by Jonas Saul
“You know, these things are popular in Mexico,” Steve was saying.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Steve nodded dramatically. “What with all the kidnappings down there. Also in London. Israel too. Rich guys, worried about burglaries. You just never know.”
“What’s this?” Jeffrey asked to get Steve back on track.
“That’s where you store your non-perishables.”
“Oh. Right. Okay.” Jeffrey headed toward the thick door.
“You know,” Steve went on, “any lock is only as good as what surrounds it.”
“Agreed.”
“That’s why we have multiple locks and a reinforced frame.” Steve bent over and pointed at the locks, one by maddening one. “This electronic door can withstand the pressure of a three-hundred-pound man pounding on it incessantly. And it’s not just bulletproof. It’s machine-gun proof, too.”
“Wow.” Jeffrey minded his sarcasm. He needed to be just another customer and not someone Steve would readily remember. Not too much irksome behavior, but also not too much praise.
Steve snatched the work order off the table just outside the safe room door and scanned it.
“We didn’t add a phone and dedicated line as per your request,” he said. “But we put a power supply over there and a cellphone on charge. Cell coverage works with everything closed down.”
Jeffrey nodded and bounced from one foot to the other.
Steve set the tip of the pen in his mouth as he continued down the page. “No shatterproof glass because no windows,” he said, almost as if he was talking to himself. “Alarms, cameras, monitoring is all turned off at this point.” He looked up. “But you can turn that on at any time once you’re inside if you ever need to use this room.”
Jeffrey clenched his fists out of Steve’s field of vision.
“If you’ll follow me into the basement, we’ll perform the last task, sign this and I’ll be off.”
Jeffrey gladly followed and allowed Steve to close the safe room door. In this part of the basement, Jeffrey had a large TV and two reclining chairs. On each side were two well-stocked bookcases. The door to the soundproof safe room lay behind the bookcase on the right wall. When it was shut, it was virtually impossible to know a panic room existed behind it. Jeffrey’s safe room was impenetrable. It simply looked like a bookcase.
Once Megan was inside, he could sleep in one of his recliners while she hammered at the door and screamed her head off and not a single sound would escape the room four feet from his chair.
Steve walked him through the codes to enter the safe room, closed and opened the door twice, then had Jeffrey sign the contract. After Steve left, Jeffrey shut the front door. Alone again. At the front window, he pulled the curtain back far enough to watch Steve trot out to his truck and drive away.
A silence fell over the house. Jeffrey smiled to himself. He had done it. His father would be proud.
He headed back down to the basement and opened the safe room door, stepped inside and held the door ajar, careful not to let it shut and lock himself in.
He started to work immediately, removing any sharp objects and placing a small table and chairs against the side wall. He moved the twin mattress to the far corner and made sure he hadn’t overlooked a single thing. Once Megan became a permanent resident of this room, he couldn’t allow her to injure herself in any way.
That was his job. Only he would do the maiming.
Satisfied that she would be comfortable and there was a place to tie her up by the bed, he exited the room but stopped short of closing the door. There was something he’d forgotten.
After a moment of staring into the safe room, it hit him.
The cellphone plugged into the charger.
He couldn’t leave that inside there.
Once the cellphone was removed, he closed the door without latching it. Next week he would want the door partly open, waiting for his wife. When she got inside, it would be absolutely impossible for anyone to ever know she was there. No amount of screaming, banging, or violence would ever alert a single neighbor.
Once Megan entered his home, she would be safe from the outside world in Jeffrey’s safe room.
Jeffrey’s safe room.
There was something about the way that sounded. A certain ring to it. He shrugged as he headed back upstairs.
Perhaps it was the irony of the statement.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Behind the houses on Florence Street, an old quarry had come and gone. Left behind was a mass of sand covering the terrain where piles of it had been knocked down when the developers had packed up and left.
