by Donald Wells
“I’ll try to fit in.”
“Thank you, my wolf.”
“What?”
“Nothing, just a private joke, but really, it should be a great time, and after all—”
Jessica stopped talking as he clamped a hand over her mouth, while pointing at the front door with the other one.
The door was ajar and upon it was a handprint in blood. On the ground were bloody shoeprints that disappeared into the grass of the lawn.
He whispered in Jessica’s ear.
“Get back in the car and drive to the nearest house to call the cops.”
She whispered back.
“What are you going to do?”
“Gregory may still be inside. If he is, I’ll stop him.”
“Gregory?” Jessica said, as her knees threatened to give out.
He kissed her and turned her towards the car.
“Go.”
She nodded with a face full of falling tears and did as he said.
After she had driven away, he slipped to the rear of the home and found the doctor’s car with its trunk sitting open and bags of warm groceries inside. He tried the kitchen door and found it unlocked.
There was another bag on the counter, along with the doctor’s keys. Other than the sound of the central air blowing through the vents, the house seemed quiet, and empty.
A moment later, he caught the tangy odor of the blood, and followed it to its source.
They were in the living room, beneath the banner and balloons proclaiming that their love had lasted twenty years.
It took Gregory but a few hours to destroy it.
He stayed in the doorway. There was too much blood for him to enter the room without tracking it all over, and so he took it all in from where he was and gazed about at the carnage.
The doctor’s family was dead. The husband and son died from gunshot wounds to the back of their heads, their faces obliterated by the massive exit wounds.
The three girls, the youngest of her children, were all redheaded like their mother, and appeared strangled to death, their eyes bulging as their necks sat at odd angles. He then wondered if the rapes had occurred before or after death, but knew that they had happened, because each child, even the young Cindy, had their underwear about their ankles and were bleeding from their genitals. A moment later, he spotted the blood drenched handle from a bathroom plunger, and he knew that the girls had been raped in an even more heinous manner than he had first thought.
In the midst of the butchery was the doctor, she who had suffered the worst injury.
As he gazed at her, he knew that Gregory had made her watch all of it, the murder of her husband, her son, the defilement of her daughters. However, he had not left her untouched, her nakedness attested to that. And yet, other than the blood of her beloved, there was scarcely a mark on her.
She was in the middle of the room, nude, and bound to a kitchen chair. Her flaming hair hung about her vacant face like curtains on a blacked out window. Her eyes were open, but saw nothing, as her heart beat for no one.
She was gone.
Although the doctor sat staring at the wall, he knew without doubt that she was as dead as her kin, and that no amount of time, drugs or therapy would ever animate her again.
She was gone.
The sound of the sirens reached him and he walked out the way he had come and waited for the authorities to arrive.
As he stood there by the curb, he thought of Gregory Zubek and of how a simple twisting of the bastard’s neck could have avoided all this sorrow. He promised Jessica that he would not kill him, had kept that promise and now a family was destroyed.
He loved Jessica White to the depths of his black heart, but he knew that he would never make such a pledge ever again. In this world, evil must be met with violence, must be given no quarter, no mercy, because there were some souls that were unhampered by decency, by morality or law, and he also understood, sadly, that he was numbered among them.
***
The trial took place nearly a year later, and Jessica was the prosecution’s star witness.
She testified about Zubek’s harassment of the doctor, told about his attack on the highway and described the doctor’s escalating fear of him. Her testimony, along with an overwhelming body of forensic evidence made it a certainty that Gregory Zubek would be found guilty.
And he was found guilty, however, the sentence placed him in a mental institution, as he was adjudicated to be criminally insane.
Doctor Harte was also in an institution, and would remain in its care for the rest of her life.
***
THE PRESENT
On the ride home, they had contacted their researcher, Carly Zhang. Carly said that she would report to them within a few hours, and so they waited for her call.
After dinner, they sat in front of the fireplace and talked, while sipping wine.
“Why now?” Jessica said. “Why seek revenge now, and how is it even possible when he’s locked away? As far as I know, he has zero contact with the outside world.”
“That must have changed,” he said.
He was right, and the reason behind the change was incomprehensible.
The State had simply let Gregory Zubek out.
He was one of a selection of inmates deemed acceptable to take part in group outings to the zoo, to movie theaters, and other local events.
Gregory was also being considered for release, due to his exemplary record behind bars.
The head of the psychiatric hospital defended her decision by stating to her critics that Gregory’s record indicated that he had shown no signs of violent tendencies since being incarcerated.
When it was pointed out to her that prior to her decision to let Gregory wander freely, that he had spent twenty-three hours a day locked in his cell, and thus, had scant opportunity to act out, she grew silent and stared at the floor.
“The man who tried to kill us, what exactly did he tell you?” Jessica said.
“His name was Enzo Parker, he was from Arizona and he told me that he was hired by Zubek’s lawyer, Albert Rossetti, and that Rossetti used him whenever he had a problem. He said that over the years, he had killed six people who were slated to testify against Rossetti’s clients, and that you were supposed to be number seven.”
