Butch laughed then replied. “Well, it’s your lucky day because these super bitches managed to outsmart me and my crew and save your ass. Believe me when I tell you that otherwise, you and your two bozos would have been dead by morning, but only after you would have watched me and my guys fuck your whore wife every way possible and torture the hell out of her.”
“You’re something else, Butch,” Dave replied, maintaining his composure. “You really would have done that?”
“Hell, yeah,” Butch confirmed. “We woulda had a nasty time. I just wish all these sluts had been here when we arrived cuz things woulda been different. Me and my boys woulda had the party of a lifetime with these broads to mess with and you three idiots watching every minute of it.”
“And you can just sit there and tell me this?” asked Dave, shaking his head before turning to Chris and Jon. “You both know how much respect I’ve always had for you two, even though we didn’t always share the same vision of how things should be done, but Butch here has me seeing things in a different light.”
“He certainly has an ‘eye-opener’ flare to him,” Chris replied. “Some people just stand out like that and make you think.”
“I’ve seen my share of those,” Jonathan added. “Like it or not, they do have an impact on one’s perspective.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Dave agreed. “It’s almost like a fog has cleared in my head.”
“But, you’re okay with that?” Chris asked. “It mustn’t change who you are.”
“No worries. I’m fine with it,” said Dave as he turned back to their captive. “Your crew is gone, dead, Butch. You’re the prisoner now, tied up, totally defenceless and you have the gall to say these things to me?”
“Damned straight, Captain,” Butch jeered. “You wanna know why?”
Dave nodded. “Yes, Butch, I want to know why. Tell me why.”
“Remember how I just told you it was my lucky day too?” Butch asked, seeming almost giddy.
“Yes, I remember,” Dave replied. “Why is it your lucky day, Butch?”
“Because you’re the cop arresting me,” Butch replied with a grin. “I told you I hoped if I got arrested, it would be by you cuz you told me you’re an honest cop who plays by the book. You remember telling me that?”
“Yes, Butch,” said Dave, nodding. “I do remember telling you that.”
Butch chuckled and said, “So, there you go, Captain. I can tell you whatever the hell I like because you’re a straight motherfucker who goes by the rules.”
Dave gazed at him for a moment with an almost amused expression. He then went to the credenza and returned with Butch’s revolver.
“Can I tell you something, Butch?” he asked, smiling at the crew leader.
“Be my guest, Captain,” Butch replied.
“You’re forgetting something from all our discussions,” Dave continued, “And I’m actually kind of surprised since you’re the one who kept pointing this out all along. Do you remember what it is, Butch?”
“Hmm, could be a lot of things, Captain,” said Butch. “Why don’t ya just tell me?”
Dave’s expression went from pleasant to deadly as he replied, “I’m a liar,” before raising the gun and pulling the trigger.
Books by Claude Bouchard
Vigilante
Book 1 of the Vigilante Series
Montreal . . . the long, hot summer of 1996. . . and in the dark of night, moving like a shadowy wraith, a vigilante prowls the city's streets. The targets of his bloody rampage: the worst of the worst. . . Murderers. Gangbangers. Rapists. Six months. Sixteen murders. The harried police are still without a clue . . . until the day they receive an email from the assassin himself. Lieutenant Dave McCall, head of Montreal's Special Homicide Task Force, needs help to crack the secrets of the killer's taunting message. He calls on an expert, Chris Barry, who runs a security firm specializing in computer communications. Together, McCall and Barry launch a grim quest to track down a man who preys on predators - an urgent quest to bring this remorseless killer to justice. But whose justice will prevail: theirs--or the vigilante's?
