The Easy Way Out (Jake Travis Book 9), page 23
I texted the group that they were in the sanctuary.
I tried to remember the layout from the few times I’d been in the church. I sprinted down the hall until I was at the front of the sanctuary. A door to my left was open to the choir pews, a beam of light escaping as if it knew.
Do I confirm with Rambler? Wait for Angel to leave and have the men in blue waiting? But now that Vargo was dead, and Angel had his money; what need did he have for Evan and Rachel? I envisioned the Reverend Cyndi-Girard strolling into her church and finding two bloodied bodies. And she thought she had domestic issues.
A gunshot jolted my thoughts and made my decision. I dashed through the door and into the chancel, ducking behind a choir pew.
Angel, with his back to me, stood on the main floor of the sanctuary at the bottom of wide steps. Evan was on the ground. Rachel kneeled over him, her hand supporting his head. He appeared unharmed. The three men who had accompanied Angel to the cemetery stood to his side. A fourth man, smaller, stood in front of Angel.
“Take them, Riggins,” Angel said to the smaller man. “I don’t want their bodies found. Ever.”
“I want twice as much,” Riggins said.
“Why would I do that?”
“You said one, and now it’s two. See how that works?”
“Would you like to make it three?”
“A big mess like that would leave a lot of clues.”
“You’re a stupid man. I made a mistake hiring you.”
“We part ways tonight,” Riggins said. “No one will ever find these two, and that’s what’s important. Double or nothing.”
“Fine.”
I didn’t really know Angel, but I was familiar with the breed. Riggins had made a tactical error.
“Now,” Riggins demanded.
“I don’t have it on me.”
“Guys like you stuff it up your ass. Now, or one of them is your problem.”
I drew my gun, for I feared Angel was contemplating killing Riggins, Evan, and Rachel and being done with the whole business.
“Pay him, Rodrigo,” he said, glancing at the man who had wielded an umbrella at my neck. “The way we honor our business deals.”
Rodrigo reached inside his jacket and pulled out a wad of banded bills. He counted them, or pretended to. He picked up a leather satchel that appeared to already have some heft to it, unzipped it, and stuffed the bills into the bag. He tossed it toward Riggins. It hit the floor and slid to a stop at his feet. Riggins picked up the satchel. When he looked up, Angel had a gun pointed at him.
Angel shot Nicky Riggins twice in the legs. Riggins went down, shrieking in pain.
Angel took a few leisurely steps until he towered over Riggins. “If I killed you quickly, you wouldn’t have suffered. This way, I know you feel pain before you die.” He glanced at Rodrigo. “Our pilot?”
“Fifteen minutes.” Rodrigo dipped his head at Rachel and Evan. “What do you want to do with them?”
Evan struggled to his feet. He stood with his arms around Rachel, more of a huddle than a hug. Rachel looked up.
Rachel. From Hebrew. One with purity.
It was as if my friend the wind had circled the globe, caressed a thousand faces from a hundred centuries and sculpted one of youthful fortitude. Of simplicity. Of elegance.
“We bring them,” Angel said. I exhaled quietly, unaware that I’d been holding my breath. “We can dump them over the Gulf of Mexico.” He looked at Rachel. “I meant to dispose of your father that way, but it proved too bothersome.”
Rachel screamed and broke free of Evan’s arm. She launched herself at Angel, her feet flying off the ground, her hands clawing for his face. Rodrigo intercepted her. He wrapped both arms around her. One of the other men pointed a gun at Evan, who had bolted after her.
“What did you do to him?” she yelled at Angel.
“Nothing that does not happen to us all in the end.”
She kicked her feet like she was bicycling in air. But her rage was no match for the muscles of the big man who held her.
“You said you’d let us be. That if I came with you, you would let him quit.”
“You heard what you wanted to hear.”
“Liar!”
“Liar?” He shook his head with humor. “Vargo promised me he would turn his operations over to me. But he had no intention of doing so.”
“That’s because you killed the DEA agent. You are a murderer, and he knew it.”
“Did you not hear a word I said the other night? And you think your father was a saint? I didn’t even tell you what he did before you were born.”
“He wasn’t that man anymore.”
Angel strolled to Rachel. He reached out and traced a finger over her face, running it down her throat.
“Once you did not return on the promised date, it was only a matter of time until Vargo came looking for you. Vargo wanted to die. To atone for his sins. To silence the night of a thousand screams. He killed to protect you, and by doing so, he sacrificed himself. Pity you didn’t see your role in this.”
