by Matt Rass
“Shut up,” Ray said, “or I’ll shoot you through the seats.”
Ray gave DC Agent Lance’s business card. “Call this guy, tell him I tracked my niece to this location. We’ll see if we can get the law on our side for this one.” He then took Mike’s gun out of the glove box and walked up to the big white house.
When he reached the front door, he tried to turn the knob. Locked. He peered inside, but the foyer was empty.
He went around to the side of the house and found an open sub-basement window. He looked around for spying neighbors before he pressed his foot against the window frame until it whined, buckled, and broke at the hinge.
It was too much of a coincidence that Emma was here at the congressman’s. Had she been involved with Frank Silver because of Sam? Not a chance. But what about the money Mandy had seen? It was all bad. Ray’s mind was swimming. Drowning.
He dropped down into a game room. When he landed, he heard the pop from a gun fired upstairs. He crossed the game room like a laser and stopped to pick up the cue ball off the pool table. He bounced it off the bumper and switched it for the black eight ball. He pocketed it and grabbed an aluminum cue off the rack on his way out of the room, stuffing the gun into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back. He passed through the main rec room with white leather couches that formed a crescent in front of a massive flat screen television, then ascended the carpeted stairs two at a time to the main floor. When he reached the foyer, he came face to face with an older white woman, Helen. “Where’s Emma?” he asked.
Helen stammered. “I-I-I, already called the police,” she said.
Upstairs, Ray heard someone say the name, Frank, followed by two shots. He yelled, “EMMA!”
EMMA’S ESCAPE
Emma twisted the knob of the attic door and cringed at the squeak it made. She pressed her ear against the door, listening to the squirming and the grunting of one of the old men. This was her chance. She opened the door a crack and seeing the man who had driven her here—Carl—was moaning and bleeding on the floor, she quickly closed it again. She heard him call the other man, Frank, by name, then a gun fired twice, pop-pop.
Below she heard Ray call her name. Quickly, fearing whoever was shooting would come into the attic next to kill her, she flung open the door and tried to jump over Carl, lying on the steps looking up at her.
“Uncle Ray,” Emma shrieked.
Carl reached for her as she attempted to jump over him. He grabbed her leg, and she slipped in the blood pooling around him and fell to the ground. Still stuck between the attic and Carl, she cried, “Lemme go, lemme go,” as he pawed at her kicking feet.
He grabbed her by the ankles and she fought the slick blood to keep away from him, then began kicking at him. Her foot struck his arm, his shoulder, and finally his face. It was like stepping on wet sand. She heard Ray bound up the stairs, repeating her name. “Emma, Emma…”
“Here,” she shouted. “I’m here.”
RAY TO THE RESCUE
Ray saw the congressman and his wife stacked atop each other at the head of the stairs; Emma was on her butt kicking at something. When he reached her level, he saw the former sheriff—Carl Barron, his face bloodied—trying to grab her. Ray reached for the 9mm stuck in his waistband, but didn’t take it out. He didn’t want a repeat of what happened in Detroit. He turned the aluminum pool cue over in his hand, and gripped it like a spear. He jumped up, clearing the height of the bannister, and threw it at CB. The tip of the cue smashed into the older man’s windpipe and he gagged, releasing Emma’s ankle.
Ray reached past the bodies and said, “C’mon, Em. Take my hand.”
She stood and extended her hand, and Ray pulled her across the wet floor and over CB’s swatting hands, to set her on her feet on the stair behind him.
“Go out the house and get in the Caddy,” he said. “My friend, DC, is there.”
Emma nodded and, her feet covered in blood, almost slipped running down the staircase.
Ray felt the congressman for a pulse, then checked his wife. Both dead. He looked back at the former sheriff and was surprised to see a gun in the man’s hand.
“Don’t,” Ray said, but CB fired anyway. The bullet hit the wall next to Ray’s head.
Ray removed the eight ball from his pocket and threw it, hitting CB square in the face.
The gun flew in the air and the former sheriff twisted in agony, the bridge of his nose flattened. He tried to pull it back into place, but it was like trying to pull cotton out of the neck of a pill bottle. He squirmed and slipped in the blood pooling under him and flopped onto his back, resigned to the fact that he would never get back up again.
“You killed my brother and buried him in a parking lot,” Ray said, now towering over the fallen, old man.
“I’ve killed lots o’ people,” CB said, his nose whistling as his breathing labored. “What’s one more?”
Ray heard the Caddy honk twice outside and thought of his options: deliver CB to the police, or retribution for Sam. “Well, you’re gonna pay for this one,” he said. “Thanks for making it easy.” He grabbed the crooked, former sheriff by the wrists, locked his arms, and stepped on his throat. The old man squirmed underneath him, croaking, but Ray pulled his arms taut and pressed his foot deeper. “See you in hell, old boy.”
