by L. N. Pearl
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “No, Dad. It can’t be like that.”
“Why not? You said it yourself, very eloquently, too. This is my job.”
There was bitterness in his voice. I felt sorry for throwing that in his face, now that so much time had passed, and I had cooled down since then.
“I know, you’re right. But, please. Believe me. If I need your help, I’ll come to you first of all. I won’t take any chances. I’m just afraid that if you’re involved, this guy will get scared off. This is too big to take that chance.”
He sighed heavily. “Why did I know that was coming. Okay…I’ll play it your way. For now. But I swear, Trinity, the very first sign of trouble and you’d better be calling me. You got it?”
“I’ve got it. I’m not trying to get myself into any trouble here.”
Maggie smirked, rolling her eyes. I rolled mine right back.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, and I’m sorry for blowing up the other day. It’s just—you know.”
It was the most we had said to each other in months, except for the night in the kitchen. It felt good to talk to him again, and I felt like he needed to know we were on the same side.
“Yeah I know. Me too. I love you, Sweetie. Be careful out there.”
He hung up the phone, and I found myself blinking back tears by the time he did. I couldn’t lose him, or push him away. I had to hold the people I still had as close to me as possible.
There was no guarantee of tomorrow. Angela’s death had taught me that much, at least.
I felt a lot better on the way home from school. I even sang along with the radio a little bit. I had the basic blueprints of a plan.
Dad was better with Tyler…for the time being, at least. Things were looking up somewhat.
I hopped out of the car, reminding myself to read up on the materials presented in class that day since I hadn’t paid a bit of attention. I made that my top priority as I walked up the stairs, to the porch.
There was something on the welcome mat. I approached slowly, unable to make out what it was at first.
When I got closer and recognized it as a dead bird, I gasped and jumped away.
It was bloody, its head twisted around. There was a bit of twine around its neck.
Like it had been strangled.
Chapter 6 - Tyler
It was impossible to think about work. All I could think about was Marco.
I didn’t wanna think about what he did to Angela, but I couldn’t stop.
It was bad enough that he was a filthy cheat. I didn’t put anything past him when he was racing—he would stop at nothing to win. I hadn’t known he would stoop as low as he did, though.
Paying for a woman to sleep with him? And killing her?
It had to be him. It all made sense. She probably didn’t want to be with him. I couldn’t imagine why she would. It was hard enough to figure out why a girl like her would wanna be with Drake.
But Marco? That was beyond me.
So, what? She must have fought back. It made my blood boil, just thinking of the way she must have felt. The fear she felt, the revulsion.
I hoped he didn’t make her feel much pain before he killed her.
I was trying to work on a car, and I kept fucking up just because I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight. It should have been the easiest job in the world. Just a basic tune-up. I wasn’t doing the car any good.
I walked up to my boss.
“You think I could cut out a little early today? We’re pretty light, and I’m not feeling too good.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re taking a lot of time off lately.”
“What, that one day, when Gigi was sick? Come on. Anybody would do it, if they had a kid to take care of.”
He nodded. “All right, but let this be the last time. You’re a good mechanic, and I wouldn’t wanna lose you. But I need you to keep your head in the game. Know what I mean?”
I nodded. I knew what he meant. Until I made Marco pay, though, I wouldn’t be able to get my head into anything else.
I was totally consumed.
I walked over to the sinks to wash my hands. While I lathered up, I heard a voice behind me.
“Tyler.”
I knew who it was before I turned around. My heart skipped a beat, and I scowled at myself for it.
Why did I get so excited when she came around?
I smiled at her. “What’s up? I hope there’s nothing wrong with the car.”
Then my eyes fell on the shoebox she was carrying. There were tears in her eyes, and her face was red and puffy.
“Jesus, what’s wrong? What happened?” I looked down. “What is that?”
Her body language told me it wasn’t anything nice. She held it out in front of her like a bomb.
I lifted the lid, and jerked my hand away when I recognized what was inside.
“Where the fuck did you get that?” Had she gone nuts?
“It was on my porch. In front of the door.”
Her hands started shaking. I found a chair, sat her down, and took the box from her.
A dead bird? And the twine around the neck. Really cute. What kind of message was this supposed to be?
Shit, there was a note, too. I read it out loud.
“You don’t belong with us. If you don’t want to end up like your sister, stay away.”
It was printed in big, even block letters.
So the person who wrote it and left the bird knew how Angela died. That meant it was the person who killed her.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered.
I knew Marco was a sick fuck, but I didn’t know he was that sick. He had some balls, too, showing up on Trinity’s doorstep. Leaving something like this, something the cops might be able to trace.
The cops. Her dad would have to know about this.
I wanted them too—I didn’t know if I could protect her alone anymore, and I didn’t love the idea of people leaving shit like the bird at her front door.
It would be better if the police knew. I couldn’t be everywhere at once.
