In addition, he was trustworthy because he had everything to lose if his part-time job ever became news.
Nick Carpenter said, “I’m standing at your daddy’s place. I got the shittiest news you’ll get in this life. Someone hit him, Wayman. This place is a war zone. Got the burned-out SUV on the turnaround. Your father’s face down in front of the garage, shot, and son, I went inside to look for help, and they got your mother too. One shot in the head. And worse. She’s cut up something ugly.”
“You say they?”
“We got a little snow. There’s three sets of footprints.”
“Okay. I’m coming down. Don’t call it in. Right?”
“Uh, you might want to think on that. I can turn around and leave, and make like I was never here. I haven’t touched anything but a doorknob. But whoever did this gets a bigger lead each hour I don’t get someone in here. You want them to find out who did it, don’t you?”
“Yes, but what I don’t want is a bunch of fucking cops going through my dad’s house, you understand? I don’t know what he left in the open.”
“Your daddy didn’t operate that way. He covered his tracks.”
“Don’t talk like that on the phone.”
“All right. Are you flying down? Want me to get you at the airport?”
“How much snow did you get?”
“Inch, two.”
“You sure?”
“I’m standing in it. Doesn’t come to my toe.”
“Okay. I’m going to use the grass strip. I’ll be there in four hours or so. Meet me there.”
Wayman ended the call.
He lifted his office phone, hit #2.
“Asger. I’m flying to Williams. It’s going to be a few days. Emergency. Need anything, go to the burners.”
Wayman hated communicating business-critical information over any sort of technology. His father had preferred coded communication, but Wayman figured even codes can be broken. Better if they didn’t know there was a conversation at all. He and Asger each kept a burner phone charged and ready.
Wayman searched a number on his cell phone.
“Peter, sorry to call at this hour. Wayman Graves. Yeah. I just got some bad news. Family emergency. I need to come in on your strip in about four hours. West? Okay. I got Nick Carpenter going to pick me up .... Okay, thank you, I will.”
Wayman learned to fly because while he was in high school, Tom Cruise convinced him being a Navy fighter pilot was the coolest thing a young man could aspire to.
His father had redirected his thinking. If he was going to die for a country that viewed him as a serf without rights and worth nothing but the confiscatory taxes he would pay, he should do it as a Marine, where at least he’d line up every morning with the best, and if he survived, emerge with skills that might be useful in the dystopian world he would inherit.
By the time high school ended, the family had taken its first steps toward surviving the coming race war apocalypse, and Luke had shared some ideas on how the family might both help instigate the conflict and profit from it, so when the inevitable came, they’d have the resources to defend themselves.
In pursuit of that plan, Wayman joined a different group of uniformed men for a three-year tour behind bars.
He came out still wanting to fly airplanes, but more along the lines of running guns or drugs. Whatever his father needed. A year after his release from prison, he took lessons. The FAA granted his license.
He didn’t fly as much as he thought he would, but the exhilaration was the same every time the engine pushed him into the seat and his stomach floated on takeoff. His first plane, he paid cash for a Cessna 172. Today he owned a Piper Malibu Mirage, a 1.5-million-dollar delight financed through the bank. His father had shaken his head at the extravagance of it, but grinned like a fool when Wayman said he’d financed it, and then threw his own words back at him. Why pay with real money today when the whole shithouse’ll go up in flames before you’d ever pay off the note?
Lot of wisdom in that man.
His father was dead.
Wayman rolled the thought over. Adjusted the headset cushions around his ears.
Off the port side, Flagstaff twinkled below. He was minutes from seeing what happened to his family and figuring out what he would do about it.
Someone had cut up his mother? What did that mean? He should have pressed Nick for details.
What about the Graves assets?
Part of the justification for the airplane was that when the shit hit the fan for the last time, he’d haul ass home and join his father, mother and Cephus in the shelter. His father had built it as a family home, foreseeing the day they’d declare a kingdom over the surrounding lands.
But in the back of his mind, Wayman always wondered. Shit was bad out there. This new jackass president was trying to turn the country socialist in the space of a year. Still, average folks didn’t pay attention, and much as he agreed with his father about the deplorable situation with American politics, he also thought they were a pretty clever bunch, on whole. The people they kept disenfranchising were relatively small in number. The people who’d have to rise up were kept sedated on reality television, opiates, and welfare. Wayman never said it to his father, but he doubted the country would fall as fast as Luke seemed to hope. And meanwhile, there was a lot of good living to have. A lot of money to make.
With Cephus dead and Finch just a matter of time, Luke’s house would become Wayman’s house. He’d inherit the underground shelter. The meat business. His life was about to change in ways he knew he couldn’t yet grasp.
He’d need to appoint Asger to run the Salt Lake City operation. No one would have Wayman’s eye for the business, so Wayman would have to learn how to delegate from a distance.
Maybe insulation was good.
If he moved back to Williams and ran the meat company, he’d be sitting pretty.
Like Luke had been.
