by Mike McCrary
He sees her throat split. The blood spits and spurts out onto the floor. Tilley’s naked body flops and twists as she grabs her neck, deep red spilling between her fingers. She looks up toward Davis. Help, she mouths silently.
“What hell is all this shit?” Justin asks.
Davis snaps from his trance. Shaken by his own mind, he pulls himself together, finding his place in the here and now.
“It’s all there,” he says, clearing his throat.
“Really?” Justin asks, scrunching up his nose. “That’s damn disappointing.”
Justin slams his fist into Davis’s face.
31
Davis stumbles back.
His eyes blur with tears as he feels his sinuses flood. The blood rolls down from his nose, streaming over his lips. He plants his hand on a tree for stability.
Another fist screams toward his head.
Davis pivots enough to avoid a full-on strike. Justin’s fist grazes his ear, the main force of the blow only finding the night air. Davis grabs Justin’s arm, shoving him back. He swings wildly, landing a punch to the side of Justin’s cheek.
Justin swats his second punch away like an airborne nuisance.
Twisting away, Davis straightens his back, only to have a punishing gut punch land hard, removing all the air from his lungs. Davis folds as if he were Justin’s laundry. He fights again to find air, his throat raw from coughing, his lungs burning.
Justin leans down, positioning his mouth directly next to Davis’s ear, shushing him, rubbing his back as if comforting a sick child, like he did on the pier earlier.
“If you’re broke, how in the sweet name of Christ is my investment in you supposed to pay off?” Justin lifts Davis’s chin with his fingers, meeting his eyes. “Do you understand my problem here? I’ve put some serious time and resources into you.” Justin holds his eyes like he’s looking through them, staring into the mind behind them. “When I start a thing, I always ask, ‘what does the question cost?’ You’re a question to me and the question was, and still is, ‘what’s it going to cost me to get the most from his life?’” Justin lowers his chin with a smile. “And, if your life is worth more than the cost of the question, then I move forward with that thing.”
Davis pushes Justin off of him, moving a few feet away.
Justin moves up fast, closing the distance between them. He grabs Davis’s shoulders and squeezes tight. “You started with a question too, Davis. In LA, you wanted to know if I could deliver the time of your life. And that, buddy, is an expensive question.”
Davis plants his palms to Justin’s chest, sending him back a couple of steps.
“I didn’t ask you for this.”
“Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.”
“I never wanted one of your damn packages.”
“Really? You sure?”
“Stay away from me.”
“That’s cute,” Justin says, moving toward him.
“Not warning you again. We can finish this right here, right now. Maybe you’ll even kill me. But let’s be clear… maybe, just maybe you won’t.”
Justin nods, looking up toward the stars.
Davis digs in, widening his stance, preparing.
“Okay.” Justin clucks his tongue. “How about we skip all that shit and head straight to threatening your family.”
Davis’s eyes go wide.
“You’re smart and shit. Put that big brain to work and think. What do you think I could do to them? To Hattie, to your pretty little girls?”
The blood in Davis’s veins slows to a crawl as his vision narrows to a slit, only seeing Justin framed in a fuzzy background. It’s as if the entire world has been blurred out, and now it’s only the two of them. Two men squared off under the moonlight, isolated in the woods. A random encounter at a bar in Los Angeles has led them both here. A chance meeting that has turned into a nightmare.
“That’s the next play, right?” Justin says. “The escalation of things. You had to see that shit coming, right?”
Justin cocks his head, looking Davis over with his eyebrows raised.
“You didn’t, did you?” Justin laughs. “Oh my God, you really didn’t think that was a possibility. You are goddam adorable.”
Davis lunges at Justin.
An immediate loss of control. Removed. Stripped away from him. Davis lands a shoulder into Justin’s gut, sending them both flying hard into a tree. Justin’s back crunches upon impact with the bark. Davis feels all the air leave Justin’s body. He feels the sudden satisfaction of imposing some will on this man. He lands a punch, then another and another. A surge of adrenaline rips through him.
It’s short-lived, however.
Justin tosses him back, working a series of left and right punches like a skilled prizefighter. A brief but steady drumbeat of pops and thumps landing one after the other. Davis blocks one, then misses the second and third. He feels his knees buckle, comes close to stumbling to the ground, but finds the strength to throw a punch with all he has.
His fist finds the side of Justin’s face. Davis feels Justin’s jaw give. His hand cracks upon impact. The spike of pain is intense, but it doesn’t dull what he sees in front of him. Davis watches as Justin falls away off the force of his blow.
Davis hurt him.
Justin spins toward the dirt but places a hand down and pushes himself up. As he comes up, there’s a massive smile on his face. A slight trickle of blood makes its way down his chin.
“You’ve got some fine-ass spirit, Big Fun.” Justin pulls a red, silk handkerchief from his suit pocket dabbing it at his lip. “Is this what you want to do? Like you said, we can work this all out right here. Right now.”
Davis readies himself. Raises his fists.
“You know the difference between normal people and psychopaths, Davis?” Justin asks. “We simply want things more than you.”
