by Todd Morgan
He didn’t answer, plodding into the punishment. I kicked him in the back leg. “No shame in it. You were hurt before we even started.” Jab, cross, move!
The other edge of the lot, closest to the factory. It was obvious he was trying to trap me. I shuffled back, then ran around him, keeping my distance. He advanced. I kicked him in the leg. Ducks in a barrel.
“It’s over.”
He finally let his hands fall to his sides. “Yep.”
A whistling noise, then the sound of metal hitting something hard, bright lights and the cracked pavement rushing to meet me.
Chapter Fifty-Five
I was at the bottom of a lake. I’m not sure how I knew since I was in utter darkness, but I knew. I felt as if I was floating, that eerie weightless sensation. Weird, because I was also completely dry.
Stella materialized next to me. She was all I could see, my entire world. Still beautiful, her long blond hair hung all around her. Her face was intense, full lips moving urgently, yet I could hear nothing.
I said, “I’m sorry.”
A murmur. “W—r—p!”
“I should have known. If I had known, I would have done something. I would have kept you safe. If only I had known. I should have known.”
“W—k—r—p!”
“You wouldn’t have had to stay. I wouldn’t have made you stay. You could have left. I still would have taken care of Sarah. She would have known her mother.”
“W—k—r—s—p!”
I held out my hand for her, yet she remained out of reach. “I am so sorry.”
“Wake your ass up!”
Chapter Fifty-Six
“What took you so long?”
“I couldn’t let him see me, could I?”
I kept my eyes closed as I slowly struggled to full consciousness. I was sitting, my arms were held in place at my sides. There was a ringing in my ears, a pounding in my head.
“He killed Clarence.”
“Fletcher, too.”
“Who gives a fuck about Fletcher?”
“Right.”
Evidently, the only person in the room who cared if Fletcher lived or died was the one who shot him.
“This never should have happened.”
“How was I supposed to know he would drive the girl’s car?”
“We’re lucky I saw her let that damn dog out.”
“This doesn’t look lucky to me.”
“This is one tough bastard. Hate to get him in the cage.”
My legs were free.
“I tried to tell you.”
I opened my eyes. Steven Noble sat across from me in my other client chair, the steel pipe in one hand, a revolver in the other. No brace or sling. Reggie hulked next to him, armed with only what God had given him. It was plenty.
“The last Starling brother.”
“Tada.” Steven gave a mock bow. “Half brother, actually.”
“The one who went straight.”
“More or less.” Steven tapped the floor with the pipe. “We need to know what you know. Quick and easy or long and painful. It’s up to you.”
I could have held out. The Rangers had been kind enough to train me to withstand torture at the hands of al-Qaeda. Whatever these boys could dish out wouldn’t hold a candle to that.
“I know you killed Amber.” I didn’t have any reason to hold out. And it wouldn’t affect my outcome one way or another. “You killed her for the insurance money.”
A slight shake of the head. “What else?”
“You killed my wife. Stella. For dropping you.”
Steven laughed. “You think that’s it?”
“Yes.”
He let the pipe lean against my knee, the threat clear. Unnecessary since I already knew my end. “What else?”
“You wanted me to find her to collect on the insurance. You had to have her body—missing wasn’t enough.”
“What else?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“What do you have in the way of proof?”
“Nothing.”
Steven seemed taken aback. “Aren’t you going to tell me your lawyer has a file and will turn it over to the authorities if something happens to you?”
“No.”
“Shouldn’t you be threatening to kill me?”
“I don’t make threats.”
“You could never kill me.”
“We’ll see.”
The brothers exchanged a look. Reggie said, “This was all for nothing.”
“Four years ago, you were about to go broke. You kidnapped Stella and Adrian and convinced them to liquidate their accounts. How did you do that?”
“Adrian was easy. He was in-love with Stella. All I had to do was tell him I would kill her if he didn’t do exactly as I told him. Stella was another story.”
“You were blackmailing her. That’s how you got her to go along. Give you the money or you would tell me about the affair.”
The wooden chair groaned in protest as he leaned back. A strange look crossed his face. “You want to know why you could never kill me?”
“Sure.”
Steven leaned forward, his voice a whisper. “Because I am the father of your daughter.”
The last tumbler clicked into place. The dark hair, the brown eyes, the facial structure—none of that came from Stella or me. Why Big Bird and Fletcher wouldn’t move on me when Sarah was at my side.
“You’re wrong.” I had to say it, at least one moment of denial.
“There is no doubt. I’m her father. All you have to do is look at the little girl.”
“You’re wrong.”
He shook his head.
“Now I will have to kill you to keep her away from you.”
