by Erik Carter
Saunders stopped three feet away from him. Sweat dripped down his cheeks, which were blotched bright red and pale white. His arms quivered.
“Mate, tell me this isn’t what it looks like…”
I found her, Saunders. I love her!
Small crackles from the back of his mouth.
Saunders’s lip quivered. “You son of a bitch.”
An explosion of movement, and then pain rippled through Jake’s side. A brutal kick from Saunders’s wingtip. Jake’s mind flashed on the old man’s history in the London underworld.
Jake rolled to the side, further into C.C.’s blood, which was now cold.
How long had he been out?
He looked up. Saunders was not there.
And Jake knew where he’d gone. His eyes flicked to the right.
Saunders was pulling at a bookshelf, the one that had a row of books on a concealed set of metal tracks—a hidden compartment that stored a Mossberg 590.
Jake turned. His Colt had settled several feet away from him.
Saunders heaved back the hidden drawer, SMACK, grabbed the shotgun.
Jake felt his body move on instinct. No time to think. No time to scramble for his gun.
No time even for a last look at C.C.
There was a pump-action shotgun behind him, one that Jake knew was loaded to full capacity with nine rounds of buckshot.
He sprinted through the doorway, down the dark hallway, footsteps echoing harshly once more. He slipped on the blood-slicked sole of his right shoes, arms flailing momentarily.
His chest burned. His thighs ached. He tasted the cold, sour vomit in his mouth.
And he ran faster than he ever had.
The corner was ahead of him, the one he needed to take to get to the front door.
BOOM!
A deafening sound echoed through the hallway as buckshot ravaged the wall several feet back. Even so far away, debris peppered the back of Jake’s legs, the soles of his flailing shoes. A fragment of wood whistled past his shoulder.
Around the corner. He threw the door open and quickly closed it. Into the thick night.
The Taurus was ahead, achingly far, maybe fifty yards, where he’d left it by the fountain. A few feet from it was the Farones’ Bentley, which hadn’t been there when he arrived.
No sound behind him yet. Saunders hadn’t made it out of the house.
To the Taurus. He threw open the door, fell into the driver’s seat.
BOOM!
Searing pain in his calf. Metallic pops around him.
A pellet of buckshot had struck his left leg just as he was pulling it into the car.
Door shut. His body continued to move on instinct, ignoring the pain, forgetting about time. He fired up the engine.
A quick glance back to the house. Saunders, bursting through the front doors, the Mossberg at his shoulder. He racked it.
Jake smashed the gas pedal, dropped the clutch. The tires screamed. The Taurus shot forward.
BOOM!
More pellets thunked into the Taurus’s sheet metal.
The tires screamed as Jake spun the car around the circular fountain.
BOOM!
Past the fountain, heading down the driveway, toward the dark trees, the empty road.
BOOM! BOOM!
He looked in the rearview. Saunders behind him, emptying the shotgun with abandon. The blasts flaring into the inky night.
To the road. A screeching turn.
And Jake roared off into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Briggs hadn’t spoken the entire time Laswell had described the series of events that led to Jake Rowe’s revenge-fueled string of murders throughout Pensacola, Florida. Now that Laswell had reached a good stopping point in the tale—with Rowe taking a pellet of buckshot to the leg—he gave the old man a moment to gather his thoughts.
Fortunately, Briggs had stopped staring at the wall, which was such a weird, off-putting habit. Instead, while Laswell had outlined the events, Briggs had sat nearly perfectly still across the desk from him, listening intently, only small movements of his arms, adjustments of his ass position in the cheap chair.
Laswell had long since given up on fidgeting in his own chair. His ass had fallen entirely asleep, as he’d earlier predicted.
And now, in this quiet moment, Briggs just continued to stare at him, blue eyes locked in, as he processed the information. So intense. Laswell had to look away.
Sheesh, now he wished the guy would just go back to staring at the wall.
