Her Last Breath - Debt Collector 9 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  “Beautiful. Thank you.”

  “There’s one last thing.”

  Jack turned the computer and brought up the letter, then handed the computer back.

  He rose from his seat and started browsing the photos on the walls. Many were from when Jenna and Corey were much younger. He could hear her mother mumbling to herself as she read it. Once she was done, she closed the laptop and reached for a few tissues to wipe away the tears. Despite their disagreements, Jack didn’t want to suggest that Jenna cared for her mother more than she knew. That wasn’t for him to say. Instead, he hoped the letter she’d penned clarified, even if it was late.

  “Did Corey always want to be a church leader?” Jack asked, seeing old pictures of him dressed in heavy metal clothing and smoking cigarettes. It was a stark contrast to the way he remembered him — clean-cut, shirt and tie, polished shoes.

  She let out a snort. “My Corey? No, he was a handful when he was a youngster — a real troublemaker. Drugs mostly. My husband and I used to attend New Hope, so my kids grew up in that world. When they hit their teen years, they both rebelled. You know how kids are but the pastor, Tim Mathers, never gave up on either one of them.” She sighed. “If it wasn’t for him I don’t know where Corey would be today. He had a tendency to run around with the wrong crowd.”

  Jack nodded and smiled as he saw a photo of Jenna holding Corey’s head in a headlock. His eyes drifted from photo to photo and then, he narrowed his gaze towards a photo that looked familiar.

  Jenna’s mother must have noticed him staring as she spoke up. “That one was taken about eight years ago. It belonged to my father.”

  In the photo was a picture of Corey standing beside Jenna with his arm around her, and off to the right was Aaron Gance perched on the hood of a Mustang with a beer in hand. Behind them was the cabin. The same one he’d visited a few nights ago, the same one where Meghan and Larson were held.

  “Those goofballs used to spend the summers up there. They absolutely loved it. When my father passed away, Corey took it upon himself to look after the place.”

  Jack nodded. “You get up there much?”

  “No. I can’t bring myself to go there. Not after losing him.”

  “Did Corey spend a lot of time with Aaron?”

  “Oh yeah, back in the day they were best friends. I used to always tell him that Aaron was a bad influence on him but he would wave me off and say, ‘Oh Mom, give it a rest.’” She took a sip of her coffee. “When Corey returned to being involved in the church, he tried to get Aaron to go along but he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Corey kind of took it hard but was determined to reach him. He never gave up on him. It’s strange but even after all these years they still remained friends. At least that’s what Corey says.” She shook her head and gazed down at the newspaper. “That’s why it’s hard to believe Aaron did what the cops say he did.”

  Jack turned and nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

  “Corey will miss him.”

  “I bet he will. Where is he by the way?”

  “Corey? Oh, he left for the cabin this morning, said he had to clean the place up.”

  Jack smiled briefly. “Do you think I could use your phone?”

  Chapter 34

  Corey Whitmore stood in the ramshackle cabin, his hands clasped around a broom as he swept up the shattered glass. He grimaced, thinking that it was going to cost a small fortune to fix the two large windows, siding that was peppered by gunshots, the busted-up back door, along with the porch rocker that had been obliterated.

  Were the police going to foot the bill? Like hell they were. They didn’t even have the decency to remove the yellow taping. A black bag off to his left was crammed full of the stuff. He’d considered putting a claim into the insurance company but that would have only caused a spike in payments, and he was already paying enough.

  As for Aaron, Billy and Dale, well, they got what they deserved. Idiots.

  He stared down at the pool of dried blood. There was no way he was going to be able to get that out of the wood. It would require replacing the flooring. He gritted his teeth, his mind churning over his disgust and hatred for the police. They’d been in touch with his mother a day after the incident and told them that Aaron had broken in but withheld the details of the damage, only saying it was probably best to contact their insurance company. More idiots.

