Bad Road to Nowhere Read online

  “My, my, but you do keep that gun handy, don’t you?”

  “I told you to stay put, Mariah.”

  She just barged in, walking right past him. “I’ve been down at the art museum again and guess what else Richie told me?”

  “I can imagine, but I don’t want to.”

  Giving an exaggerated sigh of annoyance, she rolled her eyes and sat down at the end of his bed. “Come over here and sit down, Will. I want you to see this.”

  Novak looked around outside for strange cars first, and then he locked the door and moved over to where she sat. She had pulled up some photos on her phone. She turned it around and held it up for him to see. “Look at this. Richie found this on the Internet. At one of the art sales. This is definitely Emma’s work. I’d know it anywhere. It’s her personal technique, the big swath of watercolor high in the sky, the thickness that she builds with the paint, same pastel tints below it, all of it. Just the same. It’s got to be hers. Nobody else paints like she does. Very surreal and misty. Nobody does and nobody could.”

  “What’s that supposed to be?”

  “Nobody knows but her, I guess. Abstract kind of stuff. But did you hear me? Rich found this for sale online. And get this—he says that the image sort of looks like a place he’s been up in the mountains just north of here. She’s here, Will. I know she is. I feel it. We are getting closer all the time.”

  Novak looked at the picture again. It didn’t look like anything to him but a bunch of slopped-on paint. It surely didn’t look like the mountains he’d driven through on his way to the Triangle Club. “That doesn’t prove anything, Mariah. Like you said, that picture is abstract. It doesn’t mean she’s around here. That’s just that curator’s take on it. Who knows? He was probably trying to impress you. It doesn’t mean she’s alive and well. You just want to believe she is.”

  Mariah looked down at the painting displayed on her phone again. She looked sober now. “Well, I do want to believe that. Of course I do. And I can feel it inside, in my heart. I know she’s here somewhere. We just have to find her.”

  “Gut feelings don’t count. What else did you find out from your friend Richie?” The pet name did not roll easily off his tongue. Sounded sarcastic when he said it. Which it was.

  If Mariah noticed, she didn’t let on. “Not a lot. He took me to lunch and I pumped him a little about the guy he thinks donated the painting to them. He says that guy he told us about has got some kind of hunt club thing up there, on Bear Creek Road. Said he’s never been up there himself, but he’s heard the place is really private and well-guarded and secure. He said he’s talked to guys that told him the owner has a main house that’s set way back off the road somewhere, up on top of a cliff that overlooks a river. But he says the hunting thing is in an entirely different part of the compound. He said there are hundreds of acres in that compound where customers can pay to hunt. He says there’s a gun range there, too, and lots of other outbuildings around, but nobody knows what they are or what’s inside.”

  “He’s pretty damn talkative. That’s not always good. Did he ask you questions?”

  “He asked me to go out with him tonight.”

  “Of course he did. What’s the rich guy’s name?”

  “Barrett Wilson. Remember, he told us that before.”

  Novak remembered, but all this info just offered up on a silver platter made him suspicious. “And that guy Richie just came out with all this to you, just like that?”

  “Well, I asked a lot of questions. And he wants to take me out, so he wanted to please me. We had a nice lunch. And I also got some of this last night from that other guy I met.”

  “You mean from the first guy you picked up?”

  She stared up at him a second, and then broke into a big slow smile. “Why, Will Novak, you sound almost jealous.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  Her smirk faded. “Well, yes, if you must know. That nice guy who gave me a lift back here last night said he’d been out there hunting. Said he gets a deer every fall at that Hunt Club. Likes to go up there because they have experienced guides and comfortable deer stands that are heated. It’s pricey, he said, and by invitation only, but there’s a gun range down on the main road that we can use if we pay a fee. No membership required.”

  Heated deer stands? Sounded like a bunch of spoiled sissies to Novak. “Did you get that guy’s name last night?”

  “His name is Sam.”

  “Last name?”

