The Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 7-9

by Jonas Saul

  Death turned to his men who stood waiting on the side. “Have you got the blow torch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring it here. Fire it up. As I cut, seal the wound with the flame. I want him alive as long as we can.”

  Juan screamed.

  “The rest of you,” Death gestured at the other men who had been drinking at the party. “Take his girlfriend and have your fun until she’s dead. Do not bring her back in here breathing. Now go.”

  One of them walked over and dragged her out of the room by her arm.

  The blow torch started.

  Death approached Juan and set the blade between Juan’s legs.

  “When someone is disloyal to AOV, he is killed in the most vile way possible. Enjoy your punishment.”

  He pulled Juan’s scrotum down as far as he could and then cut along the base with the blade.

  “Burn him,” he shouted over Juan’s screams.

  Juan’s girlfriend woke up in the other room. Her screams matched Juan’s. Then Juan threw up and passed out with the pain.

  “Wake him up!” he shouted.

  Then Death smiled.

  Chapter 32

  The dash clock said they had twenty minutes left of leap day. Sarah was still getting familiar with the streets of Toronto, but by following street signs, she guessed they were only a few blocks from the warehouse address Vivian had given her.

  “Where’s Lyson meeting me?” she asked.

  “He requested a meet in a warehouse on Keele Street.”

  “Why not at the police station?”

  “While you were away, Lyson received another letter from the sick fuck who has been killing women every four years.”

  “What did it say?”

  “That he wanted to meet you and Lyson at the warehouse, alone, or he wouldn’t show up. Lyson assumes that means he would disappear forever.”

  “So we’re going to meet this killer?” Sarah asked.

  Bruce nodded. He slowed the vehicle and turned a corner. It was a dark street without even one parked car. They eased along until Bruce turned into the empty parking lot of a deserted warehouse.

  “This is it,” Bruce said. He pointed at the dash clock. “Lyson should be here any minute. You ready?”

  “I have no idea what I’m supposed to be ready for, so yeah, I guess I am.”

  She couldn’t allow him to detonate the bombs in the backseat, or she would die as would Lyson and anyone else he brought with him.

  The problem was, she had no idea how the bombs were to be detonated.

  “How long have you worked with the police department?” she asked.

  “Better part of thirty years.”

  “Wow, long time.”

  “As the medical examiner,” he added.

  “A medical examiner who invades an Angels of Violence clubhouse?”

  He turned his head slowly to look at her. “You were at the crisis center. Why would you taunt your boyfriend to hurt you? You sound like a nice girl. Look what happened to you because of your mouth. When will women ever learn?”

  His outburst stunned her for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

  “This is the ultimate reset. I make things right for those that do wrong. I make two women pay every four years for the sins of their kind—”

  Sarah lunged across the seat, her fists already balled up, aiming for his face and throat. She barely got two hits in before her door was yanked open from the outside.

  Someone grabbed her ankles and pulled hard.

  She was pulled off the driver, slid along the seat and headed for the open door. She couldn’t find anything to grab onto fast enough so she twisted at the last second so her face wouldn’t smack into the ground when she exited the vehicle.

  Her twist spun her out of the person’s grip, but she still landed hard on the snow-packed parking lot.

  A car door slammed as Bruce got out on the other side.

  A moment later, he stood above her, a gun trained on her face.

  “Sarah, I’d like you to meet my sister. You remember Jennifer from the crisis center, don’t you?”

  “Get her up and bring her inside,” Jennifer said. “You can’t stay out front where the cops could pick us off. I’ll stay with the Range Rover and make sure we’re set to go.”

  Bruce grabbed Sarah’s wrist right on the spot where the manacles had been chained to her for the better part of the last week. She clenched her teeth and tried not to make any sounds.

  She got to her feet, spun around and made to jab him in the throat with her thumb, but instead had the tip of his gun hit her in the mouth, the steel rubbing her teeth and gums.

  “Don’t be stupid, Sarah. This is a suicide mission. You think I need you anymore? You’re here. I’m here. Now we wait for Lyson to show. Once he’s here, Jennifer will blow all the evidence up. She has the detonator. Don’t be stupid or she’ll blow us up early. You wouldn’t want that, now would you?”

  He pushed so hard with the weapon, that she had to crank her neck back or start eating the gun.

  He took her silence as an answer.

  “Good. Now turn around and be a good girl for once. Walk ahead of me at least three feet. Do anything else and die for your efforts.”

  Chapter 33

  Death washed the blood off his hands and forearms in the bathroom sink. Juan had screamed until he passed out again and again, but the smelling salts worked wonderfully to bring him around each time.

