Lorraine had shifted again and was pressing on the gas pedal when Tanner sent five rounds at the windshield. Only three of them penetrated the glass, but they hit home, with one of them striking Lorraine in the head and ending her life. The gun had a silencer attached, the sounds it made were nearly lost amid the roar of the engine and the lapping of the water against the shore.
Lorraine slumped over the wheel and the vehicle changed direction and headed for Dana. Dana had scraped her left knee bloody when she’d fallen after being pushed and was still seated on the ground. By the time she noticed the car was coming at her, she could only release a scream and attempt a mad scramble backwards on her butt. When her progress was halted by a retaining wall, Dana squeezed her eyes shut as she waited to be crushed.
The car came closer, slowed, and stopped with its bumper less than an inch from her face and with the engine straddling her legs. The only thing that had kept the vehicle from hitting her was the incline it was on. Although the car was still in drive, there was no one giving it gas.
Tanner came over, shut off the engine, and helped Dana to crawl out from under the car. She looked at the bloody mess that was Lorraine Monk, then at Tanner.
“I thought I was dead.” She swallowed hard when she noticed the gun in his hand. “Am I dead?”
“You kept your part of the bargain. You identified Lorraine and made it possible for my hacker to track her down. If you never try to hire anyone to kill me again, I’ll have no reason to come after you.”
“I knew I was making a mistake when I agreed to do this. From now on, I’ll listen to my instincts.”
Henry pulled up beside them in the van and looked at Lorraine’s corpse. “It’s over?”
“Yeah, after we give Dana a ride home.”
Dana held up a hand. “That’s okay. I’ll walk if I have to.” She believed Tanner when he said he wouldn’t kill her; she also wasn’t pressing her luck.
“Suit yourself,” Tanner said. He climbed into the van and Henry drove them out of the parking lot. Behind them, Dana limped along on her bloody knee, happy to be alive for another day.
In New Jersey, Elliot was waking up to a sore back. He doubted he had gotten three hours of sleep all night. He had been asleep when Soulless had woken and complained about pain. Elliot told him that if he wanted him to help, someone would have to cut the duct tape that had been wrapped around his ankles to make sure he couldn’t run away.
Soulless woke Gwen with a poke to the ribs from an elbow, and then everyone was awake. Gwen used a knife to slice through the tape on Elliot’s ankles. She was wearing one of his T-shirts for a nightie, and when she’d bent over to cut the tape, Elliot had caught a brief glimpse of her breasts. It had thrilled him.
Dana, and others, upon meeting Elliot wondered if he was a virgin or perhaps gay. He’d actually been with three women during his lifetime. One was a high school sweetheart and fellow Star Wars fanatic who had ended their relationship when she’d gone off to a different college. The last Elliot had heard of her, she had dropped out of school to follow a band from the UK around Europe only to later wind up working as a cashier at a Walmart in Philly.
Elliot’s second conquest had happened while he was drunk at a college kegger. The girl had broken up with her boyfriend, and as revenge, she’d slept with Elliot. The boyfriend was a jock who always made fun of Elliot, and the girl knew it would piss off her ex if she slept with the “Four-eyed weirdo loser.” That was the phrase her boyfriend always used when referring to Elliot.
The girl had been beautiful and modeled swimwear to help pay her way through school. Unfortunately for Elliot, he was so drunk at the time he barely recalled being with her. He remembered having his face enveloped by long blonde hair, hands fumbling at his belt, and the view of her naked backside as she left the bed once the deed had been done.
The swimsuit model had gone on to get back together with the jock. They married when she became pregnant, then moved away to Texas. Elliot had heard that they had divorced six years later after the jock, or rather, the former jock, lost his job as sales supervisor at a car dealership. Apparently, the jerk had been caught sleeping with his boss’s daughter. The daughter was four days away from her eighteenth birthday at the time, which technically made her a minor.
The former model divorced the former jock and was granted full custody of their three kids. After serving time for statutory rape, the Jock returned to town alone and now made his living working in a factory that made toilet seats. Elliot smiled every time he thought of that. Who was the loser now, eh?
Elliot’s third conquest had happened recently. After getting the money from the settlement, he decided to take a vacation and traveled to Japan, somewhere he’d always wanted to see. Elliot could speak and read Japanese. He had been fascinated with Japan since discovering anime as a kid. Elliot had used compact discs to learn the basics of the language while in high school then had taken courses in Japanese in all four years of college. As of late, he’d had frequent conversations with a neighbor who was originally from Japan.
On his second night in Tokyo, Elliot had met a woman at a bar in a casino, and they hit it right off. She was a raven-haired beauty with huge expressive eyes. Just minutes after meeting, they were in Elliot’s hotel room and doing what men and women had been doing for as long as there have been men and women.
When it was over, the woman dressed, said, “Mata ne,” which meant, “See you later,” and left the room. Before any of the fun in the bed began, she had told Elliot that she needed money, yen.