Justin raises his hands as well, starting to bounce on the balls of his feet. He looks like he did on the pier with Hattie and the girls. Davis stops.
Think.
Davis knows the truth. He was lucky just now. His best punch was lucky, and it only slowed him down briefly. Davis has no weapons and he’s beyond outmatched in a hand-to-hand fight with this man.
He knows what he said about working this out right here and now, but he needs to fight this guy smarter. Not like this. He has to take a beat and push down his basic male instincts. The burning need to release his anger, to calm his fear with his fists. He wants nothing more than to unleash, to beat the life out of Justin with his bare hands, but he knows that’s not the smart play.
Think.
There’s a lot at stake here. A lot on the table if he starts a war he can’t win out here in the woods. The upside in winning is unlikely. The downside is unthinkable. If Justin wins, if he beats Davis into coma or even kills him, he’s not going to stop at just Davis. A man like Justin doesn’t know how to quit. He’ll go after Hattie and the girls even if Davis is out of the picture. Davis knows he will.
Justin will not stop.
Ever.
Think.
Davis knows he needs to buy himself time, and if he goes toe to toe with Justin then time will be up for him and his family. Davis lowers his hands, letting them fall to his sides.
“Nobody wins a war,” Davis says. “Talk?”
“Sure.”
“You and I, we’re businessmen, right?”
“I’m willing to speculate, yes.”
“This doesn’t have to go this way. We can work out something, but those documents in that bag are telling you the truth.”
Justin rolls his eyes.
“It’s true, Justin. I don’t have any damn money.”
“And according to those fancy papers you don’t even own any of the company anymore. That correct as well?”
Davis nods. “I had to sell out to make up for paying what I’ve already paid you. I was broke before I met you.”
“So you lied to me in LA.” Justin shakes hi
s head. “All that shit about how well you’re doing.” He waves his hands wildly, mocking the thought. “Ooooh look at me. I’m a big-time tech guy. My company is so mind-bending and blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.”
Davis nods again, giving him nothing, not taking the bait.
Justin settles in, standing still, letting the silence fill in the gaps.
“Well,” he finally says, “what in the hell are we going to do about this little pickle?”
Justin begins to pace. Davis’s heart thumps, waiting for Justin’s next move, but he doesn’t want to say anything. Doesn’t want to give Justin anything to work with. He’s already given him too much, he knows.
“Okay. Final offer. You pay me one hundred thousand or, of course, you can kill someone of my choosing.”
“What?” Davis’s mouth goes instantly dry.
“Is it the killing someone? You seem really reluctant to that option.”
Davis stares in disbelief. They’re going backward.
“It’s the easiest out for you,” Justin says, “but you keep tripping over it.”
“You’ve seen the documents. I don’t have a hundred grand.”
“I’m not negotiating on this. This is a firm offer.”
“That’s insane. How can I—"
Justin puts a hand up. “Don’t feel like you need to answer me right away. No pressure. Sleep on it. Give it a think. Meet me here, same time tomorrow night.”
Davis stands lifeless, can only stare back. A silent statue under the stars.
“Glad we did this.”
And with that, Justin slips off into the night.
32
Davis slips back in through the front door.
The house is dark. The quiet feels eerie. A wall of silence so void of sound it buzzes.
He brushed himself off the best he could outside, even removed his shirt and shoes before he crept back inside the house. As he carefully makes his way toward the back of the house, he hears the soft, wonderful sound of his girls snoring in their room. The noise fills him with joy and dread all at the same time.
The idea that Justin is out there. Wandering somewhere in the night. The thought that he can come in here, inside this house, whenever he wants is chilling. The idea tugs at Davis’s guts. He checks the locks again, knowing that it doesn’t really matter.
Moving as slowly and as quietly as he can, Davis slips into the bathroom. Shutting the door behind him, he turns on the light. His face is red and well on its way to swollen, with specs of dirt and debris peppering spots on his forehead and cheeks. The blood from his nose is starting to dry into clumps of black candy under his nostrils. His hands ache from the punches that connected, while his head and body throb from the punches he’s absorbed.
Turning on the water, he cups his hands under the faucet. The first splash stings like a son of a bitch to his cut and battered bare hands. He pulls them back, then places them back under the streaming water. With each passing second, the sting gets a little better, the pain becoming easier to live with. He breathes out, waiting for the collection of pains to subside. The seconds crawl. He counts softly to himself, letting the falling numbers help the moments pass. Letting time tumble away. The seconds slip by, then another and the next.
As he tries to pull himself together, his mind churns. A cranking brain has been the norm lately, his new normal, but this time he’s thankful for the buckshot nature of his thinking. It’s allowing him to focus on something other than the physical damage, even if that means focusing on the mental.
It’s what passes for peace right now.
Davis has to get ahold of Todd. He’ll try him as soon as he gets out of the bathroom, but he has to give Todd this new info. Justin’s final offer. He needs to talk through what they can do next. It’s hard to call his meeting with Justin a success, but it wasn’t a complete failure either. Davis didn’t crumble, even when Justin pushed buttons beyond reason. He took a beating but laid down some of his own. More importantly, Davis got his point across. The main point. He got Justin to understand that he’s broke and the business is out of play.
