shining on the man’s face, she looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t know him.”

  “Picture a full beard and a full head of hair.”

  She looked at Laszlo, then at the man on the floor. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Really. It’s the guy from the coffee shop.”

  “I remember when the vehicle came in, but I didn’t think anything of it. I was so busy looking for a truck.”

  “Exactly. Create a diversion and somebody else slips in from the side.”

  She shuddered and stared. “Now that sucks.”

  Laszlo looked around for something to tie up his prisoner. “Have you got some rope, something effective to tie him up? Even zip straps?”

  She walked to the kitchen. “In the hardware drawer, there was a bunch that somebody was using for something.”

  He heard the drawer open as she pulled it out. A moment later she was back with the ties. He laced several together and quickly secured the man’s hands and feet; then he did something so they were secured together.

  She studied them. “That’s pretty efficient. I can’t get zip straps off packages when I buy them.”

  “Where the hell do you buy packages that have zip straps on them?”

  “At the bulk-food store. They prepackage various flours and grains and put zip straps on them so they don’t leak. Twist ties are never quite so secure.”

  He nodded. “Not a bad idea at that.” Using the table, he straightened up. He hated to admit it, but whatever the hell this guy had done had set his body back at least a day. It was Laszlo’s first rough fight since he’d returned from Afghanistan. There had been plenty of fighting there. He thought he was over it. But apparently not quite. He stretched, letting his body settle in again. He glanced at her. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “Until I woke up with this asshole choking me, yes. Where did he come from?” She glanced at the apartment door and then the couch. “The guy would have had to walk past you. Did you not hear him?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Laszlo walked toward her bedroom. “How does this apartment attach to the floor above?”

  “It shouldn’t, should it?”

  “There should have been stairs originally.”

  There was a utility room in the back with the hot water heater and a fuse box. She’d taken a cursory glance from the doorway, but she hadn’t gone in.

  When he went in, he found another door. “He came in through the upstairs.”

  She followed him to see the door upstairs was open. “Shit. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  “It also means he did know. He’d done his homework. When he could, he came in and attacked.”

  “Are we assuming then the man who trailed
me is outside waiting for his partner?”

  “It’s possible.” Laszlo already had his phone out, calling Geir. When the sleepy voice answered, he said, “We had an intruder. Managed to come in from an entrance we didn’t know about. I caught him strangling Minx while she slept.”

  “Is she okay?” Geir asked, his voice harsh as he snapped fully awake. “Do you want me to come?”

  “It’s six o’clock. And she’s fine. I have the intruder tied up. I thought maybe you’d like to join in the fun while we talk to him and see what he’s up to.”

  “I’m on it. I’ll pack up the rest of our gear and grab some coffee somewhere and then head over.”

  “See you in thirty then.” Laszlo hung up his phone, put it into his jeans pocket and started rifling through the intruder’s back pockets. He found a wallet with ID. He pulled out the driver’s license, took a picture of it and sent it to Levi with a note. Then he went through the rest of the slots in the wallet. He found twenty bucks and a piece of paper with her address. He held up the sheet of paper for her to see. “Does that look familiar?”

  She shook her head. “No, but it’s obviously my address. So he did come here specifically for me.”

  He nodded. “I don’t see anything else.”

  He flipped the intruder over and was gratified to find a cell phone. It took a bit to get it out of the unconscious man’s pocket, but, when he did, he set about trying to unlock it. If it was a swipe system, then there were only so many combinations, but most people were lazy and took one of the first few options. Within a minute, he had it open. Then he sat down and checked the text messages.

  “He was hired to do this. Him and his buddy. They were given the truck to tail you, and he was to follow, and, depending on where you were, try to get you between the two of them. So, while you were keeping track of the truck, you didn’t notice the car. You pulled off, went into the coffee shop, the car came in behind you, but you were still so focused on the truck, you didn’t notice the car. We went in. They saw us with you.” He spoke as he interpreted the text messages. “And it was determined that somebody should hit you tonight. The address was given, with instructions that the upstairs of the house was not occupied and had an entrance to the downstairs suite.”