He grabbed the apple, took a bite.
Fabler tossed it into the garbage. Then he sat at the kitchen table, wondering what to do.
The green housefly that had been irritating Fabler flew across his vision.
He checked the flypaper he’d hung over the refrigerator.
The irony made him laugh.
The laughter turned to tears. Fabler grabbed a clean blanket, carried it to the bed, and cried himself back to sleep.
GRIM ○ 4:21am
Grim woke up on the couch. For half a second he expected to feel the hangover. But then he recalled he’d stopped drinking, and this wasn’t yet another instance of passing out.
Presley was in the bedroom.
After what had been the best sex of his life, he’d blown it big time, and changed what might have been the start of a relationship into plotting a Class A felony. They’d discussed the crime late into the night, came up with a plan, with contingencies, and the deeper they got into it, the more distant Presley became.
He checked the time.
4:21am. An hour before his alarm was supposed to ring.
He glanced at the fish tank, seeking approval.
All five fish bobbed on the surface.
“No. No no no no no—” Grim scrambled to his feet and rushed the tank, pulling off the lid, staring at the dead fish and wondering what to do. He poked at them, one at a time, checking for movement, seeing none.
The temperature looked good, the bubbler still working, the filter on.
He reached in and picked up Donny, cradling his little body, hoping to feel a wiggle or a heartbeat or anything.
The fish was limp. Limp and dead, his large eyes accusatory.
“What happened? You okay?” Presley stood in the bedroom doorway, wearing one of Grim’s t-shirts.
Grim didn’t respond. He stared at Donny, not sure what to do with him, settling for placing him back in the tank for the time being.
“Wow, Grim. I’m sorry.”
“I screwed something up. When I made the transfer. I didn’t let them get acclimated. Or something. I dunno. Then, yesterday, I wasn’t paying enough attention. There must have been signs they were distressed. I probably could have saved them. I should have saved them.”
Grim turned away. He almost felt like crying. Over some fish.
Grim walked into the kitchen to hunt down some booze, but he remembered there wasn’t any.
“Is there anything I can do?”
He didn’t want to look at Presley. He didn’t want her to see how much he hurt.
“Let’s get this over with. Get dressed. We’re going.”
“It’s too early. The plan is to get there twenty minutes before dawn.”
“The plan has changed.”
“Why? So we can wait out in the woods?”
“I’m going in twenty minutes. If you want to come along, fine. If not, get out. I’ll send you your money when I’m done.”
“Grim… I’m sorry about your fish, but waiting a little bit longer is—”
His head snapped back and he stared at Presley with red eyes. “I’m done waiting. I’ve been waiting for three years. Three goddamn years. Waiting and waiting and wishing I could do something. And now I finally am. Right now. I’m going to Fabler’s house. You’re in, or you’re out. Tell me.”
Presley stayed silent. He walked up to her and eased past, turning his nose away so he wouldn’t have to smell the scent of her hair, and went into his bedroom to dress.
Grim gave his head a shake, trying to vanquish the thought.
Grim found some jeans, aware of Presley’s eyes on him, not caring one bit.
But it isn’t about the fish. They’re just one more messed up example of my messed up life.>
“Grim…”
He went to his closet. His old Kevlar vest hung there.
He picked out a cotton shirt, foregoing the vest.
“Grim, can you slow down?”
“Grim, listen for a second.”
“Grim…”
“Grim, please.”
“Grim…”
He spun around, “Enough, Lori!”
Presley’s eyes got wide. She blinked. “I’m not Lori.”
Grim sneered. “What are you talking about?”
“You said, enough, Lori.”
“No. I said enough, Presley.”
“You said Lori. Your head isn’t in this.”
“My head is fine.”
“You’ve been point man, Grim. You know it’s about being calm. Rational. Alert. You’re so emotional you called me Lori. And after what we did yesterday, you confusing me with your sister is just plain yuck.”
Presley approached him, her smile as fake as her feelings.
“Don’t pull that, Presley. You’ve already made it quite clear that yesterday meant nothing to you, and that I mean nothing to you.”
Her façade dripped away. “I’ve got shit to deal with, too.”
“So deal with it. Lemme know where to send the money, and we can get on with never seeing each other again.”
She jutted out her chin. “We should stick to the plan, Grim.”
“Some plan. We wait around for Fabler to go out for his morning jog, sneak inside, and when he comes home, you distract him and I jump out of hiding and taze his ass. I can do that alone, Presley. I’m doing the hard stuff here. All you are is a distraction.” Grim narrowed his eyes. “That’s all you’ve ever been.”
For a moment, Presley appeared wounded.
“Why are you still here, Presley?”
“Because.”
“Because why? Because you want to talk me out of the biggest mistake in a life full of mistakes? Because you think Fabler is innocent and I’m wrong about him? Because you finally decided to let me in?”
“Because I’m coming with you.”
;
Presley did none of those things.
“This is dangerous, Presley.”
“I know it’s dangerous. I’m the one that has been living with the psycho for the past six weeks, remember?”
“You’ve got a daughter to think of.”
“I am thinking of her. And our best chance of getting the money is by working together.”
Grim rubbed his eyes.
“Fine. Twenty minutes. I’ll be in the truck.”
Presley glanced at the closet. “You’re not putting on your Kevlar?”
Grim made a face. “Our plan depends on distraction and surprise. If it comes down to a firefight, body armor won’t be much help. He’ll kill us both, no matter what we’re wearing.”
KADIR ○ 5:03am
“He going hunting?”
