As Jake waited for the woman to come to him, he dropped the Rubik’s Cube on the shelf. Jesus, who would be crazy enough to even attempt such a monstrosity? Based on the meeting location, she wanted secrecy and something to keep what he assumed was her son busy while she talked. She hesitated at the front of the store, dark eyes on the hunt. The boy wiggled and tugged against his mother’s restraining hand, eyes wide at the wonderland before him, but she pulled him in tight. Protective. Her gaze landed on Jake, and he ticked up his chin. She checked over her shoulder and slinked his way, eyes locked on the floor as if she didn’t want to give the security cameras a clear shot of her face.
“Angela? Jake Caldwell.” He extended a hand, and she flinched at the sudden movement. Her acorn eyes examined his before grasping his outstretched hand. Her hands were cold, but her grip firm.
“Thank you for meeting me,” she said, her words crisp and precise, reminding Jake of a schoolteacher. “This is my son, Christopher.”
Even squatting, Jake landed a head taller than the boy. Owlish eyes, matching his mother’s, scrutinized the man in front of him, and his auburn hair swooped across his pale brow. He melted into his mother’s leg. The kid appeared maybe five or six years old, cute except for the bruises the size of a man’s fingers lining his upper arm. Jake could still feel Stony’s iron fingers biting into his arm when he was the kid’s age. His mother followed Jake’s gaze and tugged at the sleeves of Christopher’s shirt to cover the abuse.
“Hey, Christopher.” Jake kept his voice as soft as possible. “How old are you?”
“Six and a half. You’re big.”
Jake laughed. “Smaller than some, bigger than others.”
“You’re a lot bigger than me.”
“For now, maybe. But I’ll bet you’ll pass me before too long.”
Angela placed her hands on the boy’s shoulders and turned him toward her. “Christopher, why don’t you look around while I talk to Mr. Caldwell. And stay in this store. Understood?”
“Yes, mommy.” The kid’s eyes lit up and he darted away.
Jake smiled at the boy’s joy. “Cute kid.”
“And growing like a weed. Seems like I brought him home from the hospital yesterday. You have any yourself?”
“A daughter, but she’s older. In high school. How’d you find our number?”
“Evelyn Dawson who you met earlier today. I’m an Advocate for Newhouse, the domestic violence shelter. Evelyn and Timmy have been at the shelter twice over the last couple of years, and we’ve kept in contact. She called me and told me what happened at the farm and what you did to Harold.”
“Am I in some sort of trouble?”
“Oh no. Quite the opposite.” She shifted, like a nervous energy wouldn’t allow her to stand still. “I just thought, you know, a man with your…umm…skillsets could help me with a situation.”
“What kind of situation?”
She scanned the store and moved toward Jake to let a trio of kids pass behind her. She nabbed the same Rubik’s Cube Jake played with, twisting the rainbow-colored squares, her mouth opening and closing several times. Whatever she wanted to tell him wasn’t coming out easily. After a minute, she spoke again.
“What would you do to protect your daughter, Mr. Caldwell?”
“Call me Jake,” he said, head cocking to the side. Kind of an odd opener, but he rolled with it. “The better question would be what wouldn’t I do to protect her? What’s going on? Why’d you call?”
She raised her chin and tears brimmed at the bottom of her lids, one more molecule of salty water would send them cascading down her high, angular cheekbones. “Because I need help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Answer my question. What would you do to protect her?”
The weight of the question pulled the drops across her cheeks, hot and full of pain. How truthful should he be with this complete stranger? She sought assurance he could do what was necessary if she opened up about why she called him in the first place.
Jake thought back to the men in Shane Langston’s crew he took out last year in order to rescue Halle. “I’d kill to protect her without thinking twice. Tell me what’s going on? You want to protect your son?”
She nodded.
“From the person who put those bruises on his arm?”
She swiped a tear with a manicured fingernail and dipped her head again.
“Tell me who it is,” Jake said, voice low. He already knew who it was. Angela wore the same haunted and fearful guise his mother wore. The shroud of the abused.
He remembered sitting in his room reading a comic book in their house in Warsaw. He was maybe ten or eleven years old when his father Stony came to a gravel-spraying stop in their driveway and stumbled from the car. Jake herded his little brother Nicky and his sister Janey into his room, yanked open his window and waited for Stony to bang through the front door. He dropped Nicky and Janey into the weed-filled planter under his window and told them to go to the neighbors until he came for them. Ten minutes later, once the cursing and breakage of glassware stopped and Stony tore out of the driveway, Jake ventured to the living room.
His mother trembled on the edge of their worn sofa, holding two pieces of a broken plate in her shaking hands, her favorite plate Jake made in school. Despair echoed from hollowed eyes; the same look Angela gave him now.
“You have to tell me, Angela,” Jake said.
She sniffed. “His father. My husband.”
Jake patted her on the shoulder. Admitting it was tough. A pair of twins with matching Mohawks and t-shirts banged into Jake’s leg, bouncing off and giggling as they disappeared. Angela’s son, Christopher, appeared at the end of the aisle, body facing the shelves, head cocked to the side and eyeballing Jake and his mother with curiosity.
