The Finished Masterpiece (Master of Trickery Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  He roared upright just as I stumbled backward and snatched his gun from the coffee table. My back roared from his previous bullet. My vision grey and black. I levelled the muzzle at his chest. “Don’t move.”

  His boxer-briefs clung to the top of his thighs. His disgusting erection made me want to vomit.

  If I’d been any longer...

  O squirmed and kicked on the couch, doing her best to remove her binds. I would’ve given anything to free her, but it wasn’t over yet.

  Soon.

  Soon it would be and I could rest.

  Wedging one arm against my bleeding side, I struggled to keep the gun raised and ready. “Pull your pants up, you fucking bastard. Don’t want to die with them around your ankles, do you?”

  His lips pulled into a snarl as he hoisted the material up. “Die? The only person dying here is you, my boy.”

  I shook my head. “Not tonight.”

  That might be a lie or the truth. I couldn’t tell anymore.

  I was mentally and physically exhausted.

  The trek through the forest. The worry over what I’d done. The warm blood cascading down my legs.

  My body didn’t feel right anymore.

  Pieces of it shutting down.

  I didn’t have much time.

  Jeffrey lunged toward me. I feathered my finger on the trigger. I’d put a bullet in his face if need be. I wouldn’t hesitate. But he was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.

  “Daddy?” Olive appeared at the door of the caravan. She had a blanket around her shoulders and her long hair static from a pillow.

  “Hey, little spinach.” I grimaced, doing my best to smile. “Stay in the caravan, okay?”

  “You’re alive!” She leaped down the three steps and launched toward me. “I knew you were okay. I knew—”

  Jeffrey grabbed her, yanking her by the hair and jerking her into his side. “He’s a ghost, sweetheart. A dead man walking.”

  “No!” She struggled, her cheeks wet with tears.

  “Let her go!” O kicked the air and cursed.

  And I just smiled at my daughter, relief slowly overtaking my panic. I’d kept my promise. I’d found her. “It’s okay. Don’t struggle.”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks. “You’re here to take me home, right?”

  “Right.” I nodded, the gun growing heavy in my hand. My arm shuddered with the weight as another wash of lacerating agony slashed at my back.

  Jeffrey’s hand curled around Olive’s throat. She went deathly still. “Give me the gun and I won’t kill your daughter.”

  Just like I’d been over the dramatics and threats with Tallup, I was over this too.

  I let my arm fall. The gun clattered to the leaf-strewn carpet.

  Olive whimpered, thinking I’d given up.

  I hadn’t.

  I’d won.

  Jeffrey coughed and stumbled.

  Olive squeaked as he pulled her with him. I shadowed them, ready to grab Olive the moment he dropped.

  It wouldn’t take long.

  His eyes widened as things started dying in his body.

  “Wha-What did you give me?”

  My voice was cold as stone. “Succinylcholine.”

  He swallowed hard, his throat blocking breath. “What the fuck is that?”

  “It’s as close as I could get to showing you how your victims felt.”

  His knees gave out, plummeting him to the floor. Olive cried as he clutched her for support. But I was done letting that monster control my daughter.

  My side snarled as I leaped forward and scooped Olive out of his grip. He didn’t fight me. He couldn’t. His muscles and bones no longer obeyed him.

  Already his eyes struggled to stay open. His mouth hung lax. He tumbled onto his side, bound in a prison of his own making.

  Olive clung to me as Jeffrey drooled. I kissed the top of her head and let her stay plastered to me while I skirted Jeffrey and unhooked O’s rope.

  She glared unforgivingly as I grabbed a knife from my back pocket and sliced through the final restraint.

  She rubbed the rawness on her skin, embracing freedom. She looked me up and down, no sign of trust or affection, just relief that I wasn’t dead. “You’re alive.”

  “I’m alive.” I bowed my head, unable to stomach the blood ringing her wrists from where she’d struggled against the rope.

  Fuck, I’d let her down so much.

