by Julia Kent
The two men entered the small space where Deborah and I were tied. The giant man’s face was expressionless but more calming than Dimitri’s eerie grin.
“Let the girl go, you don’t need her,” I said knowing they only wanted me and hoping to get Deborah to safety.
“William Hargrove King, the third,” Dimitri said slowly as he stepped directly in front of me. “You are correct. We don’t want her. But we don’t even want you. Make this easy, tell us where your father is and then you can both walk out of here.”
“My father? If you’re asking where he is then you’re even dumber than I thought. He’s dead.”
“Wrong,” he said, as a strong hand struck my cheek.
The force of his hand was enough to move our chairs back. As my cheek stung then burned, I glared at him.
His eyes narrowed intensely as he looked down at me. “I don’t have time to play around, William. Again, where is your father?”
“In a fucking cemetery. Where he’s been most of my life.”
I didn’t know what happened. In an instant I felt pain quickly spread across my face and down my neck. He must’ve punched me but his fist flew so fast I didn’t see it. The chair held me so tight, the force of his knuckles jerked my head back and into Deborah’s as the chairs jerked back. If our chairs hadn’t been connected, Dimitri’s punch would have knocked me over.
“I don’t have patience for this. I’m only asking you one more time before I get the poker. Trust me, you don’t want that. Where is your father?”
Meeting his stare as the blood trickled from my nose, I could see he wanted an answer I wasn’t able to give. I didn’t know how to convince him of my father’s death. Did this asshole really think he was alive?
“He’s in the St. James Cemetery. With my mother,” I said through clenched teeth. “Now let us go!”
My voice echoed throughout the room. Dimitri’s goon cracked a smile before walking out of the room.
“That’s what he wants people to think but I know better. He’s still active. I’ve recognized his work. He stole from the wrong man.”
“What are you talking about? He was murdered. I saw him die!” I yelled angrily.
“A man like that doesn’t die so easily. I know the kind of man your father is. He wouldn’t leave his son orphaned and ignorant,” he said as he paced in front of me.
Carefully carrying a rusted iron fire poker, it’s pointed tip glowing red from the heat, Dimitri’s goon almost looked giddy. I still had no idea who these men were or why they kept asking for my dead father, but it was clear they meant business.
“Maybe this will jog your memory,” Dimitri said as he took the hot poker from his assistant and admired its red tip.
Deborah sobbed from behind and I was glad she couldn’t see what was going on. I thought back to that fateful night of my parents’ murder and realized not seeing might be worse. I wanted to comfort her.
“Everything will be ok,” I whispered.
Squeezing her hand the best I could I felt her squeeze back just before Dimitri swung the tip of the hot poker into my shoulder.
A searing pain shot through my arm and into my neck, forcing me to let go of Deborah’s hand. Clenching my teeth I growled in agony. The smell of burning cotton and flesh filled the air.
I felt heat of my blood ooze out of the wound as my sleeve became soaked and stuck against my skin. Deborah twisted in her seat trying to see what happened.
“Fuck you!” I said between clenched teeth before lowering my voice. “I’m ok, Deborah. It’s just…my shoulder…a fireplace poker…”
The room swayed between the pain in my shoulder and the throbbing still in my head. The light went out as a gust of wind entered the room, leaving us in total darkness. I squeezed Deborah’s hand reassuringly although I didn’t know what was going on.
“Everything will be ok,” I whispered.
The sounds of confused men echoed against the stone walls from the other room. As I tried to force my eyes to adjust, the only thing I could see was a thin line of light seeping through a boarded up window I hadn’t noticed before.
“Stay put.”
The commanding male voice was familiar. I straightened, frozen as my mind tried to make sense of it. All my pain replaced by confusion.
“It can’t be,” I whispered.
“Who?” Deborah asked, her voice hoarse.
I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. I had to be wrong. I hadn’t heard that voice in twenty-five years.
The clank of the fire poker hitting the floor filled the room, followed by the smell of iron I recognized as blood. Shouts came from the other room but were quickly silenced. I thought I heard the unmistakeable heavy boots of the large man running but then nothing. Only deafening silence.
The dangling light bulb switched on, momentarily blinding me as it swung back and forth. Once my eyes adjusted, I spotted Dimitri laying face down on the floor, the poker sticking through his chest, propping him up slightly off the floor as he laid in a black pool of his own blood.
Just beyond him was his giant assistant, sprawled out on the floor like a mountain. That was enough for me. I turned as much as I could to check on Deborah and realized the rope around us had been loosened.
Quickly slipping out of our ties we clutched at each other, glad to be free. Deborah pushed away and gently touched my wounded shoulder, making me wince.
“It’ll be fine, let’s just get out of here,” I said as I looked around, unsure which way to go.
“This way,” Stewart said from the doorway, as he wiped his hands, his forceful voice surprising me.
