Shane’s chuckle made Jake’s skin crawl. An evil, cruel sound which reminded him of his father’s. “You sound like a sheriff in an old western right before the final shootout.”
Footsteps thumped on the hardwood behind them.
“Jake?” It was Bear. His boots stopped when he reached the kitchen.
Jake threw an elbow across Shane’s jaw, dropping him to the floor. He took a few steps back, eyes locked on Langston, as if he feared the mere act of letting the scumbag leave his field of vision would allow him to disappear. “Anyone with you?”
“Nope. Cops are busy across the street. Is this scumbag alone?”
Jake’s thudding heart slowed, but the image of Halle’s wide, tear-filled eyes wouldn’t leave his mind. She was brave as hell and put on a good face, but this psycho had scarred her for life. What Shane would have done to Maggie if Jake hadn’t figured out his plan?
“Yup. It’s just me, Toby and him. Mac loaded the girls up and got them out of here.”
Bear placed a gentle hand on Jake’s shoulder. “You want me to cuff him?”
Jake paused a beat. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Shane propped himself up on both elbows, licking blood from his lips. “What the hell are you talking about, Jake? You honestly haven’t decided? How many nights have you laid awake thinking about me?”
“Too many.”
A chuckle slipped through Shane’s bloody lips. “And you have many more ahead. Wondering when I’m going to escape again. Wondering when I’m going to pay another visit to Maggie. Or Halle.”
The rage boiled inside Jake, a fiery crimson heat rolling up his neck and flushing his face. His finger tightened on the trigger. “Shut your hole, Shane.”
“Or what? You’ll fill it with something? Please. You don’t have it in you. You didn’t have it in you last time, and you ain’t got it now.”
A tremor rippled Jake’s hand.
Shane licked blood from his teeth. “Look at you. You may have been the wild wolf, but you’ve been tamed. You’re nothing more than a domestic pet. One of the good guys. And good guys don’t shoot unarmed men.”
Jake exhaled, knowing what he would do. He only wondered if he could live with his decision. “You’re right, Shane. Good guys don’t do that.”
Jake squeezed the trigger and blew the back of Shane’s head across the ebony cabinets. Shane slumped to the floor as his gray matter slid down the wood.
When the echo died away, Jake lowered the gun. “But I’m not a good guy tonight.” Jake drank in the surprised face of Shane, eyes wide, mouth hanging open in a mess of crimson.
Bear slipped to his side, reached to the floor and picked up Shane’s knife. “You good, partner?”
A numbness rolled over him, Bear’s voice far and distant. “I think so. Did I do the right thing?”
Bear tossed the knife toward Shane, the blade clinking against the hardwood floor. “Fuck him. He was armed. I have one question, though. Why the fuck is Toby wearing a wig and a woman’s robe?”
The numbness dissipated, and a tension-breaking laugh rolled through Jake—brief but good. Knowing Shane Langston was dead, and the world would be a better place without him felt better. The knowledge he wouldn’t lay a hand on his girls or anyone else ever again was best. Jake thought he could live with it.
Chapter Sixty-Five
It took a while for the chaos to dissipate from Mac’s house and the poor old couple’s across the street. Jake told Toby and Bear the story version he’d tell the Leawood Police—Shane broke in the house to kill them and Jake defended himself. Other than having to buy Mac new cabinets, there shouldn’t be any fallout from the shooting.
Jake and Bear met Mac in the driveway when he returned with the girls. Once Jake figured out Shane was in the basement, Jake quickly rolled out his plan, Mac had unlocked the basement door and hustled the girls to his truck.
Mac clapped Jake on the shoulder. “For an off-the-cuff performance, I’d say we sold it to Langston pretty well. Where the hell did you get the idea with Toby and the wig?”
“Saw it in a movie once when I was a kid. Nighthawks with Sylvester Stallone. Toby and Maggie are about the same size. I didn’t want to go down in your dark basement with Shane running around, so I thought we could draw him out. He vowed to gut Maggie when we were at the trailer, so I figured I could get the drop on him if I laid it out on a silver platter.”
