A loud crack reverberated through the dusk as Richard grabbed his head and crumpled to the ground. For a moment, I just stood over his prone position form. He wasn’t moving, and blood was pouring out of the wound on the back of his head, I was sure I had killed him. Yet, at that moment, the pacifist in me took a back seat to the laws of the animal kingdom. Basically, survival of the fittest and my new little phrase, she who swings first swings for the fences!
Baloo made a pitiful growl, and I immediately stepped over my ex-husband, put the bat down and waited to see if Baloo was going to go primal on me or if he was going to realize who I was. It took about two minutes, then slowly I saw his agitated breath even out, and his wide eyes began to soften with recognition. Before I could even gasp, the big grizzly ambled forward, wrapped his giant paw around my body, and pulled me toward him. It had to be an awkward position for Baloo as he sat back on his haunches and wrapped me in his furry hug. I’m sure most people would be frightened, and I was definitely aware that the large, paw that gently held the back of my head could kill me with one swipe or crush me with one angry stomp. I would never do this any other animal. This was a bond that forged out of years of togetherness and trust that had been built over time. Even my beloved lioness, Nala, who I loved dearly and would never imagine harming me didn’t have quite the same bond that Baloo and I did. The balance between loving, trusting and being affectionate with primal animals and watching for signs of agitation, pain or fear that could lead to being hurt was always a tightrope.
Yet, wrapped in Baloo’s coarse brown coat, I didn’t feel anything but loved and relief. Relief that he was okay.
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you, buddy,” I said to him as he gently released my head. I stepped back and smiled up at him.
He let out a fierce roar and immediately moved his large body in front of mine.
“Jesus, you are one crazy bitch. Now get over here and don’t try anything stupid or Yogi over there gets a bullet between the eyes,” Ollie’s voice boomed. I tried to move around Baloo to face Ollie, but the big bear ambled back in front of me.
Finally, after doing the side step dance for what seemed like hours, I was able to get to Baloo’s left so I could see his face. Ollie stood about four feet away, his beady eyes never leaving me as he helped Richard off the ground.
Richard cursed and groaned as he clutched his head in his hands. His face that I had once thought was kind, was contorted in pain and anger and I knew I was in trouble.
Stall Alison, stall until you can think of a way out of this mess. Realizing that Synclair’s bat was out of reach and with Ollie waving a gun, I decided to get what I came for. Not that it would matter much if I didn’t get out of this thing alive, but I had to try.
Putting on my most calm face, I smiled sweetly at Ollie.
“Hello Ollie, how’s the missus?” I asked doing a poor imitation of his New York accent.
The look of shock on Ollie’s face was priceless. I watched him literally scratch his head, trying to figure out how I knew who he was. Richard’s face had changed too. One look at him told me that he knew the gig was up. A flash of cruel awareness streaked across his face. I figured that he was aware that I knew exactly what he’d done. Had I any doubts before about whether he had killed my parents or not, and I hadn’t, they certainly would have been put to rest when his smug smile stretched across his face.
“Wow, I’m impressed dear. It appears you’re not as dumb as you look after all,” he chuckled.
“Well, it’s a good thing that I can always count on you to overestimate the intelligence of your partners while underestimating me.” I retorted sarcastically.
I could tell he was surprised. Richard knew that usually I’d try to reason out a conflict, try to find some middle ground. Yet, today there was no middle ground, and I was far too pissed to be reasonable.
“You know about me?” Ollie asked, his eyes wary.
I gave him another smile, realizing Baloo was still behind me and he was getting more agitated by the second, I decided that I needed to get them out of the habitat.
“I know all about you Ollie Pierce from New York, did a time here and there. You’re a classic thug. You cut the brake line in my father’s Jeep Wrangler.” I spoke plainly with a lot more confidence than I felt.
Ollie stared at me for a moment and then looked over at Richard who’s mouth was agape.
“Kind of sloppy to use the same technique to get rid of your wife just a few days short of divorce court. Sounds like you’re slipping, Ollie. I could have told you that the cops would find that suspicious.” I kept my voice even and steady not allowing any of the emotion that was building inside me surface. I needed to be smart; I needed to outwit Richard and his band of yahoos. There was no way in hell I was being taken out by a guy who look like Lenny from the old sitcom, Laverne & Shirley!
“Yeah, well I wasn’t lucky enough to have a cop in my back pocket who was willing to sign off on the accident report like the smart guy here.” He argued, his thick accent making his words all the more devious sounding.
“Ahh, what happened Ollie? Nathan Philips didn’t know any cops that you could buy off in Brooklyn?” I asked while looking straight at Richard.
“You know a lot,” Richard replied in obvious shock.
“I know it all, Richard. What I want to now is how much?” Richard seemed confused by my question. That was fine, it wasn’t meant for him.
“How much, what?” Ollie asked still keeping the gun pointed in my direction. It wasn’t lost on me that one small bit of pressure on that trigger and no one would ever know that Richard Taggart had killed my parents in cold blood.
“How much did Richard pay you? I mean, exactly how much did it take to convince you to murder two entirely innocent people and maim me for life, Ollie?” My voice held steady, but I felt a flush of anger creep up my neck and into my face.