Only then had he understood that she was a hooker, but he never admitted it to himself. He told himself she needed the money as a loan and that she would pay him back someday. How that could possibly happen when the woman had no way to get it touch with him Elliot couldn’t say. He’d always thought of men who paid for hookers as pathetic and wouldn’t admit he was one of them. Not that he had anything against hookers. He’d never understood why it was illegal for a woman to sell sex if she was doing so of her own volition.
The truth was that the woman in Tokyo had been amazing in bed and the time Elliot had spent with her was one of his favorite memories. That is, once he conveniently edited out the part where he paid her for sex.
So no, he wasn’t a virgin, as some might think, and Gwen had sparked feelings in him he hadn’t felt in a long time. She was a beautiful, daring, sexy, exciting woman with an Irish accent he adored, and also the girlfriend of a mass murdering lunatic named Soulless.
As he’d lain awake staring at Gwen, Elliot had fantasized what life would be like if Soulless were out of the picture and Gwen decided to stay with him. And that’s just what it was, a fantasy, but it was one he couldn’t stop entertaining.
Gwen received word from her document forger that the IDs for her and Soulless were ready. When she asked the man to send them to her as quickly as possible, he had a suggestion.
“Where are you now?”
“In New Jersey, why?”
“I can have them delivered to you today if you don’t mind paying for the courier to make the drive up there.”
Gwen agreed, arrangements were made, and less than six hours later, she and Elliot met with a man at the same diner where Elliot had been with Dana. The man handed her a leather-bound bible in exchange for an envelope of cash, and she and Soulless had new identities.
“A bible?” Elliot asked as he drove them away from the diner in his Jeep.
“Salvation lies within, boyo,” Gwen said. She took a knife and cut a slit into the back cover of the book to reveal the documents. There was everything she and Soulless needed, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, social security cards, U.S. passports, along with bank accounts and credit cards.
Thanks to the forger’s connections within the government, it was all as legit as anyone else’s paperwork. It would take a detailed investigation to uncover the fact that they were forgeries, and it would only come to light if the people bribed to provide them confes
sed to doing so.
In the driver license and passport photos, both Gwen and Soulless looked forty years older than they were, thanks to Gwen’s makeup skills. The forger had also taken two separate photos of them wearing different clothing. It would have been a red flag to anyone inspecting the documents if their driver license photos and the pictures inside their passports were duplicates. What were the odds they would renew their licenses and apply for a passport on the same day?
Elliot had a passport and was willing to travel with them. His attraction to Gwen made him want to be near her no matter what. Gwen talked Soulless into letting him accompany them when they left the country.
“Your wound still needs looking after, and it won’t seem odd for an old man with a serious leg injury to have a nurse along looking out for him.”
Soulless still wanted to kill Elliot until Gwen made a point that persuaded him to change his mind.
“Our disguises will help, but anyone looking for us is seeking two people, a man and a woman. With Elliot along making us three, they’ll never even consider us during a search.”
Soulless reluctantly agreed that she made a good point but reminded her that Elliot had to be put down eventually because he could identify them.
“I’ll do it when the time comes,” Gwen said.
What she didn’t realize, was that Soulless also considered her to be a liability. When he no longer needed her, he would put her down too.
The next day an old man in a wheelchair and his elderly wife boarded a plane bound for Italy. With the couple was their nurse, Elliot Lipson. The trio had no problems going through screening and settled into their first-class seats.
Soulless was headed to a place where no one knew him, and where he could heal and think of a way to kill Tanner. He understood that Tanner wouldn’t stop looking for him, and it would someday come down to a case of kill or be killed between them. Soulless intended to be the victor when that happened.
At home in Stark, Texas, Cody was aware that Soulless wasn’t among the dead in Clear Valley. He wondered how the man had survived and was under the impression that Soulless had been shot multiple times. Given his severe leg wound, he knew there was no way Soulless could have made it out of the valley on his own before the authorities arrived.
While the contract to kill Soulless had been bogus and part of a trap, Tanner’s determination to kill the man was real. Soulless was wanted by law enforcement agencies in a number of countries. He could only hide for so long. He would pop-up again someday, and when that happened, Tanner would find him.
Part III
The Butcher Versus The Surgeon
21
Going Out With A Bang
ITALY, SEVEN WEEKS LATER
* * *
Elliot was worried.
Soulless’s leg wound had healed nicely in the weeks since they had arrived in Italy, and that meant the assassin wouldn’t need him much longer. Soulless had ditched the crutches he was using and rarely used a cane, as he preferred to limp along without assistance.
A healthy man doesn’t need a nurse, and Soulless didn’t like him. If not for Gwen, Elliot was certain he’d be dead already.
As it was, he was treated like a slave by both of them. He wasn’t allowed outside by himself, was kept handcuffed to a headboard at night, and he was the one who did the cleaning. The only good thing to come out of his time in Italy is that he had lost the extra twenty pounds he’d been carrying around for years. It made his face look slimmer and he felt better.