Steven laughed, long and hard. “Oh, you are so stupid. Your wife had men coming and going out of your back door all the time and you didn’t have a clue. You think you were the first guy she took to the quarry? Or the last? She took me up there in the Jeep you’re still driving. We put the back seats down and had a hell of a time. Maybe you remember those carpet burns of hers.” He stood, pacing the room, going back in time. Reggie watched his older brother, entranced. I wiggled my arms against the duct tape holding them to the sides of the chair. “She told me you went up there all the time when you needed to think. I went up there twice after Amber went in and that car was clear as day. I didn’t think you would ever find her.”
He stopped pacing, looking down at me. I stopped moving my arms. “You know how many women have dropped me? Hell, I quit keeping count. Yeah, I was using what I had for leverage for a couple of cheap thrills, but I didn’t kill her for breaking it off.”
“Why?”
“Because the guilt was killing her. She was about to tell you I was the father. I knew you would come after me.”
The cold truth washed over me. Four years ago, before I embraced my role as a father, Steven Noble wouldn’t have made it to the next sunrise.
“Stella loved that little girl. She may have been shit as a mother, but she loved her. The only way I could force her to get that money was to threaten to go after Sarah. Stella died for her daughter.”
The broken office door swung open. Three loud explosions. Reggie turned, three holes in his chest, three craters out of his back. Melvin Jenks stood there holding a .357 Magnum revolver. Reggie looked down, looked up. Melvin emptied the gun into him.
Reggie remained standing, stunned. When he went it was like and avalanche. A little trickle of motion, then a crash. And he crashed right on top of me, the wooden chair shattering.
Melvin was in shock, smoke leaking from the barrel. Steven stared down at Reggie, his last brother now dead. Steven slowly raised his own gun at Melvin.
I struggled beneath the fallen mountain. My arms were free, wood dangling from my hands. I didn’t have my gun—not even a blade. Use what you have. I grabbed a broken leg, the edge sharp and rose in a rush, shoving the stake beneath the V of Steven’s chest and kept pushing until i
t refused to go farther. His heart exploded, like a slain vampire in a bad B movie, the blood gushing out, over my hands, my arms, over my body. I let go of the chair leg and Steven slumped to the floor.
Melvin said, “Holy shit!”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
“Ow.”
“Sorry.” The medic finished cleaning the wound and came around to my front. I was sitting in the back of an ambulance, my legs hanging over the edge. The medic took a pencil flashlight, turned it on and focused the light on one eye then the other. “Have any nausea?”
“A little.”
“Does it hurt?” He was a young man, probably shy of twenty-five, short and thin with dark, close cropped hair.
“Oh yeah.”
The kid clicked off the light and turned to Melvin. “You okay?”
“Huh?” He was watching the chaos. The sock factory lot was overrun with cops, police cars, deputies milling about, holding back the gathering crowd and traipsing up and down the metal stairs. I thought there was a good chance those stairs could fail with all the traffic. Melvin said, “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Sure?”
Melvin didn’t look fine. He was pale, visibly shaken. He looked as if he could pass out any minute. Melvin blinked. “Yeah.”
“Melvin, not that I’m not grateful” I said, “but what are you doing here?”
Another blinking attack. “Oh, I came to tell you I took care of your mortgage.”
“You did what?”
“You were asking about government programs to help people with their mortgage. I ran a credit check and saw you were behind.” Melvin shrugged. “I brought you up to date.”
“You paid my back mortgage? Why?”
“You saved my marriage. I owed you.”
“I think we’re even now.”
Melvin didn’t reply.
“How did you know I was in trouble?”
“Those two strange cars in the lot and your jacket on the ground. Then I stepped on all that broken glass. It didn’t take a rocket scientist.”
“You always carry that cannon with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I’m a bank president,” he said, speaking as if to a child. “I saw a story a while back where these thugs kidnapped a bank executive and made him open the doors after hours. I’m not going down easy.”
“Thank God.”
Randall Rogers stomped down the stairs and across the lot, Larry Coleman trailing in his angry wake. When they reached us, Randy said, “What the hell happened, Beason?”
The medic said, “This man is in no condition to talk. He has a grade three concussion.”
Coleman said, “How can you tell?”
It was obvious the young man had no love for the law. “Getting knocked unconscious with a steel pipe is generally a dead giveaway.”
“Well,” Randy said, “we still need to talk to him.”
“Feel free.” He winked at me. I liked that kid. “Whatever he tells you, though, don’t take it to the bank. His brains have been scrambled.”
Coleman mumbled, “What brains?”
“Steven did it,” I told Randy, ignoring Coleman. “He killed Stella and Amber.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
Coleman said, “Anybody else hear him say that?”
“I did.”
The three of us turned to Melvin. Randy said, “You did?” The doubt was thick in his voice.
“Yeah.” Melvin swallowed, making eye contact with me. “I was in the hallway when I heard him say it. He killed them both.”
“Adrian, too?” The doubt was growing thicker.
I decided to go with the short version. “Steven was having an affair with Stella. He was jealous.”