Grabbing Deborah’s hand, I could tell she wasn’t steady on her feet. I slipped my arm underneath hers and helped her towards Stewart into the adjoining room. We stepped over several men dressed similar to our kidnappers earlier with their dark tshirts and bald heads. I recognized Stewart’s work in there from the last attempt on my life. But who was in the room with us?
Without a word we followed Stewart outside where a car waited, its engine already running. He opened the back door and I helped Deborah inside. The fresh air seemed to help the affects of the drug and she smiled softly at me.
I held her, my arms wrapped around her soft comforting body, her head against my uninjured shoulder, as Stewart drove. It wasn’t long before I realized he was heading towards the ruins of the monastery and not Paris.
“Stewart? Why are we going back to the monastery?”
“There’s unfinished business.”
I didn’t question him. Stewart saved my life countless times. He raised me. There was no reason to question him. He wouldn’t answer anyway.
As he parked the car beside my roadster, I was glad to be back. The place made me feel close to my mother again and filled me with warmth.
With Stewart following, Deborah and I walked along the abbey marveling once again at the enormity of the structure as we tried forgetting what we had just been through.
“Your mother really loved this place more than any other,” said the voice from the darkened room.
Bracing myself for the only possibility, I turned around. He stood beside Stewart, shorter than I remembered and with more grey in his hair, but it was unmistakeable. The man was my father.
“I haven’t been back here since she passed,” he said sounding a little sad as he looked back at the abbey. “I always suspected Dimitri watched this place. Although that wasn’t what kept me away.”
“How?” I asked, stunned. “How are you still alive? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“You couldn’t know. Only Stewart knew and he was sworn to secrecy. I had to protect you from the men who were after me. Those men you met today.”
“Protect me?! You’re the reason I’ve lived in danger all these years.” I yelled.
All the pain and anger from losing my parents so young came back. It was never very deep. Here was the man I idolized as a child, half of the world I lost all those years ago, back from the grave
and I couldn’t help but wish he was still dead.
“She died because of you,” I accused him. “I’ve blamed some stupid drunk all these years, but it really was because of you, wasn’t it?”
“You’re right, I should have known better. I was trained to know better. I got sloppy. I thought I was indestructible. I became too cocky and didn’t realize the danger I put my family in.”
“That’s your excuse? You got sloppy? Fuck you Dad! This isn’t just some mess, this was our life. I was a child! My parents were killed in front of me. Didn’t you think about how that would affect me? And then you left Stewart to raise me instead of doing it yourself.”
“Stewart’s better than me,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t stay with you. I had to leave. Then they were after me. Stewart is smarter, quicker, more lethal than I ever was. You were safer with him.”
“Bill, you owe Will an explanation. He deserves to know what happened,” Stewart said. “Tell him the truth.”
Everything I had seen of Stewart throughout the years suddenly clicked. All my suspicions about him, the things I thought were too absurd to be true, were confirmed. Stewart wasn’t just a driver. He was a trained killer.
“You left your child in the hands of a killer,” I said bitterly.
“You were safe! I did what I had to do. I never expected what happened that night to happen. That drunk—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupted.
I couldn’t imagine telling him how much it hurt to see him. How his standing there, and my knowing he had been well for so many years, made the loss of my mother that much more of a tragedy and I felt like I was losing her all over again.
Looking at Stewart I realized how important to my life he really was. He had no obligation to stay with me, yet he did. It was more than I could say for my own father.
I had no more words. I couldn’t look at the man, my father anymore. I had to leave. Looking down at Deborah still in my arms, I slowly let go.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her before storming off towards my car.
“Will, wait!” My father called after me, but I didn’t care. He had been dead for the past twenty-five years, he could stay dead.
“Will!” Deborah cried out.
I felt bad leaving her, but I had to get out of there. I needed to get away from all the memories that haunted me for so many years. Stewart would take care of her. She was better off without me anyway.
Speeding back to Paris I called and made a plane reservation, something I had never done before. I didn’t want to be William Hargrove King, III in his private jet. I wanted to be as anonymous as possible. Besides, Stewart and Deborah needed the jet more than I did.
As I sat at the airport waiting for the plane to board, I spotted several small families similar to my own as a child. Tragedy in any form has an amazing way of changing the world for a person. I once was that innocent child and in a flash became something else.
The words I once considered to be my father’s last rang through my head. No regrets. Such simple yet powerful words. But thinking about my father brought all my anger back, this time mixed with the pain of loss.
Even without the events with my father, this trip with Deborah had proven to be more complicated than I planned. Things were simpler before when I was alone.
Chapter Seventeen
Deborah
“Will!” I cried out as he left.
Still not feeling like myself I couldn’t run after him. He didn’t want to be chased anyway. My head swam as I tried to understand everything that happened. It felt like I was in a bad dream.
