Wanted: An Outlaw Anthology

by Lane Hart

  I’ll never catch up with the sedan on foot.

  I need to look into his eyes.

  I take a measured breath, slowing my climbing heart rate, then head out of the alley toward my car before reinforcements arrive. Seated behind the wheel, I turn on the tracker. Watch the green dot move along the LCD screen in the middle of my dashboard.

  Patience.

  I’ve waited six months; I can wait a few minutes more. I need to think. Have a plan. I need…

  Hudson.

  A tremor rocks me, and the sound of rain thudding rhythmically against the hood of my car encapsulates every emotion thrumming through my body. I’m a rivulet branched out from the storm. Created from the overran stream.

  Isolation can wreak havoc on your rationality.

  A lie can be more telling than the truth.

  That’s how he trained me to perform an interrogation. Hudson believed you couldn’t ignore anything a perp said, no matter how outlandish. There’s a sliver of truth woven into every fabrication. That’s the way great liars work. And the truth is full of lies.

  You have to use discernment. Pick which truth you trust.

  I crank the car and pull onto the street. I tell myself I’m only going to follow him, to find out where he’s going, to make sure I don’t lose him. Then I’ll log the information and go back to the loft to make a plan.

  Because that’s what I do. As a detective, as an investigator, I collect details and piece together the narrative of the crime. I’ve been working this case for over a year, and I can’t act on impulse or emotion now. Not when I’m so close.

  No matter how personal it is.

  I can almost hear Hudson’s voice as he scolds me about not getting emotionally invested in a case. It’s not personal. Well, that ship has long sailed, hasn’t it?

  I check my rearview and note the headlights of the car behind me. It’s not strange to see other cars around midnight. It’s a city. But they’ve been behind me since I left Myer’s building. And the car is following a little too closely. I’m paranoid.

  Yeah. I’ve been paranoid ever since that night.

  The green dot that is the shooter suddenly veers off the main road and slows. I make a choice, and it might not be the one Hudson would make…but he’s not here. I flip on my blinker and turn right onto another road where I pull over along the curb.

  I watch in my rearview until I see the car pass, then I get back onto the main street and head for the destination of the shooter.

  Think about this logically. Any other criminal who just committed a murder would be running right about now. Would be fleeing the city, getting as far away as possible. Not my guy. He’s stopped at a warehouse along the sound. He doesn’t fear getting caught.

  Headlights off, I coast to a stop across the street from the sound port and kill the engine. I use my camera to zoom in on the building. It’s light-gray, rusted from age and brackish water. A row of cars line the front parking spaces, and they’re nice cars. Imports. I snap a few pictures and then look for the shooter.

  Somewhere in the back of my head a thought occurs to me: Jennifer Myer is a widow. She’s probably received the call by now that her husband is dead. I wonder how long it will take her to cancel my services.

  Callous of me to think…maybe. But I can’t stop my analytical mind from dissecting the story, examining the evidence. She hired me to spy on her husband, and then only hours later, the man is shot to death. Right in his office. Where there’s a witness.

  She put me there.

  Objectively, I need to consider her a suspect.

  Unreasonably, I’m angry, and I want to sweep all the evidence aside and focus on one theory: my theory. Milton Myer was murdered by the same man who killed my partner.

  It’s what I want—what I need—to be true.

  My obsessive search has cost me too much to be wrong. My career, my friends…my life.

  I deviated from my training in order to pursue my partner’s killer. You can’t build a case on instinct. You can’t make a case fit inside the box you design. The facts have to align.

  That’s why I’m here. That’s why I sought out Jennifer Myer in the first place, planted emails and texts and receipts to make her question her husband. Devious, maybe. Morally questionable, absolutely. But it all led to Myer Keystone Enterprise.

  I can be livid that months of strategizing to position myself inside the company was taken away by one man tonight—or I can be here, now, intent and ready to take the next step.

