by Dan Ames
A noise sent a tingle of fear down the back of Nicole’s neck.
She slid off the stool, went to the knife rack and pulled out a seven-inch blade, sharpened to a razor’s edge.
Where had it come from?
Near the back door. She calmed her nerves. The back door opened up onto a small parking area next to an alley. Occasionally, homeless people paraded through the lot, looking for aluminum cans, spare change, or a place to sleep for the night.
She made her way toward the door, the knife held in her right hand. She used the Pekiti Tirsia grip – knife handle in her palm, the blade reversed, sticking out to the right of her hand so that she could punch across someone’s throat, and the knife’s edge would slice the jugular.
Nicole could hear her heart beat rapidly, but still under control.
It was all about control. Staying alert. Using the edge of fear as an ally, not a detractor.
She stepped into the small hallway alcove near the back door. The sound, subtle, reached Nicole’s ear.
It was a buzzing.
She lowered the knife.
It came from her purse.
It had to be her phone.
She reached into her purse and pulled her phone from its small pocket and looked at the screen.
Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at the name displayed with no identifying image.
Wallace Mack.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Blue Blood
HE’D LIVED his whole life outside the rules. Whether it was the Hampton name, the Hampton money, his good looks, or most likely a combination of all three, he had never allowed himself to be ruled as the masses.
No, it was and always had been a different world for Douglas Hampton. A different world with rules mostly made up by him.
So he wasn’t at all surprised when the idea came to him that The Commissioner’s rules did not necessarily have to be followed. Everyone else seemed to have no problem abiding by the asshole’s plan. But he, Douglas Hampton, had no intention of playing by the rules.
After dispatching Mrs. Knowles, he hopped onto the freeway and found himself back at the Omaha Holiday Inn, the original meeting place of all the “contestants.”
He went to the front desk. The young woman working looked vaguely like the same woman who’d been there for the meeting, but he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter, she smiled at him and he could tell from the way the polyester slacks fit her full hips and the way she thrust her breasts out a little more after looking him over that he could get what he wanted.
“Hello, Kimberly,” he said, managing to read her nametag without actually directing his eyes toward it. “I was wondering if you could help me. I attended a business meeting here a few days ago and need to send a thank-you note to the meeting’s organizer. Can you help me?”
“Certainly!” she said and began typing on the computer. She asked him for the date and time of the meeting.
Kimberley frowned and Douglas Hampton felt a surge of anger flash through his body. She was going to tell him that the information was either gone or she couldn’t share it with him. The anger fired inside him and he wanted to twist her fat lips right off her face, but he buried the fury. He needed this woman to help him.
The woman jotted something down on a yellow post-it note and handed it to him. It was the name of a company. Alpha Delta Entertainment.
Without even thinking twice, Hampton knew it was a phony.
“Is there a phone number to go with it?” he asked.
Kimberley clicked again on the keyboard. She shook her head, trying to get her reddish brown hair to cascade over her shoulders. Hampton almost laughed when it didn’t work, as he watched the hair get hung up on the cheap white shirt.
“Mmmm, no,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“So you never spoke to anyone?” he said.
“No, it was all taken care of via email, most likely,” she said.
Douglas Hampton thought of the woman back in Hampton Industries who worked in the legal department as a researcher. He’d banged her a couple times, and she fell in love with him. Tried to impress him with how great she was at anything Internet related. She’d told him that with an email address she could pretty much find out anything.
“I’m sure I already have the email address, but let me hear which one it was,” he said.
She hesitated and Hampton could almost see the debate going on in her little walnut-sized brain. She looked up at him, and he gave his favorite smile, a sort of boyish grin that said come on, let’s have some fun.
She smiled back at him, blushed a little, and looked back down at her computer.
And then, like almost every woman he’d ever interacted with in his entire life, she ultimately gave him what he wanted.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Mack
ADELIA ARRIVED IN THE MORNING, after breakfast, and Mack grabbed his suitcase, took it upstairs to his bedroom.
He flung it open, and began throwing in clothes. He figured this time of year Los Angeles was not much different than Florida, just not as humid.
Mack had no choice but to go to Los Angeles. He knew with every fiber of his being Nicole was on the list of targets. Whidby wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t provide any special protection for Nicole, so Mack would do it himself.
He picked through his shirts, and imagined maybe taking Nicole out to dinner and what she would be wearing. He caught himself and felt like a fool. What the fuck? He had to get his head straight.
Reznor would not be coming with him. He was on his own. The Bureau still didn’t believe his theory, so they had no intention of dispatching personnel to follow up on his “wild” ideas. That was all Whidby.
Mack showered and shaved, then packed his toiletries. He zipped up his suitcase and carried it downstairs.
“How long are you going to be gone?” Adelia said. She stood in the kitchen, wiping down the countertops.
“Not sure, maybe a week,” he said.
“Be careful, Mack. You’ve been out of the action for awhile now.”
He smiled. “Believe me, I know.”
