Hunted: A Suspense Collection

by J. L. Drake

  “Good idea,” Roger said, and nodded. “Tell Sonya I said bye…”

  Lloyd nodded and smiled. “Will do. Have a happy life.”

  ***

  Roger smiled, turned, opened the passenger door of the van, and set the case of money inside. He closed the door, turned, looked at Lloyd for a moment, waved, and walked around the van and climbed into the driver’s side. He started the engine and drove away, not looking back even once.

  Lloyd stood in the empty parking lot for a couple of minutes, just breathing and looking around. Things had gone smoother than he’d expected and it made him even more worried. He’d stayed in the game for a long time being cautious and when things went good he became even more paranoid than normal.

  Not wanting to stay in one place too long, he finally loaded the remainder of the money into his car’s backseat, climbed into the driver’s seat, and drove away. He didn’t know where to go because Sonya hadn’t given him any indication where she might be dumping her car—he knew it would be somewhere secluded and probably out of town, since she didn’t want to be seen or get caught.

  He ended up driving around for almost an hour before he finally received her call.

  “Where are you?” he asked as soon as he answered his cell phone.

  He listened intently to the directions she gave him.

  “I’ll be right there to get you, babe,” he said. “Throw your phone into the fire so it burns up. I already got you a new one.” He glanced down at the pair of brand new prepaid cell phones he had sitting on the passenger seat beside him—one for each of them.

  He ended the call, not waiting to hear her response and started the forty mile drive to where she was.

  ***

  Sonya stared into the growing flames that were inside her car—she knew that in just a few minutes the entire thing would be engulfed and black smoke would be rolling into the sky. She tossed in her cell phone—having just been instructed by Lloyd to do so—and slammed the door of the car. She picked up the two small bags that held her belongings, and turned and walked away.

  She’d chosen an out of the way place to dump her car, but she knew that there were a few cabins on the other side of the lake where someone could see and report the smoke when it grew to the point of being noticeable. The couple of acres of tall trees on either side of the dirt road would shield the blaze for a little while, but eventually someone would notice and she wanted to be far away before that happened.

  She’d scouted out and found the place when they’d first moved their operation to Pittsburgh, which was a norm for her. She always made sure she had an escape route in place if anything should go wrong. A lot had gone wrong this time…Jennings and Butch were dead, and Jan and one of the twin girls were still alive as far as she knew. But the harvest had gone smoothly, and since Lloyd hadn’t said anything went wrong on the phone, she assumed the drop went as planned. Things could have been better, but they could have been worse too.

  Right at that moment, as she fast-walked through the woods toward the road she’d told Lloyd to pick her up on, her heart raced as she worried about getting caught by the authorities. She knew they weren’t likely to catch up with them, but she couldn’t help but be concerned that they’d find a way and show up out of nowhere. These thoughts made her paranoid and she kept glancing around herself whenever she thought she heard a noise. At one point she almost fell when she was looking behind her and started to run, only to stumble over a small, fallen tree trunk.

  “You need to calm down,” she muttered to herself, trudging onward.

  The walk took her a half hour, and by the time she reached the spot she’d selected for pick-up she was soaked with sweat and more worried than ever. She thought for sure Lloyd would be there waiting for her, but he wasn’t.

  Every car that went by made her even more paranoid than she already was. She was contemplating stepping back into the woods and hiding when Lloyd finally pulled up.

  She ran forward, ripped open the passenger side door, threw her bags in the backseat, and climbed in—she had to pause and dig the phones Lloyd had lying on the seat out from under her before she could close the door.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, finally pulling the door closed. “What took you so long?”

  Lloyd frowned at her. “You okay?”

  Sonya nodded and then spun in her seat to look through the rear window of the car.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said, spinning back around when she didn’t see anything suspicious.

  “No one followed me,” Lloyd said, frowning. “Did you see something on the way here?” He glanced in his rearview mirror before pulling back out on the pretty much abandoned road.

  “No,” she sighed, putting on her seatbelt. “I just can’t shake the feeling that everything went too smoothly and something is about to bite us in the ass.”

  Lloyd chuckled. “I know what you mean.”

  “Did everything go okay at the drop?” she asked, trying to calm her nerves.

  “Went great,” Lloyd said, and reached over to caress her knee.

  She jumped at his touch.

  “You really are wound up, aren’t you?” he asked, frowning.

  She nodded.

  “Try to calm down—we’ll stick to the plan and everything will be fine,” Lloyd said. “I have our surgeries set up for the day after tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Sonya said, finally relaxing back into her seat a little bit.

  “Roger said bye, by the way,” Lloyd said.

  “I’ll miss him,” she said with a sigh, “but it’s better for all of us this way.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “How long until we reach the airstrip?” Sonya asked. “Did your friend confirm that the plane will be there?

  “About…twenty minutes,” Lloyd said, and smiled at her. “And, yes, he did. We’ll be free for the rest of our lives, babe, so just calm down and enjoy the ride.”

  She smiled. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” he said, and drove them to their getaway, to the beginning of the rest of their lives, leaving all their cares and sins behind.