  One of the garage bays begins to open, and a dim light spills across the warehouse lot. I slip down in my seat and angle the camera so I can watch without being seen. I can just make out the man as he backs a car out of the building. It’s a silver sports car. Markedly different than the description of the black sedan that’s being sent across airwaves, every law official in search for it.

  He parks the silver car haphazard, leaving it running while he drives the black sedan inside through the open bay. He’s swapping cars. He’ll be gone soon. The tracker I planted on his car is useless.

  Damn.

  The storm carries a band of heavy rain across the sound. Rain sheets down my windshield, obscuring my vision. The thunder calls out a warning, and this time, I don’t heed the threat.

  I leave my car and walk across the lot, my hair matted by rain. My clothes are soaked within seconds, but the same force that’s a hindrance to me can work to my advantage. I use the downpour to conceal my presence until I’m right up on the silver car, staring at the man’s broad shoulders as he lowers the warehouse door.

  The weight of the weapon in my hand feels solid, a comfort. Despite the chilly air making the steel cold to the touch, reminding me I’m shivering, adrenaline kicks in, sending a rush of warmth through my blood. As I raise the gun, my hands tremble.

  Hudson, forgive me…

  I have to end this.

  Kill the obsession.

  Turn around, I mentally will him. Look at me. I need to look into his eyes—to see those cold, stone-blue irises that have haunted me since that night.

  My finger moves to the trigger…target in my line of sight…then a hand grips mine and forces the weapon down. Arms surround me, pinning my wrists to my sides, making me immobile. The press of a solid body against my backside is steel in my blood. A hand covers my mouth before the scream claws free.

  “Shh—”

  The hush is too close to my ear. The guttural sound of it mixes with the roar of rain, electrifying my skin. Then I’m relieved of my gun and thrust to the sodden ground. I splay my hands out in the muddy earth to catch myself.

  The shadow of a man falls across the ground, the darkness unable to swallow his enormity. I gasp in a cold breath, dousing the raging fire spiraling through my system. Heat and adrenaline peak as I cast my gaze up against the rain.

  Cloaked in a leather jacket and black hood to conceal his face, the man moves like a bullet through the beads of rain, much too quickly for his size. He’s on the shooter before the man can raise his gun to fire a shot.

  The weapon is knocked to the mud, and I waver, my gaze bouncing between the gun and the two bodies colliding like a crack against a mountain. A silencer tips the gun, and for some reason my brain decides it wants to unravel a mystery in the moment; why the shooter didn’t use that silencer when he killed Myer in the office building.

  And that costs me precious seconds as the fight between the two men escalates. The time to make a move is lost. The leather-clad man pins the shooter against the back of the car, his large hand clasped around his throat like a manacle.

  “I told you I’d find you, Keller,” the tall man says.

  Keller.

  As I scamper along the ground, my clothes and hair caked in muddy earth, my mind is abuzz with the name. Keller. Mentally combing through files and statements, I search the name—but nothing triggers a memory.

  “Don’t move,” a deep voice booms. The order is directed toward me.

  Liqui
d ice rushes my veins, my fingers dig into the dirt. I look up at the man, and defiance rockets through me like mercury breaking free of a glass thermometer. The anger that’s been simmering for months ratchets full force and directs on him. He’s stealing what I worked so hard for.

  My revenge.

  Shaky, I get to my feet. Push my soaked strands away from my face. Then I attack.

  I drive my boot into the back of his knee. It’s not enough to break a bone, but it’s enough to make him stagger. He releases Keller and his arm swipes out. I duck and then launch myself onto his back, digging my nails into his eyes.

  “You dumb—” His words break off as he reaches behind to grab my leg. Sharp pain slices my calf, and I cry out. He slings me off like a wet blanket.

  I land on my backside, the air knocked from my lungs. Pain webs my chest, spreading through my body like a brushfire. I gasp to pull in a breath.

  In the ruckus, Keller regains his bearings, and sets off for the weapon. It’s still discarded on the muddy ground. My vision swims and I blink hard, clearing my eyes from the rain and darkness, and when I recover focus, I watch the man step on Keller’s back and plant him in the mud.