  Death made sure the display of violence while executing Juan was extreme and completely over the top. No more would he allow active members to think they could ever do anything close to what Juan had done. Juan had been the example, and Death felt satisfied with how things went.

  He toweled dry and stepped from the bathroom. At the end of the hall, in the other room, his men were cleaning up the leftover body parts of Juan’s girlfriend. In an hour, all evidence of them ever having been in this clubhouse would disappear in the barrel of acid in the garage. Juan and his girlfriend would never be found, and life would motor on for Death and his followers.

  There were drugs to sell, guns to move, and whores to whore out. He had an important meeting with a known associate of a cartel coming up in two weeks. If things went well, AOV’s Toronto chapter would rock and roll. They would be on the map for good, and the authorities would approach with care when dealing with them in the future.

  He walked the length of the clubhouse and stepped out into the cold night. The car idled, waiting for him, his driver warm inside.

  With one last look over his shoulder, Death walked down the shoveled path and out the large gate to the waiting vehicle.

  Once inside, his driver started off right away.

  “Have you heard from the house?” Death asked. “Are they on their way with Sarah?”

  Enrico shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “They were supposed to call.”

  The driver’s phone was on the dash. Death grabbed it and dialed the men at the house. When there was no answer, he dropped the phone on the seat beside him.

  “Hit the gas. Get me to the carpool lot. They should be answering their phone. Something’s not right.”

  “They’ll be there, they’ll be there.”

  Death looked sideways at the driver. “Why are you so sure, ese?”

  “Because they know what you had planned for Juan. No way they gonna fuck this up.”

  He leaned back in his seat and watched the scenery go by, thinking about Sarah Roberts. Too bad a girl like that wasn’t with him, running the Toronto chapter of AOV. She had shot Juan. She had brass balls and he could really use that in a woman.

  But he could never keep her. No, tonight she flew from the top of the downtown hotel. Tonight Sarah was going to find out what it was like to grow wings before she hit the ground.

  It’s that sudden stop at the end that’s a bitch.

  Chapter 34

  “Remember, you’re lucky you’re even on this ride-along,”
Lyson whispered. “I shouldn’t have allowed it knowing how close you and Sarah are.”

  “They have Sarah. Your medical examiner has a gun on her. I say we go after them.”

  Lyson eased back around the edge of the building that concealed them. “Aaron, there won’t be any cowboy stuff. We don’t operate that way. I have fifty officers, half of them the Emergency Task Force, waiting five blocks away for my call. They will take the medical examiner out of that building. Don’t worry. We’ve got him now.”

  Aaron stepped away from Lyson. He shook his head. “You’re wrong. That man has Sarah—”

  “Lower your voice,” Lyson snapped, spittle coming from his mouth.

  “You’re supposed to meet him with Sarah. We haven’t seen her for almost a week and he shows up with her. And you’re just going to send in reinforcements?” Aaron stepped farther away. “That man has no issue with killing women. Consider that Sarah is his hostage. How do you even know if Sarah still has her tongue? What if that monster tore hers out, too.” Aaron turned and watched the threesome across the street. The woman did something in the back of the Range Rover. “You think she lives when your men storm the building? We have to do something.”

  “Stand down,” Lyson said.

  His tone was low and menacing. Aaron looked over his shoulder at him.

  Lyson had his hand on the butt of his gun. “We do this the official way. This is police business. No vigilante shit tonight. I will not have my retirement ruined by this.”

  Aaron straightened up and moved closer to Lyson. “You’re right,” he whispered. “It has to be done the right way, the official way. Call in the backup then.”

  Lyson lowered his hand and reached for the radio.

  Aaron moved fast, stepping in and snapping Lyson’s weapon from his holster. Lyson’s gun was in Aaron’s belt line before Lyson could protest.

  “What the hell was that? Give me back my sidearm.”

  “Arrest me tomorrow. I’m going after Sarah.”

  “You can’t,” Lyson snapped and stepped forward.

  Aaron eased in before Lyson could react. He spun Lyson around and wrapped his arms gently on Lyson’s neck, adding just enough pressure to get Lyson asleep in less than a minute. Then he lowered him to the ground, knowing he wouldn’t freeze or even get frostbite before Aaron would be back.

  At the edge of the building, he looked across the street. The woman was alone now, still doing something in the back of the Rover.

  Sarah and the male were gone.

  He stepped out into the open, pulled Lyson’s gun from his belt and started across the parking lot, heading straight at the woman. Every minute he couldn’t see Sarah was another moment he feared the worst.