My hands shook with fury. I had to think fast.
I had to come up with a way to get Marco to confess, and soon. We had to end this before he got a chance to do to Trinity what he did to her sister.
“You have to go home,” I said. “Now.”
She looked up at me, and I thought of the way Gigi looked when she was tired and lost.
“What? You’re sending me away?”
“No.” I crouched down in front of her. “I’m gonna go with you. I don’t wanna leave you alone. But you’re gonna have to call your dad first, right? So he knows. I don’t want any trouble. This is way too serious, now.”
She nodded, wiping her eyes. How many times had I seen her wipe tears from her eyes in the past few days?
It made my blood boil even hotter. She deserved better than that. Better than anything in my world. I could have killed whoever it was making these threats—Marco, or one of his guys.
Either way, somebody was gonna pay for it.
“Daddy? Something happened.”
I held her hand while she explained what she found.
“And I have it in a shoebox with the note that came with it.” She listened for a second. “Right. I barely touched it. Anyway, I’m at the garage with Tyler… Because you were at work, and I wanted him to see… Because I was scared, okay?”
I closed my eyes. He was gonna be a prick, even now. Even when his daughter was obviously a wreck.
“I’m going to go back home, but I want Tyler to come with me. I feel safe when he’s around… I know… But Dad, I feel like I need protection…You’re going to have to go back to work, and I don’t want to be home alone if I can avoid it… Okay. Okay, we’ll be there soon.”
She hung up. “All right. He’s sending two cars to the house now, and they know we’re on our way. He’ll get there as soon as he can.”
>
I wasn’t looking forward to it. How uncomfortable would he make it? I was willing to look past our bullshit if it meant keeping Trinity safe, but he was such a prick.
It was all about him and his pride. When he was the one who had been giving me shit for years. I should have been the one with a grudge against him.
We pulled up to the house, Trinity in her car and me on my bike. I couldn’t ignore the looks I got from the cops guarding the house. They didn’t try to hide the way they felt about me.
For her sake, I kept my eyes to myself.
Maxwell was already there. He put his arms around Trinity and they talked quietly for a minute while I stood back.
Then he took a look at the bird. He looked pretty much the way I felt when I first saw it.
“Do you know anybody who would do something like this?”
I had to fight against my natural instinct to give him shit. “I think I might, but I have to talk to the guy myself.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he asked, raising his voice.
“Daddy, please,” Trinity begged, pulling on his arm. “We can’t do it this way. We have to work together.”
“Right, well, if he wants to work together, he needs to reveal these sources of his.”
His voice was deep and booming, and it filled the entire bottom floor of the house. I wouldn’t back down, no matter how intimidating he thought he was.
“I’m sorry, but this is my world. I know these people. The minute they see you, they’re gonna know something’s up. I know how to get people to talk.”
I just didn’t know how to get Marco to talk, not in that moment. I still needed to come up with a plan.
“You guys. Thinking you don’t have to do anything by the book.” He sneered at me.
“This has nothing to do with that. Think what you want about me, I don’t care. All I know is, you couldn’t find anything out before. We’re closer than you’ve ever been—and I’m not tryin’ to rub it in your face.”
I held up my hands when he looked like he wanted to take a swing at me.
“I’m just sayin! We have the inside track here...you don’t. People clam up when the cops come around. They don’t clam up with me. Trinity found out a lot of information, and I have to follow up on it. Just give me that chance.”
His face was dark, stormy. Trinity told me before we left the garage that he knew we were out of town together. In case he showed up at the front door with a shotgun, I suppose.
“I’ll give you until the end of the day to come up with something. After that, I take over in my way. And you better be one hundred percent honest with me. If I find out later on you were holding back…”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Prison. Or something. Fine.”
I was pressing my luck. Even Trinity looked like she wanted to slap me upside the head for mouthing off.
But I couldn’t help it. I had a problem with authority, especially when authority threw itself around like it was tough shit.
The only problem at that point was figuring out what to do to get to Marco. I had to come up with a way to get him to talk. I had to think.
“What’s important to Marco?” I mumbled.
“What?” Trinity watched me pace the living room. I stared out the window. The cop cars were still out there.
“What’s important to Marco? I mean, winning. We both know that.”
“Right. His reputation.”
“Yeah. He has to save face. So when I get the chance to face him, I have to bring up the way he paid for Angela.”
We both looked into the kitchen, where the lieutenant was. I didn’t want to talk too loud, or else risk him hearing me.
No way he would step back and let us take over when he knew about the deal Drake made.
“So I know how to get him to break down. A little, anyway. But what else? What else matters to him?”
“His bike?”
My eyes opened wide. I stared at Trinity. “You’re a fucking genius. That’s brilliant!”
“What? What did I say that was so brilliant?”
“His bike. He’ll do anything to protect his bike—any of us would, but especially him. The guy can’t get a job, racing is how he makes his money. And it’s, like, his biggest pride or something.”
