Jake Caldwell Thrillers

by Weaver, James

  “What?”

  “The TracFind app says Tyler’s gun is only a couple of blocks away.”

  Jake snatched the phone, using two fingers to blow up the map from a general area to individual houses. A red dot indicating the gun’s location pulsated. In the house across the street from Mac’s. Where the old man lived. The old man that Mac never beat to the curb.

  Jesus Christ. Langston was right across the street from his family.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Jake roared down Roe, slinging his truck around the narrow, two lane, serpentine road, tires squealing and horns blaring from nearby cars he cut off. He got stuck at a stoplight, traffic in front of him whipping by, his eyes alternating between the house where Langston was holed up and the one across the street with his family. He forced air through his flared nostrils to slow his roll.

  Think, Jake. Don’t rush in like a fucking animal.

  A fist thudded against Jake’s window. His hand dropped to the Sig Sauer on the seat next to him as his head whipped to take in the red-faced, twenty-something with a two-hundred-dollar haircut and capped teeth.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” the man screamed. “You almost ran me off the goddamn road. I’m going to—”

  Jake raised the gun, his lip curled. “Unless you want to explain to your dentist how all his beautiful handiwork got ruined, I suggest you back the fuck off.”

  The man’s bravado faltered, and his hands shot palms up. “No worries, dude.” He backed up toward his car, and Jake watched him through the side mirror. No doubt calling the police the second he got inside. Not a problem since they were supposedly on the way.

  How long was this freaking red light? Jake focused back on the house, his right foot wanting to drop the hammer on the gas pedal. If Langston was across the street, he was most likely watching Mac’s house. He’d see Jake coming if Jake pulled into either driveway, and that wouldn’t end well. Shane’s hideaway backed directly to another two-story house. His brain told him to go to Mac’s and let the cops handle Shane; but his heart told him he’d already tried that route and look where it got them. Nothing but bloody bodies and mayhem. It was time to do it his way. And that way wouldn’t involve rolling up the driveway in the line of fire.

  The light in front of him flipped to green and Jake gunned his truck into a right turn, the side of Shane’s hideout flashing by on his left. He peered over his shoulder, but the backside of the house was obscured by a six-foot, wooden privacy fence. Jake turned left down the first side street, passed a few houses and pulled a U-turn, rolling back to the north, trying to catch a glimpse of the back of Shane’s house in between those facing him.

  Jake called Mac. “Everyone secure?”

  “I was going to the store but turned back when Bear called. I’m pulling into the driveway now. Toby has everyone locked in the safe room and has enough fire power within arm’s reach to level an Afghan village.”

  “Bear?”

  “On his way. Should be here in a little over an hour. Where are you?”

  Jake explained what he found at the widow’s house and her husband’s gun pinging at Mac’s neighbor across the street. “I’m on the backside street and I’m going to sneak in and see if I can take out Shane. That fucker’s had enough time above ground.”

  Mac’s breath rattled the phone. “I suppose it would be too much to expect you to wait for the cops and let them handle it?”

  “Yeah, it would. These guys wouldn’t know what to do with a man like Shane. I do. Anything you can tell me about the house?”

  “Don’t try the sliding glass door off the deck. Screeches like a banshee. There’s a door at the back of the garage. Key’s under one of those fake rocks to the right. From there, you can enter through the kitchen. The heavy trees would obscure the view of my house from upstairs, so I’d guess Langston would be watching from the living room.”

  “Got it. Thanks, Mac. Watch over my girls. I’ll see you in a few.”

  Jake parked and dropped to the asphalt. After checking his magazine and grabbing a spare from under the seat, he slipped the gun into his waist holster and crossed in the darkness between distant streetlamps. The corner house on his left was dark. Through a bay window to his right, an old couple hunkered on a couch reading.

  His feet crunched over dry leaves up to a chain-link fence. He fumbled in the dark with the latch and let himself into the corner house’s backyard. After tripping over a coiled garden house and maneuvering through a sea of children’s toys, he made it to the wooden fence. Peering over the slats, the old man’s house was dark, save for a light casting a faint glow through a pair of sliding glass doors.

