Wicked Game

by Lisa Jackson

  “Hey, Hudson. It’s Zeke. I’m just pulling into your driveway.”

  “Yeah? What makes you come out here?”

  “Just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Come on in. Door’s open.” He hung up and yelled, “Zeke’s here.”

  When she didn’t answer, he headed upstairs and caught her coming out of the bathroom, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “You all right? Zeke’s just pulling up. He wants to talk to me.”

  Becca grimaced. “I ate something that didn’t agree with me. I’ll be right down.”

  “Okay.”

  Hudson clambered back down the stairs and Becca watched from the upper rail. She’d just lost her dinner. Food poisoning, or…pregnancy?

  Too soon to know, she told herself with a flutter of anxiety in her already nervous stomach. She couldn’t think of it. Couldn’t hope. Yet elation was building, a sudden, blinding certainty that ran down her nerves like electricity.

  No. No. Oh, please…yes!

  It took her a few moments to collect herself, to quash her growing thrill and put it in perspective. This was way too early. If it was true, she was barely a month pregnant. But then, she’d known immediately last time she was pregnant as well.

  Oh, God, let it be true!

  By the time she joined them, Hudson and Zeke were in the kitchen. Hudson was in a chair, but Zeke was standing. Becca’s head was full of swirling thoughts and it was all she could do to even wonder why Zeke had suddenly stopped by.

  “I just got back from the police station and McNally. I went home but I couldn’t stay there.”

  “What’s wrong?” Hudson asked, frowning.

  Zeke hesitated, clutched his fingers around the back of an empty chair, then rocked back on his heels. “The DNA proved I’m Jessie’s baby’s father.”

  “What?” Becca asked softly and Hudson stared at Zeke like he was speaking a foreign language.

  “The body has to be Jessie’s,” Zeke went on raggedly. “It has to be, because I didn’t sleep with anyone else…except Jessie…at that time.”

  “You slept with Jessie,” Hudson repeated. Zeke’s gaze implored his friend’s, but Hudson was having trouble shifting gears.

  “You can hate me, man. I wouldn’t blame you if you did! She was just trying to get back at you and I was a fucking idiot. I don’t know. I don’t have any excuse. She was just hot and I wanted her. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry!”

  Becca’s pulse shot into the stratosphere. Her mind was a jumble of pieces of information. Jessie’s baby wasn’t Hudson’s. Zeke slept with Jessie. Hudson’s best friend slept with his girlfriend. Jessie’s baby wasn’t Hudson’s!

  “Who killed her?” Hudson asked in a strangled voice.

  “I don’t know, man. Not me.”

  “Did you know about the baby?” Hudson demanded.

  Zeke shook his head. “No way. I just thought she ran off, maybe because we were screwing. She was messed up. So was I. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you think she knew?”

  “About the baby? It was, like, a few months along. That’s what McNally said.” He turned blindly to Becca. “Girls know that stuff, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” Becca said weakly.

  “I don’t think she knew I was the father. I mean, you and her…” Zeke struggled for words, his gaze on Hudson, who’d gone unnaturally quiet. “You were together during that time?”

  There was a long silence. Zeke’s anxiety and torture over wondering what Hudson was thinking and feeling filled the room. Becca felt light-headed and sank onto one of the kitchen chairs. The past consumed the present. You’re not pregnant, she told herself. You just want it so badly your subconscious is making you think you are.

  But you haven’t used birth control, have you? Haven’t thought about it!

  Hudson’s cell phone rang and Zeke and Becca both visibly jumped. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the Caller ID. “It’s Mitch,” he said.

  “Maybe I should go.” Zeke looked to Hudson for confirmation, but his friend had turned his attention to his cell. Becca nodded to him. There wasn’t much more to say, and Hudson was clearly still processing.

  Zeke hesitated, but when he heard Hudson say, “Hey, Mitch, what’s up?” he left, shoulders hunched, through the back door.

  Becca glanced over and saw Booker T.’s empty water dish. She wondered when Hudson was going to put it away. The dog wasn’t coming back.

