Blood Red Summer: A Thriller

by J. Conrad

  Holding the blindfold limply in my right hand, I hold it out and offer it to Nick. He takes it and stuffs it in the pocket of his trousers. I notice he’s no longer holding the gun. Maybe he holstered it sometime after I blindfolded myself.

  “Have a seat,” he says.

  He extends a hand, gesturing to the middle chair. The woman takes the chair to the far left, air whooshing from under her jeans as she plops her ample backside down. She sits sideways and looks up expectantly. Her gaze darts back and forth between Nick and me. I wonder if she expects me to fight back again. I wonder it myself.

  I walk over and take a seat in the middle chair, facing forward. I don’t look at the woman or try to ask her for help. If she were going to help, not just protest Nick killing me, she would have done it a long time ago. She’s here, so she’s, therefore, just as much a part of this as Nick.

  Nick takes the chair to my right. I fold my hands in my lap and turn my head halfway in his direction. His body faces more toward me than the desk. He smooths imaginary wrinkles on his blue dress shirt as he studies my stricken face. I guarantee his looks worse. His broken nose is now more purple than red, and he has two black eyes. When he sees he has my attention, he begins to speak.

  “That building catching fire was almost the best thing that’s happened to me in thirty years. Almost. The best thing that happened was you and your boyfriend ripping the wall out.” He stares at me as though this is supposed to mean something to me. He continues. “I’m going to tell you everything. Show you everything. When I’m done, I’ll give you a packet. You’re going to take it to the police, and Rance Epstein will be arrested for murder.”

  Nick regards me, his face expressionless as I glare at him. Is he saying he’s not the one who set the fire? I almost reply but think better of it. I inhale and nod frigidly. Sure. I’ll listen to what he has to say. It’s not like I have a choice. And I’ll deliver a bunch of papers too. You bet I will. But behind my anger and sarcasm, the little flicker of hope ignites again. Is he really going to let me live? Did he truly fly me here to give me information and not for some darker purpose of revenge?

  Nick leans back slightly, seeming satisfied with my icy acknowledgment. He blinks at me, but not with his arrogant eye-flutter thing. His brows relax, and he breathes deeply, almost like he’s relieved. Then Nick begins to impart information.

  This impartation starts with him saying, “The remains you found in the warehouse belong to a woman named Juliana Lange. She was murdered on September 28th, 1987.”

  “In March of 1988, I was tried and convicted for this crime, which I didn’t commit. I was sentenced to life until my exemplary behavior, and finally, a breakthrough from my legal counsel got me out on parole a month ago. Maybe I didn’t do life, but thirty years is a long time for an innocent man to go to jail, and violating my parole will put me right back in. My problem this last month was that the only way to prove my innocence was to violate my parole. One of the conditions was that I couldn’t go within a hundred yards of Rance Epstein. Unfortunately, I’ve already done that a number of times, including visiting the warehouse on Lamar, which he now owns. All of this would have been so much easier if you hadn’t screwed me over. Obtaining your cooperation by force was my last recourse.”

  Mentally, I hear one of the first things he said when he began threatening me. I know what you did in the shed. Nothing in his current monologue relates to what happened with Ayden. My mouth drops open, and my bottom lip hangs numbly. In a brittle voice, I say, “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. How did I screw you over?”

  “I asked you to take a leap of faith and sell the property to me. To discuss it with me. But you wouldn’t even give me a few minutes of your time to listen to what I had to say. Instead, you sided with the murderer and sold to him, no questions asked. The buildings went to Rance, and with them, I thought, any chance of Juliana’s remains being discovered. At first, I thought you were acting out of fear, or maybe stupidity. Then I learned otherwise. You found out he was hiding something, and he paid you to keep quiet.”

  Without meaning to, I snort. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would I have opened the wall if I was paid to keep quiet? We called the police, and the story was front-page news.”