“Don’t worry about things back here,” Adelia said. “I’ve got it all under control.” The few times a year Mack traveled, Adelia moved into the guest apartment downstairs and stayed full-time to take care of Janice.
“Oh, I never worry about you and Janice,” Mack said.
“Good, that’s what you pay me for,” she said.
Mack set his suitcase by the back door and walked down to the pool deck where Janice sat at the small table, drawing on a sketch pad. Her head was bowed. Mack could see she was concentrating.
He walked up to her.
“Janice,” he said. She jerked upright and looked at him, eyes startled.
“What!” she said. “Oh.” She cocked her head, and seemed to recognize him.
“I’m going to go on a short trip, I should be back in a few days, okay?”
She looked out the corner of her eye at the drawing, and tried to cover it with her arm.
“Yes, okay, that is good,” she said.
“Is it okay if I give you a hug?” he said.
She shrugged her shoulders.
Mack bent down and put his arms around her and hugged her. He tried to look at her drawing, but she covered it with her arm.
Mack walked back upstairs, into his office and opened the safe that sat behind his desk. He pulled out his Glock .45 and a box of ammo. Even though he hadn’t carried it in a long time, he went to the range on a semi-regular basis. If he didn’t shoot occasionally, the gun would feel totally foreign to his hand when he needed it most. Not a good situation.
Now, he shrugged on his shoulder holster and found his carry license that still permitted him to wear his gun through the airport and onto the plane.
He slipped the gun into its holder and felt a small tremor of anticipation.
He didn’t like the feeling of being hunted.
Maybe it was time for hi
m to become the hunter.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Family Man
BRENT TUCKER WAS NOT TOO worried. Yeah, Mack was an FBI agent, but from what he’d read in the background information supplied by the Commissioner, the guy was now mostly a desk jockey. Not exactly Charles Bronson.
Besides, he was just supposed to kill the sister, not Wallace Mack.
The Commissioner had been very clear on that one.
This was probably going to be pretty easy, he thought. He killed perfectly healthy people all the time. A cripple should be even easier. At least then, the vulnerability is obvious.
Tucker knew firsthand how family could be exploited. He thought of his wife and how she would do anything for the snotty little rugrats. She was so stupid. It’s not like they were loyal to her, he thought. They lied, were lazy and just took, took, took. Yet his cow of a wife would lay down her life for every single one of them.
But then again, Becky always wanted to have kids, that maternal instinct and everything. Tucker didn’t consider them human beings, he considered them camouflage. Whenever a killer who had a family was discovered, that was always the first expression of surprise. But he was married! He was a father! How could someone who is married with children go around killing people?
Quite easily, Tucker thought.
As he was about to prove now.
The great thing about Florida homes are their pools and waterfront location. If you could possibly afford it, you always tried to buy a home on the water. Property values never fell if you were on the water.
Because of the incredible heat, nearly every home had a pool. And those pools were almost always screened in, to keep out mosquitoes and other insects.
Tucker reviewed all of these facts in his mind as he paddled the kayak he had stolen from the public park just down the street. The Commissioner had provided excellent notes.
He guided the kayak with difficulty, he’d never paddled one before, and ran it up against Mack’s dock. He climbed out, up the rip rap onto the wooden walk from the dock to the back of the house.
The Commissioner had written that while most Florida homes had good alarm systems, they rarely accounted for an approach from the water, unless it was a big mansion in Palm Beach.
Tucker went to the pool area, took out a box cutter, and sliced a small slit in the screen.
He pushed through, turned around, and bent the flapping piece of screen back into place.
Then, he slowly climbed the stairs to lanai, and the home’s wall of windows and sliding glass doors.
•
ADELIA WILLIAMS WAS IN LOVE. Her husband, Oscar, was a good man, and before he enlisted in the Marines to become a sniper, he had been a high school star running back.
Even back then when they were just high school sweethearts, Adelia had shown her love and support by attending nearly every single one of her boyfriend’s football games. She had watched so much football that she knew what a chop block was. What a slant and go route was. She knew the value of a stiff arm, and an illegal use of the helmet.
So when she looked up from wiping down the glass-topped dining table and saw the man standing in the opening to the doorway holding a box cutter, she didn’t think twice.
She charged him. Her husband had taught her one of the first rules of fighting – never wait for the other guy to hit first.
And goddamn it, this was her house, too. She practically lived here. She loved Janice and no way was she going to let someone hurt her. She could have screamed for Mack who was upstairs, but that would also have given the attacker time to get to Janice. Somehow, Adelia knew this man wasn’t a thief. He was here for Janice.
The man was caught off guard by Adelia’s rush. She read in his eyes that he thought she would cower, beg for her life.
Yeah, well, fuck that, she thought.
He swung the knife at her, but she caught his wrist and rammed her other hand into his chest, knocking him backward. She followed, driving her legs forward and the man backpedaled until he ran out of floor.
The lanai’s railing caught him in the lower back and he went over. Adelia watched him fall, saw him bend unnaturally backward as the pool ladder’s hand railing, specially designed for Janice, caught his spine and Adelia heard a crack that sounded like a gunshot.