Mac huffed. “I woulda just shot the fucker the second he stepped through the basement door.”
Jake grinned. “Where’s the fun in that?”
While the Leawood police worked the scene, Bear caught them up on what happened back home. The Warsaw Police Department and Benton County Sheriff’s office had spent the night and the next day rounding up the surviving Blood Devils. In all, they found all but four of them. Gunnar was still in the wind. In the next couple of days, Katrina would find a couple more Blood Devils hiding out around Branson and hand deliver them to Bear.
“Who was the Blood Devil that spilled that Shane knew where the girls were?” Jake asked Bear.
“Bruno. He got the info from a crooked fucker in the Taney County Sheriff’s Office. Some cop named Petry who was on Shane’s payroll.”
“And how did Petry know?”
Bear shrugged. “That’s still a mystery.”
Jake and Bear hit the road to Warsaw as soon as they could. A week later with a cold beer in hand, Jake savored having his girls back to a normal life around the house. The downside for him was the legacy of Mac’s cooking.
Maggie pointed a spatula at Jake from the kitchen. “You have zero excuses, Caldwell. If any man can learn to cook like that, so can you. Go take some lessons from him.”
Jake scooped her into his arms and kissed her. “I know how to cook. You like my spaghetti.”
She bit his lip playfully. “Honey, I love you, but your spaghetti sucks.”
The FBI sunk their hooks into the investigation, helping to fill in the blanks Jake, Bear, and Katrina couldn’t discover. Shane Langston was a big cog in a disgusting wheel. Nobody from Lockwood’s was held accountable. No charges were filed. Hell, there didn’t seem to be anyone to file charges against. The power of the almighty dollar.
Jake had the pleasure of watching Bear personally arrest Dick Blackwell for his part in the whole scheme. They showed up at a Blackwell campaign rally, waiting strategically until the asshole took the stage and got to the part of his stump speech about eliminating corruption. Bear swooped onstage and clamped the cuffs on Blackwell, despite Blackwell vehemently denying any wrongdoing. Bear made sure to pose for a photo op. One member of the press snapped a great picture of Bear with his hand clamped around Blackwell’s jaw, turning Blackwell’s shamed face toward the camera while Bear pressed cheek to cheek, grinning like a lottery winner.
The next morning, Jake held up the newspaper. “That may be the best picture you’ve ever taken, Bear.”
“Fuckin’ A it is. I’m having it blown up and making a life-sized cutout of it.”
Jake and Bear’s FBI friend Victoria Snell was a great help in enlisting their forensic accountants. They crushed Shifflett with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in multiple bank accounts he tried shifting overseas. Shifflett recently obtained a passport and plopped a down payment on a home in the Bahamas. Jake hoped when the judge sentenced him, Shifflett would get stuck in the Jefferson City prison. It would be worth the price of admission to watch Shifflett make the new fish walk in the corridors of his own house.
The cops charged Fancy from Xtreme for his part in the gun and girl running scheme, though the prosecutor didn’t want to go hard after him. The Blood Devils threatened to wipe out his entire family if he didn’t look the other way on the shipments after all.
Two weeks after The Asylum dust settled, Jake had lunch with Janey. They coordinated schedules so he could play a bigger role in the lives of Willis and Eli. On his way home, he checked in with Keats about Alina. Keats was shocked with the gir
l’s intelligence and planned on enrolling her in school to get an accounting degree. Once she graduated, he would put her to work in one of his legit businesses in addition to using her people-reading skills on occasion.
Jake remembered Alina referring to a pending war between her and Keats’s girlfriend. “How is Alina and your other lady getting along?”
“Shit, she spends more time with Svetlana than I do. I think they’re plotting something.”
“Like what? Murdering you in your sleep?”
“Don’t laugh, you little shit. If you hear I’ve turned up missing, you’ll know where to look.”
Jake ended the call. Sounded like Alina’s gamble paid off for her, an astronomical triumph against the odds.