  Jake pulled himself over the fence and dropped noiselessly to the ground on the other side. He drew his pistol and crept across the yard; muzzle raised toward the house. A cat darted across his path with a growl, and Jake drew in a sharp breath, glad he didn’t shoot the stupid thing. He risked a glance through the sliding door. A family room with bookshelves and couches, but no Shane. Thirty seconds later, he stood in front of the back door, ear cocked toward the sky, listening. Nothing but the droning of tires from the street.

  Crouching, Jake pawed at mulch in a flower bed before his hand settled on a fist-sized rock. He slid his hand along the flat bottom and found the gap. He dug out the key and slid it into the back-door lock. Sucking in a deep breath, he turned the key and eased the door open.

  Scant light from Roe Boulevard seeped through the transom windows set at the top of the garage doors. He felt his way around the hood of a dark SUV to the side door leading into the house. Jake held his breath and eased the doorknob, bringing up his pistol with his other hand.

  The door silently swung open, and the stench of death assaulted Jake’s nostrils. He pressed his left sleeve against his nose, knowing full well where the smell was coming from. Up a couple of steps, he slipped into a small mudroom with a washer and dryer. An opening led to a kitchen. Two bodies sprawled on the floor on their backs in a pool of blood. White hair and open eyes above jagged gashes in their necks. Neighbor Charlie and his wife. His grip tightened on his pistol as his gaze focused on the couple’s hands—clasped together. Add two more to Shane’s growing body count. Motherfucker.

  Jake crept down the hall, pictures lining the wall, the odor from the bodies permeating every bit of the stuffy atmosphere. Around the corner, the backside of a couch came into view, and he stopped, listening for any movement. Nothing. He eased forward, one gentle step in front of the other, praying a creaking floorboard wouldn’t give him away, heart threatening to pound from his chest. Reaching the corner of the living room, he drew in a deep breath and swung his pistol into the room, finger tight on the trigger.

  Nothing.

  A chair had been pulled to the front window in front of a slit in the curtains. Two empty pop cans, one used as an ashtray. Shane’s watching spot. The only problem—there was no Shane. Jake’s eyes darted around the room, listening and feeling with his mind. The house just felt empty.

  Jake spent the next ten minutes searching room to room but found no sign of Shane. Where the hell was he? Jake called Mac and told him what he’d found as the sound of sirens wailed in the distance. Everyone was fine over there.

  Rather than try to explain what the hell he was doing in the house and burning a bunch of time with the local cops, Jake made his way through the garage and out the back door. Two minutes later he was in his truck and heading toward Mac’s.

  Jake pulled into Mac’s driveway just as a trio of Leawood Police cars screeched to a halt outside Charlie’s house and a fourth pulled to the top of the street, blocking traffic.

  Mac lumbered through the garage, his big shoulders hanging in grief. “You sure they were gone? Charlie and Emma?”

  Jake trudged up the driveway, nodding. “Fucker slit their throats.”

  “I’m gonna kill that sumbitch.”

  “Not if I get to him first, wherever the hell he is.”

  “You want to
talk to the cops first?”

  “Let’s wait for Bear.”

  Mac nodded and turned toward the house. “Let’s get you to your girls, and we’ll figure out our next move.”

  Jake followed, his feet feeling as if they were encased with cement. As Mac hit the garage door button by the door, the light from the unit flared on. His boots hit the first step when something on the floor by the basement door caught his eye.

  Bending, he picked up a book of matches.

  Red.

  White letters in the foreground in a dripping font.

  The Asylum.

  Jake dropped his voice low, drawing his gun and letting it hang at his side.

  Now Jake knew why Shane wasn’t in the house across the street.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Shane huddled in a corner of the basement; eyes locked on the light beaming from under the door at the top of the steps. The musty smell and oppressive dark of the basement closed on him, and his mind raced back to the rats. He shook the feeling loose and focused on the sounds above him. Footsteps clumping on floor, muffled voices dropping from above. Was that a squeak in the dark with him? Goosebumps popped on his striated forearms.

