by Lane Hart
There’s a pregnant pause as the match catches, a flare, then the fire roars to life in a burst of high flame, quickly becoming a contained inferno.
“People think it’s like TV,” Makenna says. “I’ve investigated burn scenes. Bodies half charred. There’s always something left behind.”
I steal a peek her way, wondering how much of that snide statement was meant to insult me. “Unless you make sure there’s not.”
I realize we’re having a conversation. A disturbing conversation—but it’s the first time since this tragedy began that I’ve wanted to talk to another person.
“Gas gives out,” I say. “You have to keep adding fuel. A burned body produces a fatty residue from thermal damage, a burn stain. So you can’t burn a body like a camp fire. Using a metal enclosure reflects radiant heat, thermal energy. A body burns faster and more thoroughly. And no mess to clean. Two birds, one stone.”
She eyes me openly. “And you learned all this just for body disposal?”
“I weld, and I use a lampworking torch for blowing glass. It just happens the same principles apply in art as it does in death.”
“I don’t buy that. Death is ugly. There’s nothing poetic or artistic about an overdose or—” she eyes me severely “—murder.”
I tuck my hands into my pockets. “Fire is the closest thing to a cleansing of the soul there is. It purifies.”
“So you’re redeeming their souls?” she asks. “Is that how you justify this?”
I draw closer to her, forcing her to look up. “I have all the justification I need. Their souls mean nothing to me…unless they’re burning in hell when I’m done with them.”
She blinks. “What about the rib cage?” There’s a dare in her voice. Her tone almost sounds…excited.
I suspect this is the closest thing to a real conversation she’s had, too. Since she lost her partner. Since she’s not a detective anymore.
“I’ll show you later,” is all I say. I hop down and funnel another pour of gas into the barrel.
One confession from me, and this would all be over. I keep the secret to myself. I’m selfish. For three years, I’ve been gunning full force, no slowing, and now I’m stalled. This is the most time I’ve spent with another person who I had no intention to kill.
In a way, I’m using Makenna. I want one moment of that past, normal life I sacrificed. Before it ends, I want one moment of peace. Even if it’s with the person who wants to see me dead most in this world.
As if she’s reading my mind, she says, “You brought me here so I can…what? Dispose of your body properly?”
I set the can up above me, away from the flames. “I don’t want to be buried near Jules. I’m not the same man her brother was. Just gut me and toss me in the burn barrel.”
“Just like that.”
I nod once. “Just like that.”
She looks around nervously. Then adjusts the bandage around her hands. “I didn’t think that part through…”
I climb out of the pit, getting away from the torrid heat. I look at her. She’s a mess. Hair in disarray and clothes askew. In the breaking light, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“You wanted me dead. That’s as far as you got.”
She nods. “Yes.”
“Revenge takes planning,” I say, taking a step toward her. “You have to know without a doubt that the person has earned that death. Then you have to see it through. And you can’t get caught. Being punished for delivering justice no justice system would administer defeats the purpose.”
She blinks against the morning sun. “You killed Hudson.”
I stand still.
She sucks in a quick breath. “I know you believe he deserved such a death, but you made a mistake. I can’t let you get away with that.”
I shrug. “So then just hand me over to authorities. Why bring a gun, Mak? Why aim that gun?”
“No one believes me. There’s no evidence. You made sure of that.”
“You need a body.”
She rubs her arms, agitated, as she stares down into the pit, at the body engulfed in flames. Tears fill her eyes, but she fights them back with a hard sniff.
There’s no body.
“You’re at an impasse,” I say. “No crime, no punishment. You believe you’re the only one who can vindicate your partner, and yet…”
Her gaze swings to me, a shot of fear hidden just below her anger. “I would’ve pulled the trigger,” she says.
I’m not so sure about that. “You probably would’ve,” I say. “Then. In that moment. Sheltered by the night and the storm. But can you do it now?”
I’ve stolen some of her thunder. Murder—cold blooded and driven—takes absolution.
She was hurt, and scared, and angry. She’s lost more than a partner or a lover. She lost her whole world. A career. And what about family? What I saw that night is that she has none. She’s all alone in this big, bad world.
I walk away and yank Myer’s body closer to the pit. We have hours to go still.
“I just can’t let you get away with it.” Her voice is soft, fragile. Broken. I get it. She’s losing the drive.
That’s okay. As soon as I tell her what she’s dying to know, she’ll get it back and then some. She’ll become a lightning rod for vengeance. I’ll make my last kill, and Makenna will put me out of my miserable existence.
Sometimes, things just work out.
Chapter Fourteen
Smash It
Makenna Davies
I watch Easton empty the barrel with a curious detachment. He spreads the remaining bones that wouldn’t burn down over a clear plastic wrap. I should feel repulsed, or indignant.
But whatever sense of right and wrong, of black and white justice I used to uphold, I lost that night in the ravine. These men are wrong. They were born wrong. They’re just smarter than the average predator.
