Fatal Decision

by John Greenwood

  "There aren’t any. We had to keep everything on the down low because I knew sooner or later the Harris boys would be after it."

  "If you don’t mid my asking, what kind of money are we talking about here?" She pauses and gives me a hard look.

  "Around fifty million," I shake my head.

  "How didn't they get anything?"

  "Because they're trash, that's why…the both of them. I'd like to see them die a violent death." I watch as she slams her fist onto the desk. "I've got to go. I have work to do." She quickly walks into the back to the office where we spoke last time. I stand and watch her disappear and then I slowly step out the front door and back to my car. I pull out and power on the GPS. It leads me west from Alexandria and eventually onto Route 29 South. I follow this for about an hour until I hear the command to make the next right turn. I turn off and immediately feel as though I have traveled back in time. Everything appears as though it was built hundreds of years ago. There are old rustic farms and bars with cattle and horses running around. I almost can’t believe the GPS contains the information for this area. I continue on until I get another direction to turn left. I'm surprised when I enter a small housing development of small one-story homes that actually appear quite a bit newer than the surroundings. I'm not really sure what I’m expecting to find or what I'm going to do, but I think I owe it to all those who lost their lives since Tommy was taken from me to find out, especially Brian since he had this address hidden. I pull down a small road with only a few houses, and I’m startled when I pull in front of a small blue home with two pickup trucks parked in front. The GPS screams out "destination reached". I slowly come to a stop in front and exit the rental. It's a small car, so I'm able to stay somewhat inconspicuous amongst the area. I walk up the driveway past the two mammoth Chevy pickups and step onto the sidewalk. I'm not really quite sure why but I knock on the door. I feel like I'm being compelled by some unnatural force. A minute later, a large bearded man with a shiny golden loop in his ear holding a Budweiser opens the door.

  "What do you want?" I have no planned answer, so I just stare back unsure of what to do.

  "I'm lost. Would it be possible to borrow your phone?" He looks at me and steps towards me. I take a step back.

  "Don’t you have a cell phone?" I look back at the rental.

  "No signal."

  "What makes you think I have a phone? Does this look like a public place?" He takes another step in my direction and I slowly back up. I shake my head. He stares at me for a long minute. "Wait a minute do I know you?"

  "I don’t think so. I'm not from around here." I feel the sweat forming on my head again.

  "Are you sure?" He turns around and walks back inside. A minute later, he comes back out with another man. He is a little shorter, but much wider. He is wearing a baseball hat backwards with brown curly scruffy hair poking through the front. "Do we know this guy?" I watch him study me.

  "He might be one of D's friends. He definitely looks familiar. What do you want?"

  "I just want to borrow your phone to call my wife." He turns around and walks back inside. "Ten bucks and make it quick." I pull out a ten dollar bill and hand it to him. He quickly places it in his pocket. They both go inside and I follow them in. We walk into a small room with a large flat-screen TV and two worn out couches with old crusty blankets on them. There isn’t much else in the room as far as furniture except for an empty bookshelf and a couple of tables with open bags of potato chips on them. I can see beer cans stacked up in the kitchen and empty dishes and cups everywhere. Both of them drop back on the couch and stare at the TV. I just stand there inside the doorway while they both ignore me. Finally, a few minutes later, the second guy looks up at me.

  "Use the one in that room, so I don’t have to look at you." He points at a closed doorway off the kitchen. I carefully wade through the small kitchen stepping over a litter box and a water bowl much too big for a cat. I'm a little nervous about opening the door, but I slowly do so and upon entering the room I feel my body almost give out. Every nerve inside me is pulsating as I step into the room. I can’t believe it. How did I end up here? I try and calm myself down. I peek my head back out and see both of them are still sitting on the couches. I'm in such shock from what I'm looking at, that I don’t even hear the large frothy German Sheppard behind me growling. I quickly turn around and shut the door before he enters. I can hear him pawing at the door, but I ignore him and immediately take out my phone and begin taking as many pictures as I can. I'm standing in the same room Tommy was held in.

