by K. M. Scott
“We’re going to need you to wear a wire. You understand that, right?”
A chill ran up my spine. How many movies had I seen where the damn guy wearing a wire made it out alive in the end? Not too fucking many.
These two guys didn’t need to know how unbelievably fucking terrified wearing a wire made me. I’d heard Robert threaten to chop people up if he thought they were recording him on a business call, and he never had any proof that they were doing anything wrong. A wire taped to my body was a hell of a lot more evidence of my guilt.
“If that’s what it takes,” I said flatly, trying to sound far more casual than I actually felt about the whole thing.
“Good. Well, let’s get started,” the guy in the passenger seat said with a smile.
But I wasn’t ready to get things going just yet. I needed some details settled before I did anything.
Holding my hand up, I stopped him before he began rattling off orders. “Hang on. I need to know a few things before we start.”
The two of them looked at each other with a knowing expression and then looked back at me. The guy in the passenger seat pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay. Shoot.”
“I need to know whatever happens Serena and Cayden are kept out of it. She knows nothing about what her father has done. I don’t want them hurt in any of this.”
“Fine. But you need to tell us exactly what he’s done and you’re going to have to get him to talk about it while you’re bugged up. Give us both of those things and you’ve got immunity.”
“I’ll do as much as I can. I can’t promise he’s going to act like it’s true confession time just because I’m sitting in front of him.”
“Well, you better hope he does. Your job is to get him on the record, and the more times you’re wired up, the harder it gets.”
None of this was making me feel any better, but I didn’t want these two to know that. Shrugging, I nodded. “I got it. It’s not rocket science. Get him to talk so you get him admitting what he did.”
They seemed fooled by the matter-of-fact way I said that, so the guy in the passenger seat went back to asking about what Robert had done like they didn’t already know. The truth was, though, they probably only knew a fraction of what he’d done.
But they’d know now.
I pointed at the guy in the driver’s seat. “You better get a pen and paper out. You’re going to need to write this stuff down. There’s a lot.”
He didn’t say anything back to me, surprisingly, and did as I told him to. When he was ready, I cleared my throat and began telling them everything I’d seen in the years I worked for Robert.
I’d kept the laundry list of things in my head, unable to forget some of them while struggling to remember the finer details of many of the things he’d ordered us to do to those who crossed him. I figured I’d start small and build up to the bigger crimes he’d committed.
“Well, I’m assuming you know about the strip club. The Red Velvet Room. That’s never been completely legal, but since the local cops never seemed to care much about it, I assume it’s not really on your radar either. But the drug dealing might be.”
Passenger seat guy nodded. “We know about the drug trade going through there. Is Erickson in charge of that? I can’t see a guy like him getting involved in heroin dealing.”
I laughed at his assumption that Robert was too fancy to be involved with anything illegal. “He’s in charge of everything that happens around him. If he didn’t directly benefit from the sale of that shit in his club, it wouldn’t happen in his club. Period. He’s the one who arranges the whole damn thing. The bouncer there, a guy named Chris Blandon, is the one who handles it for Robert, but he’s just the lackey compared to his boss.”
“How much are we talking here?” FBI guy in the passenger seat asked as the other one wrote down the details.
Shaking my head, I shrugged. “That I don’t know. I was never part of that, but I knew it was going on. One of the dancers told me she saw it happening.”
“What’s her name?”
“Kitty Cerra.”
The two of them looked at each other and smiled. “Your ex-girlfriend. Got it,” the driver said with a chuckle.
I let the crack about Kitty slide and continued telling them what I knew. “He’s also branched out into prostitution with some of the dancers, and I overheard things about some of them being there because of some deal he made with some Russian.”
Both the men looked into the backseat, and I knew I’d said something new to them by the way their eyes opened wide.
“Are you saying human trafficking? Erickson’s involved in human trafficking?”
“I don’t know, but I overheard him talking to the guy who runs the club for him about two Russian girls who just appeared one day about six months ago.”
The driver seat guy wrote feverishly as I spoke, and I knew this was something they hadn’t figured out on their own yet.
“Keep going,” the passenger seat guy said. “Is there more?”
“You know about the underground fights, I’m sure. That alone makes him millions, but again, the local boys don’t seem interested enough to give him a hard time anymore. Hell, the last few times I fought at The Pit, they had intro music blaring. When I met him, it was way more hush hush. I guess he found a way to convince the Baltimore cops to look the other way.”
“Who’s in charge of the fighting, Erickson or someone else?”
“There’s no one else in charge of anything. I think you guys have the wrong idea about him. He controls everything. The people around him, what they do, how things turn out. All of it is controlled by him.”
“Well, he doesn’t go out and find the fighters, does he? Did he have you do that once you began working for him?”
I shook my head, hating that I had to bring Floyd’s name into this. He didn’t deserve to be dragged down with Robert.
“No, I never did that for him. He’s got a guy who runs the fights and handles the money they bring in.”
“Well, what’s his name?” the driver seat guy asked, impatient with my reluctance to say the name.
“He only works for him like I do. Does he really have to be involved in this?”