  Backing away, understanding she wouldn’t want me close to her, I twisted Olive around so her face pressed into my stomach. I didn’t worry that her arms would get sticky with my blood. I didn’t have any idea how much this would traumatise her or how I could ever make it up to her.

  Olive moved with me as I crouched beside him. His eyes stayed half-hooded and crazed with confusion.

  I murmured, “You’re dying, Jeffrey. The drug is used to paralyse. It’s part of what surgeons use in local anaesthesia. Administered like this with no breathing apparatus or doctors nearby, it’s fatal.” I sighed, reliving the utter despair I’d felt one night. The inability to sleep. The failure of losing Olive. The destitution at paying blackmail. I’d walked the streets, seeking help.

  I didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t weak enough to kill myself, but I was weak enough to dabble with the idea of forgetting for a night.

  The drug dealer I’d spoken to had a range of pharmaceuticals. His sister was a nurse. Underpaid and overworked, she helped stock his street store with things otherwise impossible to get hold of.

  He’d described the deadly drug with a strange kind of fondness. Said he’d watched a Forensic Files from America and how it’d been used in a killing where the murderer got away as the drug left no trace behind.

  He’d told me the method of death.

  How the nervous system shut down, followed by respiratory failure, and every other pump and flow that kept us humans alive. The victim suffocated to death, all while their body lay paralysed. Unable to scream. Unable to move. Locked inside a form that no longer belonged to them.

  I didn’t know why I’d bought it.

  I used up money I didn’t have.

  But I was angry.

  I was broken-hearted for the girls who’d lived such similar fates, tied to trees and hidden under bushes, bound by ropes and silenced by gags.

  Jeffrey deserved to feel a fraction of what they went through.

  And even though I’d researched it—read studies on other killings involving the drug that said science and forensics had gotten too advanced to no longer be the invisible killer—I didn’t care.

  I would go to prison for murder.

  But so what?

  I’d been avoiding jail my entire life.

  I’d managed to stay out of the system even though my childhood was primed for me to become a pickpocket and delinquent. I’d managed to raise a daughter on my own after a teacher molested me and threatened to have me thrown in jail for rape.

  Jail for me was always a shadow, stalking me, waiting for me, playing roulette with which crime I’d be imprisoned for.

  At least this one was justified.

  Patting Jeffrey’s cheek, I said, “Thank you for teaching me the most important lesson of all, uncle. Thank you for showing me that trust isn’t something I can afford. I’ll make sure to teach my daughter, so she’s never as gullible as me.”

  His lips didn’t move even though his eyes begged for breath. His stare was full of panic and pleas, desperate to live. He didn’t even have the luxury of gasping for air or thrashing around for help.

  He was silent.

  Still.

  A corpse already.

  He’d taught me how to use my painting talent. He’d also taught me that I’d come from a lineage of bastards.

  I was the last one left.

  And who knew, maybe I’d die with him tonight.

  The adrenaline keeping me awake finally gave way under an icy cloak of shock. The blood that’d steadily been pumping down my legs was no longer w
arm but chilly.

  I was cold.

  And very, very tired.

  My eyes met O’s as she hugged herself, dabbled in painted olives, crowned in silver-leafed twigs, she was so beautiful she could pass as the angel that would guide me to heaven.

  But I didn’t deserve heaven.

  I knew where I was heading, and I clung to my daughter one last time.

  “I’m sorry, Olive Oyl. So, so sorry.” Her hair smelled wrong. No scent of strawberry or home. She felt bigger than last year. Her arms stronger and hair longer. I’d missed her growing. I’d failed her for far too long.

  She wriggled closer as my head swam and I no longer had the strength to fight.

  Olive was free.

  O was safe.

  That was all that mattered.

  I fell to the floor and blacked out.

  Chapter Eight

  ______________________________

  Olin

  THE AWNING HAD become a tomb.

  My hands were soaked in Gil’s blood from trying to stem his bleeding. Olive had helped me grab kitchen scissors and cut up one of Jeffrey’s shirts to wrap around his wounded waist.

  We’d both tried to revive him, yelling, touching, even throwing a glass of cold water on his face.