Still, Justin’s counteroffer is insane. If that’s even a counteroffer at all.
Justin likes his games.
Davis tries to ignore the “kill someone” offer—Justin does say crazy things—but the hundred-thousand-dollar payment to make Justin go away is the one that sticks in Davis’s brain. That seems like a well thought out number. It was something in the way he said it, in the way he talked about the cost of a question and all that. This is a business to Justin, nothing more. That number is something Justin has calculated. Something real. A number that was derived from his sick profit and loss statement.
Could that number buy my freedom?
Todd could get the hundred grand. It would hurt probably, or maybe it wouldn’t, but Todd could find it if he had to.
Davis can’t believe he’s even considering this as an option.
In his heart, he knows that even if they pay the hundred grand to a man like Justin, he will not simply go away. Even if Davis agreed to kill someone, Justin would not simply go away. He can see it in Justin’s eyes; he’s not going anywhere. That man will bleed Davis dry until there is nothing left and then move on to the next victim. In Justin’s mind, he's thinking that if Davis can come up with a hundred then he can come up with two, then three, and so on and so on. This is what Justin does. He told him so.
Justin the predator. The parasite.
A psychopath who simply wants things more than Davis does.
33
The sun peeks through a break between the curtains.
Davis stares bleary-eyed at the wall, watching shadows retreat. He hasn’t slept. He’s simply been lying there, staring with eyes wide.
After he felt Hattie get up and leave the bedroom he moved to pacing around the room, moving in quick bursts while his guts churned and his mind raced around an infinite track at blinding speed. He’s now back sitting on the edge of the bed looking out into nothing. His thoughts have slammed back and forth against the walls of his skull, bouncing from hope to disaster, from salvation to destruction.
He’s been calling, sending texts to Todd all night. Lost count of the number. Nothing from Todd. His phone a lifeless brick of silence.
Davis snickers, thinking how his messages have become akin to him screaming into a flight recorder as his plane is going down. Unloading streams of nouns, verbs and adjectives into the void, only hoping that someone out there will listen. Hoping that someone will offer some help. He gave up about an hour ago, lost track of time, but he knows the entire house will be up soon. He can hear Hattie moving around the kitchen, but hasn’t heard the girls yet. The sun has just started to rise and the day will begin soon enough.
He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain his appearance to his family.
He took a couple of shots to the face last night, and he’s sure the stress and lack of sleep aren’t helping his boyish charm any. Hattie is going to see it. Not just the marks and bruises. She’ll see under his skin. She’s going to know that all of this, his mood, his odd behavior, is far more than just problems with the business. Business stress does not lend itself to a swollen face beaten by punches or the distance in his eyes that he can no longer hide.
She’s going to know. She can probably sense it right now. Probably has for days. Hattie knows Davis better than Davis knows himself. Add that to her devastating, no-bullshit intelligence and she will force him into the truth or walk out on him. Either one will level Davis to the floor.
How do I tell her?
Where the hell do I even begin?
The crazy thing is, Davis still isn’t even completely sure he did anything wrong. He’s seen the pictures, but there’s a disconnect from what he’s seeing and what he knows about himself. He can’t trust his mind, his memories or his mental state, which is deteriorating by the second. He sure as hell can’t trust anything Justin is giving him either. The truth is uncertain.
/> Tilley’s image rips through his head.
He grinds his teeth.
She moans.
He buries his head in his pillow, rocking back and forth.
She screams.
He sees himself in the hotel room standing above her with a knife in his shaking hand, blood shining from the edge of the blade. Even here in this lake house’s bedroom, he knows the feelings of that night.
Are these feelings real?
Davis lies down, covers his face with a pillow. Tries to block the bad things from storming his head. More tricks from a battered brain.
That night, with the knife held tight in his hand, is that sensation similar to the rush he felt when he first met Tilley in the hotel bar? Is he merely projecting in order to try and understand?
No, that’s not the truth. Davis knows it. This is no projection or an attempt to understand. To be more accurate, to be more honest, this feeling is a memory. This is too real, too precise. The feeling he is getting from thinking of the knife in his hand is coming in loud and clear. This is the same feeling he felt when he was on top of her. When he slid inside of her.
An undeniable charge of life.
Excitement mixed with something else. Something with teeth. Biting. Present. A heightened feeling of regret mixed with a bolt of electricity. As if he’d done something. Accomplished something. Ended something. It was a feeling of power, then devastating sadness. He remembers a hand on his shoulder.
He remembers dropping the knife.
Davis’s phone buzzes next to him on the bed.
TODD lights up on the screen.
34
Davis’s fingers fumble, scrambling into the wadded-up sheets, snatching up the phone.
“Where the hell have you been?” Davis barks, fighting to keep his voice down.
There’s a pause on Todd’s side, followed by a deep sigh. A long beat of silence.
“Okay,” Todd finally says, “you’re going to go through two things pretty quickly—”