by David Banner
“Let’s go. Before we die here too.”
Michael remained still and stoic, his eyes dead set on hers.
“We’re already dead.” Her husband raised his gun into the air and took aim.
Chapter Forty-Two
SUNDAY, 8 PM
TAYLOR
“Just wait here.” Taylor pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the back seat.
“What are you doing?” Vee asked.
“It’s hotter than ass out here today. That shirt was sweaty. I’m just changing.” He grabbed a folded graphic tee from the backseat of his car and slid into it.
“Right . . .” Virginia scoffed. “Being just a touch sweaty in the Georgia heat. How would that look?”
“Shut up.” He smiled and closed the door.
He wasn’t sure what, if any, new information she might be able to provide, but one thing journalism taught him was that no lead was ever dead. It was only minutes until Elysium opened for the night. While most other clubs found Sundays to be a slow night, Elysium’s clientele always made sure to stop by the exclusive club for one last hurrah before heading into the work week.
Taylor tugged the bottom of his shirt and tousled his hair as he stepped toward the door. There was nothing more than friendship between him and the young dancer, but still, he was a proud man, and going up to her looking like a mess wasn’t really something he enjoyed the thought of.
“Liliana,” he said to the bouncer.
He’d texted her roughly twenty minutes before to let her know he was on his way. With Sunday nights being such a high-dollar event for the club, he knew better than to head in the front door without a hefty amount of cash, which at the moment, he couldn’t produce.
“It’s good.” She stepped out a moment later, then grabbed his arm and brought him around the side of the large building.
“Hey.” He smiled.
“Make it fast,” she answered. “You know Sunday nights are—”
“I know.” He nodded. “I wanted to talk with you about Maynor again.”
“I told you to stay away from that,” she replied. “I told you he was dangerous.”
“I know, but it’s too late for that.”
“Why?” she tilted her head. “What did you do?”
“I spoke with him.”
“What?” she snapped. “If you mentioned me, I swear—”
“I never mentioned you. We only spoke about him. He has no idea we know one another.”
“Leave.”
“Lil, please. Just talk to me.” Taylor grabbed her hand and pulled her in close.
“Words are dangerous, Taylor. You need to back away. Leave town. Go on a damn vacation. I don’t care. Just don’t mess with Patrick Maynor.”
This was nothing new for the young journalist. He was, after all, a Kentucky boy, and no one knows how to keep secrets as well as a Southerner. That also meant no one was as experienced at pulling secrets out of people as a Southerner. Add in good ol’ boy charm and a handsome face, and well . . . there wasn’t much Taylor couldn’t get from a pretty girl.
“Just talk to me. Will you do that? Will you just talk to me for three minutes?” He cut his head slightly away from her and smiled.
It was a simple trick, but it had never failed him. That is, until today.
“Stop it!” The young girl threw a fast slap against his face. “If you think I’m going to tell you something because you’re cute, then you’re wrong. Maynor always comes in on Sundays, and I’m not about to go looking at him after I’ve talked to you.”
“He won’t be coming in tonight,” Taylor replied.
“What do you mean?” A spark of curiosity fired up in her words. “He always comes in on Sunday.”
“Connie and Clyde. They have him.”
“What?”
“He was kidnapped earlier today. They took him right out of his office. No one knows where they are, but every cop in the city is looking for him. If I were you, I’d get out of here before this place is washed over with blue and red.”
“Cops . . .” Liliana replied. “I don’t . . .”
“Just talk to me,” he said.
Perhaps the man’s Southern charms weren’t enough to make the young woman cave, but the threat of police involvement seemed to do the trick.
“Fine . . .” she answered. “You’ve got two minutes, then I’m out of here. And so are you.”
“Fine. Two minutes are all I need. Now spill.”
“Spill what, exactly? You haven’t asked me anything. What is it you’re trying to figure out?”
“We’re trying to figure out where they’ve taken Maynor. Before it’s too late.”
Taylor listened carefully as the woman began telling him everything she’d heard the man say over the last couple of days, though none of it seemed too helpful in the moment. There were stories of drugs, prostitutes, and the like. What there wasn’t, though, was any mention of trouble. Patrick Maynor seemed to be as cool as a cucumber, even with his former employee on a killing spree only a few miles from his front door.
“And that’s it,” Liliana finished. “That’s about all I know. He hasn’t said anything of merit. No one is angry with him . . . nothing. As far as I know, he just goes and sniffs cocaine from hookers’ asses in that big plantation house.”
“Plantation house.” The words caught the young man’s ears. “What house?”
“There’s this big house. I think his company owns it. The parties he used to have in town he now has out there. I don’t know why.”
“What does it look like?” Taylor asked, his mind stitching together the image of Connie Miller’s childhood home.
“I’ve never been inside,” Liliana answered. “But I had to drive there a few days ago to pick up one of the girls after she had a bad reaction to something.”
“What did the outside look like?”
