by T. R. Ragan
Finished searching through the drawers, he walked across the warped wooden planks. Each step left a footprint in a fine layer of dirt. Thin, dirty mattresses covered the bunk beds. No blankets or pillows. A neat stack of wood was piled high against the wall next to the wood-burning stove. He went that way and got a whiff of stale burned wood when he kneeled down to take a look inside the stove. His eyes grew wide at the sight of a small-handled ax leaning against the stone section of wall behind the stove. He picked up the ax and examined it closer. The blade was still fairly sharp.
He didn’t like the idea of starting a fire and possibly alerting the men who had shot Sean. But after dark came, he would need to warm the place up for Joey’s sake. If they came, he’d use the ax on them if he had to.
The long, eerie howl of a coyote made him pick up his pace. He needed to hurry back to the creek where he’d left Joey and drag him up the hill. He went to the kitchen and grabbed the tin pot from the sink. After he hauled Joey back to the cabin, he’d return to the stream and gather water to make bean soup.
Through the window he saw darks clouds moving this way. He went to the door and opened it wide. A gust of cold air smacked him in the face.
That wasn’t a coyote after all. It was the wind. The trees looked as if they were sword fighting, their branches whipping back and forth.
Darkness was coming fast. He’d been inside the cabin longer than he thought. With his gaze fixed on the path he’d taken, he ran as fast as he could, hoping it wasn’t too late and Joey was still alive.
NINE
Aster Williams parked at the back of the building. He’d found a new place in Sacramento to do business—a warehouse off Riverside Boulevard. There was too much crime in the area for the police to stay ahead of the game. If an officer found himself on this particular road, mostly he tended to take a bribe in the form of drugs or cash, or he simply looked the other way.
Although Aster occasionally used his home in El Dorado Hills to do business, he preferred not to. He had a wife and kids. No reason to bring his work home when he owned a half-dozen buildings in the region. As the youngest child born to a handyman and a mother who never worked a day in her life, he’d learned early on how to work the streets to make a few bucks. He worked from the bottom up, and he’d worked hard to get where he was today.
Much too hard to see everything ruined by a fucking schoolteacher with a big mouth. It was bad enough Faith McMann had survived. But that wasn’t good enough for the bitch. She’d gone out of her way to make a spectacle of herself. A fucking fourth grade teacher gathering arms and going after his men. The notion left a bitter taste in his mouth.
She needed to be taught a lesson, made an example of.
Women were put on this earth to serve men. Nothing more. Nothing less.
His dad and his uncles had taught him at a young age that all women—young, old, black, white, or yellow—were not to be seen or heard. Every time his mother tried to stand up to his dad or Aster’s older brothers, she’d get the shit kicked out of her. It got to the point where he couldn’t wait for her to open her big, blubbery mouth just so he could see her get her teeth kicked in.
By the age of twelve, Aster could hardly look at his mother without feeling sick to his stomach, which was why he’d strategically placed one of his brother’s tiny race cars along with a few drops of vegetable oil on the stairs leading down to the basement. He’d then hidden in his room for an hour waiting for good ol’ Mom to get the laundry.
And then crash, bang, boom!
Down she’d gone. Thunk, thunk, thunk each time her head hit another step.
When he’d checked on her, saw her twisted body lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, he’d thought for sure she’d broken her neck, so he left her where she was. His mom hadn’t known he was home. His brothers had gone to a friend’s house after school that day. As soon as the school bell rang, Aster had raced home, climbed the old oak tree, and snuck in through his brother’s bedroom window.
After she’d fallen down the stairs as planned, he’d grabbed the toy car and cleaned up the oil as best he could. Then he watched TV until he heard Dad’s car pull into the driveway.
Nobody had been more shocked than he was to find out his mother had survived the fall. To this day, though, he didn’t understand why his father had made him and his brothers go to the hospital every day to watch over her.
