Of everything he had undertaken, would undertake moving forward, it was the part he disliked the most. It was the one thing that seemed at odds with his mission, with his goals, a lone blight of cheesiness on an otherwise perfect plan.
The single thing that Big would never let him live down, wearing a ski mask like a robber in a bad heist film.
Still, for as much as he disliked the feel of it, hated the very notion of it even more, it was a necessary evil. If everything went as planned tonight, there would be a survivor.
Survivors had eyes. They remembered faces.
Especially someone as attuned to staring at her surroundings as Didi Weston.
There was no way to know for certain that she would be the one to survive until morning, though if not there was a decent chance The Kid would leave nobody behind. If it wasn’t her, that meant her husband had acted in his own best interests, sacrificing his wife, an act that The Kid knew he could not abide.
If the man was so vile that he would give up Didi to save himself, then he deserved the same fate as hers.
Glancing down to the glass of water in his hand, The Kid considered dumping the entire thing over his head. He craved the cool refreshment from the oppressive heat of the garment, aching to have it lower the temperature of his scalp by a few dozen degrees, bringing it closer to something approaching normality.
For a moment he stared down at it before dismissing the idea and lowering his knee onto the spine of Dennis Weston. Two vertebras popped under his weight as he moved, positioning himself just so, halfway down the man’s thorax.
Three feet away from them, Didi Weston watched the entire scene. Seated in a straight back chair The Kid had drug in from the kitchen, her wrists and ankles were secured with thick bands of duct tape, the metallic silver material catching bits of overhead light. Another wide swatch was stretched across her mouth, a tendril of blood sneaking down from her left nostril over the top of it.
The Kid had had no original designs of hurting her, though now that he stared her way he had to admit it added a sense of urgency to her appearance. Coupled with the hair that was now teased out above her head, a telltale feature of the brief struggle that had occurred, she looked the part of a proper victim.
From this moment on her presence was to be used as more of a prop, a means of leverage, than anything else, though The Kid needed the threat of violence to be very real in order for things to work.
Now, it most certainly was that.
As much as he would have liked to take a few moments and admire the good work he’d done – slipping into her vehicle, waiting until they were back at her home before overtaking her, lying in wait for her husband to get in hours later – now was not the time. Most of that had been nothing more than preparation and any celebration of it would be premature.
The real object of his ire, his angst, was now pinned to the floor beneath him.
Dennis Weston was officially the next target for The Kid, the second step in a sequence of retribution. Things might never be made right again, but at least they could be made whole.
The Kid knew Weston to be the same age as his wife, though he looked much older up close. Whether it was from a life in the field he had chosen or decades of trying to keep Didi in the lifestyle to which she was accustomed he wasn’t sure, and didn’t much care.
All that really mattered was that the man had been much easier to subdue than anticipated, had seen his wife tied up and walked straight toward her, never once thinking of the corner as he passed or even seeing the butt of The Kid’s gun before it smashed into his temple.
In the time since he had laid completely motionless, allowing The Kid to tie his hands behind his back, linking his feet together at the ankles. From there the rest of the configuration had been pretty simple, pulling his heels back almost to his bottom, looping a rope through his feet and around his neck.
When he was done the older man had resembled a giant misshapen pretzel, the top of his head and the bottom of his feet just a short distance apart.
With his weight pressing the man down, The Kid tossed the glass of water at his face, the liquid hitting him square. It had the intended effect as Weston’s eyes burst open, his mouth gaping as he drew in deep breaths of air.
Shifting onto his haunch, The Kid used his weight to keep the man in place, pulling Weston’s feet back a couple of extra inches to keep him from choking himself just yet.
Beneath him the man began to struggle a bit, realization setting in.
“Wha? What is this?” he gasped. “Who are you?”
The Kid didn’t bother to respond. Instead he simply stood, allowing the man’s feet to lower themselves back to their natural position. As they did so the rope around his neck grew tighter, a low gurgling rolling out of him, his body fighting for air.
“Here’s how this is going to play out, Mr. Weston,” The Kid said. “I could sit here and slap you and tell you to shut up and do a lot of other unnecessary things that would be great fun for me, and which you very much deserve, but I won’t.
“That’s what this little contraption I’ve outfitted you with is for.”
Pacing back and forth in front of his foe, a smile curled up behind the ski mask The Kid wore. For so long he had imagined something like this, envisioning finally being able to get even, to give these people what they had coming.
Adding to his satisfaction, the feeling of deep-seated joy that was pulsating through him, was the tear soaked face of Didi across from him. One time after another she attempted to lift her body from the seat of the chair, hoping to nudge the piece of furniture closer, wanting in some way to be of aid to her husband.
It was easily the most humane thing he had seen her do in the duration of the time he’d spent watching her.
Twice more The Kid walked the length of the Oriental rug his victim was laid out on, watching as he flopped around, gagging, his face growing red. Only once the buildup of blood became such that Weston’s features passed over into purple did The Kid again drop himself unceremoniously into place, pulling back on the feet to ease the tension.
