Page 189 of To Die For

“You dudes save the happy talk for later, and let’s get the fuck outta here,” exclaimed Shore.

They piled the dead men inside the panic room and Shore pressed the button on the remote to close the door.

“That’s going to be a hell of a cleanup on aisle four,” noted Glass as they ran down the stairs, avoiding the ones with the laser trips by jumping over them to the landing below.

“Not our problem,” said Devine.

“And what about Mercedes King? She set me up.”

“Taken care of,” replied Devine as they left the house.

CHAPTER

89

MERCEDES KING PULLED THE 4-WHEELERto a stop in front of her home and leapt off. She didn’t have much time to get this done. Her Porsche was destroyed, but there was still a Lexus sedan in the garage that would do for now. She had made prior arrangements, and the call she had made on the way here had initiated those arrangements. All she had to do was get to a certain place at a certain time with a certain someone named Danny Glass in tow. From there she would be in a chopper that would take them to a private airstrip, where a private jet was waiting to take them out of the country. And then all her dreams of riches would hopefully come true once she sold Glass to whichever of his enemies bid the highest amount, and who would then take over his criminal empire. She had decided to start the bidding at half a billion dollars and see where it went from there.

She unlocked the front door and called out to the men she had stationed here. They were not part of 12/24. They were loyal only to her. But when they didn’t answer, she did not take that as a good sign.

King pulled out her gun and her phone. She called them. Nothing. She tried again. Same result.

She hurried up the stairs after using a phone app to turn off the trip lasers.

She reached the top landing and saw the blood on the floor and along the walls. She used her own key fob to access the panic room. When the door swung open and King saw the bodies piled inside,the woman wheeled around and ran to her bedroom. She grabbed her go-bag and flew back down the stairs.

And then her phone buzzed. It wasn’t a call; it was a FaceTime.

What the hell?

She answered it and found herself looking at a woman wearing sunglasses though it was now growing dark outside.

King tried to process all of this, was unable to do so, and finally exclaimed, “Who are you? And how did you get my number?”

The woman took off the sunglasses.

“Hello, Anne,” said Pru Jackson. “I didn’t think I was ever going to have the chance to come back and face you, but that goes to show what one can achieve if one never gives up hope.”

King’s expression was one of confusion, and then that was replaced with dread.

“Pru?”

“Here in the flesh.”

“I’m… I’m so glad. I was worried something had happened to you when you vanished years ago.”

“Your caring about me is so very appreciated, Anne.” She pointed to her neck. “No hard feelings, right? For what it’s worth, I think you sound very sexy with damaged cords.”

King looked upward and then back at the phone. “You’ve been in my house. You took something that belonged to me. Something I really needed. And I want it back. Maybe we can do a deal. It’ll be lucrative, I can tell you that.”

“I have never beeninyour house.”

“We can still work together on this. Like old times. I really can make this worth your while.”

“I’m always interested in worthwhile things.”

“Great, but I don’t have a lot of time to haggle. I need to get going and—”

Jackson cut in. “And just so you know, the one thing that kept megoingall this time was the dream that one day I would be in thisexact situation talking to you. And now that dream has finally come true.”

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