Phineas Troutt Series - Three Thriller Novels (Dead On My Feet #1, Dying Breath #2, Everybody Dies #3)

by J. A. Konrath

  Just in case it was a radio problem, I texted Harry my intentions, waited thirty seconds for a response, didn’t get one, and then stood up and began walking toward the house.

  HARRY

  Jack was walking toward the house.

  “What the hell is she doing?” I said, reaching for the walkie-talkie I’d clipped to my belt.

  My soaking wet walkie-talkie.

  Shit. I’d drowned it when I waded into the lake to unhook the boat.

  I slapped at my pocket, tugging out my iPhone.

  It didn’t turn on. I’d bricked it as well.

  Electronics, thy nemesis is water.

  “They’ve got at least one MAC-10 in the house,” Phin said. “You still want to wait?”

  With Jack walking right into danger?

  “Hell no. Let’s go help our friend.”

  JACK

  I didn’t want to sneak up on them, especially while wearing body armor. They might get the wrong impression.

  At the same time, I didn’t want to take the body armor off.

  So I concocted a story in my head, and by the time I walked out of the woods I knew what to do.

  “Gentlemen,” I called to them.

  Their laughter stopped, and all four guys stared at me.

  I had my badge in my hand. “Is one of you the property owner? Theodore Cline?”

  After a moment where no on replied, Eddie said, “I’m his son.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Edward. What’s this about, officer?”

  Shears and McConnroy stood up.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen. This doesn’t concern you.”

  They continued to stand.

  I heard a motor start in the distance, and I could finally see the lake. I saw a boat. No… two boats. Side by side.

  Was that Harry? What the hell was he doing?

  “Mr. Cline, there was a bank robbery in Minneapolis yesterday. We have reason to believe the suspects are in this area, and we’re conducting a search. Do you know all of these men?”

  “They’re my friends,” Eddie said. “Since high school.”

  “Other than your friends, has anyone else been on this property since yesterday?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You have several security cameras on the premises.” I was really playing up the copspeak. “Do they record?”

  “No. They’re for hunting.”

  “Hunting?”

  “If a deer or bear gets too close, I want to know about it.”

  McConnroy began to walk toward the house.

  “Sir, I told you to sit down.”

  He stopped and looked at me like I was something unpleasant he’d stepped in. “Are you asking me, officer. Or ordering me?”

  The guy knew his rights. Police officers always tried to make it sound like an order, but it was almost always just a request.

  Almost always.

  “That’s an order, sir.”

  “You’re not allowed to order me to sit.”

  “Yes, I am, if I decide you’re interfering with my ability to perform my official duties. Now sit.”

  The motorboat sound came closer, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off of these four. I could feel their hostility, their distrust, and the threat level had gone way up.

  “Sir, I’ll say it once more. Interfering with a peace officer is a crime. Sit your ass down.”

  He sat.

  “Is there anyone in the house, Mr. Cline?”

  “No. It’s just us.”

  “Four men, all alone? No women?”

  “No women.” He laughed, and it sounded forced. “But we’re hoping things turn around before the vacation is over.”

  “If there are no women here, why did I find a woman’s shoe on the corner of your property?”

  No one answered for a moment, and then Eddie took the bait. “That must be my sister’s.”

  “You said there were no women.”

  “My mistake. Kid sister. I don’t think of her as a woman.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Eighteen, and none of you think of her as a woman?”

  Group silence. I kept pressing. “Your sister is staying here with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you call her outside? I’d like to ask her some questions.”

  Eddie still didn’t know I was bluffing, and he looked like he wanted to kill me. “She went to the store.”

  “She went to the store without her shoe?”

  Eddie was silent. The boat got closer. I still didn’t have enough to justify making a move.

  And that’s when I heard a female scream.

  It wasn’t my jurisdiction, but that constituted probable cause, and just as I cleared leather with my .38 the boys all scattered in opposite directions.

  Tucker Shears ran for the woods.

  Eddie Cline ran for the pier.

  Garrett McConnroy ran for the house.

  The fourth guy ran into the garage.

  I went after Garrett.

  He was the one who rented the truck.

  He was the Motel Mauler.

  He was the one I had to catch.

  HARRY

  Phin started the motor, and since his boat was bigger I hopped into his and unhooked the rope from mine, taking my bag with me. He gunned it, almost knocking both of us overboard, and then we evened out and were making good time toward Cline’s house to assist Jack.

  We were almost at the dock, and then Eddie Cline came charging across it and hopped into his probably-very-fast speedboat.

  “Shotgun!” Phin yelled.

  I dug into his bag, found his over and under, and held it in my good hand. It was cut down to nothing, and as much as I didn’t want Cline to get away, I was afraid that if I fired it the piece of crap would blow up. It was tough enough wiping my ass with one hand. If I had two prosthetic hands, I might as well just hire a guy to follow me around with toilet paper.

  “Shoot him!”

  We were coming up on the dock fast. Too fast. I took aim best as I could, my own safety be damned, and pulled the trigger just as Phin throttled down.

  On a boat, that had the same effect as putting on the brakes.