CB began to fade under the big, black boot when the front door downstairs burst open and the Police entered. Ray heard John Thomas shout his name. “Two more minutes,” Ray said and stepped off of CB. “All’s I needed was two more minutes.”
The old man coughed and clawed at his windpipe, and reacted in fear when his head brushed up against Barbara’s lifeless foot. He looked up at her and began to sob.
Ray put his hands on top of his head, linked his fingers, and descended the stairs backward, careful not to slip on Emma’s bloody footprints. When he reached the bottom step, John Thomas removed the 9mm from Ray’s waistband and put his arms behind his back. The remaining SWAT team members ran up the stairs to the second landing.
“You keep my name out of this,” John whispered in Ray’s ear. “And we make you the good guy in this story.”
“How’s that?” Ray asked.
“Emma told me what happened upstairs.”
“Is she okay?”
John led Ray out the front door to the mansion. “I think so.”
“She your daughter?” Ray asked, seeing Emma, her head bowed, seated in the Caddy.
“Yes,” John Thomas said.
“You didn’t waste much time after I was gone, did ya?”
“I think I’ve been tryin’ my whole life to be just like you, Ray.”
“There ain’t nothing ’bout me worth being like,” Ray said.
“Ah,” John said. “You ain’t that bad.”
Both men laughed as John released Ray to the waiting paramedic.
THE END
Ray and DC watched from inside the Caddy as Agents Lance Hauer and Dave Christmas lead Alex, Tony, and Mikey in handcuffs through to the rear of the Sheriff’s department.
“What are they arresting them for?” DC asked.
“Sex trafficking,” Ray said. “They found the stripper, Dominique, and she agreed to testify against them.”
“And the videos from the apartment that burned down?”
“Prolly indict whoever appears with underage kids. Unless it’s another politician, then they let ’em go.”
“’Cos they’re politicians?”
“’Cos they have money,” Ray said, turning to see the shiny, tight, red face of Bradley staring back at him through the window of his Mercedes.
“You drivin’ me to the bus station now?” DC asked.
Ray turned to her and nodded. He started the Caddy and steered her into traffic like a big, white alligator slipping off the riverbank into slow moving water.
From downtown St. Andrews, across the bridge to the old, desolate downtown of Benson Bridge, the Caddy continued to amble on.
“I’
m sorry I didn’t tell you about knowing Sam,” DC said. “I don’t know what I was thinkin’ at the time. I just remember seeing your police badge and you yelling at me. And when I finally thought I could tell you the truth, you told me the story about when youze were kids.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Ray said. “Seems all I’ve been doin’ this weekend is apologizing.”
“And kickin’ some ass,” DC said.
They both smiled. “Yeah, that too,” he said. “Do you feel like telling me about it now? How you met Sam?”
“He’s the reason I came out here in the first place,” she said. “I met him online and after, like, a month, he paid for my bus ticket.”
“Was he the one turned you out first?”
“No. I did a little back home. What’s a girl to do to make a livin’ if she’s on her own?”
“And did he set you up with Frank Silver?”
“No, I left Sam before that. Pretty much soon as I knew he didn’t really love me… Andre and that man from the stripper club sent me. They wanted to blackmail him.”
“Was it at the loft we went to?” Ray asked.
“Yeah. They told me about the cameras behind the paintings.”
Ray parked on the southside entrance to the bus station and DC practically dove on top of him with a hug. “I’m gonna miss you,” she said.
“I’m gonna miss you, too,” he said. “I got a present for you in the glove box.”
She opened the glove box and found Ray’s badge with a bow tied around it and an envelope.
“You’re not gonna be a cop no more?” DC asked.
“I was thinkin’ a security guard or something.”
“You crazy? Where? Walmart? You end up headbuttin’ some poor bastard for shopliftin’.”
Ray laughed. “You’re prolly right.”
“Kicking him when he’s down.”
“Like at the stip club, ya mean?”
DC nodded.
“Nah,” Ray said. “I wanna help people when they're down.”
She smiled and started to open the envelope.
“Why don’tcha wait till you’re on the bus for that,” Ray said.
“All right.” She put the badge and envelope in her purse. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about knowing Sam earlier,” she said. “You know how some things get harder and harder to admit the longer you wait.”
“Secrets,” Ray said.
“Like I said, I was ashamed about what happened to me…”
“None of it was your fault, Dee.”
“I guess.”
The announcement for the bus to Chicago echoed through the parking lot speakers.
“Fifteen hours to Atlanta,” she said and opened the car door.
“Make sure to put your bags under the bus,” Ray said. “I had all my shit stolen one time when I was headed down to New Orleans.”
“You left your bag on your seat?”
“Yep,” he said. “We pulled into a little podunk town at three-thirty in the morning so they could refuel; everyone off the bus, but the driver left the doors unlocked.”
“And people came in and took it?” DC pulled her suitcase from the backseat.
