Breathe.
There was a flash of something black underneath him. Between his feet, the barrel of a pistol waved left then right from out of the doorway. The man holding it emerged.
Jacob pressed against the stone, hoping beyond reason he could disappear within it.
The man, a beastly man who little resembled the cartel Jacob had encountered, lowered his gun and leaned over the railing, scanning the ground. Seeing nothing, he stood straight and glanced out at the lake.
The hallway door opened, the hinges squeaking again. Missy, Jacob realized. She and Quincy are back from their walk. Fuck!
The killer below him turned and raised his gun, and Jacob jumped from the ledge onto him.
~
Emmelia stood in the hallway outside room 403, her ear to the door. She couldn’t tell if Bump was inside. It seemed unlikely she’d beaten him there—and there was no chance Bump already had come and gone—but the room was very quiet.
The show just hasn’t started yet, she assured herself. Jacob was hiding. Bump was seeking. When the two inevitably came together and the scuffle began, she’d burst through the door and “save” Bump’s ass. Jacob would escape, but whose fault was that? Bump would try to blame her when Avispón called, but it’d ultimately fall on his shoulders. After all, what was wrong with him that he couldn’t keep little ol’ Emmelia out of his business?
Still, hearing nothing at all was nerve-racking. She’d hoped to hear something to gauge what was going on in there. Was it possible the door was one of those old-world antiques so thick that noise couldn’t travel through it?
The elevator groaned behind her, moving to another floor.
She pressed her ear a bit harder but only heard the sound of her heartbeat. Had she mistimed it? Had she given Jacob too much of a head start? Had he simply run away? The door’s too thick. She had to get in there.
A black bandana hung around her neck, and she pulled it up across the bridge of her nose, the design turning the lower half of her face into a grinning skull. She added a pair of sunglasses, and combined with her baseball cap and hoodie, she was unrecognizable. No way Jacob would know it was her as he fled.
Grabbing one of the inn’s master keycards from her pocket—obtained from the same friend who’d given her the room number—she unlocked the door and pushed it open.
So Bump is here.
He was standing on the balcony facing the lake. Emmelia opened the door some more, scanning the room for Jacob’s hiding spot. The hinges squeaked, and Bump turned around, pointing his gun at her. She was about to give him the AVL’s three-fingered salute when a man fell from the sky, dropping on Bump like an angry squirrel.
Emmelia’s eyes widened; she’d hoped her warning would allow Jacob to get some type of a drop on Bump, but she hadn’t expected it to be so literal. Still, it was pretty close to perfect.
Bump was on one knee with Jacob hanging off his back, arms wrapped tightly around Bump’s neck.
Now it was her turn. Emmelia raced across the room to separate the two.
But then Bump raised his hand and shot at her, the bullets sailing just over her head into the popcorn ceiling. She frantically flashed the AVL’s hand sign as white dust sprinkled down.
Bump didn’t lower his gun, but he didn’t fire again either. He kept it pointed at her as Jacob continued to choke him with one arm and, with the other, smack him on the ear with a bent hanger. Wincing, Bump stood, and with a lurch of his hips, tried to throw Jacob over his shoulder, but Jacob held on like a stubborn cocklebur. Bump gave a great howl and backed up hard into the balcony’s sliding glass door.
Jacob screamed as shards showered them both. The bent hanger dropped to the floor, and Jacob tightened his grip on Bump’s neck whose cheeks and forehead were now burning red. Bump went into a wild spin.
Emmelia moved toward them, hoping to pull Jacob loose, but Jacob kicked her in the chest, and she stumbled backward, falling on her ass.
Perhaps seeing an opportunity to flee, Jacob planted his feet on Bump’s lower back and sprang away, sending Bump crashing over Emmelia and into the dresser. The TV tipped over the side, and empty beer bottles went scattering.
Jacob ran.
Emmelia moved out of his way, but Bump latched on to Jacob’s ankle and jerked him back as though he weighed nothing.
