Spare Change, page 13
part #1 of My Mira Saga Series
Chapter Thirty-One
The water hits him straight in the face. It smacks him in the nose, some of it shooting up his nostrils, the rest washing across his closed eyes. Like someone rising from an exorcism, it jolts through the remaining sedative, his features bursting to life.
“What?! Huh?!” he manages to give out before giving a mighty sneeze, a decent portion of the water just slung his way rocketing from his nostrils. A second one clears any remaining fluid and phlegm, most of it splattering the thighs of his pants, the combination shining brightly under the lantern light.
I am standing directly in front of him as he comes to, my arms folded. At my feet lay the coiled jumper cables.
“Where the hell am I?” he asks. Attempting to move both arms, he realizes they are tied down, alarm and surprise both coming to his features. “What is this shit?”
With each word, his voice rises, mixing with the sound of the generator. Looking past his hands, he attempts to move his entire body, a series of spastic jerks causing the chair to rock slightly, the braided cables holding him secure to it.
“Do you know who the hell I-“
The end of the statement, the grandiose posturing none of us wants to hear, is cut short by my right fist. Shooting in hard from the side, it is an overhand shot that lands at a wicked angle, snapping the bridge of his nose. Jerking it to the left, dark blood pours down over the man’s cheek and chin, his head rocking under the force of it.
So much adrenaline has supercharged my system, I don’t even feel the blow, my every instinct to rock back and hit him again. And again. And again.
Until all life is gone from his body, his face so disfigured his own mother couldn’t identify him.
Still, I stop after one punch, letting him slowly get his bearings, pulling his head back up to face forward.
“That isn’t how this works, asshole. The way this goes is, I ask questions, you answer them. That’s it.”
A thin smile crosses the man’s mouth as he looks up at me, blood painting the bottom half of his face. “That’s it? And then-“
The second shot is a straight left, right into the man’s solar plexus. As much fun as beating him in the face, as destroying the smug look, is, right now I just want him to shut the hell up.
His neck pitched forward as he tries to suck in air seems like a solid start.
“There is no and then,” I say, already knowing where his question was headed. “There is no situation in which this ends well for you. No chance at you walking out of here.”
Coughing twice, the man keeps his head bent forward for a moment. Clearing his throat, he spits a wad of bloody spittle into the water around his feet, before rising up to look at me.
For the first time, he keeps his mouth shut.
Just as for the first time, he really looks at me, recognition setting in.
The instant it does, I nod slightly. “Yeah, now you remember, don’t you?”
Only the man’s eyes shift as he looks from me to my friends, doing the math, realizing that what I just told him is the absolute truth. There is no tomorrow for this man. No chance at him ever going home, or seeing whatever family he has, or making good on any of the plans that he might have had for his life.
Just like there was no today for Mira. No chance of her ever walking into our home, and damned sure no opportunity for us to ever ride off into the sunset together as we’d planned.
“You guys are screwed,” he mutters, spots of bloody saliva flying off his lips. “All of you are dead, and you don’t even know it.”
“What?” Swinger says. “Because of that tattoo on your arm there? Yeah, we saw your boys, we’re not scared.” Leaning forward, he grabs at the leg of his pants, pulling it up high enough to reveal his calf and the SEAL emblem splashed across it in dark ink. “We have one too, and it’s a hell of a lot tougher than yours.”
The man’s eyebrows rise slightly as he looks away, a look hinting at amusement on his face.
Pushing off my right foot, I slide forward, closing the gap between us. Pivoting at the hip, I come in hard from the side, a looping hook that connects just above his cheekbone, a single white projectile shooting from his mouth on contact, flying across the room. Rattling against the floor, it disappears into the darkness, the man’s chin pinned to his shoulder from the force of it.
No way is this little sniveling asshole going to even think about laughing at us.
Not now. Not ever.
“Who the hell are you?” I ask, anger rising within me, spurring me forward. Without realizing it, I begin to pace, circling around him, gaining speed.
For a moment, the man says nothing. He keeps his head turned away before slowly bringing it forward. Running his tongue along the inside of his mouth, he spits a long stream of blood, most of it ending in his lap.
“Does it even matter?” he asks.
“Who?! Are?! You?!”
The sound is louder than intended, reverberating against the walls. The back of my throat feels scratchy from my screaming the night before, my body so charged with adrenaline it threatens to explode in every direction.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” he replies, “so just get it over with already.”
I start to respond before thinking better of it. Continuing my pacing, I complete the loop I’m on, walking back to the front of him. For a moment, I merely stand and stare down at him, glaring the length of my nose, before bending and taking up the jumper cables by my feet.
I don’t bother touching the tips together, have no need to show him the sparks or what will soon befall him. He already knows what I’m doing, how this all ends.
Extending them before me, his eyes go wide as I snap them straight at his chest, aiming for the dark spot where the water that was used to wake him still stands damp against his skin. Pressing the tips straight into it, his entire body pulls taut, striated veins and tendons standing out along his neck as he thrashes against his bindings. His head pulls back, his eyes rolling up, as I hold them in place for five full seconds before releasing them.