The Consultant
Book 2 of the Vigilante Series
The friendly takeover of CSS Inc. leaves computer executive Chris Barry unemployed, very wealthy and pleased with the situation. But the hiatus is short-lived. . . As a result of his involvement in the recent ‘Vigilante’ investigation, Barry is approached by Jonathan Addley and invited to join ‘Discreet Activities’, a government agency of the clandestine variety. Accepting, he promptly takes on his first assignment under the guise of an IT consultant, to investigate possible links between a local import business and the murder of its MIS director. As he discovers the firm is being used to import narcotics, his cover is blown and things get personal, spurring him to show that murderers, drug lords, biker gangs and kidnappers are no match for. . . The Consultant. . .
Mind Games
Book 3 of the Vigilante Series
Montreal is plagued by a string of vicious sex slayings. . . Captain Dave McCall and his Special Homicide Task Force are in a frustrated frenzy as they try to bring an end to the savage butchery. . . Assisting officially is noted psychiatrist, Doctor Samuel Bowman and unofficially, computer genius and multi-millionaire, Chris Barry. . . With each passing day, McCall works his way closer to the truth. . . Unaware that they are heading deep into the deadly core of. . . Mind Games. . .
The Homeless Killer
Book 4 of the Vigilante Series
The homeless of Montreal are dying at the hand of 'Allan', a serial killer set on ridding the city of street people. . . As the killer taunts the police about the increasing body count, Captain Dave McCall calls on the services Jonathan Addley and Chris Barry, both operatives with the government's clandestine 'Discreet Activities' team. . . All while fighting the city's proposed by-law banning the homeless from downtown parks, philanthropist and activist, William Enright, joins the law-enforcement crusade to capture the assassin. . . But will the combined efforts of the law and old money be sufficient to stop the Homeless Killer?
6 Hours 42 Minutes
Book 5 of the Vigilante Series
Though most of them dabbled in a variety of criminal activities, they weren't experienced in this particular field and had never been involved in a job like this before. However, with proper planning, careful organization and the inside information available to them, they were certain that this bank heist would be a piece of cake. Ten minutes, in and out, was all it would take and they'd be sharing 2.5 million dollars. Nothing could go wrong as they had thought of everything. . .How could they possibly know that a new member of the board was visiting the bank that morning? How could they know that the new board member was Chris Barry?
Discreet Activities
Book 6 of the Vigilante Series
As a result of information gathered via electronic surveillance by intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Canada, a budding terrorist organization, the Army for Islam or AFI, is suspected of planning an attack, its target possibly NYC, Burlington, Vermont or even Canada's famed Montreal. . . When four foreign students from Pakistan with known ties to the AFI's Montreal cell arrive in the area on New Year's Eve, Discreet Activities' head, Jonathan Addley, along with Chris Barry and other DA consultants are more than willing to take on the additional workload. . . After two of the DA team members die violently in an AFI related suicide-bombing, the job becomes getting revenge on those responsible for this Holy War...
Femme Fatale
Book 7 of the Vigilante Series
Less than two years earlier, Leslie Robb, an accountant in her late twenties working for the Imperial National Bank, had seen her life-partner and co-worker, Gina, shot to death during a bank heist subsequently foiled in part by Chris Barry, millionaire and clandestine operative of the government's 'Discreet Activities'.Taken as a hostage along with Chris by the remaining robbers onto a helicopter secretly piloted by two 'DA' operatives, including 'DA' h
ead, Jonathan Addley, Leslie had played an integral role in helping bring the offenders down. As a result, thanks to her sang froid, sense of moral justice and martial arts affinities, Leslie left the world of finance to fight crime as a member of the 'DA' team.Now, Leslie has a new partner in life, Dominique Petit, a Canadian/French dual citizen who suggests Leslie visit Paris with her while she is in the City of Lights on business. Less than twenty-four hours after Leslie arrives, Dominique and her sister, Corinne, disappear, turning Leslie's vacation into her own business trip of justice and revenge...
