by Keri Lake
He’d put on significantly more weight since the last time I’d seen him, but even with the extra skin around his face, I’d have recognized him anywhere. Sunken brown eyes, too close together. A crooked nose, and a small mouth. Only thing really changed, besides his weight, was the thinning spot of hair atop his head and the hard lines of age. For someone only a few years older than me, he looked like shit. I guessed murdering kids and disposing their bodies had taken its toll over the years.
I’d later learned the reason Gideon had stayed with Fox and assisted in the kidnapping. He was the teenage boy-toy of Fox’s slightly younger brother, Roy, who’d been imprisoned for a brutal assault on a homeless man while drunk. Together, Roy and Gideon had run a little side gig of kidnapping kids off the streets, photographing them, and selling videos of the boys getting tortured. I’d tracked down one of the kids, still living on the streets, who’d joined a gang and had gotten into trouble himself, so the two didn’t always kill their victims. Two years into his reduced sentence, Roy had had his throat ripped out by a fellow inmate, before he’d been fatally stabbed.
Quietly observing, I waited until Gideon fired up the machine. While he adjusted the neck of the wood chipper, I slid on black gloves, and zipped up the white disposable body suit I’d donned. The material would be easy to burn afterward, and covered damn near every inch of my body. Recommended for waste cleanup—I’d laughed when I’d read that on its packaging.
Exiting the front door, I kept my gaze on Gideon’s back, and hustled across the yard toward him.
He whirled around, eyes wide with a gasp, and exhaled on a chuckle, hand to his chest. “Sh-sh-shit man, you scared me.” His stutter had improved a bit, I noticed. “You look like that d-d-d-dude from American Psycho.”
Arm outstretched, I shook his hand, and my fake smile could’ve landed me a billboard spot for Colgate. “Forgive me, I’ve got quite a bit of shit to clean up today.”
“Figured I’d just go ahead and g-g-g-git started on the front. Gonna take me a bit w-w-w-with all that dead brush.” His eyes narrowed, and he stroked his chin, the smile stretching across his face baring two empty spots where teeth should’ve been. “Say, you look kinda … familiar. Where’d y-y-y-you say you’re from?”
“Chicago,” I lied. The pulse in his neck lured my eyes there, and I slid my hand inside my pocket, where a syringe sat in the well. One-handedly unsheathing the cap, I nodded toward the machine behind him. “So, you just toss it all into the wood chipper, huh? And it spits it out in chunks into the back of your truck?” I stepped around him to get a better look, but stilled at the grip of my arm I kept tucked in my pocket.
“C-c-c-careful. Those blades’ll suck you right in, you get too close.”
Watching the grinding rollers brought back images of Eli’s sleeping face, the innocence they’d destroyed for their own amusement.
“Y-y-you don’t ever stand in front of it. Always to the side.” Gideon demonstrated, standing behind the metal housing of the feeding table.
“Ever have someone fall into one of these things?” My thumb sat at the tip of the needle’s plunger, as I made my way back toward him.
His nervous laugh didn’t quite match the tight knit of his brows, telling me I’d hit a trigger button. Backing up one step failed to put enough distance between us, before I stabbed the needle into his neck, pushing the toxins into his bloodstream.
Eyes wide, he stumbled backward, his spine crashing into clanking machinery, hands flying to the emptied syringe still stuck in his neck.
“Th-th-the fuck! What’d you do? What’re you doin’?” The slur at the end told me the toxin had already begun to fuck with his muscles.
Tetrodotoxin was a tasteless, odorless, and potent neurotoxin produced by the poisonous puffer fish. For three hundred bucks on some sketchy internet sites, anyone could buy enough toxin to kill forty adults. I’d only prepared a fraction of a dose—enough to keep ol’ Giddy alive for a couple hours.
He collapsed onto the ground, and the panic in his eyes, as the paralysis crept over his body, brought a smile to my face. A dark blue halo expanded across his crotch as he pissed his jeans.
“In the next couple of minutes, you’re going to lose all function. Your muscles will shut down, and you’ll essentially be a zombie. Might even shit yourself soon.”