Ollie laughed, and the hollow sound made me clench my fists; I really wanted that man dead.
“You’re something else, ya know that. Most people would be crying or begging for their lives, but you…you got balls,” he snickered.
My calm façade began to crack as I stared at this ugly, beady-eyed man, laughing at me. How many people how he killed? How many begged him for mercy, begged him to let them live? Fuck that. The last thing I was going to so was beg this needle dick little twit for anything.
The very part of my temper that my mother had always preached to keep hidden. The part of me that made me fearless when I was a young child, the part that I tamped down because it was rude, inappropriate or wrong to display any kind of primal viciousness. The very thing I had learned from the animal kingdom was about to crack my fake smile. Instinct, pure animal instinct. Humans at our very core have a strong survival instinct that engages in a time of stress or life threatening situations. Nobody talks about the things people do to survive. Instead, we hold ourselves above the animal kingdom, celebrating our superior intellect and ability to reason. However, what most humans know deep down but never talk about is instinct. The same survival instinct that led a group of plane crash survivors to eat the bodies of those that had died, to survive while they waited for rescue on a snow-covered mountainside. The same survival instinct and adrenaline rush allowed a skinny mother of two to lift a car that had ran over and was sitting atop her child, clear off so that her son could be pulled free.
I had witnessed it repeatedly in the wild, and if you paid attention, you would see demonstrations of it every day in the stories of people who survived harrowing ordeals. My mother had raised me in a world where instinct ruled and then tried to tamper that influence with rules and manners. I loved my mother dearly and would always miss her kind face and warm hugs, but my mom was wrong. When push comes to shove, instinct was the key to survival, and I intended to follow mine.
Richard was watching me with a wary expression on his face while Ollie looked like he actually admired me a little. I didn’t care, it didn’t matter what
these assholes thought of me as long I got the evidence I needed.
“You’re right Ollie, I do. I do have balls. Apparently, they’re bigger than yours if the only way you can whack two people is a severed brake line, which is the epitome of a pussy!” I goaded. The smile fell right off Ollie’s face when I challenged his manliness. He was a textbook asshole who thought he was a real tough guy. Therefore, that was where I would attack until I got him to hang himself with his own words.
“Really? Really, bitch! You think you can come at me with that shit, I’ll show you balls…I’ll smoke you right here!” Ollie shouted waving the gun wildly.
“Whatever Ollie, you’re too pussy to actually kill someone who’s facing you. You’re going to shoot an unarmed woman, Ollie? That is your big, brave move? I bet you walk around putting bullets in people that are already dead so you can add it to your kill count!” I spat at him letting the disgust I felt towards him seep into my tone.
“Yeah, shows what you know. I wanted to do your parents right.” Ollie insisted.
“Shut up you idiot,” Richard ordered.
Ollie ignored him and continued to defend his manliness. “What? She already knows.” He told Richard.
He swung his attention back to me and smiled, “When Richard told me he needed your parents gone so he could get his hands on your property, I said I would make it look like a robbery. You know. Like in Batman when Bruce Wayne’s parents get whacked,” Ollie spoke fast like he was lost in a trance of his own fantasies and I realized the man was truly out of his mind.
I forced my face to remain expressionless while Ollie described in detail, the plans he’d had for my parent’s death.
“I had it all planned out. But your parents hadn’t left the damn property in over a week, so I had to think of something fast. Richard needed it to happen before you left for that University thing in Africa. So I watched and watched, and saw that your parents would take a drive every evening down to the bottom of the mountain and hike out to a stream. I’m not much for hiking but I figured if I cut the brakes then mom and dad would be toast and no one would even question it.” He finished his story with such a look of pride and satisfaction that I felt the bile rise up in my throat.
“You weren’t supposed to be in the car, Alison,” Richard spoke suddenly. With one hand on my stomach, I felt my legs shake and had Baloo not nudged his big head under my right elbow, I know I would have fallen.
My shock gaze clashed with Richard’s guilty one and I knew he was telling the truth. It didn’t make anything about what happened any better. Knowing I wasn’t the intended target did little to ease the pain of knowing my parents were.
“What did you say?” I asked again, partly to make sure the recorder heard it and partly out of shock.
Richard cleared his voice, brought his hands to his sides, and gave me a pained look of regret. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt, Alison!” I watched Richard’s face quickly change from remorse to anger.
“I told Ollie that you were not to be touched. Just your parents, Alison. Your father was a damned fool!” he insisted, and I tried to resist the urge to jump on him and pound on his head wound. “He was offered twice the amount this place was worth, but he refused to sell. Refused to upset the animals by relocating. So, I made a choice. I’ve always known what’s best for you Alison, even when you don’t,” he stated with wild eyes that told me that crazy man number two was present and accounted for.
“Are you serious? The only person you’ve ever cared about is you and you think sparing me and murdering my parents so you could get your hands on my land was somehow in my best interest?” I shouted throwing my hands up at the lunacy of his statement.
“We would have made a fortune from the sale of this land, Alison. We could have been set for life.” He insisted as if he hadn’t heard me at all.