Thirteen to None
Book 8 of the Vigilante Series
Asylum
As Managing Director of the “Montreal Hospital for the Criminally Insane”, Doctor Matthew Russell has always put his professional responsibilities ahead of all else. That is, until he one day realizes he is losing his wife, Cassidy, and his two children, Stuart and Jennifer. . . With only his family in mind, Russell takes an adventure-filled, impromptu vacation of indefinite duration, leaving all else behind and stopping at nothing to show how much he cares for his loved ones in an effort to win them back. But, will he succeed . . Or, will it prove to be all too late in the end?
Learn more about Claude Bouchard’s books:
ClaudeBouchardBooks.com
Questions or comments?
Email at [email protected]
Go back to the Features Index
Go back to The Blurbs
The Devil’s Cauldron
Michael Wallace
Copyright 2014 by Michael Wallace. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Chapter One
Nobody had moved Meggie Kerr’s wheelchair or the restraints on her head for more than twenty minutes, and so it was that she was staring at the path when the woman came looking for her.
Meggie had not moved her body in seven years. No sound had passed through her lips. Only her eyes and one twitching finger gave indication she was alive and not in a persistent vegetative state. And so it was easy for the staff to forget her. In this case, they’d wheeled her with the other patients onto the brick patio of the hummingbird garden, then placed her with her back to the mossy wall. From there, she could watch the flight path of the hummingbirds as they darted in and out to plunder the ring of feeders. All the other patients sat in the sun, either in their wheelchairs, or lifted to benches.
It was a chill morning, and water dripped from the stone wall onto the back of her neck, but Meggie had no way to tell the aides that she was uncomfortable. She could no more move her tongue than she could sprout hummingbird wings and flit away into the forest. Her jaw may as well have been the rock ledge, and her vocal cords lay still as the dead volcanoes that loomed over the trees, shrouded in mist and low-lying clouds.
The hiker wore jeans and shorts, with a scarf over her dark hair, and a water bottle in hand. Except for the visible swelling in her abdomen—maybe seven months along—she looked like a typical tourist exploring the Costa Rican cloud forest. Only there was something about the way her eyes darted around the clearing. She didn’t look up at the teak and mahogany buildings of Colina Nublosa that blended tastefully into the hillside of the abandoned coffee finca. Her eyes didn’t follow the blur of hummingbirds—ruby-throated, rufous-tailed, and the iridescent green hermits, with their shimmering plumage—as they zipped back and forth in a riot of movement and colors.
The woman looked at the patients. And not the ones who’d been lifted to the benches, either, those who could move their heads or speak in slow, slurring tones. There were at least fifteen residents on the patio, but the woman seemed to instinctively pick out the lowest functioning. She looked into the eyes of Danica Crumfeld, a woman in her sixties with MLS. She studied Felicia Biggs, a woman with profound mental disability who came from a family of wealthy investment bankers. She was looking at the people who couldn’t move on their own, studying them with a sharp, aggressive look. And not men, either. Women.
My God, she’s looking for me.
Meggie’s heartbeat accelerated, her stomach flopped, and her mouth felt dry. She swallowed reflexively. She couldn’t turn her head to follow as the woman moved out of view—if not for the restraints, her head would have flopped forward onto her chest—but she could move her right index finger. Other than her eyes, it was the only body part that her injury-ravaged brain could still control. Her hand rested on the metal armrest, and she brought down her well-manicured fingernail and tapped it twice.
A flurry of Spanish sounded to one side. Rodrigo had come back from smoking with his buddies on the grounds crew and discovered the woman.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said with an American accent. “No hablo español. Is this the way to the Devil’s Cauldron? The hot springs?”
“No hot springs, no,” Rodrigo said in heavily accented English. He sounded angry.
He switched to Spanish. In spite of his penchant for taking endless smoke breaks, Rodrigo was one of the good ones, not one who treated the lower-functioning residents like potted plants to be carried outside every morning, then carefully wheeled in again. But like all the rest, he took Colina Nublosa’s privacy seriously, and he was letting the woman have it. She didn’t understand, or pretended not to.