When Jake came over the small hill of shrubbery, the scent grew stronger. They were close. The four thieves were in catching distance now. For some reason, they had slowed down.
How charged was his computer? Had they stopped to see what was on the hard drive? If so, they would find a list of searches for furniture, real estate, and all the orders for everything from the new car to the new couch.
What would they do with that information? Order something for their own house? That would be stupid and reckless as it would lead the authorities to their address. His credit card and banking information was protected by passwords, so unless one of their crew was a hacker of any worth, there was nothing valuable in the laptop.
Except the information.
Jake had been looking up Fortech Industries and their involvement in the accident a year and a half ago. So far, the information was spotty to nonexistent. He had used a VPN, which made anyone who looked up his IP address think he was in Alabama. This changed daily, giving him anonymity on several Internet pathways.
If they were local kids, they would know the house had been empty. But today the new owner had moved in. Theft on day one wouldn’t amount to much. Let the guy settle in, bring valuables to the house before trying to steal anything. As in this case, the house only had furniture in it. Jake hadn’t even bought any new clothes yet.
The crime was most likely a random hit. It was unlikely they had targeted him. It could be that the kids were from out of town and didn’t know he had just moved in, but Jake didn’t think so. If they were from out of town, they wouldn’t have known to run back here. They wouldn’t have known how to get to the sand behind Florence St. that led to several different escape routes.
Jake eased up to the edge of the foliage where the shrubs met the sand and pulled back a branch. Four men of various builds talked in a huddle-like formation. The smallest one appeared skittish, glancing over his shoulder twice in the minute Jake watched them.
Each man was early twenties, with maybe one in their late teens. None of the four held his laptop. Had they tossed it?
He stepped out of the bushes and felt the light breeze on his sweat-covered skin. The sun was still high enough to offer the kind of warmth he needed. He strode toward them, covering the distance quickly before they detected him.
“Yo,” the biggest one said. “Hey, what the fuck, man? You got a problem old man?”
Jake picked up his pace toward the biggest guy. The small, skittish one backed up two steps. The other two fanned out.
“I axed you a question,” Big Guy shouted.
In two strides, Jake reached Big Guy, stepped into him even as the guy took a swipe at him, and drove his fist into the guy’s stomach.
Big Guy jackknifed at the waist, the air in his lungs dispelled. He wavered on his feet as Jake stepped back, then fell over, trying to catch a breath.
How hard had he hit him? Was it too hard? Internal injuries? He had to remember he was much stronger since the coma.
The guy on Jake’s left moved, as did the other one on his right. Someone leapt on his back as a fist slammed into Jake’s mouth. He lost his balance and stumbled backward, emitting a small growl. The guy on his back dug in, wrapping an arm around Jake’s neck, severing his air intake. Without thinking, Jake let himself stumble with the added weight, then threw himself backward.
> Another fist missed his face as he dropped, the guy still on his back. He landed hard, sandwiching the guy between himself and the ground. The impact crunched something in the guy’s abdomen. He sucked in air and tasted blood.
With a scream of rage, the third guy dove on him, but Jake lifted both fists, his right connecting with the guy’s shoulder, the left fist, the guy’s forehead.
As the kid’s shoulder popped out, he screamed, then rolled over and writhed on the sand, his free hand clambering at his injury.
The fourth guy, the smallest one, had stumbled farther back and was now twenty yards away. When Jake got to his feet, the fourth guy turned and split like the proverbial bat had come out of Hell and was just now on his tail, chasing him.
Jake let him go. One of these three would explain their actions.
Big Guy was collecting his breath, up on his knees now, a hand over his stomach.
Shoulder guy still writhed, shouting in pain.
Jake leaned down to the one who had climbed on his back. He backhanded him across the face.
“Make your friend with the fucked up shoulder shut his mouth so I can think, or I will break his bones until he passes out.”
The guy rolled away from Jake and crawled to his friend.