“I know it’s a hard thing to admit. What do you want from me?”
Her face crunched like he’d asked the stupidest question in the world. “Well, protection for myself and Christopher.”
“You work for one of the best domestic violence shelters in Kansas City. Why don’t you just go there?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he knows where I work, and I won’t expose the people there to this man.”
“Is he that much more dangerous than the other scumbags the women are running from?”
She locked eyes with Jake. “Yes, I believe he is.”
Jake blew out a breath. “Okay, how long would you need this protection?”
“I don’t know. For as long as we can get it.” She reached into her purse and pulled a wad of rubber-banded bills, maybe a couple inches thick with a Ben Franklin on top. If the rest of the bills matched, the bundle she offered Jake contained eight to ten-thousand dollars.
“Later.” He held out his palm. “Don’t flash cash like that anywhere. What about going to a different shelter?”
Her gaze drooped, soft and sad. “It wouldn’t do any good. He’d find us.”
“Yeah, but they’re prepared for this sort of thing.”
“Not for someone like him.”
The fine brown hairs on Jake’s arm rose. “Who the hell is your husband?”
She shook her head. “No, first you get me and Christopher somewhere safe. Do that and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Jake took another peek at Christopher, tiny and frail and innocent. He remembered the gut-wrenching helplessness he felt as a kid, wondering why his mother never did anything. Why did she keep taking Stony back? Why did she keep exposing her children to such a monster? He returned to Angela and the steel behind the veil of water in her eyes. She was trying to do something to remedy her situation. He was powerless to help his mother, but Jake could help Angela.
“All right,” he said. “We need to go back to your house and get anything?”
Her shoulders rose as if a weight was lifted from them. “No, I have everything in my car. We’re parked on the second level.”
Angela put her hand on his arm. “Thank you, Mr. Caldwell. Thank you.”
Before he could remind her to call him Jake, she grabbed Christopher and headed out the door. He watched her go, and then navigated around the tiny feet pounding the carpeted aisles of the toy store, wondering what kind of monster Angela married.
* * *
Outside the toy store, Sokolov dropped his head to his phone, but his eyes rolled high and followed Connelly as she exited the store and headed toward the parking garage. She passed close enough for him to catch a whiff of her lilac perfume. Before turning to follow her, he let his attention fall to the big man with short hair. The shelves partially blocked Sokolov’s view but based on the man’s thick chest and bulging arms, he didn’t look like someone to be trifled with. Was this the Wolf? If it was, he could get his revenge and take him out right now with a well-placed shot. His teacher’s voice echoed again in his head—“…the wise man waits”.
Sokolov spun, keeping his distance from the Connelly woman. His trainer’s other favorite saying was: “Before embarking on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” While the man’s reference was related to the revenge seeker eventually occupying one of the holes, Sokolov thought it was an appropriate sentiment. If she met the big man again, there would be a need for two holes—one for Connelly and one for him.
Chapter Ten
Echoes of Jake’s boot heels bounced off the concrete walls of the parking garage as his brain worked overtime, trying to decipher Angela and her kid and the mysterious predicament which led them to seek his help. His phone vibrated.
“Remind me again why I do this shit?” Bear growled. Jake could almost hear the plastic of Bear’s cell phone case groaning under pressure.
“Can you be more specific? You do a lot of shitty things.”
“Tavner Woodston got hammered at The Palms,” Bear said. The Palms was a local watering hole off Wildcat Drive in Warsaw, a couple miles from Maggie’s house on Poor Boy Road, and a good place to get your head split open. The only thing resembling palms in the dive bar were the garish trees some local artist-wannabe tried to paint on the back wall.
Jake reached his truck and climbed into the seat. “What else is new? Tavner is always hammered at the Palms.”
“Well, last night he supposedly dropped his overalls and tried to teabag a passed-out Jimmy Thurman. Jimmy woke up with Tavner’s balls in his face and caused a hell of a ruckus. One of my deputies got Brady Peru to promise to drive his drunk ass home. Instead, Tavner’s common-law wife calls this morning and said the dumb son of a bitch didn’t come home. So, instead of doing what I should be doing, I played coon hound all morning. Shouldn’t have given that woman my cell number.”
“Did you check our cabin?” Jake asked, backing up and heading toward the exit.
“You mean the one where our shelves still aren’t built a month after you hired the dumb bastard? No need, I found him an hour ago passed out in his truck which mysteriously wrapped itself around a tree just past the Hershey Bend on MM.”
“He okay?”
Bear’s breath crackled the speaker as he blew out. “Other than the fact he bashed his forehead pretty good against the steering wheel and shit himself, yeah. But, you gotta find someone else to do those shelves.”
Jake winced. There weren’t many alternatives in Warsaw. “What about Rollie Boland?”
“He’s not as good as Tavner, but at this point I’d hire a four-year-old who could swing a hammer if we could get the damn things done.”
“All right. I’ll figure something out.” Angela and the boy flashed across his brain. “Say, you planning on doing any work on the cabin this week?”
“I wish. Have to do some warrant sweeps tomorrow, and the wife has a list of honey-dos as long as my dick waiting for me at home.”
