by Ada Stone
I offered him a genuine smile, my first in a good while, and pulled open the passenger door. As I slid in, I said, “Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”
“Not a problem, sir. Not a problem. Always happy to help.”
I doubted he would feel that way if he knew my profession, but it didn’t matter. I’d already decided I liked the man and would insist he drop me off at the sign before he reached the parking lot, just in case there was going to be trouble.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Susanna
“What do you mean?” I asked and even I could hear the quiver in my voice. It was a tremble of fear, yes, but of anger, too. I could feel it building in my gut, this sense that everything was wrong. So very wrong. I had gotten things mixed up somehow, and now I was here, staring at my brother, looking at a man who, for all intents and purposes, was a stranger to me. A complete stranger.
Chris shrugged, glancing over at Tyler as though confused. Like he could hear the anger lingering in my voice, but couldn’t understand what it was from. He turned back to look at me, then said, “Because he’s dead.”
All of the breath left my chest in a whoosh making me instantly dizzy. I stumbled, crumpling down heavily to the side of the bed, staring unseeing at my brother whose appearance suddenly became strange and blurry. A deep, wounding pain replaced the air that had been in my chest, leaving me feeling both too full and too hollow all at once.
Dead. The word echoed in my head, my brain trying harder and harder to convince the rest of me that this was wrong. All of it was wrong and Alexei was fine. A word like dead just didn’t belong with him. It couldn’t.
For a long moment, I knew I was hyperventilating. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t be.
I was numb to the world for a long moment, my breathing difficult, painful even, and my eyes clouded with either tears or just plain old sadness. Either way, I couldn’t make out anything of my surroundings. Grief overwhelmed me until there was nothing left.
Then I felt hands on me, long and gangly and a little clammy, though not necessarily cold. It took me a minute, but I came back to that dingy, awful little room in the Ranch Hand Inn, noticing that my brother was standing there giving me a weird, curious look. And the hands that were on me? They belonged to Tyler. He was kneeling beside me, rubbing his hands over my arms where gooseflesh had cropped up everywhere, suddenly.
“It’s okay,” I finally heard him saying, his voice still kind of faraway. “It’s for the best. He was crazy…”
He said more, but I wasn’t listening. I didn’t want to hear it, not from him or my brother. How could he do that? How… how?
Coming back to myself enough to fix my brother with a long, hard stare, I finally found the courage to get words out. They came out scratchy, like a frog croaking them out, but I didn’t care. I had to ask him, had to know, even though I now was fairly certain I didn’t want to hear his answer. “Did you… did you do it, Chris?”
His blonde eyebrows rose high on his forehead, causing his skin to crinkle almost comically. He looked bewildered that I had asked and for a moment he didn’t seem to know what to say. Then finally, he said, “Well, I mean, we did. Me and Jason. He was there to help me roll him into that damn ditch. Good thing he was here. That Alexei bastard was a real piece of work and—”
I shook my head, feeling frustration bubbling. I couldn’t think of Alexei right now. Couldn’t think of him as—as dead. So I focused. “I’m not talking about—” I couldn’t even say his name. If I did, I knew I would crack and the tears would come. I wasn’t sure they would ever stop if I let them fall. “I’m talking about the money, Chris. I’m talking about that… that man. Did you really beat him to death?” The last part came out as barely a whisper as I watched my brother’s face remain unchanged, calm and even casual. As though we were talking about where to go for dinner. My stomach roiled. I felt awful, nauseous, like I’d never be able to eat again.
Again, he stared at me as though I had asked him the most bizarre, completely out of left field question in the world. Like the question and the answer didn’t even matter.
Dread like a dead weight, a stone, fell into my stomach and sunk there until I felt cold and uncomfortable. Until I knew his answer before he even told me.
He shrugged his shoulders, still seeming unconcerned about the whole thing. “Well, yeah. I mean, he was some lowlife piece of shit anyway, right? He worked for the fucking mob, Susanna. They’re all assholes. Who cares if he’s dead?”
And with those words, I felt the dread in me solidify. With it, a strange sense of calm washed over me. It wasn’t that I was okay with any of this. I wasn’t. Instead, it was as though knowing the truth, one way or the other, had finally put me at ease. It made me realize the options that were before me and I knew exactly which one I had to choose.
This man who stood before me—he was my brother, but at the same time, he wasn’t. The brother I knew had problems, to be sure. He was a screw up, a black sheep. He was a mean little kid, broken hearted about the death of our mother, and not dealing so well with the strict rules our dad had laid out before him. That brother was a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t a murderer.
This man, however, was. He was a monster, a cold blooded killer, who did things without thought or concern as to their actions. If he’d had any concern, he wouldn’t have killed that man and stolen that money. And he wouldn’t have involved me like he did.