The passenger seat guy held up his hand. “We’re not out to get the minor players here, but we need to know the names to get them to talk too.”
“Floyd. Floyd Marcinko.”
“And with these fights, does this Floyd run the gambling that goes along with them?”
I nodded, not wanting to indict Floyd any more than I already had. “Yeah, but it’s all Robert. Floyd just does the dirty work. Robert is the one who takes it all. Floyd doesn’t get anything from the gambling. He just gets paid to be a trainer for the fighters.”
They looked suspicious, like my defending Floyd was wrong, but I didn’t care. Floyd wasn’t a villain in all this. He did right by us fighters any time he could, and he’d saved my ass more than once.
I ran through the list of things I knew Robert had done. The drugs at the club. The Russian girls. Prostitution. The underground fighting and the gambling that went with it. There was only one more.
The people he’d had killed.
Swallowing hard, knowing I had been the one who had killed some of them, I said, “I can tell you the names of the people he’s had taken care of that I know of. Some are people I’ve done myself, and others were someone else’s job.”
The passenger seat guy winced at my explanation and nodded. “Okay. Start with the ones you were personally involved with. Then we can go from there.”
I took a deep breath in and held it inside my lungs for a long moment. What I said now would be enough to put me away for the rest of my life. I knew the chance I was taking telling these guys about what I’d done, but I didn’t have a choice anymore. When Robert killed Alita, he stepped over the line. I knew it would be just a matter of time before he came for me, or even worse, Serena.
Blowing the air out, I decided which na
me I’d start with. One of them I couldn’t seem to shake the memory of even now.
“Jacob Landon. He ordered me to kill him because of something he said about his daughter. I drowned him in his hot tub.”
The sound of the words didn’t reflect any of the emotions I attached to what I’d done. I only needed to give the pertinent information. They didn’t care what I felt about each one.
“Your wife’s former brother-in-law,” driver seat guy said, as if that information was important to the fact that I’d killed Jacob on Robert’s command.
I nodded and continued with the next name. “George Ingram. He ordered his death because he cheated him on a deal. I don’t know any more than that. He was right after I started working for him as security.”
Without lifting his head, driver seat guy asked, “How did you do it?”
“Two to the head with a .38,” I answered honestly, my mouth suddenly dry.
He scribbled down my answer and looked up. “Okay. Keep going.”
“There’s only one more that he had me do. Jasper Krieg. I don’t know what he did to him. All I know is that he was part of a group of guys who used to be at the Red Velvet Room all the time.”
I stopped for a moment as I remembered the night I found him drunk in his car behind the club. Barely alive after all the booze he’d poured down his throat that night, he was the easiest of them all to do.
“And I smothered him with a jacket from his back seat as he sat in his car.”
The passenger seat guy raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You’re not exactly the usual kind of hit man. Most have a trademark style. Why don’t you?”
Leaning forward, I pointed my finger at him. “I’m not a fucking hit man. I was a fighter Robert Erickson bought, and when I pissed him off by falling in love with one of his daughters, he had me beaten so I couldn’t fight anymore. When he offered me a job as security on his estate, I took it because I was fucking homeless and figured I could be some wealthy guy’s hired help. I didn’t realize security to him meant something else, and by the time he had me doing these three, I was in too deep. So no, I’m not a hit man and I don’t have a style. I might not have cried a bucket full of tears when I took care of these people or when I had to rough up the others, but I never wanted to kill anyone.”
“And Oliver Landon? Did he order you to kill him for what he did to Serena?”
I sat back hard against the seat and shook my head. There was no point in turning back. Now I’d see if that promise of immunity was any good.
“No. He didn’t order that.”
“You did that on your own?”
Looking out the car window at the yellow coffee shop sign as it flickered in the dark, I couldn’t say I felt any guilt at that moment for what I’d done to Oliver. The others? Yeah. I hated what I’d done to them, but not to Oliver. Not after what he did to her.
I turned back to face the two men in the seat in front of me and saw them waiting for my answer. There was only one truth I knew. It’s all I’d ever known since that night I saw Serena standing outside my bedroom door.
“Whatever I’ve done, all I wanted to do was keep Serena safe. Whatever loyalty I’ve shown to Robert Erickson, it was all to protect her.”
The car fell silent for a few moments until the driver asked, “Is there anything else?”
I thought about his question for a moment and answered, “Nothing you wouldn’t know more about than I do. He’s close to a few politicians, so you know they have to be in his pocket. And the cops are the same.”
“We know all about that.”
Quietly, I said, “And Jesse, but the cops decided not to charge me for that because I was protecting Serena.”
“Yeah, that’s not part of this. But now we just need you to get him to talk about all of it.”
Back to the wire. I dreaded the very idea of walking into Robert’s office wearing that damn thing, but I knew it had to be done.
“Yeah. I know. I’ll do it.”
As the driver slipped the pen and paper into his suit coat, the passenger reached back and patted me on the arm. “You did good. Now all you have to do is get him to talk to you. He thinks of you as a son, so that shouldn’t be too hard, right?”