  But maybe there’ll be a baby…

  Hudson listened for a few moments, then said into the phone, “Why don’t you just tell me, Mitch? I don’t think anything could surprise me now. If you know who killed Glenn, just say it. And don’t tell me it’s Jessie, because I just learned those bones are definitely hers. Yes. For a fact.” His gaze met Becca’s and he said into the receiver, “That’s right. Jessie did not send the notes because she’s dead.” He listened a little longer, then half sighed and said, “You’re at the garage? How long are you gonna be there?” A pause. “Sure, I’ll stop by.” He shrugged to Becca as he hung up.

  “Mitch is working late at the garage and wants me to stop by so he can talk to me about who killed Glenn.”

  “All your friends are suddenly into confessions,” Becca murmured.

  “You still feel sick, or do you want to go with me?”

  “I’m okay. I can go. Think it’ll be all right with Mitch? Maybe he wants to see you alone.”

  “To hell with that. I want to be with you.” He pulled her into his arms. She hugged him so hard he started laughing.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, her face pressed into his chest. “After what Zeke said?”

  He exhaled a short breath. “Y’know, I’m almost relieved. Thinking the baby was mine, and I never knew…pissed me off. I’ve been really mad at Jessie—and she’s been dead for twenty years! She never told me. I don’t know how to explain it, but I was goddamned mad at her.”

  “I understand.” A whisper of fear swept over Becca’s skin. She’d kept that same secret herself.

  “I’m not mad at Zeke. I would have been at the time, but a lot’s happened and I just don’t care.” He stroked her hair. “And I believe Zeke. He didn’t know she was pregnant. I don’t know why she was killed—maybe she just ran into the wrong person—but I don’t think it has anything to do with the pregnancy.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Are you ready to go see Mitch?” he asked.

  She curled her fists into his shirt and said, “Would it be bad of me to say, ‘not just yet’?”

  “Did you have something else in mind?” She heard the thread of amusement in his voice.

  For an answer, she took his hand and led him back upstairs.

  The garage was full of the smells of oil, dirt, and stale cigarette smoke, though no one was allowed to smoke inside. Mitch swiped the sweat from his brow with a red cloth stained with grease. He was sweating like a pig and trying like hell not to freak out. The card he’d received had scared the shit out of him, but now he had other worries loading him down. He’d had stomach problems ever since Glenn had died in the fire at Blue Note. He forced a picture of Glenn trapped in that damned inferno from his mind, but hell, he missed him. They’d been good buds. He’d listened when Glenn pissed and moaned about Blue Note or Gia. He’d been there.

  And he and Glenn had bonded over getting their asses kicked by The Third and Jarrett time and again. Jesus, those bastards could make life miserable if you had a few extra pounds or some other kind of weakness.

  Good old Glenn.

  He tasted acid burning up his throat.

  “Just the medication,” he said, then clapped his trap shut. He didn’t want Mike, the owner of the garage, to have any inkling that he was on prescriptions. Mike, an ex-druggie, was death on anything put in a person’s bloodstream, even those prescribed by a doc.

  So Mitch kept his pills on the down-low. No one but his doctor knew what medications were in his night table drawer or his body. But latel
y these new antidepressants coupled with his sleep aids had been playing tricks with his mind. He’d been hallucinating.

  Or at least he thought he was. Who the fuck knew?

  “Hey.” Phil, the skinny sixtysomething mechanic whose craggy, collapsed face might scare little kids, lifted a hand as he headed through the bay and out the big garage doors. “You’re closin’ up, right?”

  “After the Grand Am.” Mitch checked his watch. He still needed to put in some time on the car, and Hudson had agreed to stop by. Mitch wasn’t sure how much he was going to say to him. He hated being a tattletale, especially if his ideas were wrong. And it was kind of a betrayal, too. But Glenn was gone…and Renee, too, though he still was blaming that one on Jessie.

  “She’s dead,” he reminded himself aloud. Hudson had confirmed it.

  It just sure didn’t feel like it.

  “You talkin’ to me?” Phil asked.

  “Hey, change the channel back to country and close the doors, will ya?”