Only a whimper escaped his lips, as the poison made its way to his brain. Pupils dilated, he stared up at me like an invalid, but I knew better. In spite of what his body was going through physically, he’d remain conscious and alert.
Sweat beaded across his forehead, his face turning a sickly shade of white, stark against his purpled thinning lips.
“You’re going to panic. That’s normal.”
He sucked in a gasp of air, his body oddly calm in spite of the chaos I imagined inside his head.
“See, I’m imagining that’s how Eli felt when you locked him up in that box. I mean, kid couldn’t move, the way you chained him inside. Must’ve felt like poison in his veins, and when he was violated? Well, I’m imagining he probably felt about as helpless as you do right now.” I unzipped the suit, nabbing the cigarette poking up from my shirt pocket. “Got a light?” Fishing through his pockets, I found a lighter stuffed in his pants, well out of the way of his nasty piss stain, and lit up my smoke. “Once the poison has worked its way through your body, and you’re all nice and tingly, I’m gonna toss you in the wood chipper there. Just like you tossed Eli away. If you’re lucky, I might wait until you die.”
A noise gurgled in his chest, ending on a whimper.
I stood up from my crouch, leaving him on the ground, where the stench told me he’d finally lost his bowels. Sure, I could’ve sat and taunted him some more, but instead, I decided to kill time, rummaging through his truck. The passenger door creaked as I opened it, and I grimaced at the piggish mess scattered all over the cab. Fast food wrappers, soda cans, crumpled papers, and chip bags lay on the seat and the floor, tucked beneath the bench.
“You’re a fucking slob, Gideon,” I said, pushing some of the mess aside. Opening the glove compartment sprang free a handful of condoms. Behind those, I fished around and found a pair of stockings shoved in the back, and a small pocket knife.
In front of the equally cluttered backseat sat a toolbox. I lifted the surprisingly light object to the front and set it down on the trash beside me. Snapping the lock up, I flipped it open and shook my head, lifting a metal J-hook from amid the lubricating jelly, ball gag, two large vibrators, and the gimp mask piled inside. Using the end of the hook, I pushed the mask aside, revealing photos of young boys posed in ways that brought acids shooting up my throat.
Rage got the best of me, as I tossed the objects back into the toolbox and exited the cab. Once again, I knelt beside Gideon, who lay struggling to breathe.
“You have one chance to save your life. The amount toxin I gave you won’t ultimately kill you for a few more hours. With some medical intervention, you could conceivably prevent that from happening, but that depends on you, and how honest you are.” I tipped my head, noticing the red hue of his skin—likely his blood pressure going haywire. “Is there a kid chained somewhere? Breathe once for yes, twice for no.” Hell, I didn’t even know if the poor sap could breathe twice in one go, but he did, shown in the flare of his nostrils each time. Grabbing him by the shirt, I ground my teeth. “You better not be lying to me.”
Again, he breathed twice.
“Those pictures in the toolbox. You took them?”
His chest rose once, and the rage exploded in my veins, pumping a message of pain to every muscle in my body.
“Remember when I said I’d wait until after you died?” Lifting him higher until my mouth was at his ear, I whispered, “I lied.”
He gasped and choked, leaving a trail of vomit along the pavement, as I dragged him to the back of the machine, where the gears of the wood chipper still spun an insatiable hunger to grind something. I lifted Gideon’s body up onto the feeding ta
ble and held him there a moment, the tiny spasms of breath telling me the shithead was about two seconds from hyperventilating and blacking out.
That, or having a heart attack.
“Eli sends his regards.” I stepped to the side as he’d shown me, hefting him forward to where the machine caught his shirt, sucking him in.
From the same pocket I’d fished out my smoke, I tugged out a paper folded around a small pencil and opened it to a list of names on the back of a letter, written by a dead kid. A fine mist of blood spattered across the page.
I crossed off The Pawn.
19
Sera
Coffee cup in hand, I clicked on the Internet icon, which took me to the default page where all the local news headlines filled the screen.
