They found him behind a barn, next to a chopping block and a pile of logs. He was face down in the dirt, the back of his head matted with dried blood. There was an axe buried deeply in the chopping block. But there wasn’t a sign of blood on the blade.
‘He must have hit him with the flat side,’ Angel said, ‘or his head would be split in two.’ He dropped to his knees and put two fingers to the side of Jesse’s neck, just under the back of his jaw, almost like he was going through the motions. ‘Maybe there’s a chance ... Jesus Christ, he’s still alive!’
Destiny had her phone out and was dialling 9-1-1 for the Kentucky Air Ambulance out of Louisville International before anyone else’s hand had even reached their pocket. Angel pulled out his own phone and held the screen in front of Jesse’s parted lips. A faint mist clouded the glass—not much, but it was enough and more than any of them could have hoped for.
‘Who knows, maybe it knocked some sense into him,’ Angel said as he stood up.
The words were harsh, but Evan knew, despite everything that had passed between the two of them, that Angel was as relieved as they were that Jesse was still alive. But he seriously doubted it had knocked the slightest bit of sense into his amazingly thick skull.
Chapter 74
DESPITE THEIR ELATION AT Jesse’s good fortune, the cloud of Gina’s disappearance still hung heavy over them. To make matters worse, Evan suddenly remembered the text that had come through while he hid in the hayloft—the latest from Mitch or Hendricks, no doubt. He went to get his phone out, just as Angel called to him.
‘Hey, Evan, did you happen to notice whether Forrest was bleeding?’
‘What, before or after Destiny used his face for target practice?’
Angel gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Let’s start with before. How about last night?’
‘I don’t think so. I was pretty out of it, but I think I’d have noticed. Why?’
‘Come with me.’ He led Evan back around to the front entrance of the house, leaving Destiny to watch over Jesse. They crossed the courtyard, stepping around Forrest’s lifeless body without giving it a second look, and stopped next to Forrest’s pickup. ‘Take a look in there. On the passenger side.’
Evan peered through the window. There was a dark stain on the front edge of the passenger seat. He had a nasty feeling he knew exactly what it was.
‘You think it’s blood?’
‘I think so. Something’s been bugging me. When I was out at the airport yesterday and we found the blood stains, it seemed odd that we didn’t have’—he paused for an uncomfortable moment—‘a body. There weren’t any bloodstains leading off anywhere either.’
‘Like whoever shot ... Gina, if that’s who it was, took the body away with him. I was comatose in the back, so I’d never have known if she was up front.’
Angel nodded. ‘Which has to mean she’s still alive. If he’d killed her, why not leave the body where it was like the other two he killed?’
‘But why bring her back here?’
Angel smiled at Evan’s lack of comprehension. He must have lived a very sheltered life. ‘She’s a good looking young woman. I think you even noticed that yourself. And he’s got all the ketamine he needs to keep her in a docile, drugged state.’
‘You’re seriously suggesting he’d bring her back here to keep her as ... some kind of sex slave?’
‘Why not? It happens all the time. He was a madman after all. Normal rules don’t apply.’
‘But she’s injured. We don’t know how badly.’
Angel shook his head as he easily batted away Evan’s objections. ‘He’s got that vet in his pocket, the one who supplies the drugs. He could patch her up if it wasn’t too bad. They probably look after horses better than they do people in the hospital. And if she’s too badly hurt …’ He looked all around and threw his arm wide taking in the massive courtyard, the outbuildings and the endless grasslands. ‘You could bury a hundred bodies out here and nobody would ever know.’
‘I suppose it’s possible—’
‘That’s why he kept going on about her being dead. That was going to be his story. He needed to get it right from the start. You, the deranged, homicidal maniac with his mind turned to mush by ketamine, went on a killing spree. You killed D’Amato’s two goons, executed me, a police officer, in cold blood and murdered Gina, a beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her. They’ve got three bodies. So what if they haven’t got hers—who knows what a monster like you did with it. Maybe you ate it.’
‘And I’m conveniently dead too. Thanks to Forrest the Hero.’
‘Exactly. The police don’t look too hard for people they know are dead.’
‘They don’t look very hard for people they know are alive.’
Angel caught the edge to his voice and gave him a hard stare. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Evan shook his head. ‘Ancient history. I told you about it.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Angel pinched his finger and thumb together. ‘Sounds like ancient history about this far under your skin.’
Evan didn’t have an answer for that—particularly now that Hendricks’ taunting emails and texts were doing their work, opening up old wounds. ‘Come on, if you’re right, she’s here somewhere. And hurt. We need to find her.’
***
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG. They found her locked in a basement in the main house, asleep on an old sofa, a blanket pulled over her. There was a pitcher of water on a table with a half empty packet of prescription painkillers, and it took them a while to shake her awake. She was woozy and had a nasty flesh wound on her calf with a horse bandage wrapped around it, but that didn’t stop her launching herself into Evan’s arms and burying her head in his shoulder. He felt uncomfortable as Angel waited patiently, arms folded and leaning against the wall as if he didn’t care that it was Evan and not him cast in the role of lead rescuer—and tried not to think too hard that it was his idea in the first place.