  I fell forward with the shotgun just as it fired. The shot tore into the lake’s surface, and the shotgun bucked out of my hand and plopped into the drink a moment later, my palm stinging like I’d jammed it in a beehive and tried to play grab the queen.

  Cline started his boat, his motor rumbling low and mean like my Corvette, and then he punched it, instant speed, hauling ass across the surface of the water.

  “You take Cline,” Phin ordered above the noise. “I’ll cover Jack.”

  I wondered if Phin really would cover Jack, or if his revenge hard-on for Tucker Shears was his primary motivator. Truthfully, my hunger for Cline was pretty strong, too. Cline had ordered his buddy to shoot me, and if he got away, would do it again. He’d also pull that same phony talent agent scam with more women, who would probably wind up buried under pine trees.

  Cline was a cancer, like I’d mentioned earlier.

  Someone needed to excise the tumor.

  And Jack…

  Well, Jack could take care of herself. And after she did, she’d probably wind up saving me and Phin. That was how she rolled.

  “I can’t catch him,” I said. “Gimme your toy rifle.”

  “Take it,” he answered as we hit the dock. I grabbed the AR-7 and Phin jumped out of the boat, lugging his duffle bag.

  I turned the boat around and gunned it, my bow lifting up forty-five degrees, and I almost fell off my seat. I let off the gas to compensate, evened out, and then tried it again, heading after him.

  Phin’s big motor was eating up the lake, blowing my hair back, but it was no match for Cline’s speedboat. Even as I hit top speed, probably around twenty-five miles an hour, he was still pulling away, heading for the boat landing on the other side of the lake.r />
  I’d been in one or two car chases in my life. They were dramatic and exciting, with moments of white knuckled terror, uncertainty, and cold-as-steel heroics.

  This boat chase was anything but. Cline was a third of the way across the lake, getting further and further ahead. I followed in a straight line. It wouldn’t make a very exciting conclusion to a movie.

  I quickly took my good hand off the throttle grip to see if it maintained speed without any pressure, and it did. Then I picked up the AR-7, which, honestly, was about the size of the Red Rider BB gun that Ralphie wanted in A Christmas Story.

  But this was my movie. And I was the hero. And the hero always saved the day.

  So I took careful aim, compensating for the motion of the boat, balancing the rifle on my prosthetic hand, and aimed for the back of that son of a bitch’s head, firing as fast as I could pull the trigger, expecting some ridiculous, gigantic, Hollywood explosion.

  But I didn’t hit shit.

  JACK

  I ran up to the front door of Cline’s house, my .38 in hand, opening the door and ducking inside in a quick, fluid motion.

  I entered a kitchen, saw the standard appliances, fridge, oven, microwave, and one odd addition; a bank of closed circuit monitors. To my left, patio doors, with a view of the lake. To my right, a hallway. It smelled like a frat house, cigarette smoke and stale beer and body odor.

  No sign of McConnroy.

  I took the hallway, staying low.

  Outside, I heard the BOOM! of a gunshot. Then a boat starting up.

  Ahead of me was a doorway on the right. I dropped to one knee and peered inside, using the jamb for cover, keeping my head at waist level.

  Bathroom. Empty.

  Another door, this one closed, on the left. I crept to it, acutely aware of the floor under my feet, making sure I stayed quiet, and I reached for the door handle, turning it and shoving forward at the same time.

  A bedroom. Plastic sheets on the king-size bed. A dresser. A closet.

  In the closet, two girls. They were bound with duct tape, their mouths covered. One of them opened her eyes and looked at me, sleepily. No fear. No awareness.

  Drugged.

  No one else in the room, so I continued down the hall, coming to a turn. I paused, listening hard.

  I didn’t hear anything inside.

  I knew Garrett had run inside, but where had he gone? The house was big, at least big enough to sleep four. Maybe he was in one of the other bedrooms. Or maybe the house had a basement. Or a back door, and he had already run off.

  I sucked in a breath, then took a peek around the corner.

  Another hallway, and three more doors.

  Outside, there was some kind of explosion. But I had to deal with the current situation.

  I went over my options.

  Harry was obviously outside. I put the odds of him calling the cops at fifty-fifty. Maybe less. My number one priority was protecting myself, and a close number two was saving those girls. Let the locals, and the Feebies, track down McConnroy and his buddies. As McGlade said, this wasn’t my jurisdiction.

  Keeping my right hand on my Colt, I eased my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed the three digits that everyone knows.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  “I’m a police officer, and I’m at the Theodore Cline house on Lake Violet. There are officers down and four armed assailants. There are also two women, hostages.”

  “What is your name, officer?”

  And that’s when Garrett McConnroy leapt into the hallway with a machinegun and sprayed lead everywhere.

  PHIN

  My 9mm in one hand, duffle bag in the other, I ran up the dock and chased down Tucker Shears, who ran straight into the woods.

  He had twenty meters on me, and could run like hell. Being caught is a powerful motivator.

  But so is revenge.

  I stopped once to fire two quick shots at his back, neither of which hit home, and then he was gone. The perpetual shade and the hundreds of trees swallowed him up.

  I stopped. Listened. He was panting, clomping, swearing, making enough noise for a blind man to follow. I’d take a few dozen steps, stop, get a new fix on his location, and continue with my pursuit.