“Who is financing this, Gregory’s father?”
“In a way, Karl Zubek is in a nursing home, Rossetti has temporary power of attorney, but I’d bet that it’s Gregory pulling the strings.”
“What date is Gregory’s hearing scheduled for?” Jessica said.
He consulted the information that they had received from Carly.
“It’s in six days,”
“Six days? Amazing, and no one from the State of Massachusetts even bothered to inform me about it. If Gregory hadn’t tried to have me killed, we would have never known about any of this.”
“They’ll try again. When Rossetti doesn’t hear back from his man, Gregory will insist that he hire someone else.”
“What do we do?”
He gazed into the fire while taking a sip of wine, and then he swiveled his head and answered her.
“We prepare.”
***
They came four days later, and this time there were three of them.
The three men pulled their van onto the shoulder of the county road within yards of the spot that the failed assassin had parked his stolen car at days before.
The weather had warmed over the past few days and the sun shone brightly upon them as they exited their vehicle. The men were all large, but the one in the middle, the one named Carter, was the largest. All three carried backpacks, and wore denim jackets and flannel shirts. If anyone glanced at them while driving by, they would take them for hikers.
Carter, a black man with green eyes, nodded at the man on his right and watched him until he disappeared into the trees, before getting back into the van with the third man.
Thirty minutes passed.
Then forty,
At forty-three minutes, Carter’s cell phone rang.
“Report.”
“They’re here. I did a recon and found him watching football in the living room and she’s at the back of the house pruning plants.”
“She’s pruning plants? It’s winter,”
“She’s inside; at the rear of the home is a glass enclosed atrium, sorta like a hot house I guess.”
“What’s the husband look like? Do you think he’ll be any trouble?”
“I didn’t see his face. All I could see from the window was the TV and a pair of legs lying on the end of a sofa, but hey, there are three of us. He’ll be handled.”
“And you saw no sign of the police?”
“Nothing,”
“Good work, we’ll be right in to join you... Blaine.”
“I almost thought that you forgot the signal. My name is Rory, and no, no one is holding a gun to my head. Where the hell did you get the name Blaine?”
“He’s the guy that grooms my girlfriend’s schnauzer.”
“Where do we meet?”
“The doctor is the primary target. Johnson and I will meet you at the atrium in the back. Carter out,”
With no need for stealth, the two got out of the vehicle and ran towards the home. Sixteen minutes later, they were approaching the rear of the house by circling through the woods. Carter raised his hand and signaled the other man to stop. Afterward, they took off their backpacks and removed their weapons, both were Sig Sauer 522’s with thirty round magazines. The black rifles looked deadly, and appeared more so when they threaded the thick, round sound suppressors onto the ends of their barrels.
The road they came from was parallel with the front of the home, while acres of forest stretched to the right and left. The rear faced a towering wall of rock, but was separated from it by a stream.
The leader of the group, Carter, eyed the top of that cliff suspiciously as he and Johnson maneuvered past the tree house and across the rear yard, where they met Rory behind a row of hedges that kept them from sight.
Rory pointed towards the glass-enclosed atrium, where Jessica walked about tending to rows of plants, but Carter’s eyes were once again drawn to the top of that wall of rock.
“Rory, hand me the binoculars; I want to check out that cliff.”
“I already did. That glint you see up there is from a broken beer bottle, but here, take a look.”
Carter took the binoculars and studied the cliff, as he focused in on it, he saw the familiar label of a brand of beer.
He handed the binoculars back to Rory and looked around. Something was bothering him, something nagging at a corner of his mind. He dismissed it with a sigh, thinking it just a case of nerves, because the last man that took this job, Enzo Parker, had never returned.
“Let’s do this,” he said, as he stepped out from behind the hedges.
As the third man came into the open, Jessica dived to the floor.
“She knows we’re here,” Johnson said, and that’s when Carter realized what was eating at him.
The tree house,
Why would a childless couple have a tree house in their backyard?
The first dart hit him in the back of the left leg and he felt it go numb immediately. He turned to find Rory falling toward him with a silly look on his face and a tranquilizer dart sticking out of his ear. Rory’s weight knocked him over and he hit the ground less than a second after Johnson fell face first into a patch of melting snow.
Carter attempted to raise his gun, but he no longer felt his arm and his field of vision was down to a tiny dot. The dot shrank into insignificance and Carter sank into oblivion.
***
He hung from the edge of the tree house floor by his fingertips, then, let go, and fell to the ground below. He landed in a crouch, on the balls of his feet, and afterward, sprang up and walked towards the fallen men with the gas-powered tranquilizer gun aimed at them. The three men had never searched about for him, and so he reasoned that the pair of fake legs on the sofa fooled them.
Inside the house, Jessica said, “I’m coming out.” and he heard her voice through the device secured in his ear.
