It didn’t take him long to find her room.
The bed was a mess of bundled covers and crooked pillows. This was where she slept, her body had caused this. He pictured her laying on her back, nude, her long sunny hair draped across the pillow beside her. Rose petals spread out, a rose stem clenched in her teeth.
Then he thought back to last night, and how she’d disappeared into the back of the bookstore with that guy,
Alan
, and the noises the two of them had made, sounds that should have been saved for him and Haley to share. Out of anger he’d punched a wall, and then spent three hours in the ER getting a cast put on his hand.
Broke the bone in two places!
Afterward, half high on pain meds and his rage flaring, he’d snuck back to the bookstore, broken in, and torched it. He’d seen Alan in the upstairs loft sleeping and had been tempted to smother him with a pillow.
But, he didn’t.
Let him burn.
Kicking off his shoes as he walked, he went to the bed and sat on its edge, laughing at what he’d done to the bookstore. He’d watched it go up from his car, windows shattering, the flames lashing from inside. An old building, parched books inside, the store had disintegrated quickly to a heap.
He pitched his head back on her pillow, and laughed so hard he felt a squeeze in his gut.
A strong scent of sugary soap and perfume br
eathed on him from the pillow.
Her scent.
The hum of Haley’s fragrance killed his laughter, hitching it tight in his throat. A deep void opened in his chest, making it hurt to breath. Just thinking about her made him crazy, made him do things he never thought he could do, or would do again.
Arson.
The bookstore was his first time.
Breaking and entering.
Not his first time, but it had been several years since he last had.
Getting a hard on, calling Haley so she can hear me and I can hear her, while jerking off.
A month ago, he’d never even thought it possible to
consider
such things, let alone committing them. What had she done to him? To his mind?
But, he’d learned in the past that breaking into the store and the house wouldn’t be as hard as it should have been. Having defended some of the scummiest crooks this side of the state had to offer, he’d picked up a thing or two from their testimonies, confessions, and police reports. Taking it all to his brain blender and thumping spin, he had a dangerous mixture and vast knowledge of their secrets and tricks. He could have written a book on how to get into a place without consent. He wondered why other lawyers didn’t try this.
He reached into his pocket, tugging Haley’s black thong-panties out by the band. He raised them to his nose, sniffed, and let out a slow, aching moan. The thick-sweet smell of Haley’s sex licked his nose and brought tears to his eyes. “Oh Haley,” he whispered. “Haley…” As if in a trance, he pushed his pants down to his knees, releasing his erect penis. Uncircumcised and fleshy, it looked like an earthworm the length and girth of a minute snake. He’d had a complex about it his whole life, but here and now he couldn’t care less. He held Haley’s panties like a napkin and wrapped the fabric around his shaft, making his own version of an uncut hot dog in an underwear bun.
Then he began stroking while moaning Haley’s name.
(IV)
Buddy slapped the fat kid again, leaving a red handprint on the kid’s cheek. “Where are they going!?!”
The tub of pre-teen strangled a sob. His lip quivered so vigorously that it was a wonder it didn’t lift him into the air like a propeller. “Huh-who?”
This would have been fun for Carp to watch if it wasn’t so damn sad. The other kid, the shorter and much thinner one, hadn’t lasted long before Buddy ordered Carp to slit his throat. He just wouldn’t stop that damn screaming. Buddy tried to tell him, tried warning him that if he didn’t shut up what would happen, but the kid just couldn’t control himself.
Now,
that
had been fun.
“Face and the kid,” said Buddy, saliva shooting from his mouth onto the kid’s face.
“Pr-Probably to his house…”
“Where is it?!!”
“Through the woods, but there’s probably people there…”
“I don’t give a good goddamn; I want to know where this house is and why the hell our man is there!”
“I don’t know why, I just met him today…Joel knows him, knows him real good, kept calling him his friend...”