Sucking in a harsh breath, I knew that I had to get out of this hotel. I had to go and find Alexei. If he was out there somewhere, lying in some ditch, dying, I had to be with him. Even if it was only for a few more moments, I had to be there. I had to, even though it meant I’d be watching the only man I had ever loved and ever was going to love die.
It was going to kill me, but I needed to see him.
I got up off the bed, brushing off Tyler who was still fawning over me like some kid lavishing flowers to his secret crush in high school in the hopes that she might notice him for even a moment. He might have looked hurt or annoyed or whatever, but I paid him so little attention that I didn’t notice one way or the other. It didn’t matter to me in that moment, because questioning my brother as I was now, I couldn’t help but question Tyler, too.
Had either of them told me the truth before this moment? I couldn’t be sure.
I settled my brother with one last scathing look, then turned away, stomping towards the door. I didn’t get very far. A hand snapped out and grabbed my arm harshly. I blinked in surprise, turning to see it was my brother who had grabbed me. He jerked me back and it took everything I had not to stumble and fall. I stared at him bewildered.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he asked me and his eyes flashed like orbs on fire.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, struggling to shake him off. “Let me go.”
But he didn’t. “Not a chance,” he told me, his voice low and menacing, a tone that didn’t belong to a brother.
I looked over at Tyler, thinking maybe he would be of some help, but he just looked at his lap, ignoring what was happening between me and Chris. I felt a pang in my heart. My best friend wasn’t going to help me? That was too awful.
Returning my gaze to Chris, I repeated, “Let me go!”
“Forget it,” he told me, gritting his teeth and jerking me back, farther away from the door. “You’re not going anywhere. I think it’s best for everyone if you stay here with us a while.” Then he shoved me hard, sending me spiraling down to the bed. I tumbled next to Tyler and watched his eyes flicker to me for a moment, but not with even a smidgeon of sympathy. It was almost as though, once again, he was annoyed with me. Like this wasn’t how he had pictured it all in his head. Which made me wonder: what had he been picturing? And how much did he know before we got here?
Before I could think of how to argue my way out of it, or how to get around my brother to make a break for it, Chris turned to Tyler and pulled something out
from the waistband of his worn jeans. It was a gun. My eyes widened at the sight of it, and Tyler flinched a little when Chris tossed it at him, but Tyler managed to catch it anyway with fumbling, nervous fingers. He looked up at my brother with wide eyes.
“Watch her,” he told Tyler, authority and threat lacing his voice in equal, terrifying parts. Who was this man? Certainly not my brother. “I have to go and meet up with Jason, figure a few things out, but she’s wigging out.” He jerked his head towards me, but didn’t even glance in my direction. “I don’t want her to do anything stupid like go to the cops. Once these guys figure out that Alexei guy is dead, they’ll send someone else. I want to be as far away from here as possible before that happens. So watch her and make sure she stays put. Do what you’ve gotta do. I’ll be back soon.”
With that, he turned and went to the door. He grabbed a backpack and nothing else, didn’t glance back at me or Tyler, and when the door shut, the sound was strangely deafening. As though that was not just the end of a discussion, but more than that. It was the end of everything.
I sucked in a harsh breath, then began to scoot myself to the edge of my bed. I stood up, but didn’t even begin to make it to the door when I heard Tyler’s voice.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I froze. Surely this wasn’t happening. Just because my dipshit brother gave Tyler a gun and a command, surely he wouldn’t follow through with it, right? I turned to look at him and saw that he was holding the gun firmly.
In fact, he was pointing it. At me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alexei
The middle aged man was a talker. He talked about the size of Madison and how once upon a time the town was supposed to grow into a huge city. It was where all the work was, where people, rich people with families and suburbanite attitudes, were going to move, because they wanted a booming economy, but also the safety of small town life. But it all fell apart when it turned out there was no oil, the trees were protected federally, and the river was controlled farther up north. Then he talked about how he and his wife, who had recently left him for a twenty-something young woman who used to be a man, after getting a half a dozen tattoos and dying her hair black, had lived there half their lives, moving in with the boom and getting left behind when the once-bright promise of the future disappeared like a puff of white smoke.
I learned about how he’d always wanted to be a farmer or a rancher, but in the end he didn’t know the first thing about taking care of land or animals. In fact, he didn’t know what to do with his own kids, though thankfully they were grown.
He talked about moving to an apartment, because it was less to take care of and getting a cat because the fee for a dog was outrageous. He talked about how he liked the way rain smelled and how the skies always seemed especially blue after a storm.
He went on until I felt like I knew more about this one man’s life than I did about my own. It was enough to drive a person crazy, though I kept myself sane by reminding myself that this was a short trip and at the other end of it, I was going to kill Christopher and Jason both. It was enough to keep me calm, though I remained on the verge of just asking him to pull over and let me out right there on the side of the road. It seemed like walking would be better than listening to anything more, but I reminded myself that time was of the essence and I didn’t have enough of it to be dallying on the side of the road, no matter how much this kind but insanely talkative man was getting on my last nerve.