  Epilogue

  Butch sat in the small, brightly lit room at the Pittsburgh FBI office wondering what the hell he was going to tell the FBI agent to convince him to make a deal. He knew there was a very low chance that any information he could give the man would be of any use—Sonya and Lloyd were long gone and he knew it. In his mind, the best thing he could offer would be going undercover to see if they ever turned back up again, but that could take years or never happen at all. He had to think fast and draw from his past knowledge of Sonya and Lloyd to see if he could figure something out to find them.

  Lloyd was a creature of habit and tended to do the same things over and over, but Sonya was more of a wild card. He didn’t know if she would use her influence over Lloyd to get him to break out of those patterns. He did know that even if she did, it would be a slow change. To his knowledge, Lloyd would be the easier of the two to track down.

  The door to the room opened and the FBI agent—McCoy, if he remembered right—stepped inside and closed the door behind himself.

  “Now, Butch…” he began, coming over to the small table and sitting opposite his captive, “…you said you had information that would be helpful to my investigation. We’ve heard your terms and I believe we’ve come to an agreement. It’s now your turn to hold up your end and pretty much sign it into effect. What can you tell me about your coworkers in crime? Do you know anything about their activities in Los Angeles?” …And about what happened to my brother, David wanted to add, but held back. He didn’t want to show Butch how desperate he was to find out what had happened to Daniel. He didn’t want the man to exploit the information to try and get more of a deal than he already was. He also didn’t want the man to lie and string him along.

  Butch frowned, swallowed hard, opened his mouth, and spoke.

  “I don’t know anything about them being in Los Angeles. This
is the first time I’ve actually worked with them. I’ve known Sonya for a long time, though, from before she took up with Jennings. I can tell you a lot about her past: Where she worked, where she went to school, etcetera. All I need is a notebook and a pen to fill you in on all things Sonya.” He got a faraway look in his eyes, thinking about her and their past. “But she’s going to be the harder one to find. She tends to be unpredictable and does things on a whim. Lloyd is more a creature of habit and will most likely be easier to find.”

  David forced himself not to show any sign of his disappointment about information pertaining to Los Angeles and Daniel as he sat forward and gave Butch his full attention. He knew that getting as much information about the woman—Sonya—as he could was his best chance to ever find out what had happened to his twin’s organs.

  “I’m listening. Tell me what I need to know to get them both.”

  Butch grinned. “I don’t like Lloyd, but I have to admit he’s a smart fellow with all his computer nonsense. He has a lucky number: 210. I don’t know what it means, but if he sees an address or something that costs that exact amount, or some other bullshit like that, he’ll want to be there or buy that item.”

  “I’m assuming you can write out everything about him as well,” David said, checking a piece of paper he already had, “since you’ve worked with him before on other black market jobs.”

  Butch nodded.

  “What can you tell me about Jackson Parsons?” David asked, watching Butch closely—he didn’t like the man and didn’t trust him. “Can you tell us where he is?”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name,” Butch said.

  David stared at Butch for a couple of minutes, trying to gauge if he was telling the truth; he couldn’t tell so he tried again.

  “Maybe you knew him simply as Jack,” he suggested. “The medical examiner who’d worked with the same team you were working with remembered a man named Jack, but he doesn’t remember you being involved.”

  “Oh,” Butch said, “Jack must have been the poor bastard Lloyd killed before they hired me. Some people think the little desk weasel is a scary son of a bitch, but I don’t see it.” He shrugged.

  “Lloyd killed a man?” David asked.

  Butch nodded and shrugged. “That’s what I heard. I was called in to replace someone that Lloyd had killed; it pissed Jennings off.”

  David made a note in his paperwork to look for bodies that could be Jackson Parsons. Then he pretended to double check his paperwork even though he knew all the names on the list by heart.

  “What about Roger?” he asked. “Do you know someone by the name of Roger?”

  Butch’s countenance instantly darkened at the mention of the name.

  “That sucker-punching-bastard is an asshole,” he snarled, winced, and covered his wounded chest with his hand. “I’d hand him over in a heartbeat if I knew where the hell he was. This was the first job I’ve worked with him, so I don’t know much about him. He was pretty cozy with Sonya though…said they were all brother/sister like.”

  “What about Jennings?” David asked. “Did you know him well?”

  Butch shook his head. “No, this is the first job I’ve worked with him too. Again, he lived to kiss Sonya’s ass for some reason, but he hated Lloyd. He was actually gonna pay me to kill off Lloyd after the harvest was over. I was gonna kill Roger for free.”

  David checked his paperwork again, wishing they hadn’t given the bastard immunity on any other crimes he admitted to in the course of helping him with the investigation and apprehension of his organ harvesting teammates. The man sitting in front of him was as bad as they came. There was no way he should be loose on the streets to hurt people. He talked about killing people like most people would talk about washing dishes or doing laundry.

  “Is there anyone associated with the group that wasn’t present or that has worked closely with Lloyd, Sonya, Roger, and Jennings before?”

  Butch squinted and thought about it.

  “Yeah, I’m sure there was,” he said. “They used to have this other guy that worked with them all the time. That Jack guy must have took his place, before I took Jack’s place.” He chuckled. “I think his name was Paul or Peter, or something like that. I think he quit and went legit though.”

