“No, sir. Reilly gave me all I ever
needed. Sometimes when I really wanted something, she’d make me work it off,
but I never once thought of spending it. She’s been really great to me. I was
keeping it because….” He didn’t turn, but his shoulder tensed up. “In case she
didn’t want me anymore.”
“She’d never do that, buddy. She loves
you very much.” Royce looked at Daniel when he spoke and wondered how much he
loved the boy. “She’d cut off her right arm before she’d let anything happen to
you.”
“I know that now, but back then…not so
much.” Benny turned to face them. “She’s going to get hurt ‘cause of me, huh?”
“Not if I can help it.” Daniel told him.
“Not even if I have to tie her to the bed to keep her safe.”
“No. She can get away. That man, he
showed her how to get out of that, too. He taught her how to do all kinds of
cool stuff. Me, too, when I got older. He’s a scary nice man.”
Royce was glad to see that Reilly had
not been hiding behind the gated house she lived in and had also made her
nephew aware as well. The man they were afraid of wasn’t going to give up until
he got whatever it was he came for. But Benny spoke again, and Royce felt the
hair on his neck dance.
“There’s ledgers in the front pockets. Ten,
I guess. It’s got names and dates in it, along with other stuff. I think
they’re favors that that man did for those people. Might even be some dead guys
in it.” He flushed before turning around to the sink again. “I looked at those
things. A lot of the people in the red one are dead. Some of them are marked
off, but…well, I have a list like that, too, and I’ve marked off the ones that
weren’t marked yet.”
Royce looked over at Alan, who was
looking at the ten colored composition notebooks that had been in the front
pocket. They were colored and labeled. The only red one was marked simply “GONE.”
Royce picked that one up.
Name after name was in there. The ones
that had a single penned line through it were followed by a date. There was
also a number. It wasn’t until Daniel laid out a map that he realized what they
meant. They were places that coincided with the names in his book. And Royce
would bet his last dollar if they went there they’d find those people buried
there.
“He’s keeping track of where they are so
that he won’t…visit the same place twice.” Royce nodded at Daniel’s comment. “There
are over two hundred numbers on this map. You think he killed that many
people?”
“Or had them killed.” Alan handed them
one of the ledgers opened to a page and pointed. “The police department and
their names. All of them it seems, from the chief to the desk clerks. There are
even references to some of the biggest trials in the state here.”
“He’s going to come after that, I know
it. And it’s not me like you all think. Mom made sure he didn’t know about me. He
thinks she had an abortion.” Benny turned and hung the towel he’d dried his
hands with on the sink. “I think I’d like to go out to Reilly now. Don’t come
out, ‘cause she’ll get mad again, but I need to be with her. When you go out,
the code is twenty-four seventy-nine. It’s a onetime code, so when you leave,
the gate will be on fry again. Good-bye.”
He moved out the door without another
word. Royce looked over at his brother, then at Alan. This was much more
serious than any of them had thought. And if Alan’s face was any indication, he
was thinking the same thing.
Chapter
13
Berto was settled in the bed and breakfast
when he suddenly knew he wasn’t alone. He didn’t jump, as he was sure the woman
thought he should have, but looked at her over his newspaper, all ten pages of
it.
“I thought you’d like it here better
than the other one. This one at least has separate bathrooms.” She sat on his
bed without his permission. When she started to take off her blouse, his cock
jerked. “Wanna fuck around while we wait on the guys I have watching the estate
to call in?”
Hell yes, he did, but he wasn’t going to
do what she wanted. He had a fleeting thought to have her undress to see if she
was wearing a wire, but he knew that if he had her naked, he’d be bending her
over the bed and losing himself deep inside of her. He didn’t want her to win.
“No, I do not. And this place is a
hovel. Why didn’t you simply purchase a house for us to use instead of renting
a room here?” He was lying and was pretty sure she knew it. He waited for her
answer, and when none was forthcoming, he asked again.
“And just where was I supposed to get a
bank loan to purchase a house? This is Sunday, and when you called me
yesterday—”
He slapped her. When she tumbled off the
bed, he saw that her skirt had ridden up her thigh and she wasn’t wearing
anything under it. This time his cock ached so badly that he nearly doubled
over from it. The plane ride yesterday with the three women didn’t even take
the edge off when it came to fucking this woman. She liked it as rough and hard
as he did. He turned his back on her and went to his chair again.
“Don’t fuck with me, Jeannie. I told you
I wasn’t in the mood. Now. When I ask you a question I expect answers, not
smart-assed replies that have nothing to do with it.” He picked up the file
he’d brought with him. “That girl you hired, she was a waste. All she did was
get in the room and get off a shot before that Hunter man killed her. I want to
know why you picked someone so incompetent, and what the fuck do I need you for
if that’s the type of help you find for me?”