What was the point? Up until then, Dad spent every moment either berating her or slapping her. So why ruin a perfectly good weekend watching over the vegetable?
Dad died of a heart attack a few months later, and Aster and his brothers had been divided among the uncles. He got stuck with the meanest of the bunch. Turned out his uncle had a fondness for leather belts. He had a collection of them. He’d used them often—mostly on Aster. Six months after burying his dad, they buried his uncle, too. Everyone, including the doctors, figured he’d had a weak heart like his brother. Only Aster knew the truth: a little hydrofluoric acid goes a long way.
And the irony of it all was that Mom was still alive, and he was the one who saw to her every need. Go figure.
Women. The bane of his existence. Aster had never planned to marry, but he’d wanted kids of his own. Unlike his mother, his wife caught on quickly. For the most part, she knew her place.
But Faith McMann was another story—the bitch couldn’t just stay home and comfort her elderly parents and let the cops do their jobs. No, she had to throw herself into the limelight. And for that she would pay.
He straightened his tie as he strolled across the parking lot. On the street corner he spotted a couple of losers selling drugs. His phone vibrated before he could shoo them away. He picked up the call.
“The farmhouse is being watched,” the caller said. “Dark sedan. Feds. Thought you might want to know.”
“Keep me updated.” Aster disconnected the call as he came around the other side of the warehouse.
The steel rollup door at the loading dock was open. His number one man, Patrick, met him at the entrance. “What’s with the hair?” Aster asked with a laugh.
Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Is that gel?”
The kid’s jaw tightened. It was easy to push his buttons. Patrick had been with him for a few years now. He was thirty-five, just a kid as far as Aster was concerned. He wore expensive suits and always stank of cologne. Everything about him was a little too perfect. Funny that the kid’s appearance never bothered him one way or another before now.
They walked side by side through the wide-open space. Every footfall smacked against the cement floor as they headed for a small, semidark room in the back. The steel door clanged shut behind him.
Six men of various heights and sizes stood with their backs to the wall, their hands clasped in front of them as they waited for his arrival.
“Where are the table and the chairs?” he asked Patrick. “I thought you were going to have the place fixed up.”
“Jimmy’s working on it,” Patrick said.
Aster watched the kid snap his fingers and signal for one of the boys to get him a chair. Judging by the way the men jumped to do his bidding, he realized Patrick had been pushing his weight around to gain some clout. He admired the kid’s gumption. There was something about Patrick that reminded Aster of himself when he was that age. And that worried him.
“Fucking incompetence,” Aster said as he took a good long look at each man in the room, ignoring the chair that had been placed behind him. “Are you all fucking idiots?”
Nobody moved. Not one muscle twitched.
“I’ve already questioned them,” Patrick said. “There seems to have been a miscommunication.”
“A miscommunication?” Aster scowled. “By who exactly? What part of ‘keep your fucking eyes on Diane Weaver and follow her after she’s released’ didn’t make sense?”
One of the men stepped forward and said, “My name is Curtis. Nobody told me she was being held in a dif
ferent facility due to injuries sustained in prison. I was told to park at the back gate where prisoners are released. Following the instructions I was given, I sat in my car from sunup until sundown, but she never showed.”
Curtis looked and sounded as if he’d graduated from some ritzy-ass college. Who the fuck was this guy? Aster pulled a pack of gum from his pocket, retrieved a single stick, unwrapped the silver foil, and popped the gum into his mouth. After a moment, he said, “It cost me a hundred thousand dollars to post bail, and yet nobody knows where she is?”
Silence.
Aster looked from Curtis to Patrick. “Is this the guy you put in charge of keeping an eye on Diane Weaver?”
Patrick nodded.
“I did exactly what I was told to do,” Curtis said, his voice suddenly squeaking like a mouse. “Nobody told me she was being looked after at another facility.”
“Whose job was it to figure out the nitty-gritty details?” Aster asked Patrick.