Gina finally untangled herself from Evan and they helped her upstairs into Forrest’s aircraft hangar-sized living room. Angel poured them all a drink—Gina demanding a large one despite the painkillers buzzing in her system—and she began her story.
She took them quickly through the abduction by D’Amato’s men and Evan managed not to catch Angel’s eye when it became clear she’d been snatched outside her own front door while he was sleeping peacefully in her bed upstairs. Their eyes grew wide as she described the horror of her ordeal tied to the chair with no seat, with the lunatic D’Amato brandishing a blowtorch in her face.
‘All because you called him a guinea cocksucker,’ Angel said, like he was called worse names every day. ‘Guy should grow a thicker skin.’
They were both impressed—and surprised—when she described how she’d escaped from the guy who came back to finish what D’Amato started.
‘He’s still alive, you know,’ Angel said. ‘Maybe you should have hit him again after all—that’s not for the record of course.’
But it was the final part in her story that they were really waiting for.
‘I’d had enough of running, waiting to be gunned down like a dog in the street with a bullet in the back. He’d already shot at me and missed—Lord knows how from that distance. I knew it wasn’t going to happen again.
‘I stopped suddenly to change direction, put some distance between us while he turned his truck around, and when I did, our eyes met. I didn’t know what it was I saw in his, but it wasn’t just anger or hatred. There was so much going on in there but it didn’t mean anything to me then.
‘I set off running again, back towards the warehouse. It had to be better than out in the open. But it didn’t work out like I planned. He turned the pickup around so fast, he was right behind me again before I knew it.
‘So I stopped running. I stopped dead and turned to face him. The truck was right on top of me and he was leaning out of it with his arm outstretched and the gun pointing right at my chest. He s
lammed on the brakes and nearly ran me over. Then he just sat there with the gun pointing at me, like he couldn’t decide what to do.
‘I was standing there with my hands on my hips breathing hard and heavy, the sweat plastering my shirt to my body. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. I knew then what it was in his eyes. So I bunched up my hair in my hands and pulled it up on top of my head, my arms spread wide open, my wet shirt stretched tight across my chest. Then I screamed at him: Come on then you bastard, shoot me. But you’re not getting an easy shot in the back, so just get it over with.
‘He didn’t move, didn’t say a word, just kept on staring, his breath ragged like I had the truck and he’d been the one doing all the running. But that gun arm was still steady as a rock. I thought, it’s shit or bust time, so I let my hair drop, ripped open my shirt front and screamed at him again: I said shoot me, you sorry sad pervert, shoot me right now or fuck off out of here.’
Gina stopped to catch her breath and took a sip of her drink, licked her lips. Evan and Angel had stopped breathing some time ago.
‘Then what?’ Evan said, his impatience getting the better of him.
Gina’s whole face lit up. ‘That’s when he shot me in the leg.’
There was a stunned silence for a fraction of a second. It wasn’t clear who started it, but suddenly everybody was laughing, all the fear and emotion and tensions of the previous forty-eight hours pouring out of them like a torrent of relief that would never stop.
‘He jumped out of the cab and dragged me around to the back of the pickup,’ Gina went on, speaking directly to Evan, ‘and opened up the cover. I thought he was going to make me climb in there, but that’s when I saw you asleep.’
‘I wasn’t asleep, I was drugged.’
She smiled. ‘You looked so peaceful, like all you needed was a teddy bear.’
Angel let out a laugh from across the room, made some remark that Evan ignored.
‘He said he’d shoot you right there and leave you in the gutter, if I didn’t do exactly what he said. He put the gun in your mouth, I really thought he’d do it. And that’s how I ended up locked away in the basement—where I’d probably have spent the rest of my life if his plan had panned out. What happened to him, by the way?’
‘Destiny remodelled his face with her hunting rifle,’ Evan said.
‘Destiny shot him? Is he dead?’
‘Oh yes. I think she’s outside skinning him now.’
‘And what were you two doing when she shot him?’
‘It’s a long story.’ He offered her his hand and helped her up. ‘Come on, let’s get you to the hospital, get that leg looked at before the painkillers wear off.’
‘Tell me what happened, Evan,’ she said as she limped beside him towards the door.
‘Yeah, Evan, tell her what happened,’ Angel said, bringing up the rear.
‘No, you tell her, Angel.’
It went on like that for some time.
THE END
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This is a work of fiction. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
SINS OF THE FATHER
EVAN BUCKLEY THRILLERS #3
Chapter 1
‘THEY’RE GOING TO NAIL my hand to the wall.’
Hugh McIntyre blinked angrily as he looked around the kitchen, hands flexing at his sides, as if he was looking for someone to hit. At the moment, there was no one available. That wouldn’t be the case for much longer if she didn’t start taking him seriously. He downed the last of his drink in one gulp and slammed the glass on the counter, felt the liquor sledding through his blood.
‘You watch too much TV,’ Lisa Stanton said, her stock answer for most of the world’s problems.