Wayman shook his head. He’d always known his position was more precarious than his father’s. Even sensed it was by design. But with his father dead and the son needing to learn in a hurry, he saw the cold efficiency of it. In placing Wayman in Salt Lake City and limiting their communication, Luke had set his son up to take the fall for the whole operation. Wayman had said to Nick Carpenter he wanted to check the house and make sure nothing could blow back on him, but he now saw that was a useless worry. His father wouldn’t have anything about their Salt Lake City business at the house, or anywhere at all.
The man had been cold.
It was inspiring.
The last he’d spoken with his father, Wayman was with Claudia, in the video room with Amy. Luke had called and said there was a man standing in front of the garage. A grizzled man, bald head, leg solid blood. Wearing a camouflage outfit and a leather-holstered pistol at his side. Luke had said it was probably the man who killed Cephus.
Hours later he learned his father was dead.
Wayman kept coming back to the same disbelief. Luke was bigger than any threat. Smarter—and more committed to being careful—than any adversary.
His father couldn’t be dead.
It couldn’t be true. But it was and Wayman knew it. A lightning bolt had hit Luke. Some rare accident no man, no matter how diligent, could avoid. It showed the precariousness of life, and the importance of making it worthwhile. Of extracting every joy, every satisfaction, from the surrounding environment.
Wayman saw the landing strip. Drank the last of his coffee.
His father was dead.
Others would be soon.
Peter Corson stood with Nick Carpenter at the end of the grass strip. They all called it the grass strip, but it was an inside joke. The private runway had begun as grass, but with dollars earned from hauling marijuana northward, had quickly been covered in asphalt.
“You want to put it inside? Good chance we got more snow coming,” Corson said.
“Yeah.”
They used a tow bar and backed the plane into the
hangar. Wayman grabbed the small duffel he’d packed.
“Nick told me about your family, Wayman. I’m real sorry. If any of my resources can be of help, holler at me. Country’s gone to shit.”
Wayman slapped Corson’s shoulder. No one knew the man’s worth, but Luke always figured it was a couple zeros past the Graves’s combined wealth.
“I appreciate the offer. I might need help locating a man. I’ll let you know.”
“Well, I know you got the business up north, and now all this on your plate. Plus your daddy’s concern too. Come and go on the grass strip whenever you need.”
Wayman followed Carpenter to his Buick. Threw his duffel in the back seat. As Carpenter drove down the lane, Wayman looked at his watch. “I want to make a stop. Go to Flag.”
Carpenter nodded.
Wayman opened his bag. Withdrew a .380 revolver.
Carpenter was silent.
After a few minutes, Wayman said, “Left up here.”
As dawn broke, they arrived. Wayman directed each turn and finally, they parked.
“I’ll be fifteen or twenty. Maybe go get us a couple coffees. Something to eat. Anything but McDonalds.”
Wayman got out of the car and headed across the street, through an alley. He pulled the sweatshirt hood from below his jacket over his head. Emerged on the other side of the block and ducked into an apartment building. He kept his eyes on the building walls. Two years before, when their FBI contact Lou Rivers first made them aware Finch was snitching, Wayman had scouted a route to his brother’s apartment with no video surveillance. Luke had said to hold off. Give it time. They’d know his every move. Maybe he’d wise up. See the light.
If Wayman would have listened to his father the night before in Salt Lake City, this errand with Finch would have already been taken care of. Minutes after dropping Finch off at the motel, he’d gotten a phone call from his father. “No way. He’s had two years. I put it to him straight and he as good as told me to fuck myself. It’s over.” So Wayman sent Tony to handle it.
Now, it was up to Wayman to do. It was better this way.
He climbed the steps with careful quiet footfalls, drawing his weapon from his jacket as he entered the hallway. He pulled his hood lower on his face. Looked downward in case anyone joined him in the hall.
He stood at Finch’s door—the man who’d tried to turn in his father and brothers to the FBI.
Knock?
Wayman lashed out with his boot. The door crashed inward. He followed. Looked left. Right. Straight through to the bedroom. He kicked in that door as well, and Finch stood on his bed in his boxers, cagey like a linebacker ready to leap whatever direction the game said jump.
“We knew two years ago.”
Wayman fired, saw death blossom on Finch’s chest.
Finch fell to the bed.
Wayman approached, fired one more into his brother’s forehead, and left.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Nick Carpenter turned onto the Graves’s lane. Wayman braced himself. He’d imagined his mother as Carpenter described, the darkening of her face as death laid irreversible claim and decay ascended. The meat missing from her thigh, like someone had wanted to make a statement about the butcher business.
It wasn’t right, in a sense he couldn’t quite place, that a woman could die at all.
His eyes burned with the need for sleep. Wayman drank from the large coffee Carpenter had grabbed while Wayman visited Finch.
“I’ll hang back and give you a minute to check things out if you like.”
“Good.”
“What the hell? You see that?”
A dog was beside what Wayman assumed was his father’s corpse.
“What is that? Coyote?”
“Nah. Hell. That’s a dog.”
“And that’s my dad, there?”
“That’s him.”
Wayman lifted his revolver from the floor where it had been since he rejoined Carpenter. He powered down the window.