Rachel spit in Angel’s face.
“Do that again, and we will rape you like they raped your mother. You will beg to join your father.”
“You’re a pig,” she said.
Angel stuck his tongue out and rolled it around his upper lip, searching for Rachel’s spittle.
“Rodrigo,” he said, keeping his eye on Rachel. “Tell the pilot we will be an hour late.”
“We should keep on schedule.”
“Do it,” Angel barked.
Rodrigo reached inside his pocket. A shot cracked from the back of the sanctuary. The man not holding Evan went down.
The other man tackled Evan and dove behind the front pew. Angel squatted, fumbling for his gun. Rodrigo dropped his phone. He wrapped both his arms around Rachel. He pivoted and faced the rear of the sanctuary, using Rachel as a shield.
I aimed at his back just as Morgan and Domingo pressed against me. I’d been so intent on the action in front of me, I’d not noticed them enter. When I glanced back up, my clear shot was gone.
“Is that you, Jake Travis?” Angel yelled at the rear of the sanctuary. “I was hoping we’d meet again. You want to trade bullets? I think not. Throw your gun out or Rachel . . . no, it’s Evan, isn’t it? He’s not just a job. A relative, perhaps?”
A gun came sliding down the aisle.
The sanctuary was quiet as Angel calculated how easy that had been. He spun his head and looked at Rodrigo, who was still holding Rachel.
“The Black man. He is here, too.”
Rodrigo hit the floor next to Angel, leaving Rachel exposed. Evan sprang free and darted to her side. He wrapped his arms around her. Seized with indecision, they stood exposed at the base of the steps. The man who had held a gun at Evan stood. I sprang up, shot him twice, and ducked back behind a choir pew. Angel spun and shot at me, his bullets splintering the wood around me.
“You get the back,” Angel yelled, keeping his eyes toward the front of the sanctuary.
Rodrigo drew a knife. With a knife in one hand and a gun in the other, he slithered down the aisle toward the back of the sanctuary. Angel started for the altar, standing tall, eager to share his bullets with the world.
Garrett sprang from a pew and tackled Rodrigo. Both bodies tumbled to the ground. The knife skidded toward the front of the sanctuary.
Angel gave a quick glance behind him and then continued toward me.
“Mr. Jake? I hide my face from no man.”
I sprang up just as Rachel threw herself on Angel’s back. She screamed and clawed at him, pulling out clumps of hair. Angel spun, trying to dislodge Rachel. Evan rushed him, but Angel whipped him with his gun, sending him to the floor. Like a mighty demon, Angel torqued into an unhuman form, flinging Rachel away with one arm, her body sliding until it stopped at the first step to the chancel.
I’d kept my gun on Angel. He kept his gun on Rachel.
“Shoot me. As I fall, I will take her to hell with me.”
Rachel grabbed something off the floor. She stood. She marched toward Angel, as if she’d become detached from her body. Chin up. Shoulders back. Eyes alert. Her left arm behind her.
“You’ll get there first,” she said.
In one smooth motion, Rachel Estrada flung Rodrigo’s knife, planting the blade with precision in Angel’s torso.
Angel tottered. He looked at his stomach. He glanced at Rachel. He smiled. He raised his gun and pointed it at her. Garrett and I both fired, rattling his body with bullets.
Morgan, and then Domingo, flew through the air like twin skydivers, arching their bodies over Rachel.
Angel’s finger, like a beheaded snake, kept squeezing the trigger of his gun, the evil in him seeking another host.
Morgan was younger and quicker than Domingo—a name that means born on Sunday—and that is why Morgan landed on Rachel first, and Domingo landed on Morgan and took two of Angel’s errant bullets in the back. I rushed to his side, that Sunday morning, but there was nothing I could do. I hummed “Michael Row” and held his hand so he did not cross alone, and now he dances with his father and rests next to Andrew Keller under the fresh-cut summer grass.
49
Manuel Castillo sat on a bench facing the Gulf of Mexico, a paint-by-numbers sunset transfiguring the sky. The red tide bloom had moved offshore, and I no longer coughed. But it was still out there, for it never really leaves us.
I told Manuel the man who shot Liana was dead. That his name was Nicky Riggins. That Riggins bled out on the floor of a church sanctuary after Angel shot him. That in the end, we had tried to save him. For while I did what I could for Domingo, Garrett had called 911. My biggest fear was that Riggins would live and Domingo would die, and doesn’t that just sound like life? I didn’t tell Manuel that just before the medics arrived, I’d whispered a few words into Riggins’s ear. Made the medics’ job a little harder. But we’re not going there.