The man slid down the side of the ladder and landed on the edge of the pool.
His shoulders and head slipped into the pool, his face underwater.
He didn’t drown.
No bubbles escaped his mouth.
Because he wasn’t breathing.
He was already dead.
She heard footsteps behind her, racing toward the lanai. She whirled.
It was Mack.
He had a gun in his hand, a look of grim determination on his face.
“Where is he?” he said.
She waved a hand over the railing.
“Chillin’ in the pool.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
Nicole
SHE WAS EXHAUSTED. Today, they had chosen to take the long trail in the Santa Monica mountains. Nicole’s thighs burned with the effort but Tristan, as always, seemed unfazed by the exertion.
“How come you’re not tired?” Nicole said.
Tristan laughed and drank from her water bottle. “Oh, I’m tired. I just try not to show it.”
They stopped at the last small rise before the trail descended into the parking lot. Nicole shook a little water into her hand and rubbed it on Sal’s back. The big dog’s dark coat absorbed the heat and she frequently had to cool him down.
She rubbed the water down Sal’s back, heard Tristan shuffle her feet. The dog’s hair bristled under her hand and she felt a deep vibration echo from his chest. His ears shot forward.
Nicole looked up as a man swung his hand at Tristan’s head. In his hand was a large rock.
It struck Tristan on the temple and she folded like a rag doll, flopping on her back and tumbling down the slope of the hill.
Sal charged the man who had attacked Tristan, and the two of them went over the side of the plateau, crashing down off the trail in a cloud of dust, snarls and shouts.
Two men came at Nicole, one going high, the other low. She dove forward, between them. When she rolled and stood, coming into a crouch, she had a knife in each hand. She could tell that the men noticed how she held them, too. By the handle, but the blade went back along her forearm, with the cutting edge out.
It made them hesitate. She could tell it wasn’t what they expected, what they’d signed up for.
One of them overcame his hesitation and sprang at Nicole, swinging a lead pipe. She used her left fist to knock it past her, then brought her right arm up and hooked her knife over the man’s arm, pinning it across his body.
She swung her left hand like a punch across his chin, but it wasn’t a punch. The knife in her hand cut the man’s throat wide open and blood shot out in a bright red geyser.
The other man charged Nicole, his bare hands out in front of him. She figured his plan was to get her by the throat and choke her. She knocked his arms upward and raked the knives along his belly. His guts fell out onto the hard-packed dirt.
The man dropped to his knees and looked at another man who had silently appeared at the end of the trail. He had long hair and weird blue eyes.
Nicole felt his eyes on her and she met them directly. She saw his eyes glance down at her knives, blood dripping from their razor-sharp edges. He looked at his cohort, now dead or dying on the sunbaked trail.
The long-haired man looked back into Nicole’s eyes.
He turned and ran away.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
Truck Drivin’ Man
ROGER DAWSON WAS NOT HAPPY. He’d been shot and clobbered over the head. And then, after being discharged from the Emergency Room, he’d immediately been arrested.
What a fucking joke.
The whole reason he’d agreed to go along with this stupid shit was to avoid going to prison
in the first fucking place.
And look where it had gotten him.
This prick was going to pay.
Roger Dawson was going to meet with his attorney, and he was going to get the guy to make a sweetheart deal. Dawson was going to tell everyone everything he could about this stupid “Commissioner” and lower the boom on the bastard. No way in hell Dawson was going to rot in prison. He’d join witness protection and lay low for awhile. But eventually, he’d start his fun back up again.
The guard came and got him. Dawson saw the look of disapproval and disgust on the guard’s face. Well, fuck you too, buddy.
He was led through a series of metal doors where they had to get buzzed through, and eventually came to a conference room.
The guard brought Dawson in and put him in a chair. The table was empty. The guard left, and Dawson heard the lock slide into place.
He waited five minutes before he heard the lock being thrown. The door opened and his lawyer came in.
Dawson almost laughed.
The guy had big, wavy blonde hair and a big blonde handlebar moustache. He looked like some lame guy from a Seventies television show. Jesus Christ, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel around here for lawyers.
“Mr. Dawson?” the man said. His voice was raspy, like he’d smoked a dozen cigarettes in the last ten minutes. Dawson immediately figured him for a faggot.
“Yeah, listen,” Dawson said. “I don’t want any bullshit – I did some bad shit but I was forced to. I want to testify against the asshole that set me up.”
The lawyer smiled a little beneath the big moustache.
“From what I’ve read, Mr…” he paused to look at his notes. “Dawson. You acted alone. Most criminals have trouble seeing the monsters they truly are and simply blame someone else for their horrible acts. Are you certain you aren’t solely responsible for your actions? Maybe it’s time you took some responsibility.”
Dawson turned red. What was the deal with this asshole?
“Did you not fuckin’ hear me?” Dawson said. “Get your faggy ass over to wherever the other lawyers are and tell ‘em I want a deal. And I want it fast. And while you’re at it, go fuck yourself.”