  The street had been cleared of snow, so his footfalls were silent. Snow and ice covered the parking lot to the abandoned warehouse. As soon as he stepped onto it, the woman would be able to hear him.

  Any second, she could turn around and see him in the wide open, a gun in his hand.

  He put the gun in the back of his pants, ruffled up his hair, and stepped onto the ice. He got four steps before the woman leaned out of the back of the vehicle and turned around. In the limited glow from the streetlights, it looked like she held a TV remote in her hand.

  “Stop right there,” she ordered.

  He took one more step and then stopped. They stood ten feet apart. He estimated he could make her in two large steps, then one jump.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “You don’t look like police.”

  “Police?” Aaron asked, appearing fearful at the sound of the word. “Why police? I wanted to bum a cigarette off you. I’m walking home after a long shift.”

  The woman looked both ways up the road. Her eyes lingered a moment on Keele Street.

  “You’re walking home where? This is an industrial area.”

  “Just got off work. I live on the other side of that bridge.”

  He pointed, then waited.

  She turned away to look at the train bridge.

  He lunged. One step, two steps, then he jumped, his right foot aimed at the thing in the woman’s hand.

  She caught his movement and tried to duck out of the way.

  But he had already zeroed in on the TV remote, hitting it from her hand perfectly. It flew away, landing in a small pile of fresh snow about fifteen feet from them.

  By the time he landed and turned to deal with her, she turned to run.

  He grabbed her right arm and spun her around. She pivoted on her feet and bent over from the pressure he applied on her arm. Aaron flicked her wrist up backwards, now controlling her every movement.

  She looked up at him sideways, her face strained.

  Their eyes met briefly. He hated to hit women, but this one hurt Sarah and he needed her to be quiet while he entered the warehouse.

  She opened her mouth to scream and he dropped a knee into her temple so fast that her head snapped sideways on her neck and her body dropped.

  He lifted her unconscious body over his shoulder and walked across to Lyson’s car as fast he could go with her weight.

  At the car, he set her in the backseat and then went over to Lyson. He dragged him to the car and lifted him into the driver’s seat, then yanked the cuffs off his belt. He used the cuffs to secure the woman in the backseat to the car.

  If she woke before Aaron got back or before Lyson woke, she wouldn’t be going anywhere or doing any more damage.

  Then he straightened up and looked at the warehouse across the street.

  “Here I come, Sarah. Here I come.”

  He touched the gun at the back of his pants to make sure it was still there.

  Then he ran.

  Chapter 35

  “Where are we going, asshole?” Sarah asked.

  “Name calling won’t save you.”

  “No, but it makes me feel better.”

  “The side door. It’s unlocked.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Sarah asked. “Seriously, is there a rational answer to that question in your irrational world.”

  “Because it’s over.”

  “No, I mean why do it in the first place? Those girls didn’t know you or hurt you. Or did they?”

  “I have been given a raw deal when it comes to women. Every time I have had to deal with them, I’ve had to pay a price. I hate how men get the worst out of the arrangement.”

  “That’s not always the case. Women get screwed over, too. But that’s not reason enough to hurt and kill people. Come on, surely you can see that?”

  “Yeah, sure, but it never balances out. Men always end up worse off. Just check divorce stats and see that men are left with nothing but payments while the ex-wife lives in their matrimonial home, driving their kids to practices in their car. I’m adjusting the balance bit by bit. Resetting things. Making them right. I have never cared if it’s right for someone else. I know it’s right for me.”

  They reached the side door of the warehouse. He pushed it open without resistance.

  “Get inside.”

  She did what she was told. The vast interior was lit in the dark by red exit signs and emergency lighting. When she looked back, Bruce stood close behind her.

  “So what’s this then? A suicide mission?”

  “Not really. I’m calling this the ultimate reset.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “With my sister and me dead, it will right the wrongs we’ve committed. It’s the only way.”

  “I’m not following your logic. A minute ago you sounded like you were doing the right thing, but now you’re going to die because of the wrongs you’ve committed. Sounds crazy to me.”

  He lunged forward and pushed her shoulder, making her step back.

  “Don’t call it crazy. I’m a medical examiner. I deal with dead bodies all the time. I’m not crazy. Everything I’ve ever done has been thought out and planned for a long time. This is my swan song. This is the end.” His voice created an echo in the building. “They did
n’t even know about me until I sent them a letter telling them what I had done and where the bodies were. Fucking cops had no clue.”

  “So let’s kill a few of them,” she said, the anger coming through in her voice.