“Young mother even had her diaper bag stolen.”
“Ass-holes,” DC said.
Ray laughed. “I love the way you say asshole.”
“Take care, Dee.”
“You too, Ray.”
He watched her walk up to the bus driver and try to hand him her bag, but when he motioned for her to go along and board with it, she looked back at Ray and shrugged.
Ray’s phone buzzed with a message from Jayneen, which read: I saw your shit on the news, but DON’T think of comin back to me. Have a good life jerk.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” he said.
The Greyhound had merged onto Highway 94 South to Chicago when DC opened the envelope. A cascade of hundred-dollar bills fell to her lap. She looked around at the nearby passengers. She couldn’t believe it. No one better try and rip me off, she thought. Outside the window, she heard the honk of a car.
“It can’t be,” she said, sitting up in her seat and looking over the ledge of the window. But it was him.
The Caddy honked again and sped past DC’s window. She stood up in the aisle, pushing the hundred-dollar bills into her pocket.
“What’s that man doin’?” a passenger asked.
“He’s here for me,” DC replied.
The Caddy kept honking its horn and DC yelled up at the driver, “Pull over, pull over. That’s my man come to rescue me.”
She heard some of the male passengers sigh and some of the women complain. But she didn’t give a shit. “Y’all are just jealous,” she said as she reached the front of the bus.
“Stop the bus asshole, and lemme off this motherfucker.”
The driver grumbled, but the bus slowed and rode onto the gravel at the side of the highway.
“If you get off,” the driver said. “I can’t let you get back on.”
“Oh, I’m gonna get off,” she said and pointed at Ray emerging from his Caddy. “On him!” she exclaimed.
The door hissed open and DC jumped down, almost tumbling over the shoulder and into the ditch before Ray grabbed her by the arm and swung her around into his chest.
“I can’t believe you came back for me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Ray said. “I just realized I gave you too many hundred-dollar bills.”
“What?!”
“Bah,” Ray said. “I’m just fuckin’ with you.”
DC jumped right into him and he spun her around as the Greyhound rolled past.
EPILOGUE
(TWO WEEKS LATER)
Emma screamed and ran around the side of the trailer. She took the stairs two at a time, flung open the door and, panting, waited for her pursuer. Around the side of the trailer came Shane in pursuit, a water pistol in his hand and the puppy, Max, stumbling behind.
“Okay, enough,” she said. “I have to help Mom.”
She went into the trailer and joined her mother in the kitchen. “Hey, Ma, can I help?”
“That’s okay, sweetie, I’m just shredding the cheese,” Mandy said. “Dwight?”
Dwight turned from setting the table. “Almost finished here,” he said.
“Why don’t you go play with the new laptop your father bought you?” Mandy suggested.
“Can I buy that DJ software I told you about?”
“Check your email.”
“No… you didn’t!”
“Not me,” Mandy said.
Emma bounded for her bedroom.
“John Thomas,” Mandy explained to Dwight. “Tryin’ to make up for fifteen years.”
Emma spread herself across her bed and opened the Macbook.
She clicked on the tab for her email.
The first thing she saw was the number of replies she had related to her Facebook post. It was an astonishing number.
“What the hell?”
Other emails, from senders such as CNN, NBC, FOX, and Vanity Fair, had subject lines like Your Uncle the Hero and Your Uncle Ray. She didn’t open any of them. She went straight to her Facebook page. Her original post about Ray saving her from the horror at the congressman’s mansion had officially gone viral with over 50,000 shares and three times the likes. Everyone wanted to hear more about Ray Price!
RAY’S HELL: BOOK ONE
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Contents
Title
Mike Tyson
DETROIT
Domestic Situation
The Stairway
The Apartment
The Residence
T
he Precinct
FRIDAY NIGHT
Home for Good
The Welcome
Crooked Hotel
Like Old Times
Liverwurst Sandwiches
The Parking Lot
St Andrews
The Holiday Inn
The Stripclub
Flashback
Meet Dominique
Tony’s Office
The Stripper Apartment
SATURDAY
The Hangover
Meet the Congressman
CB & The Van
Alex and Christmas
Fire & Fight
Sam’s Loft
Alex’s Pad
John Thomas
Toll Stop
Jayneen
Andre’s
Meet Emma and Mandy
Tony, Mike & Andre
Tommy’s House
Car Chase
Ray in the Mansion
Hospital
The Lance Drive
Silver City Motel
Ray Healed by Mandy
The Cell Phone
SUNDAY
The Golf Course
Ray & Mandy
Emma and CB
A Ride Into Town
Emma Runs Away
Fight!
The FBI Motel
Andre’s Pad
Back to the FBI Motel
Trailer Redux
Emma Assault
CB The Chauffeur
The Mansion
Emma’s Escape
Ray to the Rescue
The End
Epilogue
Untitled