  “Leave!” he roars at me.

  Unable to speak, I shake my head. I can’t go…not until I see Keller’s eyes—not until I know for sure.

  “This doesn’t concern you,” the man says, as he swipes the gun from the ground. He tucks it in his waistband, then picks Keller up and tosses him against the car.

  This doesn’t concern you. I steel my resolve. As I watch him punch Keller in the stomach, making sure he’s unable to run again, I lift my chin. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I can’t see his face, but I can feel his eyes latch on to me through the dark. “You’ll regret this.”

  In the distance, I hear the whoop of sirens. The police are looking for Myer’s killer. He’s right here—but he’s mine. The man yanks Keller from the car and hauls him into the alley between warehouses.

  I’m not losing him now. My fate be damned, this moment is all that matters—tomorrow and consequences don’t exist. With a groan, I roll my achy body over so I can use the car to get to my feet. Then I hobble toward the alley, only getting a few feet before fear and adrenaline and pain put me on my knees.

  I pull myself around the corner of the building and…my world tilts. I can see Keller. He’s leaned up against a Dumpster, his head turned my way. And he’s looking right at me, eyes wide. I get a clear glimpse at his deep-brown gaze tunneling through me.

  No.

  It has to be him. That night I was wrong, I was in shock, distressed. Time distorts memories.

  I lose all sense of awareness as my body sags against the building. Only the frightening sounds of pain and anguish shatter my vacancy, bringing me back to the now. The beast of a man wails on Keller. Blow after blow. Blood splatter mixes with rain until I can’t tell one from the other as the dark drops descend.

  He’s a monster.

  But some sick part of me thrills at the sight.

  And the anguish I hear cloaked in groans of exertion is his own. Not Keller’s, but the monster’s. I can feel his pain as it ripples the night air around him.

  When he’s heaving with spent energy, the man backs away and admires his work. Keller is a gory, bloodstained pulp of a man discarded against the alley Dumpster.

  “Finish it, Luke,” Keller says through a spray of blood. He laughs hollowly, the way a person only can when they’re delirious, or the end is inevitable. Welcomed, even.

  Luke. I tuck the name away. I know why I’m here…but why is he? Who is Luke in all this heartache and madness?

  The man—Luke—digs into his jean pocket and produces a coin. He holds it up before Keller’s face. “Choose,” he says.

  Keller spits a bloody stream from his mouth. “Fuck you.”

  A fist smashes into Keller’s face with a sickening crunch. Keller’s nose spurts red, and he gags, coughing and choking on his own blood.

  “Choose!” Luke snarls.

  “Heads, you motherfucker.”

  I see the glint of the coin as it flips high in the air, then Luke catches it and slaps the silver coin against the back of his hand. He removes his palm slowly, so that Keller’s swollen eyes get a clear look.

  “Heads it is,” Luke says.

  The way his gruff voice delivers this…in such a calm, collected manner, chills my insides. He approaches Keller with a gratified purpose and grabs him by his suit collar, forcing him to stand, and props him against the Dumpster.

  For a split-second, Luke glances at me, and I glimpse the outline of his features, before he pulls Keller toward him and turns him around. Keller faces me—those swollen, brown eyes staring, holding me suspended in the moment. The air vacates my lungs as I witness Luke wrap his forearm around Keller’s neck and brace his hand to his face…

  Snap.

  Keller falls to the earth. Motionless. Rain pelts his lifeless body.

  I try to absorb the action. Make it my own. But it’s unsatisfying. Over too quickly. And it doesn’t belong to me. In the end, maybe I wouldn’t have gone through with it. Maybe I’d have decided to bring him in, let the justice system punish him.

  Maybe he’s not the man I’ve been searching for.

  All this whirls inside my mind like a toxic tornado, and I don’t hear the slosh of his footfalls nearing me until it’s too late.