I thought about it. How could I use his bike as leverage?
I got an idea. It was so brilliant, I laughed out loud.
Amazing how resourceful a person can be when their back’s against the wall, I thought, as I picked up the phone to call the garage.
“Hey,” I said, when my buddy Paolo answered. “What are you doing tonight?”
***
Hours later, my caravan of tow trucks from the garage pulled into the parking lot of the bar Marco and his crew hung out at.
We had to work fast—there was no way to hide a half-dozen tow trucks. Somebody would see us.
It was just the kind of bar his crew would hang out at, too. Seedy, trashy. There were some rough looking girls walking in as I climbed out of the truck.
I wondered if even they would have anything to do with Marco, and thought they probably wouldn’t.
We rolled the bikes over to the trucks, then worked together to load them on. There were twelve of us in all, two men to a truck.
We were all skilled in handling the tow trucks, so it took no time at all. We were like a well-oiled machine. It was almost too good.
“All right, let’s go.”
I climbed into the cabin of the lead truck, the one with Marco’s bike on it.
I heard the door to the bar slam open and turned just in time to see a group of guys streaming out of the bar, with Marco in the lead.
He was screaming, cursing with spit flying out of his mouth, his face beet red with rage. He looked me right in the eye as I passed.
I gave him the finger, and we drove on.
Chapter 7 - Tyler
The next step in my plan was to take the bikes to an old, abandoned airplane hangar just outside of town.
It paid to know about places like that, or to have friends who did. That way nobody would be around to see what was about to go down.
We unloaded the bikes, lining them up in a pretty row in the middle of the massive space. I had to admit, Marco’s bike wasn’t bad looking. It was a shame such a shit bag rode it.
“Now what?”
Paolo, one of the tow truck drivers, looked around the hangar.
“Now we wait. He’ll be by soon enough. Don’t worry.”
“How’s he gonna get here? We have his bike.”
“He’ll find a way,” I said. “Trust me.”
Sure enough, just twenty minutes later, the lights of three cars came into view, speeding across the lot.
When they got closer, I realized they were cabs. I laughed out loud at the thought of Marco having to call a cab to get his bike back.
There were two dozen of us, all the best guys in my crew. We had chains, pipes, crowbars, and wrenches—we were ready for a fight.
It felt good, having the upper hand for once against that bastard. We all had our blood up, too. We wanted to make him pay for the shit he pulled on me and everybody else he raced.
He only brought his crew with him—the bunch of losers who boxed me in during the last race.
“Really?” I asked when Marco got out of his cab. “You can’t do any better than this?”
“You don’t fuck with a guy’s bike, Tyler. You know better than that.”
He wasn’t going to let me lure him into a fight so easily. It was all right. I had all night to get what I wanted from him.
“You don’t fuck with the person you’re racing with, either, Marco. But you don’t seem to have a problem with that. But that’s not even why we’re here right now. We’re here because you’re a murderer.”
His eyes opened wide, and he laughed a short, barking laugh. “You’re not serious.”
“I am. You fucking murdered that girl in cold blood, you bastard. I didn’
t know you could stoop so low.”
My hands were aching to punch their way through his face, but I couldn’t do it yet. I had to get a confession from him, first.
He looked stunned. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Shit, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“So you don’t know about being such a loser you have to pay to get a woman to sleep with you? You loser.”
That got him. His face turned beet red. “That’s a damn lie.”
“Is it? So you didn’t pay Drake five thousand dollars for a night with his girlfriend? I knew you were pathetic, but I didn’t know you would stoop that low.”
My guys snickered and laughed, not even trying to hide it. Marco was getting more pissed by the second.
“So what? That doesn’t make me a murderer.”
“She ended up dead, though, didn’t she? Right after you paid for her.”
“Tyler.” Marco stared at me. “I didn’t kill her. I honestly didn’t.”
“You honestly didn’t? Like I would believe a thing out of your lying mouth.”
I snapped my fingers. Three of my guys picked up cans of gasoline, which they started splashing all over the bikes.
“What? No!”
Marco screamed, watching what was happening. He made a move, and the rest of us advanced toward him. We had him blocked.
“You can’t do this!”
“But I am. Until you tell me the truth.”
“I didn’t kill her!”
He looked like he was going to drop to his knees. Like he was losing his baby.
“I’m getting tired of your bullshit.”
I pulled a Zippo lighter from my pocket, turned it over in my fingers. I opened it. “Tell me the truth, or it all goes up in flames.”
“Nothing happened! There’s nothing to tell!”
Even Marco’s crew members looked like they were on the verge of having a fit.
“You better tell your boy here to fess up, or all your bikes are gonna go up.” I poised my thumb over the wheel. “Talk.”
“All right! All right!”
Marco was nearly screaming. He sounded like a woman.
“All right, what?” I held the open lighter in my hand, ready to strike it.