He watched her stand up. There was blood
on her blouse, and her lip was swollen. She sat on the bed and straightened her
clothes before she answered. He knew she was stalling either from anger or
trying to come up with a good answer. He waited, giving her time. He could
always tell when someone was lying.
“Actually, I didn’t find her. Your boy
did.” He frowned. Boy? But she cleared up his confusion by continuing. “Micky
found her. She was already in place by the time I got here. I never said
anything because I know how useful he is under normal circumstances.” She
shrugged.
“Micky was supposed to find out
information about her, not set her up to be killed.” He realized then that the
other man hadn’t come to him even though he was pretty sure he knew he was in
this town. “Where is he?”
“Don’t know. Last I heard from him was
when I came here. He met me at the airport, gave me a rundown of what was going
on, and then….” She shrugged again. “I never had any contact with him. He might
have realized what he’d done to fuck up and left town. Or could be he is hiding
here.”
“Find him. I want to know where he is
right fucking now.” He stood up and tossed the paper on the floor. “That
Harlequin guy is having a show in four days. He’ll come out for it and bring
that bitch of a wife of his with him. I plan on being there when he does. His
little missus is going to be a great deal of fun and as dead as her sister when
I’m finished with her.”
“It says here that it’s by invitation
only. Want me to get you a ticket?” He’d already checked on that and found that
it was sold out. He’d crash it if he had to, but let her try. “How many do you
need, and what do you want as backup?”
“Two, you and I will go as a couple and
a limo with a driver that’s mine. You might want to see about getting something
suitable to wear. Nothing that is going to bring attention to us, so leave your
nipples covered up.”
She nodded and left soon after. He
thought about fucking her anyway but decided that next time she’d be less
likely to make a pass. Then he’d take her hard and fast, satisfying only
himself. Berto pulled out the second file he’d brought with him. This one was
on the kid he’d not known about.
The staties here weren’t as helpful as
the ones he had on his payroll back in Florida. He hated that he couldn’t
simply call his cops up and get what he needed, but the boys in blue here were
a little more closed mouthed. All he’d been able to glean from the search of
the courthouse was that O’Reilly had a son and that there had been nothing else
about him. He didn’t go to public schools, he didn’t drive, nor did the little
cock sucker have a birth certificate in this state. And he wasn’t paying two
hundred bucks to find out where he’d been spawned at. But Berto did have
something else he could use against the woman if she didn’t give up what he
wanted.
He needed those ledgers. The money would
be nice to have to run with, but not necessary. Berto knew that he had accounts
all over the world and only needed to pick up another one of his passports to
get to it. But the ledgers would get him killed in any number of ways. And not
just by the Feds.
He hadn’t made it to the top of the most
wanted list by being polite and asking for territories. He’d been ruthless and
cold; he’d murdered, raped, and lied himself into his position, and he wasn’t going
to lose it over a piece of ass.
How she’d gotten the ledgers out of his
safe was still a mystery to him, and he’d never gotten an answer about where
the money was from her no matter how much he’d hurt her. He looked down at the
bite mark on his hand and got pissed all over again. She’d bitten him that day,
and the fucking cunt had spit her blood in his face, too. He’d lost it then. He’d
thought he’d ended her life, but all he’d done was make his life more
difficult. His phone ringing startled him, and he looked around the room to see
who’d seen him jump before he picked it up. It had been over an hour since
Jeannie had left.
“He’s in the morgue. I’m going to see if
I can go in and make sure in an hour. I’m going in to see if he’s my long lost
brother.” Jeannie laughed. “I’ll see if they let me take a pic of him to send
to you, too.”
She was still laughing when she hung up.
He decided the next time she came to him he was killing her. She was getting
much too comfy in her position. He wondered again if she wore a wire and shook
his head. No, not her. He had a file on all that she’d done for him, too. Smiling,
he thought about having her in his bed one last time. He was going to literally
fuck her to death.
~~~
Daniel went out to the studio. He’d not
been there yet, so when Benny told him that he could probably see her and not
get hurt, he left the house. It had been several hours since his brother and
Alan had left, and he wanted to see her.
The door wasn’t locked, but Benny had
told him it wouldn’t be. She left it open when she was working in the event he
might need her. She wasn’t in the first room he went into and looked around
before moving on.
This room looked like a storage room.
There were stacks of wood in varying sizes and a nail gun hanging from the
ceiling on one side of the room. Pictures hung here and there. He didn’t read
what they were about, but walked around more. A large roll of bubble wrap hung
from the ceiling on the other side, and a pallet of cardboard that looked like
boxes. They were stamped with a large H in the middle and a smaller O and D on
either side of it. Her logo.
