by Ryan Parker
I took my gun out and knelt beside him. “Scream again and you die. Simple as that.” I lifted him off the floor and dragged him to his kitchen, where I sat him in a chair and duct-taped him securely to it.
I leaned on the counter, just feet in front of him. “You kill pests for a living.”
He nodded. “Yeah?”
“So do I.”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Does it matter?”
He didn’t say anything, but struggled against the tape.
I decided to toy with him, torture him a little, let his mind run through all of the worst possible ways this could play out. I liked thinking he was probably coming up with worse things than I had planned on doing.
Jim Udall’s physical appearance was unremarkable, except for his height, which had to be at least 6’4”. That was the first thing I’d noticed when he had opened the door. It made his knee an easier target. Otherwise, he was just an average looking guy, no one you would look twice at, for good reasons or bad.
He’d make a good stock character villain for one of the crime shows—the kind who blends in among the masses, goes unnoticed and raises no suspicions, until he’s finally caught and faces his day of reckoning.
Just like Udall was now.
“Look, take whatever you want. I don’t have much…” He looked around. “But you can have whatever. My wallet and phone are right behind you on the counter.”
“I’m not here for your money or your belongings.”
“Then what?” He tried to lean over, but couldn’t. He looked at his knee, all fucked up and twisted and swelling up. “Goddamn…” he whispered.
“I’m here,” I said, reaching for my gun and showing it to him, “for you.”
He looked up at me and his face crinkled up, turning red, like he was about to cry. “Why? What have I done to you?”
I paused for a moment, before saying, “You crossed one of my lines.”
He looked confused. “Your lines?”
“Yes,” I said, pushing away from the counter and walking toward him, then behind him. “I have lines—boundaries, really—around the things I value most.”
He was moving his head left and right, trying to keep me in his vision as I stood behind him. When he looked left, I moved to the right a little. When he looked right, I swayed to the left.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he shouted.
“Didn’t I tell you not to yell, Jim? If I were you, I would take that advice. I’ll give you a second chance because I’m feeling a little generous right now. And…” I stepped out from behind the chair and returned to lean on the counter in front of him again. “And if you’re wondering if this is what I look like when I’m being generous, the answer is yes. This is the best it’s going to get for you. Think about that for a few minutes.”
I turned around and grabbed his wallet, flipping through it, finding nothing interesting, and very little money.
He started to grumble, something about me having the wrong guy.
“Wrong guy?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure I have the right guy. I would wager that if I were to search your house, I’d find some women’s panties and bras, wouldn’t I? Don’t answer that. We both know the answer is yes.”
His eyes grew wide and he shook his head back and forth rapidly.
“No?” I asked. “You didn’t go on a date with a woman you met on a dating website, and didn’t later use your master key to get into her apartment?” I lowered my voice, coming across as calm. “You didn’t do that, Jim? I have it all wrong?”
“I did!” he yelled, then quieted down. “But I’m telling you, you have the wrong guy.”
I watched him for several seconds. “Explain.”
“Someone paid me to go into her apartment. They wanted…information on her. Anything I could find out about her work. Files or something. Jesus, man, I don’t know. That was months ago.”
I froze, processing what he was saying as fast as I could.
“Who paid you?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Think,” I demanded. “Describe him.”
His answer made my face, neck, and shoulders tense up. His description of the guy fit Howard McDowell.
“English accent?”
Udall shook his head. “No…American. He was an American.”
McDowell had disguised his accent, no doubt.
“Did he ever call you? Give you a number? Anything?” I asked.
Udall let out a heavy sigh. “One time. He called me and asked me to follow her.”
My blood ran hot. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that I needed to get all the information I could, because this was a much bigger deal than some loser panty-thief entering Rachel’s apartment.
“When did you follow her and where?” I asked.
“Nowhere,” he insisted. “I didn’t do it.”
I looked at his face. It was red and sweat poured down from his brow.
“Don’t bullshit me. I know you’ve been in her house.”
He dropped his chin to his chest.
“Did you do that on your own?” I asked. “And why the roses? Did the man tell you to do that?”
Udall lifted his head quickly, a look of confusion on his face. “What roses?”
I paused for a couple of seconds. “You didn’t leave roses on her front porch?”
Udall said, “What? No. I didn’t leave any roses.”
His facial expression and the tone of his voice told me he was telling the truth.
That left one possibility: McDowell had put the roses there. It made sense, considering what I knew about his ruthlessly sadistic nature. He was trying to further scare Rachel.
“The number,” I said. “I need the guy’s number.”
Udall tilted his head toward the counter. “Over there.”
I picked up his phone, swiped to the home screen, and looked through his call history. I realized that this was probably a waste of time. The call would have happened months ago, Udall might have deleted it, and McDowell probably had used a pre-paid phone anyway, so I gave up looking for the number.