  “I didn’t even ask his last name. It was just a casual conversation at the bar and a ride back to the motel. We’re not getting married or anything.”

  “So how do you know he’s not affiliated with the guy who’s holding Emma? Maybe this Sam guy is up there right now, telling them all about how you quizzed him about their place and asked lots of nosy questions.”

  Mariah hitched a slender shoulder, uncaring. “I don’t know if he is or not. But that would be a trifle farfetched, don’t you think? Quite a coincidence.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. This is a small town with small town habits. The bad guys got wind of me pretty damn fast. They’ve obviously got feelers out all around this place, maybe guys on their payroll keeping watch. Don’t know that yet for sure, but it stands to reason. Especially if some woman in a bar starts flirting with strangers and asking specific questions about the Triangle Club to anybody and everybody she meets up with.”

  “Look, Novak, I don’t think what I did is much different from what you did last night. You got accosted. And I got a nice warm ride home. So this ‘I know best’ crap you’re spouting is getting a tad old. I know how to take care of myself, whether you want to believe it or not. I’ve been searching out dangerous people for leads for years now. Why don’t you try to remember that? Just give me a break. Think about it.”

  “How do you know what I did last night?”

  Mariah looked away, as if caught unprepared. But not for long. She was fairly fast on her feet, he’d give her that. “Well, it’s not too hard to figure out. You aren’t going to the mayor and asking him to fill you in on the Triangle Club. Bars have drunk people who like to talk. You know that. I know that. I’m right, aren’t I? You did the exact same thing I did, but you got caught. And I didn’t. Now get over it.”

  Novak frowned. Mariah Murray needed to grow up and quit acting like she was thirteen. She was pretty much right on, however, except that Novak had wanted to attract attention in that part of town after he’d been accosted by the two guys. He wanted that to get back to the guys he now wanted to meet. That she tried the same thing in a different part of town was somewhat surprising. Maybe she knew more about investigative work than he thought. Or maybe it was just a fluke. Or maybe it was a lie.

  “We need to work together, Mariah. You need to listen to me and do what I tell you. How many times have I said that?”

  “Too many. And that doesn’t sound much like working together. That sounds like me working for you.”

  “Maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to see you get hurt. I believe these people just might be dangerous. They will hurt you.”

  “I’m so touched, Will.” She flipped her black hair over her shoulder, another annoying habit of hers. Something that came off looking as scornful as hell. She was good at scornful. “So? Are you headed up to the Triangle Club tonight?”

  “Maybe. I may just wait and watch the place for a few nights and see who’s going in and who’s coming out. See what that place actually is and who runs it. I do that alone, and you stay here. Understand me? It could get dicey out there. It probably will get dicey out there. They might want to teach me a lesson.”

  “Yes, I can understand that. You do have a tendency to get under one’s skin.” She flipped all that silky, jet-black hair around some more, obviously agitated and not trying to hide it. “But, all right, sure thing. I’ll just rent another vehicle and poke around downtown. That won’t raise any red flags. I do know what I’m doing. I was taught by the very best.”


  “Yeah? And who might that be?”

  “Never you mind who that might be. You just need to trust me for a change.”

  “That’s the problem, Mariah. I don’t trust you. Never have. Never will.”

  Mariah suddenly smiled, as if pleased by that remark. Novak was not amused. He was sick and tired of her attitude and her recklessness. “I didn’t ask you to bring me up here. All of this was your idea. I told you from the start that I work alone. So back off and keep your mouth shut so I can do what needs to be done. Are we clear yet?”

  Mariah kept smiling at him. Now she was resorting to flirtation. “Yes, sweetheart. Whatever you say.”