Had they been brought up on charges, they’d have made bail. Hired high-dollar attorneys to drag their cases out. For years, probably. Until no one cared anymore. They’d do a stretch in some white-collar prison. Then they’d be released. That’s if they ever served a sentence at all. If they’re pricey attorney didn’t get them off completely with some technicality.
Men like Myer don’t pay the price. They have enough money to buy their way out.
That doesn’t mean what Easton is doing is right. I’m not sure what is right anymore. And that’s one of the reasons I handed in my badge. I think he’s doing the only thing he can.
He’s exterminating the men who hurt his sister, the same way I want to annihilate him. There’s always someone injured in the crossfire. You don’t take justice into your own hands without hurting an innocent in the process. There are consequences. That’s all I know for sure.
I can watch him wrap the bones of Keller and Myer with a cool disconnect, because I’m patient. He’s leading me to the answer. Easton believes he’s above the law, and that he removes every trace of evidence.
There’s always something left behind.
I stare into the blackened barrel. Only ashes remain after Easton removed the bones. That would be enough. Having Hudson’s ashes. It would be enough.
“Leave them here.” Easton directs where to lay the plastic-wrapped remains. The cellar is a labyrinth of half-finished slab and walls, and his crude art creates a maze through the underground chamber.
It’s too dark to see to the end, the blown glass orbs only providing enough dark light to illuminate the entrance. The cellar door is five feet to my right. The spiral staircase another five feet to my left. I’m trapped in the middle…with bones and ash barricading me on either side.
An antsy feeling takes hold; I’m losing my calm. “Where do you keep the ashes?”
He jangles the keys in his hand. He can’t lock me inside that room again…not yet. “Where, Luke?” I demand.
He slips the keys into his pocket, and I release a breath. “We’re not done yet.”
H
e walks toward the corner of the cellar, where inlaid shelving holds some of his glass pieces. Then he picks up a sledgehammer.
He holds the heavy tool out to me.
I almost want to laugh. It’s insane. I glance at the bag of bones, then look down at my bandaged hands. “I’m not smashing bones.”
Head cocked, he says, “Imagine they’re mine.”
There’s no derisive undertone there. He’s serious. I extend my hand, and he places the handle of the sledgehammer against my palm. It’s half the size of me. I lift it, and already this feels impossible, like if I do this, I’m chiseling a piece of myself away.
“It’s too heavy,” I say. I drop the hammer to the slab.
Easton moves behind me, and my defenses go on alert. My shoulders tense.
“That feeling right there,” he says, wrapping his arm around me to reach the handle. “Use that.”
He places his hand over mine, and my skin crawls. He helps me lift the tool, and I sense his aim. We swing the hammer down. The reverberating crunch of bone beneath the hammer travels through the tarp, all the way up the handle.
This is how he makes the rib cage of his enemies disappear, ground down to dust.
He steps away as I lift the hammer again. “You think you can go back.”
I drop the hammer. The resounding slam against the slab echos through the chamber.
“Once you make your case,” he continues. “Give forensics Hudson’s remains. Drag my corpse to the department. Put me on display. Hand over a detailed, elaborate report. You think you can get your life back.”
I smash the sack of bones again. “It’s the only life I know.”
It’s the most truthful confession I’ve admitted down here. Hudson became my partner shortly after I entered the force, not long after my mother took her last trip into her other world. I was young, and I had no home. I hadn’t had a real one…ever. But I found one there. With him. With the Seattle PD.
I swing the hammer again, and my muscles strain from the effort. But the burn feels tolerable, good even. I try not to think about what’s inside the plastic bag.
“What were you doing parked at the ravine that night?”
His question stalls my hands. I stand over the bag, gaze fixed on the glass orbs encased in the cellar. There are gaps. Missing moments. But I don’t need them to complete the story.
I swing the hammer down with a hard thwack. “It was our place.”
Easton fills in the blanks. “On the clock. Off the clock. That’s where you went to be together.”
I’m breathing heavy now, my body taxed, not used to working certain muscles. But I drop the hammer anyway. The bones are crunching less. Being decimated into powder. “Yes.”
“There was another storm that night,” he says. “How long had you been investigating Laura at that point. Six months?”
I nod.
“And Hudson had been trying to impede that investigation. Talk you into dropping it. But you couldn’t. And he took you to your place that night, when the sky tore open and, under the cover of sheeting rain and the dark, he set you up.”
Tool banked on my shoulder, I turn to face him. “You’re mad. Don’t try to fit your warped world inside mine.”
Easton’s blue eyes are like ice down here. They’re so cold…but the blue holds me captive. It’s the clarity I see there; everything else feels distorted, wrong, except his eyes that see right through me.
“I’ve thought about it the past few days,” he says. “Why you’re here, the fact that you don’t remember part of what happened.”
A mock laugh springs free. “Some insane vigilante hit me over the head. My spotty memory might have a little to do with that.”
He makes no apologies. “Or it’s selective.” He moves to stand in front of me, forcing my head back in order to see his face. “Think hard, Makenna. What were you doing there? What happened before you were thrown down the embankment?”