She walked out from behind the bullet-resistant glass of the atrium carrying a medical kit and studied the three men, then, she pointed at one of them.
“That one, the first to show up, he’s taken three darts. If I don’t give him a dose of Naloxone he may not make it.”
“Do it. We only need one, but we don’t know which one that is yet.”
Jessica removed the darts from the men as he gathered up the weapons, then, while she was administering to the man with the overdose, he checked the others for belongings.
When he was finished with all three men, besides the three rifles, and the backpacks, he had two handguns, three cellphones, a pair of binoculars, keys to a vehicle, first-aid kits, food rations, extra ammo, maps of the area, a keycard for a nearby motel, and half a pack of gum. They carried no identification and the cell phones were throwaways, most likely bought for the job.
He looked over at his wife with a grim expression.
“I’m going to need help this time. I don’t know if I can secure all three of them before the drug wears off.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do. This entire business is my fault.”
“Jessica, you’re not to blame for Gregory Zubek.”
She wiped away a tear.
“It doesn’t feel that way, now let’s hurry, they should be out for hours, but you never can tell how someone will react to the drug.”
***
Carter awoke to find himself hanging from his wrists in what appeared to be a garage, only there were no cars inside. To his left hung Johnson, and Carter had never seen him look so pissed, beside Johnson, hung Rory, and he had never seen Rory look so scared.
Not good,
Carter craned his neck and saw that his ankles were bound together with what looked like half a roll of duct tape. He also took note that the walls, floor and even the ceiling were covered in thick plastic.
Not good,
Seated on a stool in front of them was a man who, he assumed, was the target’s husband. He was a tall man, well-built but not bulky, and he had the face of a movie star, but the eyes of a wolf.
The husband reached down and picked up one of their rifles.
“Two of you are going to die. One of you is going to live. That one will convince Zubek that my wife is dead and no longer a threat to him. He will also return to Boston and kill Zubek for me.”
“How do I know that I can trust you not to kill me later?” Carter said.
The wolf eyes bored into his and Carter felt intimidated for the first time since he was a seventeen-year-old kid in boot camp.
“You won’t know if you can trust me anymore than I’ll know if I can trust you, but you appear to be a professional, and once I’ve let you go and you’ve killed Zubek, they’ll be no reason for either of us to come after the other.”
“I’m gonna kill you,” Johnson shouted, and Carter watched as the wolf eyes slid his way.
“You hear me you son of a bitch? You let me go or I swear I’m gonna—”
The first shot was dead center to Johnson’s heart, while the second one entered at the bridge of his nose. Carter forced his eyes away from the body of his late partner and stared at the doctor’s husband, as he remembered what Rossetti had said about the man.
He develops apps. You know, for smart phones and tablets. He’s a nerd; waste him if you have to.
The room grew silent, save for the Splat... Splat... Splat of Johnson’s blood and brains dripping onto the plastic, but then, there came another sound.
Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat Splat
It was Rory. He was in a state of absolute terror and he had urinated on himself. The piss was running down his pant leg and onto the plastic and the room suddenly reeked of it.
A moment later and
Rory was babbling like a fool.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know anything my name’s Rory Currin you just shot Mike Johnson and that guy there is Scott Carter you can’t trust him though you can’t he’ll tell you one thing and then do another I’m the man you want I’ll kill Zubek hell I’ll kill anyone you want and then you’ll never see me again honest just please cut me down from here and I’ll—”
One bullet this time, and Carter took note that it entered through Rory’s blathering pie hole.
The wolf eyes found his and he nodded.
“I’m your man.”
***
The husband cut him down and then had him clean up the bodies.
Afterward, he took him outside and he was surprised to find the van backed up to the door and ready. He struggled the bodies into the van along with the bloody plastic, and then the husband gestured him over to a wrought iron table and chairs set. Atop the table were the three disposable cell phones they had brought along for the job.
“The one who panicked, he said your name was Scott Carter.”
“That’s right,” Carter said.
“Once the job was done, what were you supposed to do?”
“We were to wait for Rossetti to call us at four o’clock,” Carter said.
The husband took out his phone and looked at the time.
“We’ve got nearly half an hour. Tell me, how will you go about killing Zubek?”
“That may take a while. Once your wife testifies at the hearing they’ll never let him go; they’ll probably even bar him from taking those day trips. That means that I’ll have to get inside the hospital and kill him, and that won’t be easy.”
“My wife is not going to testify.”
Carter looked surprised, but then he nodded.
“You want him out. If he’s out, he’ll be easier to kill.”
“That’s right.”
One of the phone’s on the table vibrated.
“Rossetti’s early,” Carter said.
“Eager to hear the good news, when you answer, hit the speaker button, and no tricks, if I suspect you’re warning him, you die.”
Carter stared at the husband as he picked up the phone. As far as he could tell, the man sitting across from him was as unarmed as he was. Carter had been a Marine, had spent six years in Special Forces before becoming a hired gun and had killed more men than he could remember, a few with his bare hands.