Finally, Briggs broke the awkward quiet.
“Rowe was injured when he began his bloody revenge.”
He’d said it as a statement, not a question, and though he raised an eyebrow in an almost skeptical manner, Laswell could tell he was impressed.
“That’s correct. One of many indicators of his tenacity.”
It was like a job interview. By now, Laswell felt like he was selling the idea of Silence Jones to the old man with every sentence. Sure, Laswell had stepped out of line by offering Rowe a position as an Asset without authorization, but that didn’t make this conversation less awkward.
And the ass-killing chair wasn’t helping anything either.
“So, yes,” Laswell continued, “Rowe was bleeding profusely when—”
Briggs raised a hand. “Wait. Tell me more about the guy, his background.”
Laswell settled back into the chair, shifting his weight. The left cheek tingled a bit. Maybe there was a bit of life left in his ass after all.
“He grew up in a small coastal town in Northern California,” Laswell said. “Father was a chain hotel manager; mother, a homemaker who gave singing lessons on the side. Moved to Pensacola, Florida, at age eight, when Daddy’s company opened a new beach resort. Momma died in a car accident about a year after the move. He was a bright kid, but only so-so in school. After high school, he went to Florida State, average student, got a degree in communications.”
“Communications?” Briggs scoffed. “Bullshit degree. That’s what they put football players in.”
Laswell cleared his throat. “Um, my daughter’s majoring in communications, sir.”
Briggs straightened in his seat, eyes widening, apologetic words forming on his lips.
Laswell mugged. “Kidding.”
Briggs scowled.
The guy really couldn’t take a joke.
Laswell continued. “Rowe moved back to Pensacola. Couldn’t find work for a while.”
Briggs scoffed at this, seemingly a confirmation of his moments-earlier proclamation of communications being a bullshit degree.
“Got a teaching license at Pensacola’s University of West Florida. Four years of teaching high school speech while taking nighttime graduate-level courses at UWF. Got his master’s. Taught three years at a community college. Then a career change into the police.”
“And how long’s he been a cop?”
Laswell grimaced. There had been several points in this meeting when he was hesitant, almost embarrassed, to answer Briggs’s questions about his hand-picked new Asset.
This was one of them.
“A year.”
“A year? You assured me this man is fully prepared!”
Laswell inched back in his seat, scratched at his mustache. “Less than a year, technically. But that’s not what you asked. You asked if Jake Rowe had prior training, and I told you that he had, that he’d been trained both at a police academy and by Nakiri.”
Briggs scowled. “You can be a real manipulative son of a bitch, you know that?”
Laswell smiled broadly, stretching that beguiling mustache of his ear to ear. “Thank you, sir.”
Briggs was right. He could be a real manipulative son of a bitch. He was a lawyer by training, after all.
But, then, so was Briggs.
Briggs shook his head, sighed. “So why did our speech teacher go cop?”
“Hard to say, really. It would appear to me a bit of an early midlife crisis. A chance for
adventure and purpose.”
“Teaching wasn’t purposeful enough for him?”
Laswell raised his hands. “I’m only speculating here. Records show he lobbied to use his communications skills to get selected for the undercover position. Not that it would have taken much cajoling, I’m sure.”
“He’s got balls; I’ll give him that.”
Briggs looked away.
To the wall.
Oh, no.
But Briggs was merciful. The moment of reflection was brief. He turned back to Laswell. “Continue. What happened after Rowe fled the Farone mansion?”
Laswell grinned. “Here’s where things get tasty. Here’s where Jake Rowe gets his revenge.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jake didn’t know how he’d gotten there, why or even if he’d chosen the destination.
He hadn’t been driving since he left the Farone mansion. Other forces were controlling him—working the pedals, turning the wheel. And those forces brought him to his neighborhood.
For the first several miles leaving the country estate outside of Pensacola proper, on the edge of the metropolitan area, his mind was a complete fog. He couldn’t feel his hands, his feet, but somehow he kept on driving.