  Chapter 25

  I've been in here for about five minutes now. I actually found the phone and called a wrong number just in case. I hear the German Sheppard outside the door, so I'm a little nervous about opening it. I can’t believe I'm in the same room Tommy was. The furniture is set up exactly as it was on the video. There are no windows. I slowly turn the door knob and start to open the door, but quickly shut it seeing the dogs drooling mouth peeking through the crack. I'm not sure what to do. I feel trapped and immediately wonder if I have been setup and they know who I am. I call out a few times for help, but I don’t hear anything except for the claws of the German Sheppard prancing on the kitchen floor. I continue to scream for help until finally I hear footsteps that sound different from a dog.

  "What are you scared of? He won’t bite." I watch the door quickly open and the next thing I know I'm on my back and the dog has two legs on my chest.

  "Get him off me." I feel drool sliding onto my face. "Get him off now."

  "I told you he won’t bite." It's the second guy standing in the doorway laughing.

  "His claws are digging into me. Get him off."

  "Twenty bucks and I'll call him off right now." I see the other guy behind him now. They are both laughing hysterically.

  "Fine. Whatever. Just get him off." A minute later, I hear him the call the dog and finally he removes his claws out of me and then he gets off. I slowly sit up and rub my chest and stomach. I can see small drops of blood on my shirt. I stand up and take out my wallet and hand them twenty dollars, but they don’t move away from the doorway.

  "That's twenty dollars for both of us." I shake my head and hand the first guy with the beard a twenty and barrel past them directly out the door. I quickly walk to the rental and drive away. I can see one of the men standing in the front door waving at me. I turn my head and continue down the road without looking back. An hour and a half later as I'm pulling back into our driveway, I finally stop shaking.

  "Sheldon, what happened to you?" I look down at my shirt, the blood has dried.

  "A dog jumped on me." Michelle places her arm around me.

  "Please be careful." I explain to her what happened. She can’t believe I was in the same place Tommy was held in. "Are you going to tell the police?"

  "I can't because then they will know I was involved." She nods in agreement.

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I don’t know. I can’t just let him get away with this." Michelle lets me go.

  "Can’t you just let it go? We have Tommy back, Sheldon. That's all this was about anyway. Even you said so yourself." We walk into the kitchen and I take off my shirt. Michelle quickly grabs a wet towel and begins cleaning the blood off my skin.

  "I wish I could, but after what he did to Lawrence, Brian and those boys, I need to at least figure out where he is." She pushes in on my chest firmly.

  "I don't want you to get hurt."

  "I know but he took Tommy and made me do what I had to do to Sorenson. It’s not right." She nods. "Who knows what Stanton is going to do? I could be in jail next week anyway."

  "Don’t say that. Remember what I told you we'll do whatever it takes." I sit down at the table and take a long drink. Tommy walks into the kitchen. Michelle and I tell him I fell down. He doesn’t seem to notice any difference, so we leave it at that. I throw another shirt on and take Buster out for a walk. He doesn’t seem to want to leave my side again. I have to k
eep walking to the grass to get him to leave the road. We get about halfway up when my phone begins to vibrate. It’s marked "private". I click on the message and open the attachment. I immediately stop, causing Buster to begin to bark. I'm watching a video of the inside of Sorenson's house. I watch as I take out the gun and pull the trigger. I can see the small explosion and Sorenson going down. I close my eyes as tight as I can. I see Sorenson's dying eyes looking at me again. I feel like screaming. I quickly close the email, luckily it deletes right away. Buster is sitting at my feet looking up at me and wagging his tail. I lean down and rub his back. I feel like I'm frozen. I can’t believe what I just saw. A minute later, the phone begins to vibrate again. I answer the phone knowing who it is.