There was a laptop, as well as a small
printer, large scale, and a long desk. He figured this was her shipping
department and wondered if she had someone do it for her. He knew that she
wouldn’t trust anyone to do this for her and moved through the doorway into a
larger room.
She was at the far end, sitting at a
wheel. He’d tried to take a pottery class while he’d been in college and
decided that it wasn’t for him. He quietly watched her as she centered a pot. She
was perhaps fifty feet from him, and when she glanced up at him, she didn’t
seem surprised. She answered his unspoken question before he could ask her if
Benny had called her.
“I have an alarm on the door. Benny
knows to reset it, but he hadn’t told you when he okayed you coming here. He
let me know you were coming and not to shoot you if the alarm sounded.”
He’d have to remember to thank the kid
when he went back to the house. “He said that you’d probably be over the worst
part of you being pissed at me and I could chance it. I thought coming down
here and groveling might help me get into your good graces again.”
“Doubtful. I have some work to do. What
do you want?” He wasn’t discouraged. Much. “Tell me you’re taking the bag and
Benny and that I have seen the last of you and your family.”
He moved further into the room. Now he
was discouraged. He stood close enough to watch her pull the pot up but not
close enough to let her hit him. That’s when he noticed the gun in the chair
behind her.
“Would you have shot me?” He wasn’t
thrilled when she continued to work with the clay and not answer him. He sat on
the only other chair in the room. “I need to tell you how sorry I am. And to
tell you that I was an ass.”
She pulled the pot up to about a foot,
then stopped the wheel and looked at him. “Yes, you are. Which time are you
talking about? You know I don’t care. I think it’s been fun, but I don’t really
have time for this.” She got up from the wheel and picked up the large
cylinder.
There were nine of them on the shelves
where she was taking this one. He noticed immediately that they were all the
exact same height, and he noticed that they were in varying widths. He
remembered the drawing she’d made for him.
It had been a tall vase, reaching nearly
halfway up the stairs to the second landing. It had been fashioned into a water
fountain that water came from the top and fell to a pool below it. He still
didn’t have a clue how she planned to make that work, but he knew that the vase
had been small at the middle while the top and bottom had been tapered out and
then flared at the top. He looked at the pieces and could almost see how she’d
fit them together.
“Have you approved the colors yet?” He
looked over at her when she spoke. “Mrs. Hunter, the one that owns the plant
shop, said she’d send them to you to approve. I was wondering if you had an
opportunity to see if they suited yet.”
He sort of remembered an email from Joey,
but for the life of him couldn’t remember what it had been about. There had
been a mention of plants of some sort, but since he had no clue, he simply told
her to use what she thought was right.
“She sent me a list of them with the
colors. I think they’ll be fine. When do you put this together?” She moved to
the double sink near the far wall. He noticed that her gun was now in the back
of her pants. “Are you planning to kill someone?”
“If they invade my turf, yes I am. I’ll
have it in the kiln to bisque next week. Then the week after, I’ll have most of
the smaller pieces glazed together so that when I fire them again it should be
fine.”
He saw several small pieces where she
was headed with the moving cart and followed. When she moved a sheet of plastic
out of the way, he could see that she had a drawing in much more detail than
the one she’d given him hung on the wall. He looked at it in awe. If this was
what she was doing for him, he was getting his money’s worth. When she stood
beside him, he looked at her and smiled.
“This is magnificent. I love it.” He looked
at it again, trying to see it the way his customers would. “I think they’ll
love it. It’ll be calming and soft with the waterfalls, won’t it? And the
colors are perfect for the colors in the room where we want it.”
“The fountain fixtures will be delivered
first. I’ve already spoken to Stone Construction, and they said that they’d put
it in for me. Apparently they had put in the specs for this kind of thing while
it was being built. And because the buyer backed out, they simple hid the main
fixtures in the stairwell.” She pulled out a pad of paper. “That will lower
your bid. I hadn’t realized that we’d not be starting from scratch.”
He took the paper from her without
seeing it. He dropped it on the floor and reached for her. When she tried to
step back, everything in him wanted to snarl at her. Instead he wrapped his
hand around her neck and pulled her to him.
“Please, we can’t do this anymore. Don’t
you see?” He could see, but not what she thought he should.
Daniel lowered his mouth to hers slowly.
He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, but he knew when she gave it to him
he’d know. When her wet tongue came out and licked at her lush lips, he
groaned. Something inside of him leapt for joy and he took her mouth under his.
He couldn’t get close enough standing
the way that they were. He moved forward, moving her back and toward something,
anything, that would bring her closer to him. When she stopped suddenly, he
reached his hand out and touched wall.
Yes
, his mind and body screamed. When
she wrapped her fingers into his hair, he remembered the gun.