Randy said, “How did he do Amber? We’ve already got the timeline problem.”
“Steven and the Starlings were brothers. Or half-brothers. I think Reggie killed her and slipped away.”
Randy was shaking his head. “Reggie was in Dallas. He had an MMA match on Saturday.”
“She went missing on Sunday,” I pointed out.
“Yeah. A radio station was one of the sponsors. Reggie had to do an interview Sunday night.”
“An interview?”
“He won.”
“How did you find this out?”
“Google. The interview is online. I listened to it myself.”
I shook my head. And almost hurled. Big mistake. “Then Steven changed the watch before she went into the lake. He was faking being that drunk.”
“No,” Randall said, “he wasn’t. They gave him a breathalyzer at the hospital.”
“A breathalyzer?”
“Yeah. They were concerned about how the pain medication might interact with alcohol.”
“I’m not sure how he did it,” I said firmly, “but he did.”
“I don’t know what to do about this.”
“I do,” Coleman said. “Turn around, assume the position.”
Randy said, “What are you doing?”
“Taking him into custody. He’s already admitted to killing three men.”
“You’ll have to arrest me, too,” Melvin said. “I killed a man.”
“Knock it off, Larry. Nobody is getting arrested.”
“The lieutenant is on his way,” Coleman said. “He’s gonna be pissed.”
“Then let him be pissed. Don’t go anywhere, Bees.”
“This man needs to go to the hospital.”
Randy shot an ugly look at the kid and stomped off back across the lot. Coleman unhappily followed.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. You want us to take you to the hospital?”
“Not right now.”
“Okay,” the medic said. “If they give you any more shit, just say the word and we’re on our way.”
My leg tingled. It took me a few moments to realize it was my phone. I pulled out the cell, too late. Four missed calls, three from Madison, one from the preschool. It rang in my hand.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“Hello.”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m kind of tied up right now.”
“You need to get untied.”
“Madison, listen. Steven is dead. He came after me this morning.”
“What about the others?”
“The others? They’re dead, too. How did—“
“We need to meet.”
“I can’t. This place is crawling with cops.”
“Get away.”
“I—“
“Lollapalooza. One hour. Where it all started. Or ended, depending on your perspective.”
***
A cold chill ran all the way down my spine. A fear like nothing I had ever known. Not even when that rocket had exploded and all my friends died. Or when that blade made its way into my chest. Not even when I had awoken taped to a chair with a third grade concussion and a murderer. The fear that my daughter, my life, was in mortal danger.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and zipped up the leather jacket I had reclaimed to cover the blood on my shirt. “Melvin.” I grabbed his right hand in mine, clutching his shoulder with my left. “I can never tell you how much I appreciate what you did today.”
He looked back at me with confused eyes, still in shock.
“We’ll talk later,” I said. “I promise. I’ll help you get through this.”
“Where you going?”
“I gotta split.”
“The detective isn’t going to like that.”
“No,” I agreed, “he’s not.”
“What should I tell him?”
“Beats me.” I left him standing next to the ambulance, a man slowly coming to terms with taking a life. The reason it wasn’t easy is because it’s not supposed to be.
The uniforms were busy hanging crime tape and crowd control. They were focused on keeping people out and didn’t give me a second look as I merged into the crowd
. I knew most of the people by name, the rest by sight. They called out to me, demanding to know what had happened in their sleepy town. I ignored them.
“Beason!” A familiar voice. A very familiar voice.
I turned, finding Hannah Strange struggling upstream.
“Thank God!” She wrapped me in a tight hug, squeezing with all her might. “I heard there was a shooting. I was so scared. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I gotta get out of here.”
She pushed back, hands on my shoulders and looked deeply into my eyes. Something in there made her say, “Come on.” She took me by the hand and led me to her waiting minivan.
“Where to?”
“Uh.” I didn’t have much time and even less of a plan. “Back to your shop?”
“Sure.” She worked the gear lever and we pulled out. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just not right now.” I pulled out the phone and speed-dialed the preschool. Sarah’s “aunt” from out of town had indeed picked her up, citing a family emergency. They had called my home and cell, Erin’s cell as well, and since the aunt knew the password, had let her leave with Sarah. The teacher hoped that was all right. I assured her it was and closed the phone. I was glad I never sent that tuition check.
“Where is Sarah? Who has Sarah?”
“Amber.”
“What? I thought Amber was dead.”
I closed my eyes a second. “Right. Amber’s sister, Madison, has her.”
“Why?”
My head hurt. I was having a hard time concentrating. His brains are scrambled. I thought the kid was trying to help me out with the law. Now, I wasn’t so certain. “I’m not sure.”
“Is she in danger? Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got to call the police. Randy will help you. I know he is angry with you, but he is still your friend.”
The sun seemed exceedingly bright that day. I closed my eyes again. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“Do you trust me, Hannah?”