Kadir opened his eyes. They had a hotel room in town, but when Presley showed up at the ex-cop’s place, he decided to park and keep watch.
After that promising start, the night of surveillance had been miserable, cold, uneventful. The car, confining and uncomfortable. Doruk snored like a chainsaw and smelled like old salami. Kadir’s dreams centered around being locked in a weird cell. Rather than steel bars, it was made of human limbs; arms and legs, connected at weird angles, twisting and writhing and closing in on Kadir until his mind popped.
Looking up the street, at the apartment, Kadir saw the ex-cop Pilgrim leaving the building, a carbine slung over his shoulder.
“Maybe he knows you’ve been following him, Doruk.”
“You think so?” Doruk sounded concerned.
“Maybe he’s going to find a nice vantage point, sight you on that big scope, and put one between your eyes.”
“Why? I didn’t do nothing to him.”
Baiting Doruk was usually good for a few minutes of entertainment, but Kadir became distracted by the second figure to walk out the door.
“Hey, she’s in that sexy Stormtrooper outfit again.”
Doruk’s comment irritated Kadir, and he was unsure why. The bulky armor did nothing to accentuate Presley’s tight body. It was the opposite of sexy.
“Shut up, Doruk.”
“What are we doing? Following them?”
“Do you know what shut up means?”
“It means shut up.”
“Are you shutting up?”
“I don’t know how to answer that. If I say yes, I’m talking and not shutting up. If I say nothing, maybe you think I didn’t hear you.”
Kadir lifted the binoculars to his face, watching as Presley tagged along behind Pilgrim, watching as she climbed into his truck.
“Follow them. Not too close.”
“Is this it? We finally gonna grab her?”
Kadir didn’t answer. But he felt it, deep in his loins.
PRESLEY ○ 5:18am
As they planned, they parked two miles away from Fabler’s house, off the road near a deer hunting ground. Grim parked the truck behind some overgrowth, grabbed his carbine conversion, threaded the Taser holster onto his belt, and they went hiking.
Presley had the DoubleTap in her ankle holster. She carried no other firearms.
They walked in silence, Grim occasionally checking his cell phone app to make sure Fabler still slept.
When they got to Fabler’s property, Grim signaled for Presley to cover the front. The plan called for them to each watch one side of the house and wait for Fabler to take his routine dawn jog. Then they’d sneak inside, leaving the doors open, and Presley would be in the kitchen, making breakfast and singing to herself; lots of noise so she didn’t get accidentally shot. When Fabler came in to confront her, Grim would come out from behind the door with the X26P and make him do the two thousand volt boogie until they could get some cuffs on him.
Presley eyed Grim, caught him staring.
Presley killed the thought. She needed to keep her head in the game.
She spoke in a whisper. “Hey. I forgot something.”
Grim frowned, putting his index finger against his lips.
“I know. We need to be quiet. But you need to know this.”
Grim raised an eyebrow.
Presley choked up.
“Brooklyn is with my Dad. He has an apartment in Houston. One-eight-seven-niner Mission Place Court, apartment six-Delta.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Her eyes got glassy, overflowed without blinking.
“Brooklyn is seven years old, and she weighs forty-four pounds. She’s blood type B. Bravo. Can you remember all that?”
Grim appeared confused, and then Presley saw the realization hit him. “One-eight-seven-niner Mission Place Court, apartment six-Delta, Houston. Forty-four pounds, blood type Bravo.”
“Right. Need to write it down?”
“No.”
“Her…” Presley swallowed all the pain. “Brooklyn’s new heart is failing. She’s on a bypass machine. If she doesn’t get a new heart…”
“What hospital is she at?”
“Wellington General.”
“Your dad knows the black market?”
Presley sniffled, nodded. “He can give you the contact info.”
Grim touched her shoulder and squeezed. “You have my word. If anything happens, I’ll get your daughter her heart.”
Presley swallowed hard, then nodded again.
GRIM ○ 5:55am
<
Or she’s that desperate.
As Presley hiked around to the front of the house, Grim hunkered down behind a bush. He brought up his carbine—a MechTech conversion unit that fit onto the frame of his 9mm Glock 17 and turned it into a short rifle—and peered through the Vortex Strikefire optics mounted to the top rail, sighting on Fabler’s porch door.
Then Grim set his cell phone on the ground in front of him, watching Fabler sleep, waiting for the sun to come up.
He had at least half an hour to kill.
All alone, with his thoughts.
The key to doing difficult things is to just do them. Waiting allows for second-guessing. Changing your mind.
Grim remembered a midnight party after a high school dance, so many years ago. He and Fabler and a bunch of other young, dumb, immortal kids, passing around a whiskey bottle and a cored apple they’d been using as a weed pipe, walking over the pedway of the John Mack bridge and deciding it would be a clever idea to jump off into the Arkansas River.
Fabler—born ready to prove to the world how fearless he was—leapt off without even looking.
It took an eternity from the time Fabler went over the edge to the sound of him splashing into the water, and a second eternity before he whooped a reply to Grim’s calls.
Two other guys followed Fabler into the river. No hesitation.
Then one of the girls did it.
Grim wanted to. But the longer he looked down at the black water, the more his resolve crumbled away. What about rocks? What if he hit a shallow spot? What if he passed out and drowned?
Every second that ticked past, more reasons not to do it crept into Grim’s brain.
Eventually, he lost his nerve and walked away.
Regretting that day ever since.
In his more self-aware moments, Grim knew that not jumping had forever changed the course of his life.
What Happened to Lori Page 25