  "Sheldon…Sheldon…Sheldon what are you doing snooping around. I thought we had finished our business." I look at Buster, he hasn’t moved. His eyes are glued to mine. "You saw what happened to your little friend, I wouldn’t want something like that to happen to you or even worse if that little video you just saw ended up in the hands of the police."

  “I'm not doing anything."

  "I guess it was just a coincidence you ended up in the same place as your property was stored in. I'm actually quite impressed you were able to find it. How did it feel? Had to use the phone huh? That might work on a couple of idiots like that, but don’t worry I have already taken care of them."

  "You killed them too?" I take a few steps towards the grass.

  "Let's just say they are finished. How's your property adjusting back in its proper place? I hope all is well. I can understand why you would want to get a hold of me, but I am untouchable Sheldon, so please leave well enough alone while you still have your freedom." Buster finally takes a few steps away from me and walks to the grass. "I understand our detective friend is trying to build a case on you and I would hate to add to that cause since we are done with our business transaction, but if you insist I'll be more than happy to oblige." I take the phone away from my ear and go to speak, but he is gone. I quickly place the phone back in my pocket and walk towards back towards the house. The next day I wake up early and take the hour and a half drive back south. As soon as I arrive in the small housing development, I can tell something bad has happened. There are unmarked police cars everywhere and yellow crime scene tape strung up around the yard of the house I went into yesterday. I quickly turn around and pull back down the road satisfied that they have been killed. I think about going back to ask about the dog, but the last thing I need to do is draw more suspicion on myself. I decide to go back to work today. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do or how I'm going to do it, but I figure I need to get back to some kind of regular life despite all that has happened. Tommy is starting back at school today. I think he is excited about going back. Michelle and I had a long talk with both him and his teachers on what to expect. She said the police have agreed to have an officer stationed at the school for a few weeks to make sure everything is safe. I pull into my office parking lot and enter through the back door. I can’t remember the last time I have been here. It seems so long ago and unimportant now. I head towards my office and see the door is slightly open. I usually keep it locked due to the sensitive equipment I work with. I'm surprised when I step in and Jim is sitting at my desk. He's using my computer.

  "Good morning Sheldon."

  "Hey Jim, what's up?" I sit down in a chair opposite my desk. At first I wonder if Jim has been promoted in the last few days over me, but then he lifts up a floppy drive. It looks like one of the ones Brian keeps on his desk.

  "I was going through all of Brian's things at his desk and I found this." He holds up a blue floppy disk. 'Your computer was the easiest one to hook one of drives up to." I lean forward.

  "Did you find anything?"

  "I'm not sure." I quickly walk over behind my desk and stand behind the computer screen. Jim places the floppy into the drive and a minute later he clicks on a text file. I can’t believe what I'm looking at. It's an email trail covering several emails to and from two people. I jump back a slight step when I read the first one. They're talking about a drop off at the baseball field after Sorenson's murder, and the use of a memory loss drug. Luckily, it doesn't mention me as the killer. "What is all this? It has to be important because he had it hidden in a new pack of disks and no one uses disks anymore, especially Brian."

  "How did you find it?"

  "I figured there had to be a reason he was killed. You know how he is." I nod and look back at the screen. I read the first response and it speaks of Mary being taken and disposed of after the money is gotten. I look at Jim. His eyes are focused on the screen below mine. There is another address given. It's in Mclean, Virginia. I immediately wonder if it's their mother's house. I can’t believe how Brian got a hold of this. It goes on to discuss what they will do with the money. There is talk of Bahamas vacations and living the life of luxury.

  "Is there any way we can get back into this?"

  "What do you mean?" I look back at the screen and watch Jim pop the disk out.

  "I mean do you think you can hack into those email accounts?" He stands up and unhooks the drive from the back of my computer.

  "I'm not sure. I can try. There might be enough information for me to crack their passwords. I have the addresses." He looks at me. "Don’t you think we should go to the police? I mean they're talking about murder here. It sounds like it might be connected to Brian."