She held a wine glass up to the light, turned it back and forth, inspected it for greasy fingerprints.
‘And you’re over-reacting as usual. They wouldn’t do that.’
Satisfied the glass was spotlessly clean, she put it in the cupboard, a small contented smile on her lips. She picked up the next one, a big balloon red wine glass.
McIntyre’s jaw tightened, his eyes bright and mean. He swung his arm in a vicious backwards arc and sent the glass flying out of her hand. It sailed across the room into the wall and shattered.
Her mouth dropped open, her face looking like she’d sat on a hot coal.
‘Did you even hear what I said?’
She ignored him, turned her back on him. He wanted to kick her across the room. She got the dustpan and brush out of the broom closet. He snatched it out of her hand and grabbed her by the soft flesh of her upper arm.
‘Ow! You’re hurting me.’
‘Did you hear what I said?’ he shouted, his face inches from hers.
She tried to pull her arm away. He dug his fingers in tighter, his nails biting into the delicate skin.
‘I’m not deaf. Something about your hand. Let me go.’
He threw her arm away from him in disgust, thought about grabbing her by the back of the neck, forcing her head down onto the counter and smacking the back of it with the dustpan until he got her attention.
‘Something?’ The word rode out of his mouth on a stream of spittle. ‘They’re going to nail it to the wall.’
He stared at the dustpan in his hand, oh-so-tempted, thought better of it. If he was going to do it, he’d do it with something heavier. He hunkered down and swept the broken glass into the dustpan. The balloon had smashed into half a dozen jagged shards. The base and stem were still in one piece, the tip of the stem snapped off in a vicious point. His gaze shifted back and forth between the broken shards and the stem. It got very quiet.
Behind him Lisa massaged her arm, pretending it was a much bigger deal than it was. He wasn’t paying her enough attention. Bastard.
‘You hurt me.’
Christ, he hated it when she whined like that.
Times like this he imagined his hands around her perfect throat, with its cords and hollows and the pulse thumping first urgently and then slowly as he squeezed. He took hold of the wine glass stem. In the background her tireless vocal cords kicked in, the lemon-sucker lips working overtime. He’d bruised her arm, she was sure he’d damaged a nerve, she couldn’t lift it properly, what would people say when they saw the bruise, you’re not even listening to me. He placed the dustpan gently on the floor, careful not to make a noise. She didn’t even notice.
Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.
A hot little worm of excitement started moving through his belly, his chest tight like a horse was sitting on it. His pulse quickened, the sound of it loud in his ears.
He stood and turned in one quick easy movement, surprising her. She stopped mid-whine as his left arm snaked out towards her. He grabbed hold of her slim wrist, his strong fingers easily encircling it, and slapped her hand down on the kitchen counter. His right hand was still behind his back. His fingers flexed around the smooth glass stem.
‘Hurt you?’
He squeezed her wrist spitefully making her gasp and bite her bottom lip.
‘You want me to show you what hurt is?’
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes wide, as he brought his right hand out from behind his back, brandishing the wine glass stem. She stared at it, horrified, not seeing it, her mind a blank page, a helpless, hopeless look on her face.
She tried to pull her hand away. It might as well have been already nailed to the counter. An adrenal spike of fear filled her belly, turned her insides to ice water.
He gripped the stem t
ighter, rested the broken point between the tendons on the back of her hand, the razor tip kissing her skin. A surge of panic rose up inside her, her stomach heaving. She twisted her body away from him, then grabbed his forearm, clawing at it, trying to pry his hand away.
‘Don’t make me slip, Lisa. I’d stop struggling if I was you.’
He increased the pressure on the back of her hand. The sharp point dented the skin, didn’t break it. She sucked in air, a small hissing sound.
‘Don’t. Please.’
He let out an ugly laugh.
That’s more like it.
‘Let’s try that again. Did you hear what I said?’
She nodded mechanically, her eyes blinking rapidly.
‘This is what they’re going to do to me. The only difference is, when I say don’t, please, what do you think they’re going to do?’
She shook her head, a helpless gesture.
‘What does that mean, Lisa? Does it mean, no, they wouldn’t do that. That’s what you said a minute ago, wasn’t it? Or does it mean they’ll get a big heavy hammer and go BANG!’
He screamed it in her ear, his hot breath blasting the side of her face. She shrieked, a screeching inhuman sound dwarfing his own cry, fear lending her the strength to rip her hand out from under his. The razor-sharp point scratched her skin as she pulled away, drawing a trickle of blood.
It was no worse than her cat did every day. From the noise she made, you’d have thought he chopped off one of her fingers. She held her other hand over it, protecting it, clamped them both into the safety of her body. She shrank away from him. She shot him a look of such hatred and loathing, he wouldn’t have cast it on the bastards he owed the money to, people who killed as if it were a reflex action. It seared the organs in his body.
He took a step towards her, grabbed her by the hair at the nape of her neck. He towered over her, pushing his face into hers as he bent her head back, his eyes clear and cold. The smell of the liquor on his breath made her want to gag as he spat words into her face.
The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets) Page 55