I had to decide what to do with Udall at that point, so I stood there looking through his phone. I’m not sure what I had expected to find in the “Pictures” app, but I touched it anyway.
What I found was something I hadn’t expected even though I had run through all kinds of scenarios about how this would play out.
There were hundreds of photos, many of them appeared to be pictures taken from the Internet. Pictures of women and young girls in various stages of undress and some engaging in sex acts.
The most recent pictures, the ones at the top, contained things I recognized.
Rachel’s kitchen. Rachel’s den. Rachel’s bedroom.
Pictures of her underwear drawer. Pictures of Udall holding her underwear. Even so-called selfies of him holding her panties up to his face.
And as I scrolled down, anger rose in my core and spread throughout my body, making my face flush and my extremities tingle with adrenaline.
Udall had been in her apartment at night.
He had taken pictures of Rachel as she slept in her bed.
I looked up from the screen and stared at him for a moment.
“What are you going to do to me?” he whimpered.
He was the stereotypical bully under duress. They act boldly and arrogantly, taking advantage of other people, but it’s all out of weakness. And when they are put in a truly weak position, they’re some of the most pathetic creatures that ever roamed the earth. Almost worthy of sympathy.
Almost.
I had thought of shooting his other knee. Maybe even shooting him in the balls. Drawing out the torture, making him feel the kind of fear that Rachel would have felt if she had awakened to find a strange man in her bedroom.
I could have done all those things, and more. Instead, I shot him twice in the forehead and left.
. . . . .
; It was the first time I had killed anyone since the raid in Chechnya ten years prior. Directly and personally, at least. I was responsible for many deaths in the years between, but had not literally pulled the trigger on any of those.
I had vowed to myself years ago that while I wasn’t wavering in my mission of justice and retribution, I would only kill in self-defense. I held fast to that promise for a decade, never even coming close, never putting myself in a position where I’d have to use deadly force.
But this was different. It was personal. It was for Rachel.
Chapter Twenty-four (Rachel)
I heard the click of the door lock, sat up on the bed, quickly jumping off when Finn entered the hotel room. I ran to him, throwing my arms around his neck. He held onto me tightly, kissing my neck, my cheek, my forehead.
“Miss me?” he said.
I laughed for the first time that day. “God, yes.”
He pulled his head away from me so he could look me in the eyes. “I’m back and I’m not going to leave you alone again.”
“Good.”
His lips pressed against mine, hard, a ferocious kiss that would have ignited a passion in me if he hadn’t stopped and said, “I need to tell you some things.”
In the span of just a few seconds, I had gone from elation to dread. The wild waves of emotion were becoming a constant part of my relationship with Finn. I could have feared it, pushed it away, seen it as a threat to my stability, but I didn’t want to give in. I wanted to push myself.
He stepped toward the bed, and sat, asking me to sit next to him. I watched his face become rigid and determined.
“Is this about tonight?” I asked. “Where were you?”
He shook his head, looking straight ahead. “I went to take care of something.”
“Was it…the guy?” I didn’t even want to say his name.
Finn put his hand on my leg. “It’s taken care of.” He raised his eyebrows.
I could have asked all the questions I had—which probably numbered in the dozens—but there was really only one question about the guy that mattered. I didn’t have to ask it, though. I could assume the answer, knowing that I was probably right. Plus, I knew Finn wouldn’t tell me anyway. He was secretive about the things he did that didn’t involve me, and his last comment was all the assurance I needed that I wouldn’t have to worry about the guy anymore.
That dark part of Finn had come out and got revenge for what had been done to me.
“Everything I’ve done for the last ten years…it’s over as of tonight. I can’t do it anymore. I’m about to turn thirty, I’ve dedicated a third of my life to this. It was time to get on with my life anyway, but things have become so complicated, so risky.”
“Me,” I said.
“You?”
My chest tightened as I felt more and more stressed by everything. “I’ve complicated your life. I know I have. I’m the reason it’s more of a risk now.”
“Rachel, stop.”
“No! I know it’s true. Whatever it was you did tonight, it was because of me, right?”
He didn’t say anything, didn’t even move.
“Am I right?” I demanded.
He nodded.
“So that’s what I mean.” I held myself together. I wanted this to come out strongly, firmly, so he would know how seriously I was taking all of this. “You put yourself in danger for me. And while I think that’s the most incredible thing anyone has ever done for me, I just can’t stand the idea that I would be responsible for anything happening to you.”
“I make my own decisions,” Finn said. “And so do you. I need you to understand something—”
I cut him off. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I can’t stand the thought of me being the reason you risk your life.”
His hands closed around my shoulders, then he raised one to the side of my face. “You are my life now. Everything else is done. Nothing else matters. Only you. I want to live a real life, and I want to live it with you. So come with me. And I mean for good.”