  “Look who’s the boss.”

  “You want to work on the damned Pontiac?”

  “Fine, fine.” Phil adjusted the station from the all talk radio that Mike always insisted upon and soon Randy Travis’s voice boomed through the bays. “Tomorrow,” Phil called as he pressed the electronic opener button so that the doors began their clattering descent. Before they closed completely Mitch caught a glimpse of Phil as he pulled himself up into the cab of a pickup that was jacked two feet into the air to support its huge tires.

  With Phil gone, Mitch was completely alone. Everyone else, including Elsa, the greyhound, Mike’s rescue dog and unofficial garage mascot, had already left for the day.

  These days, Mitch didn’t really like being completely alone.

  With an effort, Mitch turned his attention to the Pontiac supported by a hydraulic jack. Something wrong with the front-end U joint. A big job. Shit. He slid beneath the vehicle on the creeper, rolling it into position, then began working. He hooked a lamp over the axle and frowned at the under-carriage. A trick one, this, but he’d always enjoyed working on cars, ever since he’d been a freshman at St. Elizabeth’s, years before he could drive legally. He began humming along to Brooks and Dunn, spying what looked like another oil leak—more problems—when he heard something…a scrape of a shoe? Or just some static from the radio?

  No one was in the place.

  Mike had been gone since two.

  Phil had left less than twenty minutes ago.

  Mitch strained to listen over the sound of country twang and the thrum of guitar chords.

  It was the damned medications, making him all paranoid. All the weird shit surrounding those bones, and the damned notes, and the fire and Glenn…and then Renee up and dying. Made him crazy, that’s what.

  Still nervous, he slid out from under the Grand Am bumping his head on one of the rims. He stepped outside for a smoke, and ducked under the awning of the overhang where they’d once pumped gas. Now the old tanks were empty and Mike only did auto repair work. The parking area under the overhangs was used for cars waiting for a part. Rain was starting to fall again, beating on an old tar roof.

  He finished his cigarette, lit another, and wondered what was taking Hudson so long. Maybe he shouldn’t have called him. Maybe he should’ve called that cop. But what did he know, really? Not the kind of evidence they were always yammering about on those TV shows. More like suspicions.

  And he didn’t know anything about Renee. Nothing. Whatever happened to her at the beach was just a weird coincidence, probably. The work of thrill-seekers who just ran her off the road, maybe. He didn’t see how it could tie into Jessie.

  Maybe her dick of a husband did her in. What a fucking asshole that guy was.

  Then there was Glenn…God, he wished Hudson would get here.

  Mitch took a last, long drag, then walked around the corner of the building and through the open door, only half aware that it was ajar. Once under the car again, he went back to work, moving leisurely on the creeper. He knew he could wrap this job up if he could just get the fuckin’ universal joint—

  Scccrraaaape.

  Someone was inside.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  No answer.

  Just the sound of static over the notes of a slide guitar. “Phil? You there?”

  Every hair on the back of Mitch’s neck rose.

  “Listen to me, you cocksucker. If you’re fuckin’—”

  The lights in the entire garage went out.

  All the bays were plunged into darkness.

  Holy shit!

  Mitch’s ticker about exploded.

  He started to roll out from under the car, but the Pontiac groaned above him.

  He reached an arm out, scrabbling for purchase, desperate to get out from under the car. Before he could shift free, he heard the snap of the release on the jack. “Shit,” he whispered, his mouth turning to an “O” of horror just before three thousand pounds of General Motors metal pinned him to the creeper, which somehow didn’t fold in on itself. Something punched into his chest. The weight of the car crushed him, cracking his bones. Pain like he’d never felt before screamed through his body. His lungs burned. He gasped for breath. Heard the hiss of his lungs. His heart was pumping furiously and he sensed blood leaking from his broken, aching body.

  His eyes rolled back in his head, but he clung to consciousness. And then he saw her…as she was twenty years earlier—beautiful, sexy, and teasing.

  “What are little boys made of?” she said.