In my wake, his body slumps, his chin falling to his chest, the combined smells of charred skin and fresh piss filling the air.
“You’re right,” I say, my body quivering with animosity, “I am going to kill you. The only thing that changes is how much pain you go through before then.”
A series of mumbles slides out of the man, none able to be deciphered. I don’t bother asking him to repeat, not having the slightest interest in whatever smartass remark he had lined up.
“Don’t tell me your name. I don’t give a shit, just like the coyotes that eventually find your body out here or the poor government workers that someday stumble across your bones won’t care.”
Lowering myself slightly, I turn to the side, twisting my neck so I can peer into his face.
“But you will tell me this. Why? Why the hell did you come after me?”
A crease appears between the man’s brows as he looks at me. Just as fast, as it disappears, the faint smile appearing again.
And just like it did the last time, it sends a spur of wrath through me. Switching the cables to one hand, I stab them forward, thrusting them like a knife against his chest.
“Why,” stab, “did,” stab, “you,” stab, “try,” stab, “to,” stab, “kill me?”
After the last word, I leave the cables in place an extra moment, his entire body gyrating as thirty thousand volts travel through him, the effect heightened by the water on his chest.
Not until the smell of his burning skin again finds its way to me do I release the pose, jerking the cables away and stepping back. Keeping them both in hand, I stare down at him, contempt filling me to the brim.
“Why?!” I yell.
In the wake of my question, all sound seems to bleed away save the white noise of the generator. It settles in over everything as the man coughs and spits, using what energy he has to raise his gaze slightly and look at me.
Again, his brows are together, giving the slightest hint of confusion.
“You really think I would have missed from that close if I was aiming at you?”
This time, the confusion is mine. I flick a gaze to my friends, seeing Stapleton’s jaw sagging open, her eyes wide. Beside her, Ross takes a step forward, his ear trained on the man.
My mind swims as I think about what the man said, what it might mean. For the thousandth time, my mind replays the night before, thinking about what took place.
The man stepping forward. Me digging for change. Him firing twice, no more than five feet separating us.
And me escaping with only a scratch on the arm.
“You were there for her?”
I can’t bring myself to say her name. This monster doesn’t get that luxury. He isn’t worthy of hearing it.
Either corner of the man’s mouth curls up as he looks at me, his chin sagging slightly toward his chest. Keeping the cables in my right hand, I swing in with my left, connecting on an uppercut that snaps his head backward. A new cut opens along his chin, blood running down his neck, as his head rocks back down to face me, his features dimming.
“Why?” I scream. “Why the hell would you want to hurt her?”
Reaching out with my right hand, I press the charged cables against his chest again. “Why?!”
This time, the voltage does little. Already the man is slipping toward darkness, the combination of the sedative and the electrocution and the beating taking a toll, pulling his faculties away from him. His head lulls to either side, his breathing labored.
“Why?” I say again, grabbing him by the hair and jerking his face up to look at me.
“I didn’t,” he replies.
Again, it takes me a moment to compute what he is saying, to impose it on everything else I know.
“Then who? Tell me dammit, who?”
One final time, the smile comes to his face, teeth gleaming with blood, barely any white even visible. “Go to Hell.”
So badly I again want to blast him, to start punching and swing until every bit of the angst I feel is gone. No matter what it does to me.
But I don’t.
“You first,” I mutter as I take a step back, dropping the jumper cables into the basin of water he is sitting in.
For almost a full minute the generator whines and the water froths, the man thrashing against his bindings. Small splashes reach the floor and the back legs scrape against the wood until his body can take no more and his heart gives out.
A moment later, the generator does the same, the interior of the cabin falling silent.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The smell of the man’s burnt flesh surrounds me. It seems to have permeated my nostrils, my hair, the clothes I am wearing, engulfing me in the foul aroma. Swirling about, it followed all four of us out into the night, the cool air doing nothing to abate the intense odor.
Or the equally intense swirl of questions and emotions shuffling inside of me.
It takes only a glance at my friends to see they are enduring the same thing. Swinger and Ross have their mouths pulled back into tight lines, their eyes locked in a thousand-yard stare. Like me, training has taken over, an ingrained response that has their focus aimed far into the distance.
Stapleton, never having been quite as deep into the muck as us, wears her thoughts a little closer to the surface. Her eyes are wide, swinging among the three of us, trying to get her bearings.
A state I think we would all love to enter right now.
I know they all must be thinking the same thing I am right now, though none of them bother voicing it. They saw my reaction inside, were probably just as stunned as I was to hear the statements the man was making. The mere thought of them again sends me reeling, my entire psyche fighting to keep me on the level.
The idea that Mira – my Mira – was even on the radar of men such as him, is almost too much to fathom. The fact that it would be enough to cause them to bring her harm, truly incomprehensible.
