Damn it, Nick Lupo. What the hell are you?
Martin
The fucking vehicle was too loud, its huge engine rattling like a helicopter. But Wilbur assured him it was muffled, so it could have been even louder a clatter. He’d expected a large and unsightly piece of olive-drab equipment, of course, but not that it would be so, well, massive. He rode shotgun to Wilbur’s driving, while Kenny and Buck sat just behind them in the first of the ten seats Wilbur had left of the original twenty. Uncomfortable school-bus seats, their vinyl was torn and tattered as if by generations of unruly schoolchildren bearing switchblades. The remainder of the open cabin consisted of bare, rusted metal flooring now covered by several crates of supplies.
The engine’s rattle made talking nearly impossible, and Martin didn’t think he cared all that much, because he had nothing to say to these three.
This was an unsophisticated end to his plans, which he had so carefully laid out and nurtured. The murders, the personal messages, the losses Dominic Lupo had suffered, even if he wasn’t aware of them yet. It was all very sophisticated, until it led here, to the place Lupo called his own. Martin had wanted to claim his prize here, doubly so since he had witnessed the cop’s attraction for the lady doctor bearing fruit of the forbidden kind. He’d thought hooking up with Klug and his cronies created a fine final phase for his plan, but now it would have to be improvised, spur of the moment. He’d considered the woodsmen perfect—hardy hunters he could trust in a pinch to live off the land and help him trap the cop if he could really turn into a wolf as his sister had so carefully documented. But now he wasn’t so sure.
Wilbur Klug was a bully whose sole interest in life appeared to be the intimidation of others and maybe drinking, not always in that order. His buddy Kenny was an ignoramus who followed because he had not a shred of imagination, and who also ranked drinking highly as a hobby. And Buck Benton—well, Martin would have cheerfully blown off his head mere moments after they had freed him, had he not needed all three. It was too late to change horses in midstream, Martin figured. He was stuck with them. Make the best of it.
Suddenly, Wilbur crashed through the Duck’s gears in a noisy downshift that included a short revving of the engine with the accelerator, and pulled them slowly onto Circle Moon Drive. Martin held up his hand and Wilbur applied the screechy brakes.
“We’re here,” he said as Wilbur shut down the engine. “The rest on foot. Don’t wanna get heard.”
He waited as they gathered up their guns, then they clambered off the Duck using a battered aluminum ladder.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jessie
She thought she heard the doorbell ring again while in the bathroom washing her hands. Normally, she would have peeked through the gap in the curtains of the side window to see who stood on her porch. Even though she had spent most of her life in the rural regions of what locals called “Up North,”,she had also spent enough time in the city with her big-time doctor father to know that trust could so easily be fragile and, therefore, broken.
But she had just watched Sam Waters leave a few minutes ago, and she half suspected Nick would make an appearance soon. Not that she considered herself so irresistible, but what they’d shared had so much altered her perception of day-to-day life that she hoped that his had been altered as well. She couldn’t wait to see him.
So she ran straight toward the door, wiping her hands on her shorts, intending to throw it wide open.
And realized immediately that she was in deep trouble.
The door suddenly burst inward, exploding jagged wooden spears from the shattered jamb. The inset glass panel also shattered when the door reached the end of its arc and rebounded. In the meantime, the imposing barrel-chested man who staggered inside from the top of the steps set his gigantic booted foot inside the doorway and jammed the door wide open.
Jessie leaped back, surprised but also quick-acting, and went for the police tactical baton she kept on a ledge near the door, but a ham-sized fist closed over her wrist and stopped her cold before she could reach it.
Still silent—not a screamer Jessie Hawkins, and not accustomed to asking for help, self-sufficient to a fault—she twisted out of the grasp and, finding her way out the door blocked by other bodies, thrust herself in the direction of the gun rack in the den. But the big man who’d invaded her home was already on her heels, and she heard the others following with a loud clatter. She never reached the rack, but found herself flipped onto her face by the man’s ankle tackle. She barely avoided smashing her nose on the hardwood floor by falling hard on her forearms, and her attacker immediately began to reel her in.