Buddy sighed, then screwed his eyes shut for a moment to think. While he zoned out, disappearing to that part of his mind that made the calls, drew up the blueprints, and relinquished strategy, he didn’t dare let go of Paul’s hair. Keeping a good handful of it intertwined in his fingers, he was able to hold the kid’s head close and the knife closer to his throat. When he came back to reality, he said, “All right, here’s how this is going to work, I have to get to this kid’s house and take my friend. But, I can’t do that until I have taken a full assessment of their position. Do you understand this?”
“Yuh-yes…I can help you!”
Laughing, Buddy looked at Carp. “Do you believe this?”
Carp laughed.
“No, seriously, I can help you. I’ll take you to the house, show it to you, then you can just let me go home. I’ll go and you won’t have to worry about anything from me, I swear!”
This time, Buddy didn’t laugh. Carp admired that Buddy had the best bullshit detector there was, and he must have sensed the sincerity in the kid’s offerings. “Good. We can use you. You do what I say and when I say it, you may live to go home and jack off on your favorite pillow after all.” Nodding, snot and blood dripped from the kid’s chin. “You’ve just become the ace up our sleeve boy, you should be proud.”
The kid looked to be anything but proud.
(I)
The doorbell rang.
Sharon, having just come from the shower, was about to join Richard at the kitchen table. He was looking through Tonya’s cell phone for more friends of hers to call. It looked as if he had three more to go, and if nothing was resolved with them, the police would be next.
He’d finally decided to search her room, and had nearly cried when he found her cell phone sitting on her dresser with several missed calls, mostly from him, but some from Ray and girlfriends. If she had left of her own will, she would have taken the phone. Tonya never went anywhere without it.
Sharon stopped at the table on her way to the living room and looked at him, the kind of look that a wife gave a husband when she wanted him to be frank with her and avoid all the bullshit.
In her stare, she asked:
Did she come home?
Although she spoke nothing, Richard had heard her and only shook his head. Her throat constricted and pulled. Call it a parent’s instinct, call it what you want, but the fact of the matter was their baby girl, their only child was missing. Didn’t matter if it had been two days, or two hours, she wasn’t home and no one seemed to know where she was.
The doorbell chimed again before Sharon could ask another question without speaking. She looked at the door, then back to her husband, feeling the same pang of dread, scared of who may be at the front door and the news they’d be bringing.
“Want me to get it?” he said.
Shaking her head, she answered, “No, I will.”
“Maybe I should come with you.”
“No, it’s fine.”
They shared another look before Sharon pried herself away. She left Richard, and walked to the front door.
Without checking the peephole, she shot the door open, making the heavy kid standing outside jump. He gasped when he saw her; and she returned the expression, only louder. This kid was a mess. Bleeding and swollen, his hair was stiff and muddled, with bruises dotting up his neck and face like purple freckles. A red mark on his cheek, the size and layout of a hand, seemed to shimmer in the sunlight.
“My God, are you all right?”
“No, you’ve got to help me … I barely escaped them. They’ll be here soon.”
“Who?”
Upon hearing the commotion out front, Richard came to the living room. “Honey, what’s wr…” He stopped when he saw the kid and darted across the room to the front door. “Paul?”
Sharon put a hand on his shoulder, he flinched at her touch. “Who did this?”
“Two guys, they have Tonya, you’ve got to help me!”
Their minds were speaking to each other again, he’d mentioned a name, their daughter, and someone’s coming.
Get him inside. Phone the police right away.
“Get in,” said Sharon. She stepped aside so Paul could stagger through.
The kid collapsed against Richard. Even though Richard was much taller and stronger, he struggled to hold the burden of Paul Lancaster. Sharon raised a hand to her throat, reflexively tugging at her necklace. In her tank-top, the necklace hung above her breasts like a golden smile. “How long do you think it will be before they’re here?”
She was shutting the door as she asked, but it stopped rigid when she heard, “Oh, I’d say a lot sooner than expected.”
Sharon screamed, trying to push the door closed, but the owner of the voice was much too strong for her. He slammed the door back against her, knocking her sideways into the wall. She reflected off it and crashed onto the floor.
Then he calmly let himself, plus a guest, into their house.