The corner of Jake’s eyes crinkled as sunlight blasted through the windshield as he exited the Crown Center parking garage. “Must be a short list.”
“Asshole.”
“May need it to stash a couple of guests.” Jake wheeled right toward the Liberty Memorial and gave Bear a quick synopsis of the call and meeting with Angela. “Her husband must be a major douche and she won’t go to a shelter. She’s got enough cash to split somewhere but wants a little protection. I figure I’ll babysit her over the weekend, get some work done on the cabin at the same time and make enough scratch to pay someone else to get those shelves done.”
“Charge her extra. Wouldn’t mind getting that plumbing work finished in there as well. I may be a bear, but I don’t like shittin’ in the woods. See you soon.”
The World War I monument poked the cloudless blue sky at the end of a quarter mile expanse of greenery squeezed on either side by a long asphalt drive. There was a museum inside the memorial, and Jake made a mental note to bring Maggie and Halle next time they were together. He veered left, away from the memorial, and down a steep hill. The dog park sprawled on the left, a young couple sitting outside the chain-link fence petting a fat bulldog.
Angela and her boy sidled up to Jake’s truck in a new, forest-green Jeep Cherokee. He hopped from his truck and rested his forearms on her open window. “You sure this is the route you want to go?”
Her gaze locked on the steering wheel; she ticked her head to either side. “We just need somewhere to go for a few days until I figure some things out. Will you help me?”
Christopher’s tiny hands moved the arms of a Star Wars action figure, trying to disappear by pressing himself into the leather seat.
“We should find a safe place to stash your car,” Jake said.
“Why can’t I follow you?”
“I don’t want anyone tracking your car. You like to fish, Christopher?”
He stopped manipulating the arms of the Storm Trooper and rolled his eyes to the side to Jake. “Daddy’s going to be mad.”
Angela stroked the boy’s leg. “It’ll be okay, honey.”
The boy turned his head to his mother, the muscles in his tiny jaw working back and forth as he stared at her with a knowing expression. “No, it won’t. And you know it.”
Chapter Eleven
Before heading to Warsaw, they stashed Angela’s car at a commuter lot off I-70 near the sports complex hosting the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals teams. Perfect choice. The three-quarters full lot had a serious lack of security cameras. Angela threw a couple of suitcases in the bed of Jake’s truck and deposited Christopher’s tiny frame in a booster seat she installed in the back of the cab.
Thirty minutes later, Jake pumped gas at a Casey’s convenience store, watching the boy through the back window of the truck. Christopher was a statue, eyes locked on the headrest in front of him, and Jake wondered what thoughts ran through his little mind. What had he seen that caused him such angst?
After the gas pump clicked off, he leaned in Angela’s open window and asked, “Anyone want anything to drink? Road snacks? Candy bar? Ice cream?”
At the mention of ice cream, Christopher sat a little straighter, but seemed determined to maintain his stoic demeanor. Jake opened the back door. “Come on, buddy. I need you to help me pick out the best kind. You look like you’re an expert.”
The boy unlocked his seatbelt and dropped to the concrete. Angela climbed out and took his hand as they crossed the busy parking lot with Jake trailing behind.
* * *
Sokolov had followed Angela’s car to the commuter lot off I-70 but had to keep going once they turned in lest he draw attention. Tailing them had been easy with lots of traffic to blend with, but the lot itself was another story. Guessing they were consolidating vehicles, he continued a half mile to the next exit and stopped at the top of the ramp, craning over his shoulder at the entrance to the lon
g-term lot.
Five minutes later, the big man’s truck left the lot and sped east down I-70. Sokolov followed a quarter of a mile back. His gut told him the man wasn’t the Wolf, and his gut was rarely wrong. A half hour later, they pulled off the interstate onto a four-lane highway split down the middle by an expanse of dead grass the color of wheat. Sokolov increased his distance but kept them in sight. The trio soon pulled into a Casey’s parking lot, and the big man pumped gas into the truck. Sokolov pulled to an empty pump three islands over.
His phone vibrated. Androv verifying the time of the meeting. Sokolov checked his watch and realized his window to follow the woman was closing quickly. He couldn’t kill them in a crowded convenience store parking lot but needed to know where they were going in order to come back and finish the job.
When he spotted the big man, the woman and the kid heading inside, Sokolov popped the trunk and slid boxes aside until he found the GPS tracker and receiver. He palmed the tracker in his left hand and clipped across the concrete. Making the pretense of grabbing paper towels from the gas pump island, he reached up and under the left rear bumper of the big man’s truck and placed the unit. He glanced to the storefront before retreating to his car.
Checking the GPS unit’s signal on a handheld device, he pulled out of the lot and headed back to Kansas City for his meeting with Androv and Polovich. Hopefully, both of them would show up. After the meeting, he’d follow the signal back to the big man’s truck and Angela Connelly and kill them both.
* * *
“You been to the Ozarks before?” Jake asked an hour later as the sunlight strobed through the branches of the trees surrounding Highway 7, the leaves blasting vibrant oranges and bloody reds.
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 56