  “Really?” David said, sitting forward with interest. “How long did he work with the team before he retired?”

  “Years,” Butch said, eating up the agent’s interest. “They were a tight group. Him and Lloyd got really damn chummy for a while if I remember right.”

  “Do you have any idea where this…Paul or Peter might be now?”

  Butch nodded. “I’m pretty sure he stayed in Ohio when the rest moved on. At least, that’s what Jennings said one time when he was being all friendly with me so I’d kill Lloyd.”

  David frowned. “Yeah, back to that…Jennings said he’d pay you a million dollars to kill Lloyd?”

  Butch nodded.

  “We didn’t find much money in the man’s bank accounts,” David said. “Just a couple hundred dollars—we’d actually expected to find a lot more.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Butch said, and laughed. “That fucker was lying to me.”

  David raised his eyebrows in question, but didn’t say anything. He waited for Butch to elaborate.

  “Jennings must have really wanted Lloyd dead to have promised to pay me in imaginary money…or he was playing me. Fucking-bastard-asshole!” Butch said and slammed his fist down on the table before flinching and clutching his chest again.

  “But they’re loyal to their own…to each other, right?” David asked.

  “Oh, a hundred percent as long as you don’t do anything to cross them, you’re golden. They had to be playing me…all of them.”

  David looked over his paperwork and jotted down to look for “Paul or Peter” in Ohio.

  “Tell me about this member of the team that retired—Paul or Peter—do you remember what he looked like? Could you get with a sketch artist and describe him? Roger too?”

  “Absolutely,” Butch said, and nodded. “I could do that no problem.”

  David stood, picking up the legal notebook he’d brought in with him.

  “I’ll be sending a sketch artist in to work with you,” he announced. “In the meantime, I’ll have someone get paper and a couple crayons for you to write up everything you know that you think would help me find the people I’m looking for.”

  “Crayons?” Butch asked, and laughed. “What is this? Preschool?”

  “No,” David said, walking toward the door, “I just don’t trust you with anything harder than a chunk of wax.”

  Butch laughed loudly.

  David could still hear him laughing as he headed down the hall to talk to Croce and Limmon. They’d found Sonya’s full history through facial recognition software and he planned to do the same thing for the others once they had decent descriptions from Butch.

  He couldn’t help grinning as he made his way to the conference room.

  “I’m getting there, Daniel,” he whispered to himself as he pushed the door open to attack all the new leads they had. “I’m getting there—I’ll catch them yet. You wait and see.”

  The End

  About the Author

  Rebecca Besser is the author of “Undead Drive-Thru, Undead Regeneration, Cursed Bounty, Twisted Pathways of Murder & Death, Hall of Twelve,” and “Nurse Blood (Limitless Publishing).” She’s also a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature. Her work has appeared in the Coshocton Tribune, Irish Story Playhouse, Spaceports & Spidersilk, joyful!, Soft Whispers, Illuminata, Common Threads, Golden Visions Magazine, Stories That Lift, Super Teacher Worksheets, Living Dead Press Presents Magazine (Iss. 1 & 2), FrightFest eMagazine, An Xmas Charity Ebook, The Stray Branch, and The Undead That Saved Christmas (Vol. 1 & 2) and the Signals From The Void charity anthologies. She has multiple stories in anthologies by Living Dead Press, Wicked East Press, Pill Hill Press, Hidden Thoughts Press, Knight Wat
ch Press, Coscom Entertainment, Crowded Quarantine Publications, and Collaboration of the Dead (projects), and one (each) in an anthology by Post Mortem Press, NorGus Press, Evil Jester Press, Horrified Press, Atria Books (S&S Digital), and Nocturnal Press Publications. She also has a poem in an anthology by Naked Snake Press and a children’s poem in Oxford Ink Literature Reader 4 from Oxford University Press (India).

  Her nonfiction children’s article about skydiving, written for her writing course with the Institute of Children’s Literature, was published by McGraw Hill for NY Assessments.

  She’s also an editor and has edited: Dark Dreams: Tales of Terror, Dead Worlds 7: Undead Stories, and Book of Cannibals 2: The Hunger from Living Dead Press; Earth’s End from Wicked East Press; End of Days: An Apocalyptic Anthology (Vol. 4 & 5/co-edited) from Living Dead Press; and she co-edited Feast or Famine (a zombie anthology).

  When she’s not busy writing and/or editing, she’s formatting book covers, building/maintaining websites, and writing book reviews.

  For more information, visit her website: www.rebeccabesser.com

  Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRebeccaBesser/

  Facebook Nurse Blood Page:

  https://www.facebook.com/NurseBlood/

  Twitter:

  https://twitter.com/BeccaBesser

  Blog:

  https://rebeccabesser.wordpress.com/

  Instagram:

  https://www.instagram.com/beccabesser/

  Goodreads:

  https://www.goodreads.com/Rebecca_Besser

  The Ten

  By Luke Swanson

  “And God spoke these words, saying: I am the LORD your God…

  ONE: Thou shall have no other gods before Me.

  TWO: Thou shall not make for yourself a carved image; any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.