A few miles later, inside the city, with the other vehicles and traffic lights, his senses faded back into existence. And so did the feeling of dread, the realization of the pain. Whereas there had been detachment, suddenly it was real.
His loss of C.C.
The numb fingers, the dead feet brought him all the way back through town, to the east side, driving for over half an hour, to the quiet neighborhood near the mall and the airport where his rental house was located. The police department had secured the house for what was to be a temporary stay, but as he fell deeper and deeper into his undercover lie, the lease was extended. It became his home, not just a house.
Still, he’d lived there only a few months, and as he approached, the house felt foreign. The tragedy had somehow shined a light on the lie.
This was Pete Hudson’s home. Not Jake Rowe’s.
As he killed the engine of Charlie’s Taurus, putting the stick into first and pulling up on the handbrake, he finally realized why he’d come to the house.
Burton.
At a minimum, Burton would have the place watched—but more likely, he would have posted a man here.
Jake didn’t know what his next course of action was, but he knew it lie on a collision path with Burton.
That’s why he’d come back here.
To get the ball rolling.
He’d parked about a block back, giving himself plenty of space. He leaned over the steering wheel, squinting at the simple ranch-style house. Yellow brick. Gray shutters and door. Bushes along the sidewalk and a sparse, sandy, Florida lawn.
The windows were dark. No signs of movement. He recognized all the vehicles parked along the street as neighborhood regulars.
Pain pulsed from his leg, and he glanced at it. Lots of blood, but the pellet hadn’t lodged in his muscle. It had nicked the taught skin on his calf, which splayed open to a four-inch gash. It hurt like hell, but it wouldn’t kill him. Not yet, anyway. He could very well bleed out if he didn’t get medical attention soon.
He’d get it stitched up.
But not yet.
Blood covered his clothing. So much. Most of it C.C.’s. On a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood, could he make it to the house without someone noticing a horror movie character trudging up the sidewalk? He’d take the risk.
Instant fire in his leg as he stepped out of the car. He clenched his jaw and went to the trunk, where he took out the tire tool and the emergency blanket. Using the wedged end of the tool, he pierced the blanket, then tore off a thin strip, wrapped it around his wound, and pulled tight. Another flare of pain, and he bit his tongue to keep from screaming.
He panted as he tugged a knot into place. The pressure was relieving, and it would keep the bleeding down for a while.
He hobbled down the sidewalk, his eyes trained on his house, looking for movement.
Nothing.
When he got to the fence at the edge of the property, he slipped into the shadows. He traced the fence’s edge until he was in line with the shallow side of the garage, where there was a seldom-used side door. He quietly unlocked it.
The garage was nearly pitch black, just faint outlines from the light coming in through the crack he’d left in the door, revealing his black Grand Prix in the center of the two-car space, the wood-paneled walls, the extra refrigerator, the workbench.
The workbench…
The car…
A plan materialized.
The room went black as he closed the door. He stepped to the bench and explored blindly until he found what he was looking for—the piece of broken bicycle chain.
He stepped behind the refrigerator, which sat beside the door that led into the house, and took his keys from his pocket. He rested his thumb on one of the rubber buttons on the plastic fob for his car’s security system/remote starter.
Keeping his thumb on the button, he looped an end of the bicycle chain in each hand. He crouched down and squeezed on the chain so tightly that that it hurt, the greasy metal digging into his palms.
He pushed the remote starter button.
The Grand Prix fired up.
He held perfectly still. Waited.
Footsteps from inside his house, drawing near, at a run. The man rush passed him, toward the Grand Prix, threw open the driver side door, and jabbed his Glock inside. He’d left the door to the house open, a patch of light falling in the garage, revealing the man.
It was Cobb. Not a leader among Burton’s minions, but no slouch either. White, late twenties, maybe early thirties. Brown wavy hair. Brown beard.