  Corey swept up the slivers of glass into the pan and disposed of it in a large cardboard box. He carefully picked it up and headed out the back. In the distance he could hear the babble of the river, he’d become attuned to its rhythm. With the box under one arm, he navigated around the tall pine and fir trees and made his way down to the water’s edge. There, in the soft soil, he emptied the box of glass into a three-foot hole he’d dug earlier, then covered it in loose soil. He removed his flip-flops after and took a moment to let the cold water cover his feet. There was something refreshing and cleansing about water. Corey closed his eyes and thought about all the news swirling around. The capture of Merle and the death of Aaron and the others had become the talk of the town as well as across the country. National media had swarmed the quiet county over the past couple of days. Fortunately, details about the cabin where the men were shot had been left out for privacy reasons. He was pleased, as the last thing he needed was the place getting any more attention than it already had. Rumors, gossip and innuendos had begun swirling and as usual, people took it as the gospel truth. Him? He was just glad it was over.

  He leaned his head from side to side to work out the tension in his neck before heading back. Turning away from the river, he scanned the forest; it was quiet, almost too quiet. Once the cabin was clean, he would step away from his ministry for a week or two. He needed time to reset. Think things through. He threaded his way back to the cabin with his mind deeply troubled. While events had unfolded the way he’d expected, it hadn’t come without a price. One that he wished he could change. But he couldn’t. What was done was done.

  With his mind occupied as he entered the back door, he didn’t notice the truck parked out front. Corey headed back into the living area and gazed down at the stain. Though certain it wouldn’t come out, he would at least try to remove it. He ventured into the kitchen and dug out a large bucket from the cupboard to fill with hot water. Next, he rooted under the sink for some bleach and a bristle scrubber.

  When he returned, he got on his hands and knees and started scrubbing. It didn’t matter how much elbow grease he put into it, the darn thing wouldn’t budge.

  “Some stains are permanent.”

  A voice behind him startled him. Corey turned, feeling his heart pound. He broke into a smile when he saw him.

  “Jack, holy cow, you ever think of knocking?”

  “The door was open. You always leave it unlocked?”

  He smiled but upon studying his expression he could tell Jack was asking a serious question.

  “No, it’s always locked.”

  “Funny,” Jack said rising from a seat in the corner of the room. He was almost hidden by the shadows. “Officer Larson said the place was locked the night he showed up here. Meghan, now she can’t recall much from the night she was taken, as her eyes were covered but she did have a faint memory of arriving here. She heard a door unlock when she was carried in, but she never heard it unlock when Aaron showed up. Which is strange since the police reported that he broke in.”

  Corey made a face and shrugged. “Not sure what you’re getting at.” He quickly changed the subject to try to break the tension. “Anyway, are you staying for the funeral?”

  “Jenna?”

  “That’s right.”

  “No, unfortunately I have to leave today but I just had one more thing to do before I left.”

  He shrugged and a nervous smile danced on his lips. Before Jack said anything Corey pointed at the windows. “A lot of work to be done here. It’s going to take a while to get this place back together,” he muttered.

  “I didn’t know yo
ur grandfather owned this place.”

  “Yeah, it’s been in the family for years.”

  He nodded slowly, his eyes never left him, making him feel even more nervous. Jack turned ever so slightly looking towards the windows. That’s when Corey noticed the Glock sticking out of his waistband behind his back.

  “Did you love your sister, Corey?” Jack asked without even looking at him.

  Corey frowned. “Of course.”

  “Yeah, you look real torn up.”

  Corey clenched his jaw. “We each deal with grief in our own way.”

  Jack glanced over his shoulder and offered a smile. “That we do.”

  Corey tapped his fingers against his leg while Jack lit a cigarette.

  “So… why are you here, Jack?”

  “Came to see you. Your mother said you were here.”

  “Really? Well you can tell her that I’m fine. She worries too much.”

  “Yeah, she said you were a real troublemaker when you were younger.” Jack walked around with no particular purpose, his eyes drifting around the room. “Said you used to hang out with Aaron.”