  “Jessie,” Mitch cried, his voice strangled. “Jessie…”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hudson’s truck rattled down Highway 217 before turning off at Canyon and heading east toward the city. Mike’s Garage, Mitch’s workplace, was about another mile in.

  He looked across at Becca. She’d been awfully quiet since their lovemaking and he wondered if he’d done something wrong. “What is it?” he asked her again, feeling like one of those idiots who keeps asking, “What’s wrong?” when the person clearly doesn’t want to say.

  “Just tired,” she said.

  They passed auto dealership after auto dealership pressed shoulder to shoulder along the road that cut through this ravine in the west hills surrounding Portland. She glanced at her watch. “It’s kinda late. Shouldn’t he be off work by now?”

  “He said he was working late, and that was a little over an hour ago. If he’s not there, we’ll check his apartment, and if he’s not there, we’ll go home.” Hudson ran through a yellow light and drove the remaining quarter mile to a cross street where Mike’s Garage was located.

  The low, flat stucco building that once had been a gas station looked empty. The lights in the building were out, the Closed sign visible, not a soul in sight. But Mitch’s black Tahoe was parked in a spot at the side of the building.

  “He must’ve gone with someone, gotten a ride,” Becca said as Hudson pulled up next to the big rig and parked, cutting the engine.

  “Maybe.”

  “The place is closed.”

  “I know.” Hudson opened the glove compartment, retrieved a small flashlight, then stepped out of the pickup, leaving the driver’s door open. He punched out a number on his cell phone and walked toward the garage, listening. “It’s ringing.” He nodded toward the garage. “Inside.” Becca heard the faint sound of some downloaded tune.

  “Maybe Mitch left it by mistake.”

  “Left his truck and his cell phone?” Hudson was already walking around to the back of the garage as Becca shoved open the passenger door and hopped to the ground, catching up with Hudson. By the time they reached a slightly ajar back door, the cell phone was still playing a song from the eighties. “Mitch?” he called into the darkened interior, his voice echoing slightly. “Mitch?”

  “He’s not here,” Becca said again, but even as she stepped over the threshold of the garage she felt that something was wrong. No security lights were lit and country music was playing sof
tly from speakers. But there was a strange, eerie quietude to the place that caused the hairs on the back of her arms to lift. Her stomach knotted as she kept up with Hudson. They picked their way through the parked cars in various states of disassembly, the scents of rubber and grease mingling with the odor of dust. The beam of Hudson’s flashlight slid over the open hoods and raised carriages.

  “Mitch, you here?” Hudson said again and Becca shivered.

  This time Becca heard a low, nearly inaudible moan.

  Her heart glitched. She stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Mitch!” Hudson shone his light in the direction of the sound. The beam tracked over a stained cement floor to a man’s legs poking from beneath the weight of a sporty red car crushing his chest, pinning him beneath. “Shit!”

  They ran to the mechanic’s—Mitch’s—side. “He has to be alive. Has to,” Becca whispered, trying to convince herself. As she peered beneath the car and caught a glimpse of Mitch’s face, a mask of death, his eyes closed, only the raspy sound of his breath indicating there was a bit of life in his body.

  Hudson was kneeling by Mitch’s side. “Hit the lights!” he ordered Becca, shining the beam of his flashlight onto the far wall where a switch was visible. “And call for help.”

  Becca was already on her feet, fumbling in her purse, retrieving her cell, dialing 911. She hurried across the concrete, nearly tripping on a drain before she reached the switch and threw it. Immediately, flickering fluorescent overhead lights cast a bluish glow over the garish scene.

  “He’s still alive,” Hudson said as the 911 operator answered.

  Becca wasted no time. “I need an ambulance immediately.”

  “What is your name and the nature of your emergency.”

  “I’m Rebecca Sutcliff and I’m at Mike’s Garage, off Canyon Boulevard. There’s been a horrible accident, Mitch Bellotti—he’s trapped under a car, he’s bleeding and…and…send someone to…” She turned anxiously to Hudson.

  “The cross street is Eighty-sixth or seventh!” Hudson had jumped to his feet, heading for the roller jack.