  “You’ve seen too much.”

  Banked against the wet slab of earth, I’m trapped between the torrent that is the rain and the fiend standing over me. I look up, wipe the strands from my vision, gritty dirt leaving a trail across my face, as I stare into his face.

  I see him—I look right into his stone-cold eyes. The ice-blue unmistakable. Him.

  The alley illuminates with a flash as lightning strikes. My breath lodges in the base of my throat the way it did all those months ago during the storm, and I realize, with a sickening clarity, that I’ve found him.

  And now he’s going to kill me.

  Chapter Three

  Him

  Luke Easton

  How hard is it to make someone disappear?

  With social media, GPS, news streaming twenty-four/seven—it’s virtually impossible to fall off the radar these days.

  I should know; I’ve been gone for three years, and there’s still a missing persons report out on me. I’ve managed to dwell below the radar, but there’s always the threat of discovery. A constant mindfulness humming just below the surface of my thoughts.

  Tic tock. An internal clock counts down to my expiration date.

  Jack Keller was just one clog in that ticking time bomb of a machine. His gears ground to a halt, snuffed out, like the scorched earth he was.

  I cautiously flick my gaze toward his sprawled body cast-off alongside the alley Dumpster, like a sack of trash. Fitting. Rage still simmers in my veins, his death not enough to quiet the endless riot inside my head.

  Keller needs to be disposed of.

  Cover your tracks. That’s how you stay safely below that radar.

  If you’re going to kill someone, then make them disappear completely. Or else that nightmare never stops haunting, never stops finding you.

  A sloshing noise catches my attention, and I remember the woman.

  She’s still here—still needs to be dealt with.

  I rein in the fiery need to destroy and focus my senses on the count. One body, one Dumpster, one alley. Two lives. One death.

  She doesn’t fit.

  Don’t feed the beast.

  The count helps quiet the rage, separates the warring halves within me.

  As the craze tapers off, I can look at her again. She’s backing away, small steps putting distance between us. “Stop.”

  She does as I say. When she turns to face me, I study her—her soft features that are strained in anger. Not fear, though she should be scared. She’s analyzing me just as closely, fury marring her otherwise beautiful face. Maybe
she’s in shock.

  “You don’t belong here,” I say, repeating what I told her earlier, believing it now more than ever. Then I reason aloud: “You kicked me.” I almost smile, but that would be inappropriate considering the situation.

  She raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. Her dark hair is soaked and clings to her cheeks and neck. A gun harness straps her shoulders. Black lashes glint with raindrops as she blinks. I stare past it all, into her eyes, diving deeply into those dark pools to find the answer of her.

  How difficult would it be to make her disappear? Who cares about her? A mother, father—a husband? Child? No. I don’t think so. Those vacant, near-black irises reflect no concern for others. She’s not fearful for her life on that carnal level.

  She’s alone.

  Why else would she be standing in a storm in the middle of the night? By herself?

  If someone depended on her, she would be pleading for her life. After witnessing the destruction I can do to another human, she would be begging, bartering to live. Not matching my curious stare with a cool temper.

  “Who are you?” she asks, her breath fogging the crisp night air. “Why did you kill him?” Her gaze slips from mine down to the hunting knife that straps my leg.

  She’s shivering. Drenched in cold rain, adrenaline careening through her veins, she’s minutes away from a crash.

  I don’t have time to wait her out, for the crash to claim her. I move quickly. She attempts to back away, but her reflexes aren’t as sharp now. I dip low and grab her around her too-trim waist and haul her over my shoulder.

  She cries out, kicking and clawing at my back. I feel nothing through the leather. “Let me go! What the fuck—?”

  “Shut up.” Her frantic plea dies at the heavy boom in my voice. But the reprieve only lasts a moment before she’s fighting again.

  She wriggles her body down my torso. I clamp my arm around her back, but I’m worried I might crack her thin bones. That second of hesitation costs me, and she slithers free. She lands on the ground hard.