  Nick almost smiles. “I wondered the same. I considered it evidence that you had a conscience. That you wondered what, in fact, you had actually agreed to. Like I said, it was the best thing that happened to me in thirty years. And here we are.”

  I glance at my lap. Despite the fear factor, this discussion has taken on a remarkable resemblance to my last conversation with Trent. I look up at Nick as though he’s just an ordinary man and not my kidnapper. “Who told you that?”

  “Excuse me?” He raises his eyebrows.

  “Who told you Rance paid me off? Not Rance if you can’t speak to him, so who?” I ask.

  Nick hardens his brows, and his forehead furrows with deep lines. “My contact is not your concern.”

  “Oh, I fucking well think he is!” I want to launch myself off the chair.

  Nick’s hand flashes at his side, producing the handgun. He makes sure I can see it. But I can’t deliver a packet for him if I’m dead. He knows it.

  My chest heaving in anger, I say, “Rance didn’t pay me anything. I don’t know him, just like I don’t know you.”

  Nick says nothing and keeps the pistol aimed at me. With everything he’s put me through so far, I still don’t have my basic questions answered. I bristle, wishing he’d get to the punch line. We aren’t there yet.

  I ask, “You know for a fact that Rance murdered that woman and put her body in the warehouse?”

  The eye-flutter thing again. How I hate him.

  “Yes, he murdered her on the date I told you. But he didn’t put her body there originally. He had buried it elsewhere, dug it up later, and moved it,” he says.

  “And cleaned it? Because it didn’t look like anyone had dug it up. It was an immaculate, white skeleton surrounded by flowers and little cards inside a homemade vault lined with satin.” My stomach turns over as I recall the scene in the dingy lighting of that room in the annex building—the morbid, covetous beauty of it all.

  Nick slams his palm against the desktop. “Yes, of course he cleaned it! He made his little shrine to her. Do you understand what this is? Are you getting some inkling of the kind of person who would do this?”

  I know Nick sees the irony flash in my eyes as I glare back at him. He’s holding me at gunpoint. I ask, “Why did he murder her?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. Very simple. In 1987, Juliana left him. For me.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere. I blink, trying to insert the last puzzle piece I can’t make fit. “But... even if I was paid by Rance, which I wasn’t, I still don’t understand what this has to do with Ayden. Are you related to him? You told me that you knew—that you knew about the shed, about what I did. But you haven’t mentioned Ayden once.”

  Nick frowns and tucks his chin. The chair creaks beneath him as he leans back and observes me. He takes me in carefully, his gaze devouring the abject confusion stamped across my face.

  “Who’s Ayden?”

  26

  The dizziness comes upon me again, the reeling which makes slipping out of the chair and falling unconscious to the floor a real possibility. “Ayden Nemeth. He was a man who... died in our backyard shed.”

  I stop myself from saying more. If he doesn’t know who Ayden is, if I’ve been that off base about everything, then it seems even worse to tell him the details of what happened. Silent, Nick looks at me with the sour disdain I’m growing accustomed to. My cheeks heat.

  I say, “You said you knew what I did in the shed.”

  And then Nick starts to laugh. He begins slowly at first, then his sardonic chuckle takes hold of him, and he clutches his stomach. My heart flutters in an anxious panic, and I slowly wipe my sweaty palms on my slacks.

  “Unbelievable. You thought I was talking ab
out something from your past?” He smiles grimly, shakes his head, and looks down at his lap momentarily. He snickers. “‘The shed.’ I was talking about the room in the annex—that whole section is a storage building. From the outside, it even looks like a large shed. And it should because that’s what it is.”

  I swallow, wishing I could drop through the floor and disappear. “But… I don’t understand. You said I’ve had blood on my hands for too long. That everything comes with a price and that what I did was as good as murder.”

  Nick snorts. “Yes. Like I already told you, I know Rance paid you to keep quiet. So, don’t bother trying to keep up the lie to the contrary.”

  “But you said you were there. You couldn’t have been there because it never happened,” I say.