  Novak wished to God he’d never laid eyes on Mariah Murray again. He was sorry he was involved, but now that he’d been warned off by a couple of inept, wannabe bad guys, he knew that she was probably on to something. His hunch was that Emma Adamson might very well be in this town or hidden away up in that compound, alone and in trouble. If she wasn’t already dead—that was a distinct possibility, too. Even if she was, her boy might not be. Whichever it was, the time had come to find out and do something about it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Novak spent most of the afternoon resting and gearing up for action. He had a feeling he was going down a bad road with some bad people and very soon. At dinnertime he found a nearby Applebee’s restaurant, ate a T-bone steak and fries at the bar by himself, and killed time watching a Georgia Bulldogs game with a screaming group of maniacal fans sitting at the bar until he deemed it late enough to drive back up Bear Creek Road. This time when he came out of the woods onto the deep gravel, the place was alive with action, the parking lot packed with cars, pickups, and even a few motorcycles. He could hear loud music filtering out from inside, and the sort of tunes that naked girls like to gyrate around poles to. It was a popular club, all right, to be this far out in the sticks, and miles from any town.

  Novak pulled around to the edge of the lot and headed his truck out, just in case. He locked it up, stood and cased the place for a few minutes, and then he walked slowly across the gravel and climbed onto the porch. In front of the metal door he was met by a huge black guy, but a pretty young one, college age, maybe. One who looked like he might have played center on a high school basketball team. He could look Novak in the eyes, which was highly unusual. Weird, even. The kid probably outweighed Novak, too, and that never happened. But his weight didn’t lie in his muscles and he didn’t look strong. He didn’t look like much of a bouncer, other than his unusual height. Probably was inching up to three hundred pounds, maybe, with most of it deposited around his waist and belly. Maybe a former community college basketball player, down on his luck, hooked on drugs and suspended from his team.

  The kid stepped out in front of him, effectively blocking his entry. “You got an invitation?”

  “Yeah, two guys jumped me outside Red’s Bar last night. Told me to get out of town. So I put Georgie in the hospital, and here I am. That’s invitation enough for me. What about you?”

  Novak kept his attention locked on the guy’s black eyes. They’d react before he made a move on Novak. The kid was not a pro. And the boy already knew about Novak, because he didn’t blink an eye or react in any way. A second or two passed with the staredown in full swing. Then the kid opened the door, stepped out of Novak’s path, and swept out his arm in an invitation to enter. Novak walked past him.

  Inside the Triangle Club it was fairly dark, the music blaring, the ventilators roaring. There were half-naked girls everywhere. A few up on the stage were completely naked. Colored spotlights were focused on their provocative dance moves. Other spotlights revolved around on the walls and ceiling. Most of the other girls in the place had on various kinds of filmy, see-through attire that hid not a whit of their feminine wares, if they had anything on at all. Most of them were perched on the laps of customers. Most of them were young and pretty and nubile and eager to make a buck. They wouldn’t look very good very long, not after a year or so working in this kind of exploitive dump. It might be a little better than most of the sleazy places he’d been privy to, especially the Asian brothels. These girls looked better, too. Halfway healthy. Attractive, fresh-faced, typical rural Southern girls, too young to be there, and losing their innocence about as fast as humanly possible.

  The girls on stage looked older and more experienced than the others. All four of them were writhing around purple stripper poles on the raised stage. They were dancing on a runway that stretched out twenty feet among the tables. He watched the two at the front for a few seconds. They twisted and contorted themselves around the pole, holding on with their legs. He was more and more certain that if Emma was in this vicinity, whoever ran this club probably knew where she was or where she was buried. Or maybe she was one of these girls on one of these laps.

  Novak sat down at an empty table a few yards from the front door, making sure his back remained tight against the wall. After a couple more minutes, the guy from last night walked in, sans Georgie, aka Novak’s choked-up buddy outside Red’s Bar. He didn’t appear pleased to see Novak sitting there. The feeling was mutual. Novak ignored him and ordered a beer from a girl wearing only a garter belt and black fishnet stockings. She pressed her naked breasts up against his shoulder and put her arms around his neck for a quick hug and a promise of what he could buy and how good it would feel. She smelled good. Like cherries. Everything else in the place smelled like smoke and booze.