  He’d watched the safe house from the comfort of the old couple’s living room, smoking too much on purpose to cover up the smell of the bodies. He’d thought of tying them up but decided it would be too much work. What was a few more bodies at this point?

  The only certainty left in this world for him was the fact that if he was caught, he’d join the two dozen or so death-row inmates in Missouri and end up strapped to a table in short order waiting for a lethal cocktail to flow through his veins. The odds of him escaping the long arm of the law after his prison break were slim, but after the debacle at The Asylum, he’d be captured or dead inside twenty-four hours. There would be no escape after what went down.

  He felt for the pocket flashlight he took from the old man’s junk drawer, covering the end with his hand and flipping it on. Something heavy smacked the floor upstairs and Shane jumped. He turned his palm enough to allow a bit of light to glow about the basement. Long, steel shelves anchored against the wall covered by cardboard boxes and plastic tubs. A washer and dryer sat next to a small, carpeted workout area. A gas water heater hunkered in the corner on the opposite side. Shane briefly considered cutting open the gas line and blowing up the house. While it would take everyone out, it wasn’t personal enough. Jake wouldn’t know what happened, and Shane really wanted him to know.

  The trouble was the big ass black guy. Jake would be hard enough to take down on his own but add in the black guy and there’d be no fucking way that would end well. Shane considered himself fortunate to have made it inside the house in the first place. When he spotted the dude leaving, he’d pulled a ball cap down low, flipped the collar up on his jacket and slipped out the front door, and beat quick feet down the sidewalk away from the house. A half block later, he’d crossed the street and headed back north toward the safe house. He almost shit himself when the black man returned and rolled up the driveway, mere feet from Shane. Sneaking inside the garage after the dude parked had been risky, but Shane couldn’t exactly go up and ring the goddamn doorbell. Jesus, he needed a cigarette.

  After the man went inside, Shane had scanned the garage, contemplating the drop ladder in the ceiling and hanging out in the attic until the right moment presented itself. But he’d run the risk of the attic above not leading to the interior of the house and, if the ladder was anything like the one in his Chicago home as a kid, it would scream when deployed. Shane had darted across the garage, gun raised toward the door leading into the house and checked the other wooden door on the opposite wall. Stairs led into the darkness and he crept down the outside of the treads. He worried he’d trapped himself when he spotted the light from under the door at the top of the stairs.

  Sirens erupted outside. A lot of them. Had they somehow found the old couple? He listened and waited but heard nothing but the normal foot traffic of people walking around. In either case, he didn’t have time to screw around hoping.

  He froze when something popped on the door, like a push lock disengaging, and he aimed his gun at the sound. Shane let his breath out a half minute later when nobody opened the door. He was in a bad spot—an enclosed basement with limited exit points. He resigned himself to bursting through the door at the top of the stairs and shooting whoever got in his way to get to Jake’s precious family. Maybe he’d get lucky. Even if he didn’t, he’d go down swinging.

  Shane edged up the stairs, moving like a snail, thighs burning. His hand reached for the knob and stopped when he heard Jake’s voice on the other side of the door, muffled. He dropped back a couple of steps, hoping to hear things more clearly from the door crack.

  “No sign of Langston anywhere,” Jake said. “I’m getting nervous hanging around here much longer. He’s going to figure out where we all are eventually.”

  A woman’s voice sounded. Maybe Maggie, maybe little Halle. “Where will we go?”

  “Not sure yet. You got anywhere else we could hole up, Mac?”

  A deep voice resonated as shadows flickered across the door crack. “Got another place across town we could go, but I think you’re as safe here as anywhere. No way that asshole gets inside my house.”

  Shane grinned in the dark. That’s what you think, brother.

  The deep voice added, “Toby and I will head over there now and make sure things are squared away. You okay by yourself with the girls, Jake?”