  I couldn’t carry him out of here on my own and I had no idea where we were.

  My skin had turned to frost from the bitter night and Olive couldn’t stop whimpering beside her unconscious father. My gaze kept crawling to Jeffrey, open-eyed and slack mouthed, dead and silent on the floor.

  Forcing myself to stay focused and not give in to shock, I patted Gil’s pockets, searching for a phone. I cringed against the tackiness caused by his cooling blood, refusing to look at the red pool beneath him.

  I couldn’t carry him to help. Therefore, help would have to come to him.

  I cried out in relief as I found his mobile.

  Olive huddled close to me as I swiped it on. No password, which was good. A black screen with a red dot and a dark forest glowed. The GPS had worked.

  Gil had chased us.

  He hadn’t given up.

  I won’t give up on him either.

  Typing in the emergency number, I pressed connect, only for the device to leap in my hands with an incoming call, interrupting the outbound attempt.

  I recognised the name.

  I answered with a shockwave of relief.

  “Justin.” My voice cracked. Heat flashed up my spine.

  I sticky-taped my emotions together for Olive and Gil’s sake.

  “O? Oh, my God. Is that you?” Justin’s panic filled the awning, cutting through Olive’s fresh sobs. Poor girl had witnessed her dad being shot and had his blood all over her innocent hands. And now she shared space with a cadaver. What sort of psychological issues would she battle?

  “Yes, it’s me, but I’ll have to talk to you later. I need to call the police.”

  His voice lowered with authority. “I already did. I called them forty minutes ago when Gil sent his second message. What the fuck is going on, O? Where’s Gil? Are you okay?”

  I looked down at the taupes, silvers, and blacks decorating my mostly naked body. I couldn’t make out what foliage pattern he’d covered me with, but I had no injuries of my own—just Gil’s blood painting me in a morbid hue.

  “He...he said he has a daughter. Is she...with you?” Justin’s tone held disbelief. “Tell me what the hell is happening.”

  I looked at Olive. She curled beside Gil, nuzzling into his side, crying softly for him to wake up. Inching closer, I stroked her back, doing my best to offer comfort when I had none to give.

  “Yes, she’s with me. We’re fine. But Gil’s been shot. He needs medical attention urgently.”

  Something rustled outside. Twigs snapped. Leaves crunched. My skin pebbled with fear as I stood and braced for yet more predators.

  Jeffrey had been a predator and had been put down for his violent tendencies. What new evil had found us?

  “The police shouldn’t be too far away. They’ll be able—”

  “Police! Don’t move.” A bright spotlight suddenly shone from the deep darkness beyond the awning. I raised one arm, keeping the phone by my ear with the other. “They’re already here.” My eyes squinted against the brightness, shivering in the cold.

  “Hands up!” More boots, more footsteps, more officers.

  Letting the phone fall to the floor, I raised both arms and stood as close as I could to Olive and Gil. Nudging him with my toe, I wished he’d wake up and tell them exactly what’d happened.

  But he stayed unconscious. His blood was a dark stain on the dirty carpet. Three officers flooded into the awning, their shrewd gazes bouncing from my painted nakedness, Olive’s tears, Gil’s blood, and Jeffrey’s corpse.

  A cop ducked to Gil’s side, tending to him, checking for a pulse.

  A wave of utter exhaustion swept through me. Most likely from the drugs but also from the chaos that would come from this. The fear of Gil’s survival. The worry over Olive’s trauma. The total upheaval of my own life going forward.

  Tomorrow lurked largely with the unknown.

  If Gil died...my future would unfold one way.

  If he didn’t...it would unfold another.

  Either way, I would never be the same.

  A young male cop with a black beanie and bright blue eyes came toward me. “You can put your arms down, miss.”

  I nodded, lowering them gratefully. They automatically wrapped around myself, seeking warmth after being naked for so long.

  Another officer with a matching black beanie and grey beard appeared behind me after checking the coast was clear in the caravan. He draped a woollen blanket over me from one of the bunk beds.