He thought of one other person caught in the struggle. He needed to make one more trip to Branson.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Katrina met him at the truck stop. Jake found her propped against her truck with her attention aimed toward the rows of semi’s in the back lot.
She smiled and it suited her. “Got things cleaned up in Warsaw and KC? Sounds like it was a hell of a fight.”
“Something I hope I don’t have to go through again. How’s our boy Delbert?”
“Still bitching that he’s a victim of unfortunate circumstances, but breathing easier knowing Langston and Connelly are gone. He won’t see the light of day for a long time, if ever.”
Jake ticked his chin toward the trucker lot. “You find her?”
Katrina pointed. “Back by the fence. I wanted to say it was a pleasure working with you, Jake. Hope we meet again.”
Jake clasped her hand and held on. “You, too. Can I ask why they call you Hurricane?”
Katrina’s grip tightened to the point Jake’s knuckles ground together. “Told you not to ask me that.”
“So, that’s a no?”
She released his hand and winked. “Maybe someday, but not today. Catch you later, Caldwell.” She climbed in her truck and disappeared down the highway.
Jake found Candy smoking by the fence line on the perimeter of the Branson truck stop. Clad in faded jeans and a maroon pullover two sizes too big, her features sagged with despair, matching the steel gray skies spitting a light mist. Her eyes lit up when she noticed Jake coming across the lot toward her.
She stubbed the smoke out under a well-worn boot heel. “Hey, it’s my dancin’ man. What are you doing here?”
Jake drew his head to the side, noticing the bruising around her eye. Candy tried to cover it with a ton of makeup, but one could only do so much. A profound sadness settled in his chest, heavy like a two-ton safe. What would she say to his proposal? Bear thought he was crazy for even trying, but Jake couldn’t help but think of Alina’s dead sister Ulyana. He didn’t want this girl to wind up with a similar fate.
“Can you really sing, Candy?”
A tight-lipped half-smile threatened to crack her make-up. “Like a bird. At least according to my momma.”
“Sing me something.”
Her eyes flew wide and darted around. “Right here?”
“Sure. Why not?”
She shuffled her feet, uncomfortable. “Why would you want to hear it?”
“Because I’ve seen a lot of ugly shit in the last couple of weeks. I need something beautiful to cleanse my palate. Please?”
Her eyes flittered around as she considered his request. “Okay.”
Her mouth opened, and her voice slipped out—smooth, high, and delicious to the senses. Like a long, tall glass of ice water on a hot summer day. She sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” her eyes shutting as if she wondered if those bluebirds could fly, then why oh why couldn’t she. Tears dripped from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she finished. Jake couldn’t remember hearing a better voice in his life.
Candy opened her eyes and caught his stare, lines appearing between her eyebrows. “Jesus, was it that bad?”
Jake closed his gaping jaw. “No, no. Might have been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”
She blushed, a pink hue rippling up her pale neck. “You came all this way to hear me sing a song?”
Jake gestured toward the truck stop. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
* * *
They pulled in front of Elios, the little coffee shop on the corner along Independence Avenue in Kansas City. The surrounding neighborhood was peppered with ramshackle houses and battered cars along narrow, pot-holed streets.
Candy blew out a series of exaggerated breaths, wringing her hands in her lap. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
Jake rested his hand on her scrawny shoulder. “You can. I believe in you.”
Candy turned her pointed chin toward Jake, eyes wide. “I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before.”
“Well, someone should have a long time ago. Maybe things would have turned out different for you. See the blond-haired woman sitting in there? Her name’s Christine. She’s with an outfit called Restoration House and she’s waiting for you.”
“She don’t know nothin’ about me.”
“You’re wrong. She’s been exactly where you are right now. She’s helped dozens of girls like you get out of this dead-end life. You have places to go, Candy. People should hear that voice of yours. You just have to walk through the door and talk to her.”
Candy turned back to Jake, tears brimming. “Why are you doing this?”
Jake swallowed the lump in his throat. “Because you asked me to dance.”