  “All right, technically, I wasn’t present. I was outside the property when you spoke to Rance on the walk-through. You were alone together. My contact was the one who overheard you and reported back to me.”

  I grit my teeth. Another wave of anger turns me rigid. “Wow. Because people hired to spy and do bad deeds always tell the truth.”

  “Enough!” he says. His white cheeks turn pink as he shoves the gun at my face.

  I guess I’m supposed to shut up now, but I don’t. “If you knew the woman’s remains were inside the wall, why didn’t you find a way to alert the police yourself? Especially if you already knew Rance had murdered her.”

  Nick sighs, tilting his head in exasperated weariness. He bends his elbow, bringing the gun closer to himself. “I have found a way—you. And I already told you the answer to that question as well. Had I done so, it would have been a violation of parole, and I would have been arrested. I’m not taking any chances. If our justice system can lock me away for thirty years for a murder I didn’t commit, they wouldn’t bat an eye at sending me back to prison for trespassing or getting too close to Epstein. Everything is explained in the packet I’ll give you. It should take care of this, once and for all. If you’re smart, you’ll read through it before you turn it in.”

  “And how do I tell the police I came by this information?” I ask.

  “You’ll tell them you compiled it yourself. That you became engrossed in your discovery about your client’s property and decided to do your own investigation.” Nick draws a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at his brow. His gaze never leaves my face.

  “You want me to lie to the police. What if I don’t tell them that? What if I tell them you gave me the information? What if everything you’re saying is a lie, and you’re the one who murdered Juliana, and you’re trying to frame Rance for it?” My arms tremble as I shove my hands between my knees. The nervous jittering in my belly hasn’t let up once.

  The subtle smile from Nick again. Then it vanishes, and he clenches his jaw. “If you don’t tell the police you compiled the information yourself, I’ll kill Trent Lemend. I know where he lives. I know he’s enrolled in the police academy. I know where he gets his kicks on the weekends. I even know where he goes for a screw occasionally—if you were wondering.”

  He may as well have shot me in the gut. I exhale, my body drooping as the strength leaves it. I draw a shallow breath and wrap my arms around my waist to stave off the next panic attack. He knows. I don’t know how he knows, but he does. He knows Trent is the one person who’s important to me—the one person who, in the end, I would do anything for, no matter how complicated our relationship.

  “Does that put things in the proper perspective?” asks Nick.

  “Yes. I’ll do it,” I say.

  “Good,” Nick says.

  He turns and opens a desk drawer from which odors of plywood and ink escape. He reaches in and takes out a fat, brown folder that he holds in both hands. “This is the packet. Once we fly back to Austin, you’ll have a week to take it to the Austin Police Department. Read it, make copies, whatever you want. You will if you’re smart. Then you can give it directly to your contact—whoever you’ve been reporting to about me.”

  “All right,” I say. The words are deflated. Weak. But I’m going to live. And granting that Nick is telling the truth, so will Trent. I’m walking out of here alive, and all I have to do to stay that way is tell a lie. Worse things have happened to me.

  “Any questions?” asks Nick. He puts his back against the chair again, the thick, vinyl folder resting in his lap.

  “Why did you shoot at us?” I ask.

  He gives me that look again, the little twitch at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smirk. He’s silently laughing at me like my misfortune amuses him. “Us?”

  “Yes. Trent and me. Why?”

  “I never shot at you. Today is the first time I brought a gun anywhere near you,” Nick says.

  I huff. I open my mouth but take several seconds to speak. “But… you attacked me outside the hotel. You were wearing a ski mask. You chased me into the field and tried to kill me. That was you.”

  “No again. Looks like I’m not your biggest problem,” he says. “I guess after you read through my information, you’ll have some more research to do.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat before forcing myself to ask another stupid question. “Did you throw rocks at the house?”

  This time Nick chuckles. “No. Sorry.”