  I gave him a weak smile, tugging the scratchy material closer, glancing at the officer still checking on Gil.

  A female agent with her blonde hair wrapped in a knot at the base of her nape went toward Olive. “Hey, you okay? Not hurt anywhere?”

  Olive scrambled to her feet, Gil’s blood all over her from where she’d hugged and pleaded with him. “It’s my dad. Please help him.”

  The woman nodded. “We’ll take care of him. But right now, I need you to come with me. All right?”

  Olive scowled. “No. Dad needs me.” Tears wobbled on her bottom lashes. A tantrum made up of horror and heartbreak quickly scrunched up her face.

  I scooted next to her, wrapping half my blanket around her tiny shoulders. “It’s okay, officer. I’ll stay with her.”

  Olive looked up, her huge eyes blinking and distrustful. “Do you know how to fix Dad?”

  Shaking my head, I whispered, “No, but these nice people do. They need to take him in an ambulance to the hospital. The doctors there will help.”

  Olive bit her lip. “I don’t want him to leave. He can’t leave me again.”

  How many fears would she have to overcome after the tragic year she’d suffered? The separation and threats?

  Two officers squatted by Jeffrey’s body, their voices low while checking vitals. Finding none, they spoke curtly into a walkie-talkie, hinting they’d just elevated this crime scene from worried caller to homicide.

  A young male agent asked me, “What happened here?” He gaze travelled over my painted legs poking from the bottom of the blanket.

  Where did I begin?

  What could I say?

  I would never be able to lie, but I also couldn’t tell the truth.

  Gil killed him.

  I wanted him to do it.

  Another wave of tiredness caught me, making me wobble. I overacted the effects, purely to get out of unanswerable questions.

  An older man appeared. He’d taken his beanie off and his dark hair stood up in disarray. He spoke into a walkie-talkie stuck on his shoulder. “Three for an ambulance. One critical.” Giving me a smile, he said, “Questions will come later. For now, let’s get you help.”

  Chapter Nine

  ___________________________
___

  Gil

  “YOU GOOD FOR nothing son of a bitch!”

  I ducked my father’s swing, missing the full brunt of his fist. I wanted to shout back that he would know. Only he knew which of his whores I’d been born to, seeing as when I asked them, they never answered me. Never hinted who I belonged to.

  But even at seven years old, I knew better than to answer back.

  Dad chased me, quick for a man drowning in booze.

  I bolted from the lounge and into the dingy kitchen. “Come here, you little runt.”

  Breathing fast, I tried to charge around the table piled high with dirty dishes, only to be yanked back with his fist in my hair. He threw me to the ground. He loomed over me like a bear. He kicked me so hard in the side, I almost blacked out.

  The world went slow and sluggish as pain overtook every perception.

  I curled around the dull throb from his boot, swallowing back silent tears, refusing to let them fall.

  “There. That’s your punishment for not picking up my pack of smokes like I told you to.”

  The pain didn’t diminish.

  It only spread.

  When I didn’t get up and scurry away like I normally did when he beat me, he crouched and nudged me with his cigarette-stained finger. “Winded, boy?”

  I gritted my teeth and didn’t move.

  I couldn’t move.

  The agony in my lower back stole everything.

  Bored of my injuries, he stood and chuckled. “Ah well, learned ya lesson. Next time do what I tell you and you won’t get hurt.”

  He strolled from the kitchen with a drunken whistle, leaving me to watch daylight switch to midnight. Whores came in and stepped over me. Paying customers rolled their eyes as they chose which woman to use.

  And I waited until I felt better again.

  * * * * *

  I woke to heaviness.

  To false numbness.

  To terrifying strangeness.

  My limbs were connected to my body, but they were stretched and knotted, utterly useless against the softness I lay upon. Just like so many times in my youth, I lay still, waiting to heal so I could be free from overwhelming agony.

  My throat was the first thing to trigger an avalanche of pain. I swallowed, trying to push away the sensation of underwater sluggishness, but it seemed to give permission for every injury to roar alive, every cell determined to destroy me first.