Just as quickly, she twisted her athletic body out of his grasp again and lashed out with a moccasin-clad foot.
Damn it! she had changed out of her Timberlands.
Still, her deadly toe-jab connected with the giant’s nose and he grinned through the sudden curtain of blood. Nevertheless, his hands became a vise around her foot.
“A wildcat!” he shouted, speaking for the first time as she thrashed in his grip. “I like that.”
Jessie grunted. She wasn’t about to waste her breath on screams or insults or inane questions, knowing instinctively that these were the men Sam had warned her about. Why hadn’t she prepared more?
Because she was distracted with Nick, that was why.
She concentrated on her resistance, realizing way down deep in her gut that her life had suddenly become a fragile construct.
Literally in his hands.
He turned her slowly, like a bird on a spit, twisting her resisting body back against her efforts, so that she had no choice but to lie belly-down on the floor again. The ragged fringes of an area rug filled her mouth with yarn. Her kicking radius was shortened to only backward and upward, which her attacker contained with ease using only one massive hand.
“Oh, now, I like that!” he said, laughing and surveying the view of her buttocks and lower back.
She realized that her thrashing excited him, so she relaxed her muscles, sagging to the floor as if surrendering to his will. Suddenly, she surged with all her strength and tried to stick her foot in his face, but he had foreseen her attempt and he foiled it easily, driving her toes so hard into the floor that she screamed in pain.
“Behave!” he warned, doing a bad Austin Powers voice. No one laughed.
Sweat rolled down her forehead and into her eyes. She turned her head painfully and blinked, seeing them all clearly for the first time. The big guy leaning with all his weight on her legs, a sleazy-looking one in a bright orange jumpsuit—him she recognized—a dumb-looking one in another gray jumpsuit that matched the big guy’s, and a casually dressed blond man carrying a huge revolver. Two of the others held UZIs. She knew her guns and had seen plenty of UZIs in gun books and at gun shows—it’s not a weapon easily mistaken for another. Were these the terrorists? Why here?
Why her?
Nice rack,” the big guy said, and she wasn’t sure whether he meant her or the guns just out of reach against the wall. Shivering, she realized he probably meant both.
They were all looking at the selection of shotguns and deer rifles nearby, but then they all stared at her.
Like a pack of drooling hyenas.
Shock set in and she began to tremble and hyperventilate, her breathing ragged and much too quick to replenish the growing vacuum in her lungs.
Tears squeezed out of her eyes, but she fought them and brought herself under control, trying to slow her breathing. Survival required she play the game smart.
But it wasn’t a game.
The thought hit her all at once that this invasion was no accident. These weren’t a couple of county escapees holing up in a cottage, hoping to elude a dragnet. Well, maybe they’d try eluding the dragnet too, but she knew that there was more to it than that.
It was the blond man. He didn’t fit in. Not at all.
He’s the murderer who’s after Nick, who killed his friend.
Lo
oking at his smarmy, smirky smile, she knew she was right. Whether she could use that knowledge or not, that was the question.
As if he realized her thoughts were on him, the blond man spoke.
“All right, gentlemen, let’s take what we came for and head out. I’m certain our friend will be after us soon. I left a couple personal messages for him back home, and after what I saw going on near here, he’s gonna come looking.” He pointed at the big guy. “You have a place staked out like we planned?”
The big guy’s hands on her legs didn’t move. “Yeah, I got the place. Not much to it. It’s isolated, but it ain’t far from here as the duck paddles.”
Jessie felt his hands begin crawling along the backs of her legs. Struggling didn’t help; his grip was just too strong. He stopped when he reached the bottom of her buttocks. He squeezed her there, as if he were checking out produce.
“Tell your Rottweiler to get off me!” she shouted at the blond man, surmising that he would try to maintain his control. What had they come for, anyway?