Patrick scratched the back of his neck but said nothing.
“Where’s your gun?”
Despite his look of confusion, Patrick pulled his 9mm from his waistband.
Aster removed a latex glove from his inside jacket pocket and took his time slipping it on his right hand. Then he held out his gloved hand toward Patrick and wriggled his fingers.
Patrick handed over his gun, his nostrils flaring as Aster placed the barrel up against the side of his head.
“Should I shoot you or Curtis? It’s your call.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Curtis said. “I followed the instructions given me. I did exactly as I was told and never—”
“Curtis,” Patrick said.
Aster pivoted on his heels, turned the gun on Curtis, and fired three shots into the man’s chest before he could say another word.
Aster handed the gun to Patrick, removed the glove, and shoved it back into his pocket. “Let this be a lesson to you all. Do your fucking job, and do it right the first time.” He looked at Patrick and said, “Walk with me.”
Before they reached the docking bay, Aster put a beefy arm around Patrick’s neck. “I’m worried about you.”
“Why is that?”
“I think maybe you’re getting too big for your britches.”
The kid’s jaw hardened just like before.
“No more second chances—do you hear me?”
Patrick nodded, his face turning red as Aster squeezed.
“Find those McMann kids and bring them to me,” Aster ground out. “I’m running out of patience.” He tightened his hold on Patrick’s neck until the kid began to turn a light shade of blue, then he let go, watched him fall to his knees, and walked away.
TEN
Diane Weaver bolted upright. She looked around, her eyes wide, her teeth chattering. It took her a moment to remember she’d fallen asleep on a bench in the middle of the park. After she’d been let out of prison, she’d been surprised when she realized no one had followed her. Having nowhere to go, she’d asked the driver to take her to Curtis Park in Midtown. There was a house on Sixth Avenue that belonged to the mother of an old friend—a stripper who had brought her home years ago. But she’d spent most of the day yesterday knocking on doors, and no one had ever heard of Laurie Carrico.
She pushed herself up from the bench and then took a moment to find her bearings. Every bone in her body ached from all the beatings she’d taken lately. She had the king of all headaches, her mouth felt as if it were full of marbles, and her stomach grumbled from hunger.
Back on Second Street, she got halfway down the block before a car pulled to a stop next to her. She recognized the driver as one of the people she’d talked to recently.
“Hello,” the woman said. “You knocked on my door yesterday asking about Laurie Carrico. It turns out my husband knew exactly who you were talking about. Laurie has long since moved away, but her mom lives on Eighth Avenue, not Sixth.”
The woman sped off before Diane could ask her for a ride or a dollar to get a cup of coffee.
It took her ten minutes to get to Eighth Avenue, but the good news was she recognized the house right away. She knocked on the door of the small bungalow and waited.
Before she knocked a second time, she heard someone working his or her way to the door, so she held off.
The door creaked open. It was Laurie’s mother all right. The old hag had aged.
“Hi there,” Diane said. “Your daughter, Laurie, sent me to check on you.”
“Sort of early, don’t you think?”
“Nah. Mind if I come in?” Diane didn’t wait for permission. She stepped inside and headed for the main room. All the curtains were shut, making it hard to see anything. She pushed open the curtains and let some light in. She looked around and then sighed. The place was a dump. Nothing of any value decorated the walls or the tables. She headed for the kitchen next, and the woman followed her.
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
“My name’s Diane. Surely you remember me! I stayed here with your daughter for months. I made all the meals and kept the place clean.”
The woman shuffled her feet as she walked across the linoleum. When she reached for the phone, Diane panicked. Her gaze settled on the butcher knife sticking out of the knife block on the counter. “Who are you calling?” she asked.
“My daughter. I don’t appreciate you barging in like this. I need to check with her and make sure you’re telling the truth about her sending you here.”