Anger bites my nerves. It’s infuriating, having someone—the wrong someone—remember pieces of your life that you can’t. “I was fucking my boyfriend.” I say it with every bit of disdain that I feel toward him.
Easton doesn’t waver, he doesn’t back down. There’s more…when I think back, but it’s like trying to look through a snowstorm. There’s a tunnel around the memory, and I can only see the center. The edges are dark and obscure. I blink rapidly, flashing between segments.
“He fucked you before he tried to kill you.”
His words pull me from the tunnel, and shock seizes my lungs. I breathe through the disbelieve. “Fuck you.”
“The watchdog had a job to do. He had tried to protect you up until that point, trying to get you to drop the case. That’s why I hadn’t heard your name. He was trying to protect you, but after six months, he knew that it had to end. It was either you or him.”
“Shut the hell up.” I grip the handle tighter, imagining the solid girth of the hammer finding his temple. I blink hard, driving the image away. And the ravine is there again, rain cloaking my vision.
I’m not going back there, and I’m not going back in that damn cellar. I heft the sledgehammer over my shoulder and barge past him, the cellar door only a few feet away. I take the hammer to the door, every swing a shattering pain to my arms. My back and chest pinch with sharp pain, like I might be having a heart attack. Maybe I am. But I keep driving the hammer home, chipping away at the door.
I feel his arms encase me, and he takes hold of the handle. “Stop.”
I struggle against him, knowing it’s a useless fight. But I want to destroy that door. I want to smash all the glass orbs and demented sculptures down here. Everything that has his imprint.
He wrestles the sledgehammer free, and I’m too racked with pain to move. My body sags against his, my breathing clipped, too much pain to inhale fully. My hands burn, and I don’t have to look at them to know I’ve reopened the wounds. I can feel the warmth of my blood coating my palms.
“You weren’t alone that night,” he says, letting my back rest against his solid chest. I hate his chest. I hate his knowing eyes. I hate that I can’t move, and that I don’t want to—that his strength is the only thing keeping me standing.
“Who else was there?” he demands to know.
“You!”
“Who else!”
Figures move against the darkness. There’s a flash. I remember telling Hudson how strange it was, to see lightning streak the sky. But it was sexy, and erotic, making love in the unmarked car, in the middle of the storm.
I shake my head, a dry heave racks my stomach. My vision tunnels.
“I can tell you what happened,” Easton says. “But you won’t believe me. You have to remember.”
How can I trust him? “You’re a liar.”
“Time to go back in the cellar.”
“No!”
A flash of Hudson’s face: I’m sorry, Mak.
Shit. Shit shit shit. “Make it stop. I’m going to be sick.”
I’m deadweight in Easton’s arms as he carries me through the door. That fucking door. I shutter my eyes; I don’t want to see the room. But the smell of dank earth and concrete infuses my senses, and it’s all around me.
Easton doesn’t lay me on the bed of clothes. I wait for him to do this, so I can use my last reserve of energy to fight my way out. I can’t be down here alone, with these memories. “Please…”
He stops moving, his arms the only thing grounding me, keeping me from slipping into the past.
I can’t breathe. I clutch his shirt in my bloody hands. “Make it stop.”
He settles us along the wall, instead. “This will hurt…but it will help.” His arms become a vise around me, the suffocating pain is almost unbearable, but the panic eases. He’s shutting down my nervous system. I’ve seen it done to children at the precinct before. When they’re too upset to handle whatever horrible news had shattered their world.
“Why are you doing this…?”
“It will he
lp,” he says again.
I shake my head against his chest, hating that his fucking manly scent is a comfort. My head is spinning. “Why are you fucking with my head? It’s not enough that you have me trapped down here, withering away. You have to inflict psychological torture?”
His sigh releases on a heavy groan, like searching the answer causes him distress. “Before you give yourself over to revenge, you need to know who your enemy is.”
I swallow hard, my throat raw. “Why do you care?” Why does it matter? Whether I’m a sick, delusional woman with latent memories, or whether I’ve been wrong, so wrong, about Hudson… None of that changes what needs to happen between me and him.
He’s the monster that dragged me to his lair.
He’s the villain that I watched murder my partner.
Nothing will change those facts.
And the facts are what matter—what you can prove.
Remembering the whole truth of that night will only cause more hurt. I can feel it creeping over me now. With every flash, every glimpse into the past, another layer of misery blankets me, and I’m tunneling.
“I say we’re about even.”
His arms still anchored around me, I bury my head against his chest, unable to look at him. “That doesn’t make sense.” He didn’t answer my question.
“You barged into that alley, some fierce, raving force, and I should’ve gotten rid of you. But I hadn’t seen anything so beautiful in a long time. All the vile and ugly things surrounding me…and then there you were, all drenched and broken, and beautiful. You stole my breath, made me pause…just long enough, where I never question my next move.”
I slow my breathing, trying not to move. My heart beats fiercely in my chest, and I’m scared that he can hear it, or feel my racing pulse—that he’ll mistake what I’m feeling.
“So I say we’re even. You got inside my head, you infected me. You make me think about another life, when I buried that life already. It’s painful.”