Before Richard could act, he felt a clout of doughy skin hitting him hard in the crotch. His stomach went to his throat, making it difficult to breath. He couldn’t counter the assault. The chubby kid had already crippled him with a low blow. As he fell to the floor, a man in a white t-shirt with spiky hair closed the door. The other man, dressed in green fatigues and a hat, was dropping shoulder bags on the floor. Whatever was inside rattled and clanked, shaking the floorboards when they landed. Richard could feel the vibrations against his cheek. He looked at Sharon hugging her knees to her chest. The skin across her chest, normally the tint of melted butter, showed the early signs of a straight-lined bruise from the door. She looked at him, again asking a question with her eyes.
Are you going to let them do this?
Then, as the man in the white t-shirt began putting on a clear plastic theatrical mask with makeup painted on the face, of the type you could get at any drug store during the Halloween season for a buck, Richard answered her back with
I have no choice.
Sharon started to cry.
He heard an indistinct giggle coming from behind him. He rolled onto his back and was surprised to see that it was Paul who was laughing like a kid that caught sight of boobies for the first time. Richard glanced back at his wife, who was staring at the floor, her eyes bulging. He hoped she was slipping into some kind of catatonic state, one that would prevent her from being vigilant through what was to come.
The man hiked the mask up on his head, making it look like he had another face growing from the top of his skull. “This will all be over before you know it. We’re just borrowing your place so we can scope out the house next door, all right? Play your cards right, and you won’t even know we’re here.”
Confused, Richard shook his head. “Next door?”
“Yes,” he answered bluntly. “You have a house next door and we’re going to scope it out from here, incognito if you catch my drift. I’m Buddy and this is my comrade, Carp.”
Nodding a greeting, Carp added, “Much obliged.”
“We’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”
One thing Richard took pride in, but also considered to be a curse, was his ability to decipher bullshit from legit shit. And, this man—Buddy—was handing him the dankest bullshit by the bucket full. He had no desire to let them live and why should he? After all, they’d seen their faces and he’d read enough crime novels to know that the witnesses were always the first to be dispatched.
No loose ends. My God, Sharon and I have become loose ends. What about Tonya? Was Paul telling some kind of truth about them having come in contact with Tonya?
He had to know. “What about my daughter?”
The one called Carp ignored him as he paced around the living room, observing their framed pictures, plaques, and diplomas.
Buddy peeked out the window, then back to Richard over his shoulder. “What about her?”
“What did you do to her?”
Buddy rolled his eyes up as if searching for the answer somewhere on the ceiling. It was apparent he had no idea what Richard was talking about. He only shrugged, and then looked back out the window.
“Wouldn’t happen to be this sweet thing, would it?” Carp had taken the picture of Tonya in her track uniform from where it hung on the wall. His fingers were rubbing her glimmering bare legs through the glass.
“Yes, that’s her,” said Richard. “Have you seen her?”
“Oh yeah I’ve seen her. Sure have. I’d recognize a nice pair of legs like these anywhere. Check this out, Buddy.” He tossed the frame across the room. Richard expected to see it crashing to the floor, but Buddy was quick with his reflexes and caught it.
His face stretched, nodding with approval as if finding something on a menu he liked to eat. “Yep, that’s her all right.”
“You know her?” demanded Richard.
“Where’s my baby?” hollered Sharon.
Buddy tapped a finger to his tightened lips, motioning her to shush. She immediately obeyed. “Now, I don’t how to break this to you, but we found her in the woods.”
“You what?”
“We found her in the woods, just a bit ago, same time we found fatty over there.”
On cue, Paul reentered the room with half of a cold hot dog in his hand; the rest was in his mouth as he chewed. No one had noticed he’d left. “She’s dead.” With his mouth full, it sounded more like:
“Shesh deadsh.”
Sharon shook her head, her reaction slowly building. The pain in Richard’s groin went away completely, as if the ache in his heart sucked all feeling from everywhere else in his body.
“To put it bluntly,” said Buddy, “yeah.”
“
No no no no no,” shrieked Sharon, pounding her fists down on her knees, her head violently shaking back and forth like a broken sprinkler. Her yellow hair whipped and lashed ferociously enough to cut someone.