  “Yeah. Bear will be here in thirty minutes or so. I’ll go pack everything up.”

  The woman spoke up again. “I’ll go clean your mess up in the kitchen.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Maggie.”

  More shadows flickered. “Please, Mac. You’ve been such a good host. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Alright. I’ll see you all in a couple hours. Come on, Toby.”

  Jake spoke next. “I’ll go help the girls pack, Mags. Give a yell if you need help with the dishes.”

  Footsteps clomped. A door opened and shut, and a minute later, water trickled through the pipes running down the wall. Pretty Maggie doing the dishes. Mac and the other guy Shane spotted were out of the picture. Jake was in the back room. Shane’s limbs tingled with anticipation at the thought of Maggie bleeding out on the kitchen floor and Jake coming in. The look of despair and anguish on Jake’s face right before Shane blew his head off his shoulders. It would be fucking poetic. The picture-perfect family shredded.

  Shane turned the handle and eased the basement door open, stepping into the house, pistol in one hand, his knife in the other. Equal opportunity weapons of carnage. The hallway was dark and empty. To his right, the corridor led to the bedrooms, the open door at the end spilling light. Shane edged toward the sound of running water, stepping lightly on the hardwoods, pulse quickening.

  Rounding the corner, Maggie stood before him, washing dishes in front of the running sink. Her long, blonde hair flowing over the shoulders of a floor-length robe. Shane licked his lips and crept forward, quicker knowing the water would mask his footsteps. He tucked the pistol in his waistband, shifting his beloved knife between his hands as he moved. Should he plunge the knife in her exposed back? Or maybe slide the knife across her throat and watch the blood pour down the drain? No. He wanted to see her eyes, wanted to feel her terror, to absorb it and let it flow through him. An ache stirred in his groin, growing in power the closer he got. Three steps. Two steps. The knife raised in his hand of its own volition.

  Shane stopped when he felt the gun pressed to the back of his head.

  “That’s close enough, asshole,” Jake said.

  Maggie spun to face him. Except it wasn’t Maggie. It was the other guy in the house. Toby in a wig. Toby with a Glock pointed at Shane’s chest.

  A gun at the front and one in the back. Nowhere to go. Fucking Caldwell.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Langston dropped his hand towa
rd his waist and Jake pushed the gun forward. “Naw. You don’t want to do it, Shane. Drop the knife.”

  Shane didn’t move, and Jake smacked him on the back of the head with the barrel of his Sig Sauer. Shane cringed and the knife clattered to the hardwood.

  “If your hand moves one more millimeter toward your gun, I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  Toby moved to his right, kicking the knife away and yanking Shane’s pistol from his waist, and Jake shoved Shane forward against the sink. When Shane turned, Jake stared into his black eyes and saw nothing but a bottomless pit.

  “You couldn’t do it last time.”

  “You were going to stab my wife in the back. I think I’ve got the incentive in me now.”

  Shane flashed his teeth. “What would you do without me, Jake? I’m the Joker to your Batman.”

  Jake’s lip curled to a sneer. “You should’ve stayed in prison.”

  Shane let loose a sigh, glancing to his right and left in an obvious hunt for a weapon, but Jake had made sure there’d be nothing. “It was so incredibly boring. Surrounded by rapists and murderers.”

  “You should’ve felt right at home.”

  Shane shrugged. “There wasn’t a soul in that shithole I could have a real conversation with.”

  “You seem to have made good enough friends with Grady Harlan and the Blood Devils.”

  “A necessary evil. Kind of like the old adage about not having to outrun the bear, just the other guy. I outran Grady.”

  Jake wanted to take him out, but he wanted a few answers first. “Why’d you kill the girl in the trailer?”

  “Grady did the deed. I didn’t want the attention. Is that what’s bothering you, Jake? The girl?”

  Jake stepped forward, pulse racing from adrenaline, pressing the barrel of the gun into Shane’s forehead, driving it back. “There’s a lot of shit bothering me, Shane. The fact you breathe the same air as decent people bothers me.”