I smiled, but inside I wondered just how much Robert thought of me as his son these days.
Chapter Seventeen
Serena
A warm breeze blew as I walked down the narrow paved road with Cayden in my arms, his little baseball cap pulled down low on his face so the midday sun wouldn’t burn his tender skin. I lifted it slightly to see his eyes, and he smiled up at me, not knowing where we were going was no place for happiness.
My mother’s final resting place sat in the middle of a long row of graves at Cathedral Cemetery. My father spent a small fortune on the expensive marble memorial that looked awkward surrounded by more modest headstones. Why I had no idea. There was something truly perverse about spending thousands of dollars on someone you hated enough to kill.
Or maybe he did it as a celebration of his success in finally getting rid of her. Sort of a monument to himself and his evil heart.
I didn’t want to constantly be so full of hate. I didn’t. I felt it beginning to consume even the best parts of me. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push past it every time I thought about how much I wanted to tell my mother all about what Cayden was up to or that I hoped I was pregnant again and couldn’t wait to find out so I could tell Ryder.
All of those wonderful things she’d never get to hear about. She’d never get to see Cayden walk or talk. Or his first day of kindergarten. And if I was pregnant, she’d never get to meet him or her.
For all of that and more, I hated my father with every part of me. And every day that hatred grew.
Cayden fussed in my hold, so I switched him to the other arm, juggling the pot of flowers in my hand, and tickled his nose with mine. “We’re almost there, little man. Patience, grasshopper.”
He made a noise that told me his patience was quickly growing thin with this walk and all the jostling around I was doing to him. I should have brought the stroller, but it was bad enough that I had to let that ridiculous goon of my father’s come with us.
I looked back toward the car and sneered in disgust at the man who stood outside the car with his arms folded over his chest looking bored. As if he had anything better to do. If he wasn’t waiting for us while we visited my mother’s grave, he’d be back at his post holding up the bookcase in my father’s office.
He could stand out in the sun in that dark suit of his for as long as I chose to spend with my mother. I didn’t care if he melted into the pavement. All the better. Then I wouldn’t have to drive home next to his creepy self looking over at me every two minutes like he had orders to study if I was up to something my father should know about and report back in detail to him.
I saw my mother’s grave and stepped onto the grass to walk the two rows in. Even in the eighty degree temperatures of the late August day, it still felt cool against my toes as it brushed the outside of my sandals. Kneeling down in front of her memorial, I placed Cayden in the grass and the flowers at my side as I read the inscription my father had put on the marble.
Alita Erickson, dear wife and loving mother, taken from us all too soon.
If there was such a thing as a hateful eye roll, I did it while I gritted my teeth in anger. Taken from us all too soon was right. My mother practically cried out for justice from the grave through those words.
I ran my fingertips over the letters etched in the stone and whispered, “I promise you, Mom, he won’t go unpunished. If it’s the last thing I do in this world, I’ll make sure of that.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I let them flow as I sat there sharing time with my mother the only way I could now. Cayden played beside me, giggling as he tightened his chubby little fists around a tuft of grass and pulled as hard as he could only to have it slip through his hands. I knew it was stupid, but I hoped she hear
d his laughter and got to share in it somehow.
“The baby’s here with me, Mom. You should see him. He’s growing like a weed. The clothes I had for him even a month ago are too small on him now. Ryder says he’s going to be a big boy because his hands are so big. Like baseball mitts.”
I stopped and looked over at Cayden. Rubbing his belly, I tickled him for a second and he giggled in that way that never failed to make me smile.
“Hear that? He’s such a happy baby, Mom. Do you remember that time when you had him in your arms and you were singing to him? He loved that so much. I try to sing to him sometimes, but I don’t have a beautiful voice like yours.”
The words caught in my throat, and I had to stop before the tears came again. I didn’t want to spend my whole time there crying. Yes, she was gone, but I knew I needed to come to that place of acceptance Ryder talked about.
Even if it felt wrong to finally admit that. No private detective could find her this time. She was gone forever.
Wiping my eyes, I smiled down at Cayden and continued talking, feeling some kind of relief as I did. “So Mom, I have news to tell you. I don’t know yet, but I might be pregnant again. I won’t know for a week or so, but it feels like it did when I was first carrying Cayden. Isn’t that great? He might have a baby brother or sister by this time next year.”
I instinctively waited for an answer, even though none could ever come. I wanted to believe somewhere she was hearing me and happy for us. It was foolish and maybe even childish, but I liked to imagine her as my guardian angel, and when I came to sit at her grave and talk to her, I hoped she knew I was there to share my life with her.
Cayden grew sleepy, so I planted the white daisies across the front of the memorial and stepped back to look at them. They were so much less than she deserved, but I hoped they gave anyone who saw them a hint about the kind of person she’d been.
Cheerful. Kind. A loving soul. A good soul.
“I’m sorry you won’t get to be there as your grandson grows up, Mom. You deserved so much better than you got. I won’t ever forget you and how much you showed me about strength and goodness. I hope you know what finding you meant to me. I hope I make you proud.”