The taste of blood filled Jake’s mouth. He used his tongue to feel around his teeth. The canine tooth on the left had been knocked out when he’d gotten a fist in the face. It was gone, having dropped from his mouth when the other guy’s arm was wrapped around his throat.
I’ll just grow another one.
The screaming became incessant, maddening. No matter what the friend did, the guy with the dislocated shoulder only grew louder.
Big Guy still clutched his stomach, rasping breaths in and out, but Jake couldn’t hear him too well over the shouting.
The small guy had made it to the highway in the distance. He waved his arms, attempting to flag down a car. This was devolving fast without a single question answered yet. He had thought that if he put down the biggest guy of their group, the rest would’ve listened, but instead they’d attacked.
He recalled something the doctor had told him.
Neurotoxic saliva.
Calms people, puts them out, immobilizes them. But how would it handle the pain of a dislocated shoulder?
He didn’t have time to think about it. Shut the guy up or knock him out. He needed answers from the Big Guy and concerned citizens would be involved very soon.
Jake dropped down beside the guy who still thrashed on the sand, clutching the guy’s injured shoulder.
“Hey, what are you doing?” his friend shouted. “I’m trying to shut him up. It fucking hurts, though, man.”
Jake opened his mouth, blood seeping out over his lips, and bit the screaming young man on the forearm hard enough to puncture the skin.
The wounded man tried to squirm away from Jake, panic in his eyes. The friend got up and stepped back from Jake like he was a vampire.
“You’re crazy, man,” he said loud enough to be heard. “Fuckin’ insane.”
The wounded man didn’t make it more than a few feet before he slowed and stopped squirming altogether. He released his shoulder, his free hand descending in a slow arc. On his back, he became motionless but for his eyes, which darted back and forth in a frantic bid to find Jake.
“What’d’ya do to him?” the friend yelled. “Huh? What the fuck just happened?”
Jake had an idea, but he didn’t explain it. The human, caring part of his mind hoped he hadn’t permanently hurt the guy. The new, reptilian, part of Jake’s brain wanted to bite him again. And then again.
“Go,” Jake vociferated loudly. “Leave here.” He pointed at the immobilized man on the sand. “Or be paralyzed like him.”
To the friend’s credit, he knew when the getting was good as he turned for the highway in the distance and bolted. Jake watched him run, then scanned the road in the distance. The skittish one had gotten a black SUV to pull over for him. Two men had exited and were talking to him near the front of the vehicle.
He lowered his gaze to the Big Guy still on his knees in the sand.
“Where’s my laptop?” Jake asked.
Big Guy dropped his hand from his stomach until he was on all fours, then pushed up and rose to his feet, his face red with the exertion.
Jake stepped closer. Big Guy retreated a step.
“We were hired,” Big Guy rasped out.
“Who?”
“Some guys. Didn’t get a name.”
“You live around here?”
Big Guy shook his head.
“How much they pay you?”
“Thousand bucks—”
“A thousand bucks?” Jake snapped, taken by surprise. “And you didn’t think that suspicious? Why pay you that kind of money to steal a used computer?”
Over Big Guy’s shoulder, Jake watched as the friend made it to the young guy at the highway. The men from the SUV ushered them in the back.
“Where’s the laptop?” Jake asked again.
“Gave it to the guys in the SUV when we crossed the road to come up here.”
“And the money?”
“Already paid. We were about to split it up when you arrived.” Big Guy looked over Jake’s shoulder. “What’d you do to Bobby?”
“Nothing. A paralyzing move I learned years ago in Ninjutsu.”
Big Guy stared back at him with disbelief written all over his face.
“Ninja shit,” Big Guy said. “Yeah right. Isn’t that illegal?”
“Where’s the money? I want a new computer.”
“They have it.” He pointed at the SUV on the highway.
The two men in business suits stood with their arms crossed, watching Jake as he watched them. Who were they and what did they want with his computer? There was no point in heading their way. By the time he got halfway, they could get inside their SUV and disappear.