Buddy listened to this for about two seconds before ordering, “Carp, shut her up!!”
A wicked grin on his face, “Gladly,” he walked over to her, playing with his belt.
Richard could see by the bulge in his crotch that whatever he planned to do to shut her up, he was looking forward to it.
“Stay away from her!” Richard shouted, jumping to his feet. Buddy stood by the fireplace, but had already turned his back to them so he could throw his attention out the window. The fireplace pokers stood in a tin square right next to the hearth like soldiers in flank. Richard had two guns upstairs, but they might as well have been in Nebraska, and the pokers were much closer.
He went for them.
Carp grabbed Sharon by the shoulders and shook her, hard, then knelt down to her. “Guess what I like to use to gag little screamers like you?” His question seemed to suck all the answers, all the sounds right out of her mouth. She held her breath, terror frozen on her face.
Without turning around from the window, Buddy said, “Carp, don’t tease the poor lady. Just get her out of here. But, if I catch you doing something I don’t approve of, you’ll have to answer to me.”
“You hear that little lady? You’re coming with me.”
She shook her head, her eyes becoming wide enough to rip.
Paul had caught Richard sneaking to the fireplace, hunched over like a cartoon character trying to sneak through a haunted house. He’d gasped to warn the others but accidentally sucked what he was chewing on down his throat where it had lodged. At first he couldn’t make a sound, but he managed to swallow some chunks which opened his airway enough to wheeze. Like a breathless old man bobbing to his oxygen tank, Paul skulked to Richard who was quietly removing one of the pokers from the liner. By this time, Buddy had heard Paul’s winded attempts at getting his attention and turned around just in time to see Paul assail.
The poker came down on the top of Paul’s head and didn’t stop carving a gully down his skull until it reached his brow with a splattering crunch. The look on his face was one without pain, save complete surprise. Paul’s legs buckled, pulling him down to the floor. As he fell, Richard yanked the poker from his head. Stringy filaments of gore flapped from the tip. He turned around as Buddy lunged, sidestepping him, and swinging the poker like a ball bat. The iron rod whacked Buddy across the chest.
Doubling over, he hugged his chest and dropped to a knee.
Richard raised the poker to finish him, but heard Sharon shout a warning. He was too late to counter. Carp punched his knife’s blade into Richard’s throat up to the handle, twisted it in three circles, and wrenched it back out with a stream of red behind it. He was turned and checking on Buddy before Richard hit the floor.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Finish off that bitch! Enough of these games!”
“You got it,” said Carp. He glanced back at Richard grinning. This time it wasn’t just wicked, it was maniacal. “You really fucked up, you know that? Killing the fat kid ruined our plans.”
“Do it, Carp!” Buddy winced as if it hurt to shout, as if it hurt to breathe. His voice was muffled behind the plastic mask, but the point had been clear.
“Yes, sir.” Carp stood up, unhooked his belt, and stalked toward Sharon who was already scooting away on her rump and hands like a crab.
The last thing Richard saw before his life drained out on his expensive floor was Carp ripping her tank top down the middle, cupping handfuls of her springy breasts.
Sharon looked at Richard, and in their silent communication begged with her eyes to be rescued, pleaded for him to get up and get this man away from her.
As Carp shredded into her shorts, ripping her panties like paper, Richard was too weak to reply.
(II)
Geoffrey Jones knew that he wasn’t just fortunate, but he was perversely blessed with the luck of the devil, because they hadn’t discovered him yet, but they might, so he needed to get the hell out of here, and promptly.
Quick and quiet.
A kid, presumably Haley’s little-shit brother and someone else, was in the house. He was still hiding in Haley’s room, checking his watch, and counting the minutes. They’d only been here for twenty, but it felt like hours. Whoever was with the kid had gotten hurt, and listening to what was being said, he’d gathered they’d come home to bandage him up. He wondered who was with him.
Haley?
Flurries that felt like a horde of spiders scurried up his back. His bowels felt like lead.
Maybe she left work early, surely she’s heard about the bookstore by now.