“It looked like every other plantation house. Big and white, with way too many columns. Lots of trees lining the driveway. One of those ones that used to have a slave house at the far end of the yard.”
“I’m gonna need that address,” Taylor said.
Chapter Forty-Three
SUNDAY, 8:30 PM
VIRGINIA
Mimwood Plantation sat forty minutes south of Savannah’s 285 bypass near the small town of Blacksville, Georgia. From their combined research, Virginia and Taylor knew the home had once belonged to Connie and Michael Miller.
Like all old Southern families, it was important to both Connie and her mother that the house stay in the family. Being an only child meant that Connie was sure to inherit the place, pop out a few kids, and spent the rest of her life in the same home she’d been born in.
To some, it may sound like nothing more than a cavernous two-story prison, but to many of Georgia’s residents, it symbolized something greater, something no amount of money could buy. It symbolized history and family.
“What do you know about the place?” Taylor asked.
“I just know it’s big,” Virginia replied, her eyes focused on the road ahead as Taylor weaved in and out of traffic. “I know it had been in her family for years before whatever happened.”
“I read someone else bought the house.”
“If he’s having parties there, then it was likely Maynor himself. The names were probably manufactured. People don’t just let homes like that go. They’re worth too much.” Virginia pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed for backup. “I bet Connie figured that out, and that’s why they’ve come back. This has to be where they’ve taken him.”
It was the only thing that made sense to the detective. Of course Connie and Michael would be trying to get their home back. The place would sell for millions on the market, and for Connie, watching some new money family move into her home would be about the same as a knife to the chest.
“I found stories from local society papers about the dinners she used to have there. She’s the only child of a proud Bible-belt family. I k
now how much that house means to her. She’d do anything to get it back,” Vee said.
“Including killing all of these people? She’s gonna go to jail.”
“I don’t think they meant for their identities to be known. I bet now, this thing is more about revenge than anything else.”
“This is all just so messed up,” Taylor mused. “I thought we were just dealing with a couple of psychopaths or something. I never imagined it was just a couple who were wronged. It kind of changes things.”
“It changes nothing,” Virginia snapped. “Crime is still crime. Connie and Michael Miller are murderers no matter how you slice it. Maybe the people they killed weren’t the best people in the world, and maybe they’d done them wrong, but that still doesn’t justify these actions.”
“I’m not saying it makes things right,” Taylor said. “I’m just saying it makes them . . . I don’t know. A little more human, somehow. Like, I kind of feel for them. I know my mom wouldn’t be happy if someone took her home, and it ain’t nothing like Mimwood Plantation.”
“It’s all the same,” Virginia answered. “Our job is to find them before they kill again. The rest is up to the courts.”
“I guess so . . .” Taylor exited off the bypass and headed down the small two-lane road. “This place reminds me of home.”
“I’ve never been to Kentucky,” Vee replied.
“It looks nothing like this. Kentucky is all mountains. Well . . . at least on my side of the state. This is too flat, and these houses are different. I just get the small town feel that I grew up with.”
“There!” Virginia pointed down a long driveway. “That’s it.”
With backup on its way, Virginia took little time to think about the trouble she’d be in for involving the young journalist. Besides, if she were correct about what was going on in the large home, then the investigation would be over and no one would open their mouths about Taylor. At least, that’s what she hoped . . .
“Look.” Taylor pointed. “There’s a light on in that room.”
The large house sat still in the hot night air. Large oak trees surrounded either side of the crisp white structure. It was beautiful in the way only something meaningful can be, and for Connie Miller it meant enough to kill for.
Virginia wondered what might mean enough to her that she’d be willing to go so far as to kill for it. Nothing, she thought. Which for reasons she didn’t have time to consider seemed to make her a little sad.
“Stop!” she said. “Turn the car off. I’ll go on foot.”
“You?” Taylor wrinkled his brow. “I’m coming too.”
“No. You’re not—”
“I don’t care what I’m not,” he answered. “I’m coming.”
“Wait here. Backup is on its way.”
“You wait with me,” he replied. “We don’t need to go in there. There are two of them, and you don’t know the layout of that house. We both wait.”
“No! I’m going.”
“Then I’m coming too,” Taylor chirped.
Having no time to argue, Virginia did the only thing she could. She agreed.
“Fine. Come get a weapon, then.” She extended her arm.
“Okay.” The young man stepped closer and reached out for her hand.
Quicker than a flash and much too soon for him to react, Virginia pulled the handcuffs from her belt and snapped them across his wrist and the car door.
“Wait here.” She scurried down the driveway, her gun drawn.
“Vee!” the young man yelled. “Vee! Wait!”
Chapter Forty-Four
SUNDAY, 9:15 PM
VIRGINIA
The house was a large rambling place, a far cry from the modest house Virginia had grown up in. Thick velvet curtains hung floor to ceiling throughout every room. The detective entered through a small side door that led directly into the kitchen. With her gun held high, she made her way through the home, slowly turning each corner, ready to face the killer couple she knew would be there.