  "Eventually we will, but I think we owe it to Brian find out all we can first." He seems satisfied with that.

  "I'm going to keep looking through his stuff for anything else."

  "Please let me know if you find anything right away." I watch him leave my office. I dial home and talk to Tommy and Michelle and wish him a great day. He sounds confident and happy to be going back. I spend the rest of the day trying to catch up on all that has happened since I was gone. I decide to leave a little early. I head directly to Old Town Alexandria and walk into Mary's office. I immediately see the two staff members who were there before. One of them walks up to me.

  "You're the one that came to see Mary last time. She isn’t around. She hasn't been in all day. We've tried to call her but there is no answer." I immediately feel my pulse begin to accelerate.

  "Do you have her home address?" She looks down.

  "I can’t give you that?"

  "I know, but she might be in danger. It would really be helpful if I could check on her."

  She fumbles around for a minute and then nods and hands me a piece of paper with an address. I almost lose my balance when I read it. It's the same one we saw on the file Jim found. I quickly thank her and run out the door.

  A little while later, I pull onto a street about two miles east of Tyson's Corner in Mclean. It’s a very upscale polished neighborhood. The houses are all well over five thousand square feet and have multiple car garages. I park in front of a large brick colonial. There are no cars in the driveway and as far as I can tell all the lights are off. It doesn’t appear as though anyone is home. I have no idea if she lives with anyone or stays in the large house by herself. I really don’t know much about her. I just hope I'm not too late to warn her that they are definitely coming for her. I slowly walk out of my car and carefully step down the long sidewalk to a rustic colored double door and begin to knock. After a few minutes of no responses, I give up and decide to walk around and look in a few windows. I'm not sure what I'm looking for but I feel like I must at least try. I see nothing but darkness. I continue walking around the house and end up in the back yard. I hear a dog barking somewhere off in the distance, but the houses are so far apart that I have no idea where he is. The back yard looks like a large brightly colored green square surrounded by flowing Dogwood's making it feel as though I'm in a large green cave. There's a small fence running along the back where the grass meets the trees. To my left, I can see a section of the house that is extended off the back. It looks like a sunroom. There are brightly colored pieces of deck furniture filli
ng the room. I step up to take a closer look and see the door on the other side is wide open. I slowly walk towards it. I don’t hear anyone, but I keep calling out hello in case she is in there, sill no response. I'm a little hesitant to enter the room. I don’t want to trespass, but my feet keep moving telling my head someone might be in danger so I keep going. I climb up the two steps and step into a cozy room decorated in bright bluish-green colors with wicker furniture and matching cushions. It has a very relaxing effect on me immediately. I keep calling out hello, but still no answer. Everything seems almost eerily quiet. I decide to continue on. I slowly turn the knob on the door that looks like it leads to the main house and sure enough it's unlocked. I step inside. I can immediately tell I'm in a home many classes above mine. It feels like a museum. There are antiques everywhere from clocks to chairs. I walk very carefully between everything so I don’t knock anything over. I keep calling out hello, but I'm not hearing anything in return. I'm thinking I'm going to find her body lying on the floor like from a scary movie, so every time I look in a different direction I try and prepare myself. I suddenly jump when my phone vibrates until I realize what it is. I push the answer button.

  "Hello."

  "Hi Sheldon. Where are you?"

  I lie and tell Michelle. I just left work. I wish I wasn't able to lie so easily, but everything seems to have changed since Tommy was taken, at least that's what I keep telling myself.

  "Is Tommy okay?" I stop and lean against a wall near a huge fireplace with mantle full of tiny vases.

  "He's fine. He had a great first day back at school. I've never seen him so excited." I take a slow deep breath. "The reason I'm calling you is because Stanton was just here and they have a witness that saw you and your truck in front of the Sorenson's at the same time he was killed."

  "Really?"

  "Yep, he's on his way to your office. I think they're going to take you in." I suddenly remember the video file Harris sent me. "What are you going to do?"