The shock had me rearing back into Baloo’s massive body. “And what about Baloo and Nala and the others, Richard? I supposed you knew what was best for them too?” I yelled. I had tried to stay calm, tried to simply let these two assholes incriminate themselves but the fact that Richard was trying to say that he had done this for me, made me want to physically vomit.
I saw Richard sneer as he looked past me at Baloo and I knew he had never intended to let my animals stay with me. Whatever deluded fantasy Richard had concocted had my parents murdered and my animals gone. The man was crazy, not a little, not a smidge…Nope! The man was certifiably straightjacket worthy bonkers.
“You wouldn’t have needed those stupid animals. You would have had me. I would have been your hero again, and you would have looked at me as if I was the center of your world. I wanted that back, Alison. I still do.” Richard’s eyes locked on mine when he confessed how much he still wanted me.
He must have seen the horrified look on my face because he grabbed the gun from Ollie and raised it toward my heart. For the space of a heartbeat, I considered the idea that this may be the end. I had finally gotten the confession that I had come for, and now Richard was going to shoot me and probably dump my body in some desolate location.
To my surprise, the bullet never came. Instead, he shouted at Ollie. “I don’t have time for this, grab her Ollie. We need to meet Nathan back at the house,”
Ollie gave Richard a shocked look, and I could tell this wasn’t part of the plan. I wasn’t sure if the original plan was to off me on site or something else but Ollie looked very confused.
“Don’t even think of touching me asshole,” I warned as Ollie took a few steps toward me. Ollie froze when Baloo let off a deafening roar that would make most people shake in their shoes. Ollie was no different as he retreated several steps, his face drained of color.
“She’s right,” Richard sneered. “You are a pussy,”
“Do you not see that big fucking bear behind her man? Teeth or no teeth, that bear looks pissed!” Ollie griped as he remained standing without any indication that he was going to make any movement toward Baloo and me.
“It’s obvious you’ve grown up a lot since we were married, Alison. I have to admit, your defiance is rather sexy,” Richard replied making no effort to hide the way his eyes were roaming over my body.
Okay, officially grossed out now! “Wow, then you’re going to find me downright irresistible when I put you and your stupid gang of assholes in prison. Kind of hard to keep your position at New York Developers, Inc. as head of their land requisition committee when you’re wearing an orange jumpsuit and running from guys who want to call you, sweetheart!” I smirked.
“You’re forcing my hand, Alison, putting me in a bad position,” Richard insisted with a groan.
Unable to stop the angry words from spilling out, I kept going, “You’ve never been in a bad position, but I assure you when Bubba has you bent over your bed in prison that will be a bad position.” I promised him with a bright smile.
Apparently, Richard was done with my sarcastic comments because he raised the gun higher, over my head, right at Baloo.
“Don’t!” I shouted as I tried to make my body as wide as possible to cover Baloo. I knew if he chose to shoot that Baloo was an enormous target, and he was sure to hit him.
“You decide Alison, you come with us now, or I end your precious Baloo. Don’t test me, sweetheart, I would love nothing more than to put that useless animal down!” Richard threatened, and I knew he meant it. He would shoot Baloo, and I would have to watch someone else that I loved die.
Baloo growled, and I quickly turned to face him, tears slipped down my cheeks before I could stop them. “It’s okay, it’s okay, Baloo. I promise. I’ll come back for you, I won’t leave you.” I cried while nuzzling his fur knowing that I had no idea if I’d ever see him or anyone else again after today.
Baloo made a pained noise, and I threw my arms around his thick neck and hugged him with everything I had. “I can’t let them hurt you, boy. He’ll shoot you if I don’t go with him and I can’t let him hurt you, I just can’t” I groaned against
his coarse fur and felt his agitated breath. I knew Richard was waving the gun around. Without me here, Baloo wouldn’t have anyone to protect, and his fear of guns would have him backing into a corner.
“Stop it Richard! Jesus, you got what you wanted. My parents are dead, I lost my permit and have to sell this land, you won you asshole, stop waving the damn gun!” I shouted as I turned from Baloo and wiped my tears with my arm. Baloo’s panting continued, and I could almost feel the fear radiating off him at the sight of Richard with a gun.
“Let’s go, Alison, we have business to discuss,” Richard ordered, and I forced my feet to walk from the comforting safety of Baloo towards the man who had murdered my parents and the man who had ordered it done.
As soon as I got close enough, Richard grabbed my arm and started dragging my backward, his gun still trained on Baloo’s face. Baloo looked frightened, angry and sad all in one and I couldn’t blame him, it was exactly how I felt too.
No one spoke as Richard dragged me down the path towards the house. The only bright spot was that I had gotten them away from Baloo. Of course, I hadn’t figured out a way to get myself out of this met yet, but I knew I could. If I could just get Richard’s gun or possible, just stall for time until Pepper brought the cavalry. Although, I wasn’t going to pin my life on help showing up. What was going to come? Crooked cops? Maybe a firefighter or a paramedic if she called 911? Yeah, my instinct driven pep talk hadn’t exactly panned out.
No Refunds No Exchanges: A Hudson Family Series- Book 4- Matt and Ali Page 37