Man Killed In Wood Chipper Accident had me lowering my coffee cup from my mouth, and my jaw slackened with disbelief.
What the hell? I clicked on the story, of course, because it was gross and intriguing at the same time, reading about some twenty-seven-year-old man who’d worked for a tree trimming company and fell into the chipper two days earlier. An anonymous call had led police to a grisly sight described as both shocking and disturbing. I read further to learn that investigators suspected foul play, based on evidence found at the crime scene.
“Murder?” I mumbled, scanning the rest of the article. Repulsion zipped up my spine, and I shivered at the thought. “Who the hell would do something so disgusting?”
Jesus, I didn’t even want to think about what kind of sick person could stand by and watch another human being get sucked into one of those things. That’d be, like, the ultimate nightmare. Something straight out of a horror movie.
I shook off my repugnance and opened the search bar for a reverse mobile site I’d previously tried using on Dane’s number. Curiosity had gotten the best of me over the last two days, waiting for Ty to send another text. He hadn’t bothered to send any pics later that night, though if he had, I couldn’t say I’d have been entirely put off by it. Still, I was glad he hadn’t.
I typed in the digits of Ty’s phone number and clicked on one of the resulting maps. I hated being one of those girls, but considering my track record with men, it wouldn’t hurt to do a bit of investigating before I met up with the guy alone somewhere—he still hadn’t told me where he planned to take me.
The map opened to my neighborhood, and just like the results when I’d typed in Dane’s number, it didn’t provide an exact marker. I cleared the map and typed Ty and Detroit into the search engine, knowing the variety of results I’d end up with.
Sure enough, faces popped up on the screen, but none of them Ty’s. Tyler. Tyrone. Tyson. Nothing. None of the men staring back at me possessed those diamond cut eyes and stern brows that gave him a naturally broody look. The kind that told a girl to hang on to her friggin’ heart, because the dude was about to carve it out with a spade and eat it like a blood-hungry cannibal. No, based on the search results of balding forty-somethings and wanna-be gangstas, I’d have said I hit the jackpot with my Ty from Detroit.
My phone rattled against the desktop, and with a bit too much excitement, I snatched it up without bothering to see who’d called. “Hello?”
“Sera, it’s Jane.”
Shit. The tone in her voice told me my dad’s secretary wasn’t happy about the many messages I’d left in my attempt to find out what’d happened to Lilia’s monthly payment.
“Hey, Jane, I was just—”
“Your father has requested that I set up a meeting with you for this afternoon.”
A meeting? The last thing I wanted to do was meet with Karl Kutscher on a perfectly good Friday before a date.
“I have a class this afternoon.”
“What time?”
“One-thirty.” In two hours. No way my father would haul his ass anywhere within two hours. I found it surprising he’d attempt an afternoon appointment, when it typically required a week’s notice to score even an hour of his time.
“Good. You’re penciled in for noon. He asked that you meet him at Butchers. Would you like me to arrange a ride for you?”
Unbelievable. Unbelievable! “Jane, I just wanted to remind him of the payment he was supposed to send over for Lilia.” That’s all. No need to make it formal and miserable at the same time.
“I’m afraid your father has asked me not to make any other arrangements until he’s had the opportunity to meet with you.”
“Seriously? Is a meteor headed for earth, or something? What’s the occasion?”
“He’s not made me privy to the nature of your meeting, Sera. I’m sorry.” If ever artificial intelligence gained some traction, Jane could’ve acted as a prototype to model the software. The woman had zero personality, and even less empathy. No wonder my father had kept her for so long.
“Fine. Butchers. Noon.”
“Again, do you need me to set up a ride?” she asked again, with as little enthusiasm as the first time.
“No. I’ll walk, thanks.”
* * *
Butchers sat on the corner of Congress and Baubien, only a few blocks from my apartment. I didn’t dare imagine Karl had gone out of his way to choose a place convenient for me. On the contrary, I had a feeling he was in the neighborhood and wouldn’t have taken no for an answer, either way—a thought that set my nerves on edge as I made my way toward the restaurant. With ten minutes to go, I was pushing it, and my father loathed tardiness as much as he loathed charity, so our meeting was sure to be a bust.