“Shit,” Emmelia muttered. Jacob was a dead man. Bump was going to kill him, and the police would be all over everything.
Jacob grabbed a bottle and thumped Bump over the head with it. The man bellowed but refused to let go, so Jacob hit him again, harder.
Bump reached for his gun laying on the carpet near his hip, and Jacob brought the bottle down on his wrist with such force that Emmelia was certain she heard bones crack. Bump retaliated by punching Jacob in the jaw.
Jacob’s eyes went wild; he cried out like a lunatic, then went mad, hitting Bump over the head until the bottle shattered. Bump was left bloody and dazed.
Jacob didn’t stop, though. He grabbed another bottle, and wielding it like a plunger, smashed the butt end of it into Bump’s face again and again. Bump’s nose broke; his cheek split; his brow burst. When his eye popped with a white gush, Emmelia realized how crazy Jacob was. No wonder he’d been able to fuck over the cartel in Tijuana like he had.
Blood squirted from the meaty mess that’d been Bump’s face, and Jacob, wacky eyed and gasping for breath, stood up. He turned to her, the bottle gripped tightly in his dripping red hand.
~
Jacob wasn’t crazy. He was a protector. He thought it’d been Missy walking through the door, and by the time he realized it wasn’t, he was already atop the man, so what was he supposed to do? One thing had just led to another.
The room now smelled of ancient carpet and fresh blood (and craft beer). A pistol lay near the dead man’s body, a puddle of blood making its way toward the weapon. The much smaller hit man—The cartel calls them sicarios, Jacob remembered—had drawn back, pushing against the nightstand, and stared at him. Or so he assumed—the sunglasses made it hard to know for sure. Jacob picked up the gun.
A moment of silence passed between them before a pounding at the door made them both jump.
“Police!”
“In here,” Jacob yelled. He pointed the gun at the sicario. “Don’t move.”
His directive didn’t work, though. In fact, it had the opposite effect and sent the sicario scrambling up and over the bed toward the balcony.
“Don’t move!” Jacob fired a warning shot out at the lake.
The sicario hopped through the broken glass and peered over the railing as the police burst through the door.
“Drop your weapon! Drop it!” the police ordered.
The sicario grasped the railing and leapt over, vanishing with a soft ripple of clothing.
“Drop your weapon!”
“He jumped!” Jacob cried.
“Drop it. Now!”
With two bulky officers pointing their guns at him, clearly reading the situation differently given Bump’s lifeless body at his feet, Jacob did as they said and carefully set the gun on the bed.
“Hands behind your head. On the ground. Facedown.”
Jacob found a dry spot of carpet away from Bump. As he was being handcuffed, he said, “They attacked me. The other guy jumped off the balcony.”
Neither officer answered him, but once he was no longer deemed a threat, one of the men went to the balcony, his boots crackling on top of the mess of glass, and looked around. After a moment, he radioed dispatch that an individual might have jumped, but there was no sign of the suspect.
“He’s gone?” Jacob groaned.
The officer joined his partner, who was confirming Bump’s terminated life status.
Jacob didn’t pay attention to their conversation from there on. He’s gone? The sicario had survived the jump.
X.
Day Nine, Still Friday
Two Dead
After jumping from the balcony, Emmelia hit
the ground running. She’d grazed the outer branches of a small birch tree, then flopped into the arborvitaes, which didn’t have much to them, but they’d provided enough cushion to break her fall. She rolled from their bitter evergreen scent and took off.
White was a psycho, an absolute savage.
So much for keeping things quiet.
She joined up with the walkway that traced the shore and pulled off her hoodie, shoving it, her sunglasses, hat, and bandana under a pile of driftwood. It wasn’t the best disposal, but even if the collection was found, there wasn’t anything incriminating there. She’d never been arrested. Never had her DNA catalogued. She let her hair down and blended in with the other morning joggers.