“You got a name for me?” Jake asked, figuring it was useless to ask but asked anyway.
“I’m not telling you my name,” Big Guy said, his voice improving already.
“Not yours. Theirs.” Jake pointed. “The guys who hired you.”
“They didn’t say.”
Some of Big Guy’s bravado was coming back. He had taken a fist to the gut and didn’t seem willing to let that be enough. The sense of the fight in him oozed off his flesh. Jake felt the change in Big Guy before he saw evidence.
It started to make sense to Jake. Every situation had a smell, a mood. Simply by letting that sense in, he could detect intentions before they became actions.
The guy behind Jake moaned. Evidently the paralysis was wearing off. One bite had given Jake a few minutes of submission.
“That leaves us in a quandary,” Jake said. “You broke into my house, stole my computer. For that, I need you to come with me to the police station and offer a sketch of the men in that SUV. I’ll recommend they go easy on you if you help identify those guys over there—”
“How did you find us?” Big Guy cut in.
“Tracked you.”
“What? How?”
“By smell.”
That caught Big Guy off balance. A blank expression crossed his face.
“Like an animal?” he asked.
“Something like that.” Jake smiled, revealing his missing canine which didn’t seem to hurt as much as it should. Had his pain tolerance increased, too?
Jake watched the guys by the SUV and wondered if they were with Fortech Industries. If they were, he wanted to talk to them but couldn’t come up with a way to do that right now. If it was them, they would be back. They evidently had an interest in him. They would want to meet.
Jake would be waiting.
But before then, he wanted to leave them with a little demonstration.
With Jake’s attention temporarily on the SUV, Big Guy withdrew a long blade from his pants pocket, flicked it open, and lunged at Jake’s stomach.
Jake dropped, lowered hi
s center of gravity, and snapped his hand upward at the exact moment the blade passed over it. He wrapped his fingers around Big Guy’s wrist, ceasing his arm’s forward momentum just as the tip of the blade touched his shirt, pricking it.
Jake squeezed, not thinking about how much strength to use. He just tightened his grip.
Big Guy howled as his knees buckled and he dropped to the sand in front of Jake. There was something oddly satisfying about that howl. Something that spoke to the loss and anger Jake had been feeling since he’d awakened from the coma.
And now he had enemies. Enemies that were hunting him, stealing from him.
He held up Big Guy’s knife hand until the offending blade slipped from his grasp. The men on the highway could easily see what he was doing as he turned Big Guy’s arm to show them its full length. An image of a boxing ring where the referee held up the arm of the winner flashed through his mind.
Jake squeezed tighter, like the talons of an eagle clutching its prey. Big Guy cried out with the renewed pain. Jake waited a moment longer, clenched as tight as he could, indenting the man’s flesh like he held a balloon. Then, with a sudden flick of the wrist, snapped Big Guy’s forearm bones in two, the break vibrating up Jake’s wrist.
When he let go, Big Guy dropped to the sand and stared at his deformed arm where it was bent at an odd angle. His eyes wide and rimmed in red, an aching moan escaped his lips.
To be merciful, Jake grabbed the broken arm and bit down near the broken bone until the skin split, allowing some of his saliva into Big Guy’s blood stream. Big Guy shouted something unintelligible and collapsed on the sand.
The screaming died a few moments later. Big Guy lay on his back in the sand, eyes darting back and forth like his friend with the dislocated shoulder had.
A quiet calm descended over Jake. The blood in his mouth had ceased flowing. There was virtually no pain from the missing tooth.
He studied the men by the SUV in the distance for another minute as they studied him. Then he turned and headed back to his house.
He would call to have the window fixed by tomorrow. A security company would set up an alarm system on his house. Cameras, internal and external, wouldn’t be a problem. Motion detectors, monitors, battery backup, the whole enchilada, wouldn’t be too much for Jake. He had the money to waste.