Manuel listened without apparent interest. As if words no longer held meaning. Perhaps they never had.
When I finished, he thanked me.
“For what?”
“Caring.”
“She can never be replaced, but this will help. Please, take it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Why?”
“It would only be a painful reminder of her.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Oh?”
“She wants to see you happy. Your wife and other daughter. I feel so bad. I do not know her name.”
“Stefanie.”
“She wants Stefanie to go to college. For you not to work until your dying day. Your wife, her name is Theresa?”
He nodded. His eyes locked on the sand between his stubby feet.
“She wants a house. You told me that. Stainless steel. There is enough here. Live as Liana would want you to live. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Si.”
I left him staring at a squadron of pelicans gliding effortlessly over the water, their motionless bodies moving. On the bench next to him rested the satchel of money that Angel had intended for Nicky Riggins. It had been Rambler’s suggestion. Said the hell with dignity, he wasn’t done trying to change the world.
50
Three months later, I rang the doorbell I’d recently fixed. She thought good things might come to the front door. Let’s see.
The door opened.
There she stood. My Florida morning. My fantasia. The tidal pull of my heart. My untitled passion. My seashell-collector-high-heel-hater-directionally-confused-kitchen-bewildered-can’t-grow-a-damn-thing lover.
She looked at me. She looked at China. Her face contorted with confusion.
I’d purposely refrained from rehearsing an opening line and now saw the error of my thinking. I held a baby girl in my arms, clueless as to any of it.
China stepped around me. She planted herself between Kathleen and me.
“This is the way it’s going to be, Dr. Rowe. So don’t give Jake and me any shit.”
EPILOGUE
I pull Joy’s floppy hat down to shield her face. She touches everything. Floats her hand over the side of the kayak. I stare at her small hand and think of Scott’s line in “Lady of the Lake”: “The rose is fairest when it’s budding new.” Every second of her life is blazed with wonderment. Curiosity. A child reboots your soul. Helps you, again, to live resplendently. To breathe the million miracles the sun unwraps each morning. To forget, if only momentarily, the temporariness of life. Yesterday, over cocktails, Kathleen was aflame with excitement over family trips. How old do they have to be before we teach them to hurtle down a mountain of snow? At what age can they go to Europe and get something out of it? The heck with Europe, when can we sail the Caribbean in Morgan’s boat? But, man-oh-man, that’s a lot of sun. And how about Disney? Think about it: the Magic Kingdom is only ninety minutes down the road. Hot dog! How many people can say that?
“Do they still have that ride—It’s a Small World—or did it close? And how about that monorail that goes into the park? The girls will love that. Hey, are you listening to me?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Lane is the author of the Jake Travis stand-alone novels. Florida Weekly calls Jake Travis a “richly textured creation; one of the best leading men to take the thriller fiction stage in years.” Lane’s debut novel, The Second Letter, won the Gold Medal in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s (IBPA’s) 2015 Benjamin Franklin Awards for Best New Voice: Fiction. He is also the recipient of the Eric Hoffer Award for Best Mystery. Lane resides on the west coast of Florida. Learn more at Robertlanebooks.com.
Receive a free copy of the Jake Travis series prequel, Midnight on the Water.
As much mystery as love story, Midnight on the Water is the saga of how Jake and Kathleen met, tumbled into love, and the drastic measures Jake, Morgan, and Garrett take to save Kathleen’s life—and grant her a new identity. Midnight on the Water is available only to those on Robert Lane’s mailing list. The newsletter contains reviews of books, music, and television shows across a wide range of genres. It also includes updates from the next Jake Travis novel.
Enjoy Midnight on the Water.
Also be sure to read these other standalone Jake Travis novels:
The Second Letter
Cooler Than Blood
The Cardinal’s Sin
The Gail Force
Naked We Came
A Beautiful Voice
The Elizabeth Walker Affair
A Different Way to Die
Visit Robert Lane’s author page on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Lane/e/B00HZ2254A
Follow Robert Lane on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobertLaneBooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7790754.Robert_Lane
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/robert-lane?list=about
Learn more and receive your free copy of Midnight on The Water at http://robertlanebooks.com.
Robert Lane, The Easy Way Out (Jake Travis Book 9)