She made it all the way to the lift bridge before she figured she had put enough distance between her and Fitger’s Inn. Slowing, she turned down a pier that guided ships into port.
A steady breeze was carrying away the pungent smell of fish and snails that often clouded the pier, and she took several deep breaths. At the end of the pier, she stopped beside a small lighthouse and called Avispón.
He didn’t answer, so she waited a moment, scanning the shoreline for any indication she’d been followed, then called again. It took a third try until he finally picked up.
“Bump was just killed,” she told him.
Avispón snorted. “Figures.”
“Who is this Jacob White guy?” Emmelia asked.
“An absolute shit weasel. What happened?”
“The freak beat him to death with a bottle. Smashed his face in.”
“Sounds about right. Well, get on it.”
“Get on it? I’m not going near the guy.”
“White’s right there on your goddamn doorstep,” Avispón growled. “Kill him.”
“He’s a lunatic.”
“You’ve got people; use them.”
Avispón was right. She did have people, but her people were just chest thumpers. Her people drove seven-year-old Subarus; they got a rush taking marijuana up to Winnipeg; they spray-painted their coffee cup logo around town; they sucker-punched people; they harassed the other fake gangsters; but they never killed. She wasn’t sure some of them had even fired the guns they carried. If she sent them Jacob’s way, the mess he’d make of them was unimaginable.
She stared at the inn across the water. Her eyes weren’t good enough to pick out the balcony where she’d leapt, but the flashing lights of the squad cars around the building were clear. How close had she come to getting a bottle to the face? Jacob had that wild, I’ll-bite-the-head-off-a-rat look in his eyes. When she’d jumped, she’d thought, This is crazy, but not as crazy as what she’d jumped from.
But she couldn’t refuse Avispón based on just that, so she said, “I’ll be lucky if I can even move a kilo of marijuana for the next month, let alone kill someone.” And that was the truth.
“Figure it out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out. The police will be everywhere. I have to shut down.”
“I’m sending ROD, then”
“ROD?” She’d heard the stories. They were messy. They were loud. They were toddlers loose in a candy store. Mixing ROD with Jacob was a massive fuck-up waiting to happen. “Don’t send ROD.”
“So you’ll handle it?”
“What do you want me to do? The man’s a psycho.” She also wasn’t the killer he thought she was. In a way, she was just a chest thumper too.
Avispón pressed, “He’s there. Take care of him.”
“He won’t even be here by tomorrow. He’ll run.”
“Don’t you let him run.” A succession of taps came over the line, then the cartel boss said, “I sent ROD a text. They’ll be there early next week. Either take care of White yourself or keep him around until ROD gets there.”
“You’re not helping. Just send them wherever he pops up next.”
“I want this handled now.” He gave her a phone number, then said, “Keep them updated.”
After a moment, she said, “Fine. I’ll handle it.”
“And I want pictures of White. I want to see what you do to him. Cut him up.”
That was exactly what she didn’t need: the police standing over a mutilated corpse. “Why? Wasn’t Bump just going to shoot him?”
“He was, but he also had those hollow points. Would’ve been a good show.”
I have those too, she thought.
“But I want extra now. Send me pictures. I want to feel his pain.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And fix your fentanyl problem,” Avispón added before hanging up.
It took Emmelia a moment to realize what he meant by that. She didn’t have a fentanyl problem, but then the recent overdose bubbled to the surface. That wasn’t really a problem, though. More of a curious event. In any case, she couldn’t ignore it now.
The wind died, and the smell of fish and snails rose up from the water. A small boy and his parents were edging down the pier.
She let her phone slip from her fingers and splash into the lake. It was a burner. She only needed it for that one text she’d sent to Jacob.
How’d I fuck this up so bad?
Emmelia pushed from her spot as the boy hurried past, arms extended, reaching for the railing at the end of the pier.
“Look at the police lights,” he cried to his parents.