Will’s father was expressionless. I couldn’t understand how he could be so cold. He hadn’t seen his son in all this time and all he had for him were excuses. I looked at the older version of Will standing before me and wondered why he hadn’t left yet.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded as I glared at him. “That’s your son! I don’t understand everything that happened, but I don’t see how any parent could just let their child walk away like that. How can you let him leave? You’re abandoning him again!”
“You couldn’t begin to understand,” he said.
“Why don’t you try me?”
I challenged his gaze as he stood quietly. He paced the grounds looking like he had something to say. As I waited, he looked over at Stewart who nodded.
“On one condition,” Bill said. “You have to promise to tell Will my story. Maybe then he’ll understand.”
“Of course. He deserves to know.”
Will’s father looked up at the abbey wistfully. Lost in thought for a moment, he cracked his knuckles one by one. He spoke quietly at first.
“I guess the best place to start is the beginning,” he said. “I am William Hargrove King, jr. But most people call me Bill.”
Chapter Eighteen
Bill
“As a boy growing up in poverty, I knew I didn’t have many choices for my life. My parents tried as hard as they could to provide my brothers and I with what they could, but it was rare we could afford anything special or new.
“Still, the neighborhood was no where near as decrepit as the night I took Will to see his future, the flagship Hargrove’s store. It’s sad how that one tragic event formed the person he became.
“Back when I was a child, that section of Canyon Cove was mostly populated by immigrants. Will’s grandparents came to the United States with very little in their pockets and nothing more than a dream to guide them.
“My father went by Will too. The family called me Bill to minimize confusion. With all of his savings from working as a day labor, my father was able to open the first Hargrove’s store. He named it Hargrove’s to honor his mother, my grandmother, whose name we carried.
“But my father’s Hargrove’s wasn’t anything like the one in existence now. Instead of hundreds of fine department stores, my father’s shop was a corner market where neighborhood folk could buy a few groceries and other basic items. I wanted a better life than that.
“During my last year of high school, an army recruiter came in and made an impressive presentation. He offered us exotic locales and training we could build on for the rest of our lives. I was sold. I didn’t need anymore specifics other than it was a way out of that tiny corner of Canyon Cove.
“After enlisting I was required to take an exam to test my psyche. Somehow this multiple choice test told them my best fit within the military. Needless to say, I look at things a bit differently than others and they determined my best fit was as sniper.
“The recruiter didn’t lie. I did get to travel, but I can’t say any of the locales were particularly exotic. If anything, it made me appreciate the beauty of Canyon Cove more and is why when I decided to lay down roots, I moved back.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was the first to admit I never wanted roots. Bill King didn’t want to settle down and my occupation made my loneliness practically a requirement. To be honest, I preferred my own company to that of others. At least until I met Charlotte, Will’s mother. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
Thirty-five Years Ago
The military didn’t keep their killers for long. Something to do with dehumanization. So after I completed my four years, they offered me another position. It was their way of making sure their assassins didn’t snap from overwork. It takes a special mindset to be able to continue this job successfully.
Retirement in my twenties was the furthest thing on my mind though. I loved my job and I was making more money than I knew what to do with. Since the military didn’t want me anymore, I learned how to do it in the private sector by taking contracts.
I was down the Jersey shore on an assignment when I first saw her. As I stood on the busy boardwalk, with its spin-the-wheel games and noisy rides, I pretended to be a tourist people-watching.
I even dressed the part. The best killers know how to blend into their environment. I wore a brown and tan striped cabana boy shirt with a pair o
f tan slacks and loafers, just like every other man my age.
The reason for this hit was a small crime syndicate had sprung up in the sleepy shore town of Point Pleasant and the powers that be wanted it squashed. Usually my focus was solely on my mark, but as I scanned the crowd I couldn’t help but notice a beautiful brunette sitting at a red picnic table eating waffles and ice cream with complete abandon. I found it refreshing.
At that point I was only tracking to get an idea of my target’s habits. He could wait. The girl couldn’t. She had her wavy hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and a red and white gingham dress I recognized as the uniform the waitresses wore at the local diner. Pulling out my binoculars I admired her full round face, rosy cheeks, and eyes so blue they put the sky to shame. Other boys might have called her plump but she looked perfect to me.
Growing up my mother always told me to beware of the girls who didn’t eat. She believed that if a person couldn’t enjoy food, they couldn’t enjoy life. From my experiences, I had to agree. Seeing this gorgeous creature eating this shore food staple, gave me a yearning for companionship I never had before.
The girl sat in an area with twenty glossy red picnic tables next to one of the larger food stands. It wouldn’t have surprised me if someone thought painting was equal to cleaning. The stand had a gaudy red and white blinking sign in the shape of an arrow and most of their offerings sat under heat lamps in the already sweltering humidity.
I noticed the stand didn’t serve what the girl was eating and figured it was my in to talk to her. Carefully stepping between the sticky tables, the heat of the day rising from the cement ground, I approached her table.
“Hey there good looking, whatcha got there?” I asked with my usual swagger.
“Get lost buddy, I’m not in the mood.”