Jake jumped out and wrapped the bicycle chain around Cobb’s throat from behind. He clenched down hard.
Immediately Cobb retaliated, waving the Glock like a club. Cobb was well trained. No panic. Firing his weapon prematurely would draw unwanted attention.
Cobb slid his foot behind Jake’s, knee twisted behind his leg, and brought them both tumbling to the floor. Jake’s head smacked into the open car door as they fell, but he landed on top of their two-man pile, knocking the Glock free of Cobb’s grasp. It rattled against the smooth concrete and bashed into the wall at the far side of the garage.
He brought the chain in a full loop around Cobb’s neck and pulled tight, Cobb’s face instantly reddening.
Jake leaned away from Cobb’s clawing fingers, pulled the chain even tighter.
Cobb’s cheeks went from red to purple, eyes watering and bloodshot. Droplets of blood ringed his neck where the chain cut into flesh.
Small gurgles from his throat.
Jake gave the chain a tug, a finishing blow.
Except it didn’t finish him. Cobb kept slapping.
Weaker. Flatter.
Jake tugged again.
And again.
Then Cobb went limp.
Jake’s chest heaved. His breaths wheezed. He didn’t release the pressure on the chain for several long moments, staring down at Cobb’s face.
He needed to be certain.
A few seconds passed. He put two fingers to Cobb’s throat.
Cobb was gone.
Jake sat back on his haunches, pressure going to his knees, and to his wounded calf, which he’d forgotten about during the action, the adrenaline.
A surge of pain.
He grimaced and tilted his head back, looking up at the sheetrock ceiling. His mind went to what Burton had said.
I’m going to steal something from you. When I do, I want you to remember something—everyone will be involved, and we’ll take our time.
Jake’s attention snapped back to Cobb.
Everyone will be involved…
This was one of the men who killed C.C., destroyed her face, broke her body, left her swimming in her blood.
Now he was very dead.
&nbs
p; Jake had murdered him.
And Cobb was only the first. Of several.
He would kill them all.
Everyone will be involved…
He would kill all eight of the new Burton gang.
He studied Cobb’s face, frozen in a look of bewilderment. Blood oozed down his neck.
One down; seven to go, Jake thought.
First, he’d make sure there were not other Burton visitors in the house.
He found Cobb’s pistol lying against the wall several feet away. It was a Glock 19. Second generation, as evidenced by the checkering on the front and back straps. It held the standard magazine, which meant fifteen rounds if it was fully loaded, sixteen if Cobb had stuck an extra in the chamber. 9 mm. Polymer-framed. Short-recoil. Efficient, reliable, and real-world tested across the globe by countless armed forces, security firms, and law enforcement agencies.
Ideal for what Jake had planned.
He used his new gun to clear the open doorway and the living room beyond. It was alight via the floor lamp that Cobb had turned on. He left it on.
That sense of disconnect returned to him as he moved through the house, clearing each room—the feeling that this was no longer his home. It was Pete Hudson’s. Not Jake’s. The home of a fictitious character who was now gone forever.
House cleared, he now needed to make a few preparations. He went back to the living room. The answering machine on the end table by his couch flashed a red 1. One new message. He pressed the eject button, took out the tiny tape, and stuck it in his pocket.
To the office. His simple, old desk—a gray metal job that the police department had picked up at a consignment shop—was on the back wall. He opened the center drawer, grabbed the handheld voice-recorder/microcassette player he’d had since college.
In his bedroom, he gathered two black T-shirts, jeans, and his hiking boots. Stripped. Went to the adjoining bathroom and took a one-minute shower to wash off the blood, which turned the shower’s floor pink. His entire being was so numb that the warm water felt like nothing, like he’d been anesthetized—everywhere but his wounded calf, where it burned fire.
Back to the bedroom, where he tore a long strip of cloth from one of the T-shirts, tied it over his wound, dressed, and then slipped back through the house, flipping off the lights.