I felt my eyes widen. I cocked my head. “For good…”
He nodded. “I can’t stay in the U.S. anymore. I’m leaving, and I want you to come with me.”
“For good,” I said, echoing the words that had meant the most to me out of everything he had just said.
“I’ve done this for ten years. It’s time to stop.”
“You’re not saying this because of what I said when you first told me, are you?” I wondered if maybe my suggestion a while back that he could “just stop” was still on his mind. Although he had reacted harshly to it at the time, maybe he had given it more thought.
Finn shook his head. “No. I’ve come to this conclusion because I could go on like this forever…and I don’t want to. I’ve done my part. Now it’s time that I live a somewhat normal life. And I want you to be a part of it.”
My eyes flooded with happy tears and my face formed what I was sure looked like an impossibly permanent grin. “You’re serious,” I said, the thought coming from deep within that part of me where self-doubt lived.
“As serious as I’ve ever been about anything. I love you, Rachel.”
The words I had been waiting to hear. The words I had come close to saying first.
His lips crushed into mine before I could say anything. Well, clearly, anyway. I was saying “I love you, and I’ll go anywhere with you,” into his mouth as he kissed me, and against his lips. The words were muffled, but it didn’t matter.
We stood like that for a bit, and then I had questions. “So where are we going? When?” I had so many questions, but I managed not to throw them at him all at once.
“Can’t say where just yet. But we’re leaving in the morning.”
“What?”
He nodded. “It has to be in the morning.” He reached for me, pulling me against his body, kissing me.
I quickly thought, How do you prepare to leave for good, and how the hell do you do it in one night?
But Finn was already on it. “Is there anything that you need from your apartment? I’ll get it, so you don’t have to go back there if you don’t want to.”
My mind was racing almost as fast as my heart as I thought.
In the meantime, Finn asked about my passport.
“How did you know I had one?”
He smiled. “The polygraph. You said ‘yes’ and I figured you were telling the truth. Where did you go, by the way?”
“Canada. It was three summers ago and I used a week of my vacation time. I went there because it wasn’t as hot as D.C., but also I got to see a lot of the Toronto area. That’s where Margaret Atwood is from. So, yeah, my passport is in my apartment. It’s in a lock box in the closet.”
“I’ll bring the box.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, working up my courage. “I’ll go with you.”
. . . . .
As we stepped out into the hallway, the door next to ours opened and a man came out.
“Finn,” he said, an urgent tone in his voice. “Oh…” he said when he noticed me.
I had no idea who he was. Finn, of course, hadn’t mentioned anything about him.
Finn looked at me and said, “Rachel, this is Chris Spencer. Chris, Rachel.”
Chris smiled and nodded his head once in my direction. “Pleasure.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, looking at Finn, confused.
“Chris is my oldest friend.”
“And most trusted,” Chris added with a grin.
Finn nodded. “Yes, and most trusted. He’s been with me all of this week. And he was here all night, when I was gone.”
I looked at Chris. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. It was nothing, really. You were very easy to babysit.”
I laughed. Finn rolled his eyes.
Chris had a great smile, wide with perfectly straight, white teeth. His hair was cropped close around the edges, very much a military style cut, very much unlike Finn’s hair. C
hris had a loud, booming voice, and spoke in a quick, excited manner. Again, very different from the way Finn conducted himself. I thought about how these guys were nearly completely different, yet had so much in common and had obviously forged a bond years ago that still held strong. I had no idea what that was like and I envied them for it.
“So, mate,” Chris said. “This is the end of the road, as they say.”
Finn nodded.
I noticed then that Chris had a bag slung over his shoulder. He closed the door behind him, stepping completely out into the hallway.
“I’m heading back to pick up Stephanie. Should I assume I’ll see you in a few days?”
“Count on it,” Finn said. He looked at me. “We’ll both be there.”
“Be where?” I asked.
Chris smiled and patted Finn on his shoulder. “Just like Stephanie. Can’t stand a surprise.” He turned toward me. “Great finally meeting you, Rachel. See you soon.”
He started to walk down the hall, singing something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. He was too far away and his voice trailed off into an unintelligible echo as he entered the stairwell. He seemed relaxed and happy. More so than Finn did, which worried me a little.
“So, you’re not going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.
Finn took my hand and we headed down the hallway. “Soon. Promise.”
. . . . .
As we drove to my place, my nerves were working overtime. It was infuriating to think that I was going to my apartment—the place I had called home for years—and that I was nervous to walk in there. The creepy bastard had alienated me from the one and only safe place I had in the entire world.
It made me think of how I had so quickly agreed to go away forever with Finn…wherever it was we were going. I guess I had done so because there was nothing tying me to my apartment, or D.C., or anywhere for that matter. I had spent the better part of the last eight years making myself feel at home in this area, but that could have happened anywhere.
“My job,” I said, as I suddenly realized I hadn’t thought about how to handle that.