The other two laughed, especially annoying honking laughter coming from the Buck guy she’d seen carted off to jail. “Wilbur, you’re a dog!” he hooted.
The big guy didn’t respond, but his grip grew stronger and one of his hands wandered under the hem of her scrunched-up shorts. Had she gone too far?
“Let’s get going,” the blond man said tersely. “I’m paying the bills, and you guys are going to be all over the news. You don’t have time to play with your toys, Wilbur.”
Now she made the connection. She hadn’t really recognized Klug yet.
Wilbur grunted behind her, his fingers touching her panties, his breath wheezing over her back. “Okay, okay,” he said finally. “But this is mine later on, when we get there.” He unstraddled her feet and dragged her into a kneeling position, then up on her feet. His dumb-looking friend gave him a pair of handcuffs and before she knew it they were snapped around her wrists, behind her back.
“Kenny, grab a couple of these fine-looking weapons,” Wilbur said.
“Okay!” Kenny set about his quest with gusto, raiding Jessie’s father’s beloved gun rack. “Hey, lookie here!”
Everyone turned. Kenny crouched to rummage below the row of long guns. From a special cradle he took a Saxon hunting crossbow with fiberglass cut-out rifle stock, its frame fitted with a quiver of twelve wicked-looking hunting bolts.
“What a toy!” Kenny said with reverence.
“You don’t even know how to load that thing,” Buck called out, snorting. “Give it here!”
Jessie understood then that Kenny was used to being the token idiot, the dumb guy follower who’d get in trouble with his buddies because he wanted their respect, but who would never have it because they had to be better than somebody, after all, and why not him? Kenny mumbled a few words below his breath, but he gave Buck the crossbow without argument.
“Buck, you get to carry the bow. Are you happy now?”
Martin Stewart’s voice approximated a whine, and she sensed that he felt his control unraveling. He waved the revolver. “Let’s go!” He spotted the phone and walked up, scratching his chin. Looking around as if about to ask a question, instead he unplugged the phone from the answering machine and let the cord dangle.
Wilbur growled. “Kenny, carry out them guns. Buck, find some fuckin’ clothes that don’t make you look like county butt-bait, okay?” He shoved her roughly toward the door where they waited. She felt his hands on her buttocks and recoiled, but he held her close by the handcuffs. Buck returned a few minutes later and picked up the crossbow again, having found some of her father’s jeans and a shirt-and-sweater combination she’d given him as a Christmas gift, and a light parka.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You’ll see, babe, you’ll see,” Wilbur whispered in her ear through her hair. His tongue left cold slime on her earlobe.
Jessie Hawkins vowed right then that if she had a chance, she would kill him. She had cared for people and saved lives her entire career, but he represented everything about human life not worth saving.
Martin kicked over one of her bookcases, spilling dozens of medical and science books. “Just in case your boyfriend doesn’t get the message.”
Wilbur took one hand off her and aimed the UZI. A short burst nearly blew out her eardrums and shattered the television. Hot brass danced on the floor.
“Never anythin’ good on, anyway,” Wilbur shouted.
When they dragged her out into the evening darkness, she felt the cold immediately. “Can I have a jacket?” she asked Martin.
He looked down at her shorts and shook his head. “I think you won’t be needing too many clothes at all.” And the chill in his words canceled out the cold night air for her.
Part Three
Pavane
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lupo
He knew he was behind, being jerked around like a puppet by this bastard, Martin, this growth that had to be excised. He’d been behind from the start, when Corinne’s death had been dangled before him like an evil clown’s toy.
Jessie hadn’t been at the clinic all day. He’d been about to leave when the call had come in and he’d heard all about the so-called terrorist attack.
Now Lupo smacked the steering wheel. Damn it, why had his instincts failed him? He’d luxuriated in his new ability to control the Creature, and he’d just thrown the dice cold.
He knew what else. He’d been too close to it all to see the infamous big picture, the forest instead of the trees.