As he did so the rope grew slack, Weston’s face rolling forward toward the carpet as he tried to pull in ragged gasps. Every few seconds he spit, his throat already too sore, too swollen, to bother swallowing.
“Why?” he panted, the word just barely audible.
The Kid smiled again. Already the man was past wanting to know who he was. He didn’t try to negotiate, made no attempt to talk his way out of the situation.
He was now grasping that the situation he found himself in was a finality, that his endpoint was already determined.
“Choices, Mr. Weston,” The Kid said, rotating so he faced toward Weston’s head, able to see the man and his wife both clearly before him.
“You are a man that has built a career off of making, and in some instances presenting, choices. So this time, I have one for you.”
Reaching into the small of his back, The Kid drew his weapon. He held it up for Didi to see, watching her eyes grow wide, before extending it and wagging it on the edge of Weston’s field of vision.
“This right here is a standard .9mm handgun with a full magazine of bullets.”
With his opposite hand he tugged on the rope pulled taut between Weston’s ankles and throat. “And this is a little something I designed that can and will choke the life out of you. Do you understand?”
It took a moment for Weston to respond, his body still fighting for precious oxygen. Over the sound of his garbled panting Didi could be heard sniffling, her eyes puffy and bloodshot, tears running across the smooth surface of the duct tape and dripping from her chin.
“Okay,” The Kid said, his voice belying almost glee as he held their lives in his hands, people that had never given him the courtesy of a passing glance, that had held so many lives in their hands before.
Lives like Big’s.
“The way this works is, one of you is not walking out of here tonight,” The Kid sai
d. “Who that is is entirely on you, Mr. Weston.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice, fighting down his every inner desire to pull back his mask, to let the man see who his tormentor was.
“Either I shoot your wife now, cut this rope and walk away,” The Kid said, “or I hop off of you, and your wife and I both watch you suffocate to death.”
Another moment went by as The Kid paused, relishing the situation and his control over it. “So, what’s it going to be?”
Wrapping a hand around the man’s feet, he pulled them back a bit more, allowing just an inch more slack, enough so the man could provide a response. “Come on now, we don’t have all night here. It won’t bother me to just end you both right now, but I’m trying to be sporting about this.”
Every bit of The Kid tingled with anticipation as he leaned forward, cocking his ear to the side, anxious to hear what he already knew the man would say.
“Go to hell,” Weston whispered.
“You first,” The Kid replied, releasing his grip. Below him Weston’s feet snapped back into place, his body pulling itself into a tight half-arc, flopping on the floor like a beached sea creature.
“You wanted to know why?” The Kid said, watching the scene play out, seeing the muted emotion of Didi as she clamped her eyes shut and turned away, unable to watch any longer.
“Payback, Mr. Weston. Choices have consequences.”
Chapter Twenty
The pressure was starting to mount. Reed could feel it squeezing in on him, even if nobody else had actually voiced the words. They all saw how hard he was pushing, the way he was running himself and Billie both ragged, being omnipresent for every discussion that took place. There was certainly nobody blaming him for anything, just over 36 hours having passed since the incident took place.
Still, Reed could feel it all around him, at moments so thick he felt as if he should reach out and push it away from his face. Two cops were in the hospital, one with the very real possibility of never waking, the other maybe never standing up under his own power again.
Taken alone, those injuries were serious enough. To have occurred to two detectives on duty, especially ones just months from retirement, had the hackles raised of every last person on the force.
“So where do things stand?” Grimes asked, seated in his customary position behind his desk. He was back in his starched uniform, the same thing he wore every day, the other night at the hospital being a rare aberration, the first time Reed had seen him in street clothes in ages.
“This morning begins follow up,” Reed said, leaning back in his chair directly across from Grimes, one of two matching pieces with blue cloth coverings, Billie flat on the ground beside him.
Along the wall to his left stood a narrow table, a few plaques and frames resting on it. Otherwise the office was almost void of personal touches, the standard-issue furniture filling the space and nothing more.
“Get with Earl and see if anything came from the car, talk to Grove City and find out if they were able to pull anything on their second pass through the Hendrix house.”
Grimes nodded, the skin under his neck folding up as he laced his hands atop his stomach.
The meetings were something that had started almost immediately after Reed transitioned over from the 19th. They had originated as a way for him to brief the captain of anything that transpired over the night, prepping him to distribute new cases to the daytime crews that did most of the investigating.
Over time he and Billie had transitioned into a floating team, their home still on the graveyard shift but given the autonomy to vacillate whenever new cases arrived.
This morning’s meeting had not been planned, Reed simply unable to sleep, his mind refusing to slow down. Instead he had rousted Billie early, taking her into the backyard for a quick workout before heading into the precinct to do some research. Upon entering he had seen the captain’s light on and stopped in, the visit a courtesy to let his superior know where things stood.