“Listen, I don’t have much time,” Diane blurted out. “I just wanted to offer you money for that old station wagon you used to keep in your garage. Maybe you don’t even have it any longer, but I thought I’d just come by and check with you.” She held up her hands as if she were surrendering. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
The woman put the phone down. “How much were you thinking of offering?”
“Two thousand dollars,” Diane said.
“Make it three thousand dollars in cash, and the car is all yours.”
“Well, I don’t have cash, but I’ll write you a check, which is practically the same thing. I have three times that much in my bank account, but I need to make it last. And you can cash it as soon as the bank opens.”
Silence stretched between them as the woman thought about it.
Diane remembered the bronzed Buddha she’d seen sitting on the table in the living room. She didn’t want to kill the old bat, but if her hand was forced, she’d knock her over the head with the figurine on her way out, then take the car anyhow.
“Write the check, and you have yourself a deal.”
Diane smiled. Smart move.
Fifteen minutes later, she was driving the musty old car onto the highway. Diane had nothing but the clothes on her back, but she didn’t dare return to the farmhouse for anything. Too risky. She needed to get to her brother’s place before Aster figured out what she was up to. The warden wouldn’t tell her who had posted her bail, but she wasn’t born yesterday. Aster Williams was responsible for her release. He was the only one she knew with enough money and the motive to set her free. If she’d believed for one minute that Aster would allow her to hand over the McMann girl and then go on her merry way, she might have used the old lady’s phone and called him already.
But she knew Aster better than most.
He was not a trusting or forgiving man.
And despite what the two prison bitches had told her, she knew Aster didn’t give a rat’s ass about her or anyone else. He knew exactly what she was up to. More than likely, he also knew she meant to find a buyer for the McMann girl and take the money for herself. He had a sixth sense about those sorts of things.
Aster had a big house, a well-trained, pretty wife, two kids, and all the finely tailored suits he could possibly want. He didn’t need the girl any more than he needed another luxury car. But Aster was all about principles and teaching people lessons.
He would come after Diane just as she knew he would
go after Faith McMann and her team of misfits. Every woman in his life needed to know her place, or else.
His mother was a good example of his cruelty.
Diane had gone with him once when he’d visited the old broad in one of those ritzy homes for the elderly. He’d told Diane to wait in the car, but she’d grown bored. And besides, she’d been curious, wanted to see what he and his mother talked about when he came to visit. She’d snuck inside, made her way down the hall, and peeked inside, shocked to see him pinching and poking his mom’s fleshy skin and then flicking her in the head with his fingers every time she whimpered. Horrified, she’d rushed back to the car. Praying Aster hadn’t seen her, she’d sat quietly, pale and unmoving, until he returned twenty minutes later looking quite satisfied, if not downright happy. She’d seen him kick a dog out of his way before, but witnessing him torturing his elderly mother had frightened her in a way that nothing else did. She never asked him about his mother again.
Never told anyone what she’d seen.
Never would.
Keeping her eyes on the road, Diane hoped a quarter tank of gas would get her to Lodi. Her brother Eric and his wife lived in a mobile home off Rio Vista Drive. Eric was the youngest of her eight brothers. He’d been a decent brother, if not a little slow.
She pressed her foot a little harder on the gas pedal, but whenever she tried to go much more than fifty miles per hour, the underbelly of the car rattled. Staying at a steady forty-five, she ignored the honks and dirty looks she got along the way. When she took exit 267A, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Diane turned on to Rio Vista and then entered the mobile park. Her brother’s place was at the very end, which was sort of nice because his tiny home actually had a view of a woodsy area. When she used to visit, she and her brother would sit out back and enjoy a cold beer and watch the deer mosey on by.
She got out of the car and stretched her arms over her head. Just that small movement caused her pain. The bruises on her arms were turning a dark purple. She leaned over and took a peek in the side mirror. It was hard to believe she was looking at the girl who’d won her first beauty pageant in elementary school. She frowned. Her face would never be the same.