Candy wrapped her taut arms around Jake’s neck and squeezed hard. After kissing him on the cheek, she cracked open the car door and climbed out before leaning back inside. “Your wife is a lucky woman, Jake Caldwell. If I ever make it to Broadway, will you bring her to come see me?”
Jake nodded. “Front row on opening night. Hey, what’s your real name?”
She smiled, not a sad smile, but one which bloomed with hope. “Sarah.”
She shut the door, stared at the coffee shop door for a moment, and then went inside, her hands jammed inside her pockets. Jake tracked her shuffling steps across the floor, and warmth spread through his chest as Christine rose from her seat and wrapped her arms around Sarah. The two-ton safe on Jake’s heart lifted.
He put the truck in drive and turned the tires back toward home. He didn’t know what would happen to Sarah. He didn’t know if she’d make it to Broadway or not. But it felt goddamn good trying to help her get there.
Epilogue
The following week, Jake lounged on the couch, his shoeless feet propped on the coffee table with a post-dinner beer resting on his bursting belly. Mac had showed Maggie and Halle some kitchen tricks, turning their cooking from good to great. At this rate, Jake would weigh as much as Bear before long, and he swore to do a better job working out to counter the excess calories he consumed of late.
Two tasty cases came into the private investigation business, but Jake told his assistant Victoria to pass them along to someone else. He decided after the chaos of the last month, a little downtime would be just what the doctor ordered.
Maggie settled on the couch and rested her head on his shoulder. “Anything good on tonight?”
Jake handed her the remote. “You try. I can’t find anything but reruns. Halle doing homework?”
Maggie yawned. “Geometry. She has a lot of catching up to do after being gone a week.”
Jake clicked the television off. “Let’s go sit on the back deck. It’s a nice night.”
Minutes later, they snuggled on a wicker loveseat with popping flames at their feet from a firepit Jake and Bear assembled from an old rock house on the back third of their property. Insects buzzed. An earthy Ozark scent wafted along the cool breeze, and stars lit up the midnight sky like fireflies.
Maggie moaned with contentment. “This is nice.”
Jake pulled her in tight. “I’m so thankful to have you two safe and sound and back home. No more e
xcitement for a long while.”
“Do I get a say? A little excitement is good for the soul.”
“Jesus, I’ve had enough in the last few weeks to last a lifetime. All I want now is some peace and quiet.”
Maggie raised her head. “Well, quiet’s going to be pretty hard with a baby screaming.”
Jake’s eyes grew wide and he cranked his head toward her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She smiled. The smile which always turned him to jelly. “I’m pregnant.”
Acknowledgments
It takes a village to bring a book to life and Asylum Road is no different. The following folks had a heavy hand in shaping this story over the last eighteen months. If I forget to mention anyone, my sincerest apologies. It’s not intentional and likely a sign of old age.
Many thanks to Kate Foster, who has worked with me since Poor Boy Road, never fails to hold me accountable for my plot foibles and pushes me to continually improve my work. Check out her work with Winell Road. And Rebecca Carpenter, editor extraordinaire, who polishes my manuscript until it shines and doesn’t descend from Colorado to strangle me for my continual improper use of the comma. I promise to learn the rules so you don’t get carpal tunnel syndrome editing the next installment of Jake and Bear. Her series starting with Butterfly Bones is a must read!
Major thanks to fellow Kansas City writer Robert E. Dunn for letting me borrow a few of his excellent characters from his Katrina Williams series. Since his series is set a few miles down the road from Warsaw in Branson, Missouri, he was gracious enough to let me cross over into his world. I had a ton of fun letting our characters work together. If you haven’t checked out this extremely talented writer and want some great reading material, start with A Living Grave and work your way forward.
Thanks to fellow author Jodi Gallegos for providing great feedback on an early version and for making me shoot whatever I’m drinking straight through my nose whenever I read her status updates. Our GIF exchanges on Twitter make my day. If you haven’t read her stuff, start with A Shine That Defies the Dark and The High Crown Chronicles.
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 106