  Corey felt a lump in his throat. “Did she?”

  “There was a photo on the wall of you and him.” Jack turned as if waiting for him to acknowledge it.

  “Oh, yeah, that. That was some time ago.”

  Jack reached around and pulled his handgun and placed it on the table. “Oh, that feels better.” He put a hand on his lower back and stretched out. “Have you spoken to the police yet?” Jack asked

  “Not yet,” Corey replied.

  “I bet you’re glad they caught them, right?”

  “Of course. Yeah, those bastards deserved what they got.”

  “You see there is one thing that’s been niggling me about this case though. Two actually.”

  “Really?” Corey remained poised, his breathing speeding up ever so slightly.

  “You see, I spoke with Officer Larson today and he told me that all the women that were found in Watoga State Park were raped, stabbed and buried in shallow graves, barring one.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, you see, this is what I don’t get. The Green Bank Five weren’t raped, nor were they stabbed. All of them were found with a large quantity of narcotics in their system, all of them were placed in water.”

  “And?”

  “Jenna wasn’t stabbed or raped and her body had a large quantity of narcotics in her system. Essentially, by all accounts, she died of an overdose… seemingly displaying all the outward indications that whoever killed the Green Bank Five, killed her… And yet she wasn’t placed in water.”

  “She was buried.”

  Jack frowned. “How would you know that?”

  Corey cleared his throat and shrugged. “It was in the paper.”

  “No, I read it today. There was no mention of it.”

  Corey chewed on the inside of his lip then tapped the air with his finger. “Oh, that’s right, I read it online. I think it was one of the media outlets from outside of town.”

  “Ah,” Jack said, as a faint smile lit up his face. “Then there was one other thing that bothered me.” Jack shifted his weight from one foot to the next and ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “The night Jenna went missing, Meghan took her to meet a client, a client that cancelled at the last minute and a client who was located here. Yeah, Meghan said she was acting all strange after that. Jenna dropped her off in Marlinton and appeared to be heading back out of town, possibly towards here?”

  Jack looked across to him. Corey’s head shook ever so slightly. He could feel himself becoming overheated. “Look, I’d prefer not to speak about this. With my sister gone and all, it’s very upsetting.”

  He cast his eyes down at the ground and rolled the scrubbing brush around in his hands.

  “Sure. You got a drink, Corey?”

  “What?”

  “A drink. A beer? Water?”

  Corey’s eyes darted across to the gun on the table and then back to him. “Yeah.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Give me a second, it’s in the fridge.”

  Jack put up a hand, pursed his lips together. “Oh, don’t worry, you’ve got your hands full there. I’ll get it.”

  Corey leaned against the broom and smiled ever so slightly as Jack passed by him.

  Jack wandered out of the room into the kitchen and retrieved a cold Budweiser from the mini-fridge. He took his time, cracked the top off using the counter and downed some before heading back towards the living area. As he rounded the corner, the first thing he noticed was the broom on the ground. To the right of that was Corey standing there holding Jack’s gun with both hands. He was shaking ever so slightly.

  “See, you just had to go stick your nose in, didn’t you? Just like Jenna. Couldn’t let up.”

  Jack took a swig of his drink. “She knew it was you, didn’t she, Corey? That night when she arrived here, she came back, didn’t she?”

  “I tried to tell her. But she wouldn’t listen. She just wouldn’t listen.”

  “That was you at the pay phone, wasn’t it?”

  “She was going to tell. I had to do something.”

  “Like you had to do something with the Green Bank Five?”

  “That was different. Those… they were whores.” He spat through gritted teeth.

  “That’s why you didn’t rape them, isn’t it?”

  He was seething, changing in front of him. Like a caterpillar might break out of its cocoon, except what lay below the surface was something much more unpleasant.

  “Rape? I freed those women. Gave them what they wanted. Freedom.”