~
Missy and Quincy waited in the lobby alongside the other fourth-floor guests who’d been out while Jacob made hamburger meat out of Bump’s beautiful face. Each time a guest returned from breakfast or their morning stroll, the hotel manager intercepted them and asked that they refrain from going up to their room for the moment. “There’s been an incident,” he would only say.
Jacob had washed the blood from his arms, face, and hair and changed his clothes, but still, as he descended the staircase, everyone eyed him as though they knew what he’d just done.
He went to Missy and hugged her.
“What’s happening?” she asked, inspecting him up and down for any hints to her question.
“Well…” He gave Quincy a light stroke, his fingers still twitching from the adrenaline. “Well. Come over here.” He guided Missy away from the suspicious congregation and told her.
A month ago, Missy would’ve broken into hysterics after hearing such a tale, but given all they’d been through, she merely covered her mouth with her hand and said, “Wow.” Then, “Your pepper spray was on the nightstand.”
Jacob blinked, then shook his head. “I put it in my bag this morning.”
“You didn’t. You forgot it.”
“I wouldn’t forget it.”
“You did. Quincy and I were going to sneak up on you and teach you a lesson. Except that purple dog was out there.” Her eyes widened. “That stupid dog. This wouldn’t’ve happened if it hadn’t been there. I turned around.” She surveyed the lobby (“I need to sit.”) and went to a couch near the fireplace, dropping beside a white-haired couple wearing “I’ve Been To Duluth” T-shirts.
Jacob sat next to her. “It’s fine. I’m okay.” But then he too had a terrible realization and grasped Missy’s leg. “The adoption agency. What’re we going to say?”
“About what?”
“This.” He waved his hand around the room.
Missy sighed. “Does it even matter at this point?”
“Don’t say that.” Jacob buried his face in his hands, thinking: A shooting at the fair, an apartment fire, now a hotel murder. I killed him. And it wasn’t the first time. His body count was getting into serial-killer territory. First the deaths in Mexico—he’d killed Vicente and the twins by collapsing their narco tunnel, and then he’d killed a cop (a crooked cop) by driving a car through his station—and now this in Duluth, where he’d left a guy with a face like a Sloppy Joe. He was the new Jeffrey Dahmer. Just a mass murderer trying to adopt.
Leaning toward Missy, he said, “Should we just pull the application?”
Missy gave him a look that asked if he reall
y wanted her to answer that.
“Forget it.” He planted his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his palms again.
Missy patted him on the back.
The officer who’d handcuffed (and subsequently released) Jacob came down the stairs. He told the Duluth T-shirts they could go to their room while his partner walked through the crowd, spreading the word.
Breeland, according to his badge, looked to be the same age as Jacob and Missy. He took out a notepad and glanced down at Jacob. “Just need to make sure I got everything.” His eyes shifted from Jacob to Missy to Quincy and then back to Jacob.
Across the lobby, the manager behind the front desk yelled, “Don’t you roll that through here. Are you crazy?”
The EMT stopped the gurney halfway across the lobby. He raised his hands. “Where you want me to go?”
“Take it out the service entrance,” the man hollered, pointing.
The EMT slowly did a 180, shaking his head, and radioed his partner to come around the back. As he rolled the black bag out of the lobby, he passed by the guests waiting for the elevator and gave a nod.
Breeland smirked, then turned to Jacob. Tapping his pen on the pad, he said, “So you don’t recognize the number that texted you?”
“Not at all,” he said. “No clue.”
“Have you shown her?” Breeland waved his pen at Missy.
Jacob nodded but still took out his phone to let Missy look again.
After a glance, she said, “No, sir. I don’t know it either.”
“Can I see that?” Breeland asked. “The phone?”
Jacob handed it over.
Breeland poked and slid his finger across the screen. “Never texted or called you before, did he?”
“Nope.”
“Any unusual texts before this?”
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