“My husband and his brother came up this way. I stopped to rest because—” Here there was a sound like her patting her belly. “—and I lost them. I was following the signs. Isn’t this the way up?”
The woman backed into Meggie’s view again. Rodrigo had his arms outstretched and shooed her back toward the path leading down from the facility.
Meggie tapped her fingernail. The woman was darting her eyes back and forth at the patients, even as Rodrigo drove her back. But she hadn’t spotted Meggie yet, back in the shadows and out of the way.
Look at me! Look!
A man called in English from the direction of the main buildings. “Who are you? What is your name?”
Meggie’s stomach dropped.
It was Jerry Usher, facility director, and he sounded pissed.
“I don’t want any trouble,” the woman said. “I’m just looking for the Devil’s Cauldron.”
“I asked you a question. What’s your name?”
“None of your business. Look, is it here, or not?”
“There’s a sign at the gate,” Usher said. “In Spanish, English, German, and Dutch. No trespassing. This is not the path to the hot springs.”
“I didn’t see any sort of sign.” She still sounded defensive. “Anyway, the gate was open.”
“It was closed.”
“If you didn’t want anyone coming up, maybe you should have locked it.”
Usher came into view. He wore tan slacks, a white shirt, and a tie. With his iron-gray hair and bushy mustache he would have looked at home in a care center back in the United States. Here, in this supposed tropical paradise, the clothing and hair style made him look ridiculous.
Something turned over sourly in her gut when Meggie saw him, like the twisting, gurgling feeling you got after eating undercooked food. Usher wasn’t the one who had brought Meggie here, maybe didn’t even know all the horrors she’d suffered. But he knew enough, and could have helped her at any time. He couldn’t be bothered. After all, if he brought in help, that might get her out of here, stop the monthly checks for her care, and his business was to make money, not to help people.
Usher and Rodrigo tried to push the woman back, but she stood her ground. She rested a hand on her belly, as if daring them to touch a pregnant woman.
“The hell it was closed, it was wide open. Anyway, it was the quickest way up. Looked like a shortcut. Like I told this man, I got left behind by my husband and his brother an
d I was trying to catch up.”
Usher turned to Rodrigo and said something to him in Spanish that sounded like an accusation about the gate. Rodrigo hotly denied it.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Meggie’s fingernail clicked furiously against the metal armrest of her chair, each tap a gunshot in her ears. But none of the others looked her direction. How could they not hear it?
But their attention was on each other. And the forest was alive with calling birds, the whirr of the hummingbirds, the click and buzz of insects.
“I’m telling you,” the woman said over the continued argument in Spanish, “I thought this was the way up. Can’t I pass through? I’ll be off the property in two minutes.”
Usher gave her a withering look. “No. This is not the way to the hot springs.”
“Are you sure? I can see the path from here. It looks like you have your own way up. Why can’t I—?”
“If you don’t turn around, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
He said something to Rodrigo, who put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!”
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Look at me! For God’s sake, I’m over here!
“If this bitch doesn’t move in two seconds,” Usher said, “drag her out by her hair.” He switched to Spanish, to repeat the instructions. Rodrigo’s response sounded reluctant.
But it wasn’t going to be necessary. The woman had shrugged off Rodrigo’s touch, then backed away, her eyes flashing, her jaw clenching angrily. Meggie kept tapping away, but it was with pure desperation now, as her opportunity slipped away. This stupid, worthless body, stiff as a corpse, immobile, except for one useless fingernail tapping. Why couldn’t her voice work, just this once, to scream for help?
Get me out of here!
As the woman moved backward, she bumped into the wheelchair of Ellen Campanero, a middle-aged woman with early Alzheimer’s, shipped down by her family in California. Ellen shrieked and sprang from her chair. Rodrigo tried to ease her back into her seat, but Ellen flailed at him, then, when Usher hurried over to help, clawed at the man’s face. The interloper now leaving of her own volition, all their attention turned to settling Ellen back to the near-catatonic state that was her default.
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 136