They were in a rented home in a rundown area located near a tank farm and a highway. It was the third one they’d lived in because Soulless liked to stay on the move. Elliot could understand wanting to move often when you were wanted by the law. What he couldn’t understand was why Soulless and Gwen insisted on renting such low accommodations, and all in the same general area. He knew Soulless had access to funds, and that they could be living in a much nicer place, but for some reason, they were staying in the area until Soulless’s leg healed enough so that he could walk on his own. That day was imminent, and when it came, Elliot feared it would also signal his time to die.
Elliot didn’t love Gwen, as he once thought he did. It had started as infatuation, but the more he was around her, the clearer it became to him that the woman was as heartless and selfish as Soulless. He didn’t love Gwen, but oh how he desired her.
Elliot lusted after her, and it hadn’t helped that he spent every day in close proximity to Gwen but had no chance of ever being with her. Soulless, on the other hand, had sex with Gwen often, and because of the cheap construction of the houses they were in, Elliot couldn’t help but overhear their lovemaking on occasion.
He was living a nightmare and cursed his own stupidity for not running off back in New Jersey on the few occasions he’d had an opportunity to escape.
But there was hope. He wasn’t allowed to keep his phone, but Soulless and Gwen had been unaware that he had a second one. The phone had been his mother’s. Elliot had kept it after she died because it reminded him of her, and it was also loaded with family photos.
That phone had been buried at the bottom of his backpack, which he had brought along to Italy. Elliot had forgotten about it but had come across it while doing laundry recently in the home’s basement. The phone was dead, but Elliot had given it enough juice to bring it back to life after having used Gwen’s charger cable when he’d been left alone with it in the kitchen, where he’d been preparing food. At the time, Gwen had been out of the house during one of her mysterious absences. Elliot didn’t know where she went, but she always wore the wig and makeup that made her look older. She would usually return the same day, but once she had been gone overnight, leaving Elliot alone with Soulless. Elliot hadn’t slept at all that night; he’d been sure Soulless was going to kill him.
With the phone charged, Elliot had waited for the chance to use it. When the opportunity presented itself, he found out something he should have already realized. The phone had no service. The calling plan his mother had been using expired not long after her death. However, the phone had a camera.
Elliot had snapped several photos of Soulless and Gwen while the two had been outside in the back yard of the home they’d been staying in at the time. He was locked inside the house with a chain around his ankle that was connected to an old steam radiator. He’d been at the sink doing dishes and managed to take their pictures when they weren’t looking his way. They weren’t great photos and only showed the couple from a distance, but Elliot figured the authorities could enlarge them and use them anyway to identify Soulless.
Later on, Elliot wrapped the phone in a note that had the words, A photo of the assassin Soulless is inside, along with his accomplice, an Irish woman named Gwen. They are here in the area.
Elliot dated the note then hid the whole thing back inside his backpack. He had written it in English, but had written the words, Per La Polizia on the front of the note. That had taxed his knowledge of Italian.
When they moved again a week later, Elliot left the phone sitting in the kitchen sink. With luck, whoever found it would turn it over to the police and a search would begin. If the police captured Soulless and Gwen, he might have a chance to escape or be rescued.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was his only hope.
In Stark, Texas, Cody Parker watched as his apprentice sparred with the man who was running the Parker Training Center, Casey Rocco. Henry had been training with Casey for weeks and was making good progress. Their current sparring match had lasted nearly a minute so far. In the beginning, Henry found himself being tossed to the mat within the first three seconds.
Casey, an expert in Krav Maga, was a hard man to defeat in hand-to-hand combat. Henry feinted a kick, then tried to grab Casey and flip him over his hip. The feint worked, but Casey avoided the flip, reached down and grabbed Henry’s left ankle, a hard tug caused Henry to go off balance, and Casey cashed in on that by sweeping Henry’s legs out from under him. He
nry fell to the mat and Casey pretended to make a thrust with his hand that would have crushed Henry’s throat in a real fight.
A moment later, Casey was helping Henry to stand while grinning.
“You are getting good, kid. There aren’t many that have lasted that long with me in a sparring match that haven’t been training for years.”
“I have been training for years,” Henry said. “It’s just that this style of fighting is new to me.”
“You’re picking it up quickly. I look forward to our next match. In the meantime, keep practicing and don’t forget to do those yoga movements I taught you. They’re great at improving your balance.”
Henry told Casey he would do as he said, then walked over to see Cody, while Casey went to supervise other students.
“That was impressive, Henry. You’ve improved a lot.”
“I know, and it’s because of Casey. He’s a great teacher. Have you ever fought him?”
“No, but I’ve watched him and have learned from him. And remember something, in a real fight there are no rules. Your only goal should be to win.”
“I get that, and Casey is giving me more tools to work with. I see why you wanted me exposed to a different fighting style. It’s only made me more dangerous.”
“Get showered and dressed, then come to the house for the barbecue. It will probably be the last cookout we’ll have this year, and definitely the biggest. We can’t expect many more warm days like this now that it’s autumn.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Are you bringing a date?”
“I’ll be solo. Between school, work, and my training, I don’t have time to date seriously.”
Soulless (A Tanner Novel Book 43) Page 21