  “Three days. The water. What was it, Corey, some kind of religious rebirth?”

  He jabbed the gun while a smile broke on his face. “See. You understood it. The media. They didn’t get it. I wanted them to, but they didn’t get it.”

  “But Jenna did, didn’t she? She was getting close, that’s why you made the phone calls and sent the threatening letter to her.”

  His eyes went all over the place, a mixture of confusion, regret and utter dismay.

  “I tried to warn her. I didn’t want to hurt her.”

  “No, you didn’t. That’s why you injected her with narcotics and buried her out there in Watago. You knew Larson was narrowing in on Aaron. It was only a matter of time until they unearthed those bodies that he was responsible for, and this way, he would get tied to Jenna’s death and the other five, wouldn’t he?”

  Corey sneered, shooting him a look of disgust. “Get on the fucking ground. Now!”

  Jack chugged down the remainder of his beer and dropped down to his knees; he set the bottle off to one side.

  “If you had just left it alone, the killings would have stopped.”

  Jack scoffed. “Really? You were going to stop? Tell me, Corey, who pushed you over the edge? Was it because you knew your old friend Aaron was killing them? Did you do the same so you could show him that God accepted him, just as he accepted you? An attempt at reaching him? Was that it?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Or was it Pastor Mathers? Did you see him cheating on his wife and assumed you could do the same? Except you couldn’t do it, so you killed them instead?”

  “Shut up,” he said getting louder.

  “Or let me guess… the devil made you do it!”

  “I said… shut…” As he spat the words he lunged forward and squeezed the trigger. It clicked but nothing happened. He pressed it again, then again before staring at it. His eyes widened. In an instant, Jack grabbed the bottle of beer, smashed it against the side of the wall and lunged at him. Corey stumbled back and Jack fell on top of him pushing the shattered glass against the side of his throat.

  “Do it. Do it!” Corey cried out.

  Tears welled up in his eyes, streaking out and slipping down the side of his temples. Jack stared at him, contemplating ending his life. If he were dead, he wouldn’t lose sleep over it. After all the misery he had cau
sed others it seemed like a fitting way for him to die. But it would have been too easy.

  “They weren’t whores. They were sisters, wives, daughters, mothers and friends,” Jack said. “You’re a pathetic excuse for a man. I’m not going to kill you. No. Your mother has suffered enough, and you haven’t suffered at all.”

  Jack tossed the bottle away, it rattled across the floor.

  It had been less than twenty-four hours since Larson had been released from the hospital. He was now at home sipping on iced tea through a straw and watching a ballgame on TV while Kerry fed the baby across from him. His face looked like he’d been through five rounds with a professional cage fighter, even though the doctor said he was on the mend.

  Since getting out he’d been put on a soft food diet because of his injuries. He’d suffered multiple lacerations to the face, a broken eye socket, broken nose and multiple broken teeth but had narrowly avoided a broken jaw. It was going to take some time to heal but with all the media attention the town was getting, he was happy to step out of the limelight for a while.

  The phone rang, he groaned as he went to get up but Kerry told him to stay put. He didn’t argue as he’d already received an earful from her after she saw him in the hospital. He fully expected her to say, I told you so, but she didn’t. That wasn’t her way. That’s why he loved her. No matter what he went through she’d been there by his side, supporting him. Reality was she was just pleased that he was alive and finally taking some well-deserved time off.

  She stepped back into the room holding the phone out for him.

  “It’s for you. It’s Ethan.”

  He gave a nod, put his drink on the side table and took the phone out of her hand. He watched Kerry sit back down and dangle a toy in front of the baby. She cooed, and he smiled.

  “Hey, you old dog, you sitting down?”

  “Would I be doing anything else? She won’t let me stand even if I wanted to.” He smiled at Kerry and she screwed up her nose and wagged her finger. “I keep telling her it’s not my legs that are damaged. Anyway, please tell me this isn’t a call to cover a shift as I’m not coming in.”