  My face burns and I feel my skin ignite crimson. He didn’t shoot at us. He didn’t attack me. And rocks, of course not. I still don’t have the answers I want. Ayden is long dead, and Korey is behind bars for life. There’s no one else. I blink back tears, ignoring the ache in my eyes as I study Nick’s face.

  Nick’s face.

  I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before, but I guess I was too caught up in being abducted for the second time in my life. During the fight in the field, I punched my attacker in the face again and again. His nose even cracked beneath my fist at one point. But when Nick grabbed me today, his pale countenance bore no marks at all. His broken nose is brand new.

  The woman clears her throat in the chair to my left. I almost forgot she was there since I’m turned to face Nick. She says, “It’s almost—”

  “Don’t say what time it is,” Nick says, his booming voice pervading the room. He sits up rigidly. Like he’s scolding a child, he adds, “She doesn’t need to know that.”

  I hear the woman rise. She clears her throat once more and coughs a couple of times softly in embarrassment. “Do you want me to get the helicopter ready?”

  “Yes,” Nick says. He produces the black strip of fabric from his pocket and dangles it close to my face. “Time to go.”

  After flying us back to the small airfield, the woman drives us like before. She doesn’t speak to me again. It’s now afternoon, and she pulls into Zilker Park, where I’m to be dropped off.

  Nick’s face is pallid around his swollen, red nose as he hands me my purse. “Your gun and knife are inside.”

  “All right,” I say. I take my handbag and slide out of the back seat with the heavy file under my arm. The day is hot and bright now, and the sun glints off the lake. People are jogging on the trail nearby or walking their dogs. A cyclist in a pink helmet flashes by the pedestrians. An odd buzzing courses through my limbs at the idea of being free. Of being alive. Before walking away, I tear my gaze from the trail and look back at my kidnapper.

  “Do what I said, and your boyfriend lives,” he tells me.

  I nod. Nick reaches over and pulls the car door closed. After a couple of seconds, the Honda Accord slowly rolls away. I draw a shaky breath and start walking in the direction of Median Realty in my high heels. As trivial as it seems, I know I’ll have to come up with an explanation for Kyle about why I’m late—and why I look like hell. Not to mention that by the time my turtleneck-wearing self gets to the office, my face will be sunburned.

  For once, fortune favors me. I don’t have to lie to my boss and make up a story about why I’m dragging into work at noon with messy hair and red skin. When I arrive, I learn via the post-it note on my desk that Kyle’s been out all morning w
ith clients, and he’s left me a short to-do list. Score.

  That night, I sit at my desk at home with every light on as I unwind the cord from the button of the brown vinyl folder. When I open it and slide out the thick stack of papers, I get a whiff of the office where Nick held me—glue, wood, and that vanilla scent when I first entered the house blindfolded. I wince and begin poring over the contents.

  Nick Pearlman was right about one thing—the folder’s contents explain everything, including the fact that that isn’t his real name. He’s Logan Weber, the son of a late, wealthy owner of a local retail chain. I make copies of every page in the folder, many of which are highlighted with conflicting information noted by journalists about the 1988 murder trial. It occurs to me that Logan likely wants me to keep these records as evidence that I compiled the information myself. If I make digital copies as well, that will back up the claim even more. I’d rather get a root canal than appease him. However, right now, this situation isn’t about me. It’s about keeping Trent safe. I’ll do anything to ensure that. But what about six months from now? A year? No matter how much I analyze it, resigning myself to lifelong acceptance of the injustice Logan put me through just isn’t an option. There are better ways to solve your problems than the one he chose. Someday, I vow, I’ll set the record straight—when it’s time. And I’ll know.

  One week after receiving the packet, I do as Logan instructed and deliver the information to Detective Spade at the Austin Police Department. But the irony of the whole thing is that since Trent and I discovered Juliana’s dismal crypt, the packet of documentation probably isn’t even needed. The case’s first present-day news article echoes my thoughts—a lot has changed in thirty years.