“So the car was a wash?” Grimes asked.
“From start to finish,” Reed replied. “Was spotted by a couple fishermen that were just trying to get on the water, hadn’t seen a thing. Completely torched beyond recognition, no way any fibers or DNA survived.”
Grimes’s response was the same as Reed’s had initially been, his face twisting up a bit in anger. “Damn.”
“Yeah,” Reed agreed. “I let Billie have a go around the place, just so she could pick up any scent that might have lingered in case we come across him again, but overall it was kind of a losing battle.”
At the mention of her name Billie raised her head from the floor, glancing up to Reed. Her ears stood for a moment before dropping back into place, her chin returning to the top of her paws.
“Have you spoken to Hendrix yet?” Grimes asked.
“Last night,” Reed said, adding a slight nod, recalling the events from the previous evening. “Taking it exactly as you’d expect a man with a wife and two small daughters to.”
“Angry or shook?”
“The latter,” Reed replied. “Never voiced the usual questions, but he was weeping when we left.”
“Mm,” Grimes replied, the response free of asking what the usual questions were or judgment of any kind.
They had both been down the path enough times that there was no need.
“How about our witness?” Grimes asked.
The right side of Reed’s face scrunched up slightly as he shook his head. “Not really. I think his arrival scared the shooter off more than anything.”
“Sounds like that might have been a good thing,” Grimes said.
“For sure,” Reed agreed. “Guy definitely did us a solid, probably saved Ike’s life. I just mean he didn’t get a visual on anything we might be able to use.”
On the opposite side of the desk Grimes made the same grunting noise, offering nothing further.
“He did mention that when he arrived Bishop was still awake, told him to go help Ike and said something like back, but he couldn’t be certain,” Reed added.
“Back?” Grimes asked, squinting as he said the word, folds of skin appearing around his eyes.
“Something like that,” Reed said, raising his palms before dropping them down to his thighs. “Right after that Bishop passed out, couldn’t remember any of it when I talked to him yesterday.”
A moment passed as Grimed used his foot to rotate his chair a quarter turn, shifting his attention to face out the window. In the distance the morning sun was just beginning to rise, a pale white disc sitting above the horizon, promising another chilly and overcast day.
“Back,” he whispered, tapping the pads of his thumbs together, thinking on what Reed had said.
More than once Reed had seen the stance before. Something had caught deep in the recesses of his mind, was preoccupying his thoughts, even if he couldn’t quite articulate it just yet.
When those moments arose Reed knew better than to interrupt, giving the man all the time and space he needed.
“You going to be around here for a while?” Grimes asked, flicking his attention over to Reed, keeping his torso aimed toward the window.
“I can be,” Reed said, meeting the gaze. Again he wanted to ask what the captain was chewing on but kept the urge at bay, knowing there was something to it and that he would be brought in when and if he needed to be.
“Give me...” Grimes said, his voice trailing off as he snapped his left wrist up before him, pushing back the cuff of his dress shirt with his right hand to reveal a watch on a battered black leather band. “One hour. Let me make a few calls.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Reed was three pages deep into Earl’s report from going over Hendrix’s car, the initial details just as thin as he had feared. An accelerant, most likely basic lighter fluid, had been applied liberally over the interior of the vehicle. The resulting flame had burned hot and thorough, destroying all organic matter.
The only thing of any r
eal value that had survived was a single shell casing that had rolled under the passenger seat, the driver most likely not noticing it before taking off. Ballistic testing had confirmed it was the same make and model as those found at the original crime scene, though the firing pin marking indicated it was a different weapon.
A diagram of the interior of the car illustrated what Reed and Earl had discussed the night before, that most likely it was a single shooter using two of the same gun.
So focused on the report was Reed that he didn’t hear the captain approach, making his way into the detective’s bullpen and walking clear to the back corner without being noticed. Not until he flipped a thin file on the desk beside the crime scene report did Reed know he was there, flinching just slightly before looking up.
Grimes said nothing as he pulled over a chair from an adjacent desk and dropped down into it, facing the opposite direction as Reed.
“That was fast,” Reed said.
“Yeah, well,” Grimes said, motioning to the file between them, “things like that tend to get top billing around here.”
Without knowing why, Reed felt his stomach clench, a bit of the same feeling he’d had a few nights before returning to him.
“Oh, shit. What’s up?”
Raising his head a few inches, Grimes motioned with his chin toward the file. “Read it. There’s not much there, won’t take a second.”
The clench in his stomach grew even more pronounced as Reed pulled the file over a few inches and flipped back the top. Inside it were three pages affixed with metal fasteners at the top, the ink on all three thick and a bit distorted, as if the sheets had been faxed over.
Dark writing filled the bulk of the pages, done in a slanted hand across the premade forms.
Before he had a chance to begin reading, Grimes narrated aloud.
The Kid: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 3) Page 9