  When she walked away, Novak settled back and waited for the fun to begin. It took a while. Longer than he wanted to wait. He was in a hurry. A hurry to find Emma. A hurry to get back home. A hurry to get rid of Mariah’s corrosive presence in his life. It took a while longer. Enough time for him to turn down four different girls offering lap dances and more intimate and expensive things. Some of the ladies were taking extra-eager johns back behind a dark blue curtain that hung over a doorway behind the bar. He knew what was going on in there, but he wanted to know if there was a back office where the boss watched the customers on the video cameras set up in each corner. Nobody seemed to be paying undue attention to Novak. One thing that he hadn’t been expecting.

  Then, all of a sudden, the entire atmosphere changed. Charged up in a nanosecond, all the oxygen draining out of the room. A lot of fear seemed to rise up and show itself in a lot of eyes. Novak turned to see what the girls found so frightful. A man now stood at the entrance. Another big guy, but this one looked more like a biker, Hell’s Angels’ caliber, maybe. Maybe almost as big as Novak, but not quite. Black hair in a ponytail, intense dark eyes, black goatee. Lots of tattoos, lots of narrow silver chains hanging off his pockets and belt. He was armed, had a very large gun in a very large shoulder holster that he didn’t bother to hide. A .357 magnum, all shiny and chrome and deadly as hell.

  Novak was armed, too, his .45 snug in his waistband where it always was. He didn’t expect the biker guy to use the gun. Everybody else seemed to think he might use it, and at any minute. Everybody got quiet, wary as hell, only the music kept blaring out of the big neon jukebox: Blake Shelton singing “Ol’ Red.” The guy at the entrance was searching the room for somebody. His eyes finally lit on Novak. One serious staredown ensued. Novak waited and watched him back, unblinking, unafraid. This would be the first emissary. With these kinds of guys there was always an emissary after the first skirmish. The big guy started to walk through the tables toward Novak.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  That made the other guy smile. He didn’t ask again, just scraped out a chair and sat down directly across from Novak. “Name’s Sandy Boyer.”

  Novak smiled, half surprised the guy would admit that. “Sounds like a girl I used to date.”

  Sandy didn’t bite. Probably used to the wisecracks. “So? What’s yours?”

  “What’s that to you?”

  “Boss wants to see you. Didn’t think much of you taking down Georgie last night.”

  “Georgie
needs to learn how to fight.”

  Sandy gave a slow grin, but it didn’t reach his intense dark eyes. They were hard, like twin marbles made of black obsidian. “Maybe you should teach them.”

  Novak raised his bottle, took a drink. “Maybe I should. Lesson one’s already in the books.”

  “Boss wants you up at the compound.”

  “Why?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t go anywhere without a reason.”

  “You’ll do this without a reason.”

  “Think again.”

  Sandy looked slightly surprised, as if nobody had ever been unfazed by his tough-guy impersonation. Probably nobody in these parts ever had.

  Sandy leaned back in his chair and gazed askance at Novak. Judging where to hit him first, maybe. Didn’t matter. Novak knew where to hit him first and was ready and eager. He hadn’t had a good fight in a long time. He liked to fight guys like Sandy Boyer. Somebody who needed to be taken down a notch in front of the people they bullied. Novak was ready.

  “He wants to hire you.”

  Now that did surprise Novak. “To do what?”

  “Whatever he needs.”

  “Not interested.”

  “You need to tell him that yourself.”

  “You need to get lost.”

  Sandy laughed a little, shook his head. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “You don’t, either.”

  They stared at each other some more. Then Sandy stood up and just walked away, the fine-linked silver chain looped out of his back pocket swaying with each footstep. Novak would never wear something like that. Too easy for an opponent to grab it and use it as a garrote. He’d have to keep that in mind for the fight with Sandy that was coming very soon. Besides that, it just looked stupid.

  Now that the hook was set, in nice and deep, Novak just sat there and nursed his beer and waited and watched old men salivate over lithe girls young enough to be their granddaughters. Something was about to happen; he was just waiting to see what it was going to be.