“Don’t shoot toward the house,” Nick said. “You don’t want your bullet holes in the house when the investigation starts.”
Wayman’s phone buzzed. It was the one in his left pocket. His regular phone, not the burner.
He answered. “Yeah.”
“Wayman?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Emerson. Something you need to know now.”
It was one of his FBI contacts in Salt Lake City. “You sure you want to say it on the phone?”
“It’s okay. We don’t have your cell tapped. Just the office.”
“Great to hear. What’s up?”
“Just learned a little bit ago one of our agents has found her way into your organization.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Her name’s Maggie. I don’t know what name she gave you. But she’s unmistakable. Tall, probably the prettiest woman you’ve seen in your life. You know who that could be?”
Wayman felt a punch to the gut. “Yeah. I know. She’s FBI? No shit?”
“Hey, I called as soon as I found out.”
Wayman ended the call.
Carpenter stopped the car.
The dog was pissing on his father.
Wayman pulled the door handle and climbed out, partly slipping on the snow. He hadn’t slept since the night before. He’d worked all night, then learned his family was murdered. Piloted his craft to Flagstaff, murdered his brother. He needed more caffeine. A line of coke. Something. He rubbed the pistol to his forehead, grinding the grit-rubber grip into his skin. He stooped and scooped snow powder in his hand, pressed it to his eyes while thinking about Claudia’s lies about her childhood, how she was raped, how she hated who he hated.
How she’d played him.
The dog looked up and put its hind leg down.
Wayman pointed the pistol. Squeezed one off. The blast numbed his ears. The bullet flaked a log behind the dog. The recoil affirmed and provoked his rage. The dog bolted, and Wayman followed around the garage.
He fired again.
The dog yelped and fell. Then bounded away.
Wayman trotted. Finding the spot where the dog’s prints became a body roll, he saw bright red blood. It incited his lust. Woman betray him? She could have been the mother of his children.
Focus.
He stomped after the dog. The blood drops increased in frequency and size. It’d been a good hit. He’d find the dog cowering somewhere and maybe, just maybe, filling the animal with holes would alleviate his fury.
Wayman’s lungs burned. He hurried after the tracks, circling behind the house and beginning up the hill.
The blood sign lessened. The dog’s tracks expanded—he ran uphill and only every five yards or so left a red spot.
Wayman slowed, grabbed a birch tree for support. His lungs were on fire from the cold air and exertion. He looked uphill for the dog and, not seeing it, twisted downhill. He swung out his left leg and dropped it…
Something was wrong.
His foot travelled beyond ground level another six inches, but Wayman’s body weight had already shifted forward. He buckled at the knee to prevent the footplate from making contact, but failed.
He’d walked into one of Luke’s or Cephus’s mantraps. A memory flashed—his father and brother farting around the shop one Christmas, making landmines.
The plate below Wayman’s foot connected with another positioned several inches below it. They were separated by springs on each side, and in the middle of each, on top and bottom, copper connected with copper. An electric circuit completed, connecting an electric charge from a battery to an electric fuse, which in turn was housed in a canister of homemade black powder.
Wayman followed through on his attempt to lift his leg, resulting in him rolling to his left and jerking his leg away from the trap.
He heard a fizz, a sound like a burp of steam, and nothing. He lay on his side a moment, aware an explosive was only a few feet away. He saw the bright morning sky and was stunned by the tur
n of events. He was alive. He had his leg. He was alive.
Wayman laughed, full throat, to the sky.
Across the leaves galloped a pit bull, twice shot in the last three days, once a lover of men, but now a hater, face drawn in snarling rage and brain spastic in fury. The dog flew the last ten feet downhill and landed with its teeth on Wayman’s neck. In a single clasp and jerk, Wayman’s throat collapsed. With the second, the dog pulled it free.
It stepped away a few feet and watched Wayman kick and spew blood onto the snow. Then licked the wound on its hind leg, where Wayman’s bullet had creased it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Nat Cinder knocked on Mae’s door, a sense of unease riding high in his abdomen. He’d slept five hours, woke early, prepped gear, rented a van, swiped a pair of license plates, then bought a bag of burritos and a gallon of coffee for the drive.
He didn’t relish the task at hand. Finch seemed vested in manifesting good out of the evil he’d helped create, but worthy motives didn’t always translate to noble outcomes. It might have been the dreadlocks, Cinder didn’t know. Maybe there was just something jarring about working with a person who’d been on the wrong side for so long, and suddenly wanted on the right.
Finch seemed like a man who valued his life so little, he’d trade it for even a fleeting sense of absolution.
The door opened.
“Mae.”
She stepped back from him, a wary wrinkle to her brow. She was barefoot and wore flannel pajamas.
At the table, in the same chair she sat in the night before, Tathiana ate fried eggs and bacon. She’d cleaned up into a completely different person. She wore clothes that didn’t fit her—Mae’s most likely—but her hair was brushed and her face clean. She looked up from her plate, and Cinder felt the heaviness of her judgment.
Pretty Like an Ugly Girl (Baer Creighton Book 3) Page 20