She first entered the large living room, then a dining room, each time finding nothing but empty liquor bottles and small mirrors dusted with cocaine. It’s a shame, she thought, for such a magnificent home to be brought to this.
To Patrick Maynor, nothing was sacred, it seemed. Not only was he willing to completely screw over his former best friend and his wife, leaving them penniless and without a roof over their heads, but he was also willing to lay waste to a true piece of history.
Virginia buried her face in her elbow, trying her best to hold back a cough. The overpowering smells of stale sex and mistakes wafted high in the air, lingering like bad memories the house couldn’t seem to escape.
She’d never been one to care too much about material things such as homes or cars, though. All she’d ever needed was a simple roof over her head and something that could get her from place to place. Still, the idea that this had once meant so much to Connie Miller tugged at her mind.
An eerie silence filled most every room with only the light sound of her footsteps echoing softly through the home.
“How crass,” she muttered, stopping in front of the fireplace and noticing the images of Connie and Michael Miller still lining the mantle.
She studied their faces, her eyes focusing on their happy smiles and bright eyes. It was hard not to think about how much they’d lost and what had happened because of it. She’d always known how weak the minds of men truly were, and this was no exception.
Most people begin innocently in this world. Babies are born hating no one, and children almost always have dreams. That’s just the way of things. There are times, though, when those dreams are shattered and people find someone to hate, the most dangerous object of that hatred being themselves.
Was that what happened here? she wondered. Was all of this due to something more than a house and a bank account?
The detective entered a small pantry, the kind used by slaves as they prepared dinners for the masters of the house. The thought of such things put a bad taste in the detective’s mouth. It seemed that no matter which time period she thought of or which family she pictured, life always seemed to come second to the wants of those in power.
Near the back wall, Virginia noticed a small door, presumably leading to a basement. Stepping closer to inspect it, the woman heard voices coming from below and noticed a small sliver of light emitting from below the stairs. This was it. Her instincts were right, after all. She’d found them. She’d found Connie and Clyde.
Steadying herself, she opened the door and quietly made her way down the stairs, ultimately hiding behind a large dresser that looked to be at least a hundred years old. She was reminded of her home and of her mother. Caroline Nixon never threw anything away, no matter how useless or broken it seemed. Maybe it was a Southern thing, or maybe she was just a hoarder. It had never mattered to Virginia either way. Still, seeing the old house and all of its belongings brought her back.
Virginia quietly peeked through the small lattice work of the dresser and made a positive identification. They were there, all of them . . . Connie, Michael, and Patrick.
Patrick Maynor sat tied to a chair, begging for his life. She listened as he made all sorts of promises, even going so far as to tell Connie that he’d return her house. It didn’t matter, though. Michael Miller was far too upset to be talked down. It was obvious that in his eyes, the only solution was Patrick Maynor’s death.
“Take aim!” Michael said to his emotionally distraught wife as he placed a gun in her hand.
Virginia wasn’t sure why, but the woman seemed almost hesitant, as though she’d been upset about something. She wondered where the crazed killer wife was. To her, Connie Miller just didn’t seem to fit the bill.
“Take aim!” he repeated, stepping back toward Patrick and pulling a knife from his pocket.
The whole scene took the seasoned detective by surprise. There seemed to be discourse between the married couple. They sounded more scattered than their p
revious crimes led her to believe they would be.
Virginia’s eyes focused on Michael as he pulled a large knife from his pocket and marched toward his obviously terrified former friend. This was the first time she’d seen them use anything other than three shots to the chest. A knife just seemed so out of character.
“I hate myself for how loyal I was to you. For how much I valued our friendship,” Michel said, slapping Miller across the face, the edge of his knife leaving a small laceration near his temple. “I hate that I put so much work into making sure everything was good for the both of us. We were friends!”
“We can be that again,” Patrick cried, a thin stream of blood running down his face and neck.
“Shut the fuck up!” Michael threw a knee into the man’s chest. “You’ll be dead!”
Virginia watched in horror as Michael continued to pound on the man. She wanted so badly to leap forward, to intervene and help him, but she knew her training. She was outnumbered in a house she was unfamiliar with. She needed to wait for backup.
“Just tell me one thing.” He held the knife against the frightened man’s chest. “Did you enjoy it? I ask because I want you to know how much I’ll enjoy this.”
She was out of time. Virginia had no choice but to leap out from behind the dresser as she watched Michael pull his arm back, ready to plunge the knife into Patrick’s chest.
“Freeze.” She leapt out, seeing a bright flash come from Connie’s hand. A shot was fired and it was intended for the detective.
Chapter Forty-Five
SUNDAY, 9:30 PM
VIRGINIA
Virginia dove behind a large boiler as the bullet soared through the air, narrowly missing her before lodging itself in a wooden support beam. Her face slammed hard against the cold floor, sliding across the aged concrete as she skidded to a stop.
“Come out, now!” Michael yelled.