  After a minute of running he seemed to catch on to what I was doing. The next time I stopped and listened, I only heard forest sounds. No cursing or scurrying or heavy breathing.

  I fired a shot directly into the trees in front of me, hoping to flush him out. It worked, and again I heard the crashing and stomping through the foliage, as easy to track as footprints. But right after the noise began, it stopped again, leaving me without direction.

  Another shot failed to get him to run again. He was staying put.

  I walked as silently as I could, squinting through the shadows, pausing every few steps.

  Nothing.

  I dug into my duffle bag. The thrift store purchase had popped a seam, and I’d lost a lot of things during the pursuit. One of my Nikes. My sweat suit pants. My switchblade. My flashlight. And both 9mm magazines.

  I’d given Harry my rifle, and he’d dropped the shotgun into the lake. So the only weapons I had left were my Smith & Wesson, with six bullets left, the AMT .380 in my boot heel, and that back alley grenade I’d bought for thirty bucks. I grabbed the grenade, dropped the bag, and fired twice more into the woods, trying to flush him out.

  It worked. I heard him running again, nearby.

  Nearby, and very close.

  When I figured out what had happened, it was too late. I’d been in my bag, taking inventory, and Shears had circled back around and flanked me, and was only a few steps away and sprinting at full speed. I brought up the gun, fired three times, all of my shots too high, and instead of going for the tackle he latched onto my arm—

  —and bit me.

  The pain was supernatural, like a vice grip pliers grinding on every nerve in my wrist, and I dropped the gun and brought a knee up, bouncing it off his chin.

  He released me, staggered back, and I was on him, swinging the grenade, hitting him in the cheek and sending him sprawling into a thorn bush.

  Shirtless.

  Tucker howled, trying to escape the thorns tearing into him, and I crouched down, felt around for my gun, and picked it up.

  I fired, shooting over his head to get his attention.

  It worked. He stopped struggling, and glared at me.

  “Amy Scadder,” I said. “Remember her?”

  “You got out of the box and burned my house down, you asshole.”

  I leveled the gun. “The next time I shoot, you lose your balls. Answer the question.”

  Tucker made a face like he was a toddler being forced to eat his brussels sprouts. “I remember her.”

  “You killed her?”

  “You haven’t figured it out yet? I’ve killed lots of people.”

  “How many?”

  “Two dozen. Maybe thirty. Me and the boys. Eddie, he’s the one you should talk to. He’s the one that started The Club.”

  “What’s The Club?”

  “Here. Us. We bring up girls, have our fun, and get rid of them.”

  “Under the pine trees,” I said.

  “Yeah. Smart, huh? My idea. No one is gonna dig up a tree to find a body.”

  “Amy Scadder,” I repeated.

  “She’s under one of them. Sweet little bit of sugar, too. That bitch could scream.”

  He wasn’t helping his cause. “Who else was involved?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who paid you to do it?”

  He squinted at me. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Before I burned your house down, I listened to some of your greatest hits.”

  Tucker laughed. “My tapes. Then you already know. I didn’t pick Amy. It was a job. You do jobs, right? Same thing. We’re a lot alike. I can tell.”

  “Stick to the question.”

  “Amy’s old lady hired me. I bet she’
d pay you a lot more than I got. Ten grams of coke and a blowjob. That’s all she gave me.”

  “Phyllis Scadder is a dealer?”

  “Both of her goddamn parents are dealers. Her asshole father had some mob connection.”

  I knew I should have looked closer at Scadder’s financial situation. “So why did Phyllis want her daughter dead?”

  Tucker told me. The truth was ugly, but this one was tragic as well.

  “So how were the Scadders lucky enough to run into you?” I asked.

  “The old lady made some calls to the right people, got my name. I do specialty work sometimes. Like you do. In fact, I’m an important guy. Connected. You really don’t want to mess with me.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I walked into the thorn bush and hit Tucker in the face with the grenade. Once. Twice. A few more times, until he was unconscious and missing so many teeth I could ram the whole thing in his mouth.

  I hesitated. This was cold-blooded murder.

  Was that the kind of man I was?

  Was that the man Pasha fell in love with?

  Was I the same as Tucker? A cancer, like McGlade said?

  What’s wrong with being a cancer? Earl said. Give this asshole the same mercy I give you.

  I pulled the pin.

  I moved away quick, expecting the grenade to be a dud.

  It wasn’t.

  Best thirty bucks I ever spent.

  HARRY

  Just when I was sure Eddie Cline was going to get away, his boat slowed.

  Had I hit him? Or hit something mechanical on the boat?

  Nope. He turned around and gunned it, coming right at me.

  There’s a game known as chicken, where two cars speed at each other on a collision course, and the first one to turn away is the loser.

  His boat was three times the size of mine. So this was like a truck playing chicken with a tricycle.

  I tried to turn port side.

  He adjusted to keep coming at me.

  I tried starboard.

  Eddie adjusted.

  This wasn’t a game of chicken. He wanted to run me over.

  And he could. The duel propellers on his gas-guzzling monstrosity would chew my boat up, with me in it.