I entered the newly renovated restaurant, finding him sat toward the back—away from every exit door in the building, which only added to the nervous rumbling in my gut. Rumbling not from hunger. No, the last thing I wanted was to fill that turbulent hollow in my stomach with something that could possibly make a second appearance, as edgy as I felt.
It wasn’t so much the meeting itself that had me jittery, as my refusal to leave without Lilia’s payments worked out.
At the approach of the host, I pointed to where my father sat and let him lead me toward the back of the restaurant. Pulling out my chair, the host waited for me to sit, my father’s eyes watching me like a predator all the while.
Karl’s suit was a gray Brooks Brothers, teamed with an unremarkable tie, set beneath an undefined jawline, and when he nodded, his chin got lost in all the extra skin that bunched at his collar. He’d never been an attractive man, and I was certain my mother hadn’t married him for his equally bland personality, either.
My guess? It’d been about the money. She’d always been a free-spirited type, with little means to finance her wanderlust.
His eyes raked over me, probably on a hunt for all my flaws, as usual, and landed on my hair. “Blue …” His lips twitched with disgust. “How very … eccentric.”
The urge to fluff it in front of him and smile tugged hard, but I kept my cool. Our meeting had a purpose, one I couldn’t afford screwing up over something as trivial as my blue hair.
“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering your lunch, since you’re strapped for time.” As if he had any clue what I liked. He hadn’t ordered the food for my enjoyment, or to cater to my schedule, but merely to shave as many minutes off our meeting as he could.
Didn’t bother me, as I had no interest in prolonging the encounter, either.
“Thanks.” I lifted the lemon water poured into a wine glass and drowned the fuck you cocked at the back of my throat. A small trickle leaked from the corner of my mouth, which I promptly dabbed with my napkin.
“How are you?” His question held as much genuine concern as a great white shark asking a juicy seal how it’s day was, before biting into it.
“Great. Classes are great. You?” I hated asking, when I really couldn’t have cared less.
He nabbed the napkin beside him and set it to his wine glass, cleaning the mouth of it. “Let’s not waste time on cordiality, shall we?” As he tipped back his glass, I watched him carefully sip the water, without so much as a wet shee
n on his thin dry lips when he finally set it down.
The waiter sidled up to the table, carrying two large plates of seared salmon and almonds set over a bed of green beans. Personally, I’d have gone for a burger.
Once he’d set the dishes and filled our glasses, the waiter walked off from the table.
My father’s stern eyes found me again. “Are you seeing anyone?”
Ugh. Coming from Karl, the question struck me as invasively as if he’d asked me when I’d had my last pap smear. Not that I’d answer, anyway. After things went down with Dane, my father had offered little support, or advice, except to tell me that boys would be boys and that I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss someone from a good family. As if the man had any clue what constituted a good family, having left my mother to fend for both of us, without a penny to her name, after they’d split. No way I’d tell him about Ty, who probably embodied everything my father despised. From his daredevil tricks, to the way he occupied my thoughts—Ty would never earn my father’s blessings.
“I see you’re still wearing it.”
I didn’t have to glance down to the Tiffany lock charm resting against my chest to know what he was talking about. He’d given it to me as a gift when I was only thirteen years old. The chain was thin and delicate, bearing the weight of the thick wordlock, similar to a cable combination lock for a bike that hung, as if by invisible threads, around my neck. An albatross, as far as I was concerned.
In order to unfasten it, I had to twist the dials to spell out ‘trust’ and separate it from a small key that kept it locked in place.
At the time he’d gifted it, he’d told me it was out of trust that he’d allow me to wear something so delicate and expensive to school, not knowing that I’d removed the necklace every day, keeping it tucked in a pocket, or purse, so I’d not lose, or break, it. With each year that passed, he’d assured me his trust in me had grown, and that one day he would reward me for upholding it for so many years.