Finally, I spotted the sign for the Ranch Hand Inn. Relief swamped me, even as tension rose within me. There would be a confrontation very soon now that I was so close.
“You can drop me off near the sign. That way you don’t have to turn back around inside the parking lot,” I told him, hoping he would take me up on his offer.
“Are you sure, young man?” he asked, his eyebrows lifting in question. He seemed to debate whether or not it was wise to just leave me out here. “I really wouldn’t mind. In fact, why don’t I take you right up to the lobby, that way if you don’t have your key, it’s no—”
“No!” I told him firmly, and maybe a little too quickly for common courtesy. I cleared my throat and forced myself to be calm. “I mean, no, thank you. That’s alright. I’ve got it from here. My key’s right here in my pocket.”
The man frowned a little, looking me over one last time, before pulling in to a stop right next to the sign. “Well, if you’re sure. Hey, how about I give you my number so that if you run into trouble, you can—”
“That’s fine. My, uh, wife is in the room, too. She’s got the numbers of her family in the area and I’m sure the front desk will have the number for a tow truck.”
“Well, alright, I guess if you’re sure.”
Before he had the chance to argue further with me, I was out the door and around the side of the car to the sign, heading towards the Inn. I managed to wave over my shoulder at the man, encouraging him to leave. He watched me for several long minutes, making me grit my teeth in frustration, but eventually, he finally pulled back off onto the road and I listened to him as he drove away.
Finally, I thought with relief. But it was a short lived relief. As I got closer to the Inn, I noticed something. There was only one car in the parking lot and it wasn’t a bright red truck with a dent in it. I felt angry and annoyed. Christopher wasn’t here. He must have left at some point while I’d been lying unconscious and that caused a shaking, consuming anger to rush through me. I was back to square one. Worse still, I didn’t have my cell phone with me, the asshole who jumped me had taken my gun, and I had no idea how many hours’ head start they had on me.
Frustration bubbled through me and I went through my options. Without my cell phone, I was going to have some issues. I had to get ahold of Yegor somehow. Since I did remember his number—I was good with things like numbers and his was handy to have—I could use basically any phone, though I’d have to be careful and let him know that I wasn’t using my cell. Calls could easily be traced or bugged like that. One option was to go back to my car, drive to the nearest corner market or gas station, buy a disposable cell phone, and use that. But that would take a lot of time. I wasn’t sure if that gas station I’d stopped at when I first got into town would be very useful. It seemed to have only the bare minimum, the very basic of things, and I kind of doubted that they would carry disposable phones. Which meant I’d have to go farther.
I let out a frustrated breath. Things were not going according to plan. Not even a little bit.
Glancing towards the front office, I decided that they would likely have a phone. I didn’t necessarily want to call Yegor from there, but it would be a hell of a lot faster. Once I got a location on the truck, I could head that general direction and pick up a phone along the way that would be more secure. It would cut my time in half and ensure that I wasn’t going in the wrong direction as I searched for a place that would cell disposable phones.
I decided quickly that it was the best shot and headed towards the office. There was a bored looking man sitting there, feet propped, magazine in his lap. I noticed it was a dirty magazine of some kind, the woman mostly naked and occasionally wearing black leather that did little to cover up their oiled, perfectly sculpted bodies.
Annoyance surged through me as the man ignored the bell that chimed when I opened the door and continued to stare at the magazine for several minutes more.
Finally, my impatience won out. “Excuse me. Can I use your phone?”
The man didn’t even glance up as he said, “For paying customers only.”
I grit my teeth and tried to remain calm. The urge to punch this guy, to take out some of my frustration on him, was pretty intense, but I forced myself to stay focused and to keep from causing problems. The last thing I wanted to do was get a damn room. Besides, I didn’t have any cash with me.
“What if I am a paying customer?” I demanded, folding my arms across my chest, deciding to bluff my way through this. I didn’t hav
e time and if it didn’t fly with this lowlife, then I was going to knock him unconscious, consequences be damned.
Finally, the guy let out a sigh and turned away from his dirty magazine. The woman on the cover was blonde with hair tumbling in soft waves over large, surgically enhanced tits, as her collagen filled lips puckered towards the viewer. It was both sexy and strangely off-putting. I was getting a little tired of fake.
“You are?” He looked me over, then frowned. “Wait, are you that blonde guy’s friend? I mean, he’s having a regular goddamned party in there.”
I nodded curtly. He had to be talking about Christopher. I felt an urge to grill this poor shmuck to find out what he had seen, but I quickly decided against it. All I wanted was the phone and this man was unlikely to give me anything useful that Yegor wouldn’t. And Yegor was much more reliable.