He speed-dialed his cell. Ben’s machine picked up, but did that make sense?
He redialed and listened to Ben’s outgoing message again. “Hey, Benny, pick up if you’re there, man. Pick up! I’m gonna need some help up here. Are you there? All right, I’ll call back.”
Blessed with a good memory for numbers, he dialed Jessie’s again, but again there was no answer and no machine.
He felt like a rubber band in a child’s game, being pulled in both directions.
The squad room phone was answered by a gruff Sergeant Kosko, a friend of Ben’s. “No, Nick, he ain’t here. Thought he was out in the field with you.”
“Fuck! Listen, Sarge, there’s somethin’ going on—”
“Hell yeah! You hear about Eagle River? All hell’s breaking loose up there! Sounds like terrorists broke some scumbag perp outta jail, had grenades and full auto guns.”
“Yeah, I’m heading there now,” Lupo said. “Rag’s gun shop!” He shook his head. Why hadn’t he seen the connection? “We figured they got grenades and more, Sarge. Listen, you better send a squad over to Ben’s and check on him. I need him to call me, but he’s not answering. I’m—” His phone emitted three short beeps and went dead, its battery drained. He tossed it aside in disgust.
Lupo drove on, his mind screaming.
Jessie
She had pulled a rough wool blanket over herself and no one had stopped her. The night was darkening, and there would be frost. Her breath reminded her of how cold it was every time it puffed in front of her face.
She’d been amazed—shocked, really—by their getaway vehicle. She’d been to the Dells in central Wisconsin, so she knew damn well what it was. She’d just never expected to be whisked away in a Duck, for Christ’s sake!
She knew now that she was bait.
Maybe Nick Lupo would be able to help her. No, they expected him to follow her so they could kill him.
She couldn’t think in straight lines anymore. She remembered what Sam had implied Nick was. Some creature out of mixed mythologies. Would he be able to track them here, on the river? As a wolf? Was he a wolf? A werewolf? At this point, she would have welcomed him as any monster, because in his arms she had found more than she ever had…with anyone. If he was a monster, then monsters were misunderstood. That was for sure. Because he had been gentle, loving and caring, and what they’d shared had renewed her love of life, not that she’d ever really lost it
. Now she wondered if he was bounding through the woods, a black wolf looking for her. She remembered a romantic movie about a wolf and a hawk. The music seemed familiar. Her mind wandered again.
They had driven around Circle Moon Drive to the Rivkin house (she’d always laughed at the name, Rivkin, the infamous serial killer… Little did the old folks who lived there know how their neighbors chuckled every time they passed the mailbox on which it was prominently painted) and entered the narrow driveway, and then she’d realized what they were doing. The Rivkins owned a private boat launch, a wide concrete ribbon that disappeared into the dark waters of the channel. Sometimes their friends and neighbors launched there for free, though tourists had to pay. But the big guy, Klug, had driven straight toward the ramp, and after a great gnashing of gears, he slid a shift lever all the way forward and engaged the propeller in the rear of the squared-off chassis. The great vehicle rumbled and trembled as it went through its transformation, then slid into the water with a great splash as the snowblade-shaped front end hit the surface. Its momentum carried it out into the channel and then the spinning prop got a grip and the Duck waddled toward the center of the current.
She shivered now, having been nearly drenched by the cold sheet of water that had soaked through her clothes. Only the blanket kept her teeth from chattering aloud.
They didn’t talk much, but she felt Buck Benton’s eyes on her the whole time. They’d stationed Kenny aft, to stand guard and watch the rear. Martin Stewart sat next to Klug and occasionally spoke to him in low tones. But Buck sat in one of the seats closest to where she lay, in the seatless empty cargo space. Every time their eyes met, he licked his lips lasciviously.
“I’m going to kill you, you bastard,” she mumbled through slack lips. He couldn’t hear her, and the threat made her feel better.
“We’re almost there,” she heard Klug tell Martin.
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