“Thank you all for doing this,” I say, nodding to each in turn. “This was a hell of a thing, and I can’t thank you enough.”
The man’s body has been left inside. We could take it out into the desert and bury it someplace that would never be found, but doing so would only make things worse for us should somebody ever come looking. It would leave behind DNA and forensics, microscopic items that we could never hope to scrub clean.
Much wiser to simply leave him there, take the generator and cables, wipe down the few surfaces we touched, and let the smell draw in the predators. Both the front and back door have been left cracked open, allowing the scent to waft out, and any creature looking for a free meal to saunter in.
By this time tomorrow, he’ll have made for some extremely happy coyotes. The wind will have brushed away any tire tracks we left in the sand. Both cars will be returned and scrubbed clean.
It is far from infallible, but given the circumstances, it’s better than I could have hoped for. Just further proof as to how loved Mira really was.
None of the three respond to the thanks. I’m not sure it is even the proper thing to say, the looks on their faces displaying some form of the same question in their mind.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I say. My voice is low. It is steady, managing not to break or crack, but again, that is more muscle memory than anything. My entire insides are jumping up and down, pulling me in a thousand directions. “And the answer is, I have no idea.”
I glance at each of them. “I have no idea what he was talking about, or what I’m going to do next. Right now, I need to step back and not be hasty. I need to think, and I need to do some digging.”
Across from me, Swinger unfurls and clenches a massive fist. Stapleton flicks a glance at me before staring off into the distance. Ross meets my gaze, his expression stony.
“But I promise you two things. This isn’t over, and I won’t make a move without you.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
It’s the middle of the night, but I can see the single light burning in the living room as I make the turn onto the familiar cul-de-sac. Seated alone inside the Lexus that Stapleton had driven to The Wolf Den, the interior is borderline frigid from driving with the windows down, doing my best to keep the acrid scent clinging to me from permeating the car. Goose pimples line my forearms as I cut the headlights and coast in the last few feet, not wanting to wake the neighbors or give anybody a reason to so much as glance my way.
The brakes make not a sound as I pull up in the same spot I’d occupied earlier in the day and step out. Circling around the trunk, I make it no more than a couple of steps across the front lawn before the door opens. A single silhouette appears for a moment before the light behind it is extinguished, plunging everything into darkness.
Without breaking stride, I head for the door, the person inside moving out of the way as I step through. Not until we are all tucked away inside the living room, long shadows shrouding everything, does anybody say a word.
“Is it done?” Angelique asks.
My gaze flicks to Hiram, his eyes widening slightly, his mouth sagging just a bit.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Angelique snaps, her voice a low hiss. “Neither of my children could ever keep anything from me. It’s a lesson you’d be well-served to learn.”
She doesn’t go as far as to state the rest of her warning, but she doesn’t have to. Anything else goes down without her knowing about it, and there’ll be hell to pay.
Noted.
“Yes ma’am,” I whisper.
Pausing, waiting just a moment, Angelique’s eyes bulge slightly. “So?!”
“I wasn’t trying to dodge your question,” I reply, “I just wasn’t sure how to respond.”
Her mouth opens, already armed with a retort, before she pulls up.
Seeing the path, I jump forward, not waiting for her to press me again. “The man who did it is gone.” I flick my gaze to Hiram. “The place was perfect. Thank you.”
I say nothing else. As has been the rule from the first moment, the less he knows, the better.
“But he said some things before he went,” I say, recalling the one-sided conversation from just an hour before, “things that shift all of this.”
“What kind of things?” Hiram asks, unable to stem his anticipation any longer.
Things that I don’t want to have to think about. Things I don’t ever want to even consider. Things that threaten what I really knew about my wife.
“Do you know anybody that might have wanted to hurt Mira?”
The question seems to blow them both back an inch or two, Angelique’s eyebrows rising. “Hurt? My Mira?”
“Any reason they might have had to do so?” I press.
Their expressions seem just as disparate as mine did not so long ago. As those of my friends standing outside the cabin in the desert.
None of this makes any sense. It didn’t last night when things first happened, and it damned sure doesn’t now.
“Is that what he said?” Angelique whispers.
“Mhmm.”
“And you believe him?” she asks.
For a moment, I say nothing. No part of me wants to even fathom that it could be true. For a solid day, I’ve been operating on the assumption that the man was firing at me and had the worst aim on the planet.
Still, an hour of thinking back doesn’t seem to give much credence to that theory, and I’m certain further reflection will only continue to blow holes into it. The man was right. There was no way anybody misses from that range, especially not someone like him – older, rougher, riding with an outfit like the Wolves.
“That’s the worst part of it,” I reply, forcing my gaze to meet theirs. “I do.”
Hiram’s hands go to his head. He furrows them through his hair, tufts of it sticking up between his fingers as he exhales loudly. Turning on a heel, he heads into the kitchen, his footfalls heavy within the house.
Beside me, Angelique remains motionless, her eyes becoming glassy as she stares at me, her nostrils flaring slightly with each breath. “What are you going to do?”
