“You might have bigger problems, Graves.”
Derrick stopped moving and stared at the large man. “What do you mean I have bigger problems? What can be bigger than people coming to my home and disturbing my family? Or this mess that we have to clean up now so I still stand a fraction of a chance of getting this job?”
“I didn’t quite get here in time.” Martin tossed the bloody towel on a three-foot marble statue of Apollo. “Apparently this guy’s backup got to your wife before I got here.”
Derrick dropped his cell phone to the floor. It clattered on the hardwood. He glanced incredulously at Martin. His eyes pleaded for her safety.
“What? What do you mean? What happened?”
Martin smiled at Derrick. It seemed he was enjoying the role of being the bearer of bad news. “Your wife is dead. But I took care of him for you.”
Michael winced at the news. He knew that Murph was dead. He could feel it in his bones and the amount of blood that was on the towel could not have been more of a confirmation.
Derrick’s eyes filled with tears. He glanced down at Michael and then back at Martin. His hands trembled at the prospect of life without his wife. The sorrow switched to rage and he lashed out immediately. Derrick rained blows upon Michael’s head. A torrent of curses flew from his lips as he unleashed his anger upon Michael. The sound of his knuckles connecting with skull resounding over and over again. Michael did all he could to cover up and protect himself against the barrage of punches. But he eventually succumbed to the blows. His arms falling to his sides while Derrick kept punching him. The blackness from the corners of Michael’s vision drifted across until he was totally unconscious.
Derrick expended all his energy beating on Michael. The yelling turned into crying, and his thoughts returned to Rachel. He slumped down on Michael’s unconscious body and cried some more. Drool flowed from his down turned lips. As he gained some semblance of control, Derrick turned to Martin who appeared to watch the entire scene with some satisfaction.
“Get this piece of shit out of here.”
Martin continued to stand in the doorway with his huge hands at his sides. Derrick stopped sobbing and leered at the large man.
“Martin. Get this piece of shit out of my house. Now.”
Martin stood motionless for several more seconds before entering the living room. He approached the crumpled body on the floor and looked down at Derrick, who was still straddling Michael. Derrick returned the gaze and slowly rolled off the body. He stood up and looked into the face of the Debt Collector.
“Put him in your truck and I’ll meet you outside in a few minutes. Where...where is my wife? I want to...I’ll...Give me a few minutes.”
Derrick stepped back providing room for Martin to pick up Michael, which he did effortlessly. Martin tossed the lifeless body over his right shoulder and remained in place. He never dropped his eye contact with Derrick. Derrick dropped his eyes first to put his head in his hands. Martin took the opportunity to turn and leave the living room with his cargo. He rounded the doorway and carried Michael through the kitchen on his way to the garage.
A few moments later, Derrick looked up to the ceiling in a symbolic plea to the heavens. He was distraught and his whole world had gone upside down in a matter of minutes. Just when it seemed that he had all the cards in his favor, the table was flipped on its side and the dealer was calling in the chips.
Derrick shuffled slowly to the foyer on his way to seeing his wife one last time.
Chapter 39
The garage was washed in blood. Splatters adorned the walls, the garbage cans and the floor. Everywhere Derrick looked there was blood. He started to enter the garage when he caught sight of the limbless, headless torso on the back of Rachel’s car. It was a huge chunk of grisly meat which dripped down the side and back of the trunk. The only reason he knew it was a torso was the clothing and the belt buckle still attached.
His eyes then followed the back of Rachel’s car to the wheelbarrow. The mangled contents arrayed in a random pile. Underneath the wheelbarrow was a pool of blood. Derrick noticed his pruning saw on the floor. He thought how he never actually used that saw. It had been a gift from Rachel’s mother when they bought the house. She said that all new homeowners needed a good set of gardening tools, even though they had so much money that they used a gardener.
Derrick stepped further into the garage and spotted his wife on the floor to the left. Her small body crumpled on the cement floor. The white bathrobe she had been wearing was hanging off of her nude body. The whiteness of the robe turned to a filthy gray with bloody hand prints on it. He slowly approached Rachel and the tears flooded his eyes again, blurring his vision.
He felt devastated. This was all his fault. He went too far this time trying to secure that CEO position. All he ever wanted was to give Rachel and the girls the best in life. He wanted to be their knight in shining white armor. Their protector. He dreamed of Rachel holding court at the country club, with the older-money snobs doting upon her. She came from a family of older money but was still relegated to second-class citizen at the club because of her marriage to Derrick. In their eyes, he was just an up-and-comer. A new-money man. And yet, Rachel had endured the downgrade in status and the barbed comments so she could be with Derrick. She did everything for him and this is what she got in return. She got killed because of him.
Derrick dropped to his knees and bawled out loud as he sunk his face into the bathrobe. He clutched Rachel’s lifeless form in his arms, wishing it were all some nightmare that he could wake up from. Things weren’t supposed to end like this. They were supposed to grow old together in extravagant fashion, marrying the twins off to sons of billionaires, while taking over the glamour of the country club elite. He could smell the soap and body lotion lingering on her skin. It was a smell which always made him feel safe. A smell of being home.
How could this happen to him? He thought that horrible fates like this were set aside for the bad guys, not people like him. He cared so much for his family. He was successful and had built something big out of nothing. It was true that he bent some rules along the way to help his chances but it was with loving intent. And now it was gone. Derrick cried into Rachel’s damp hair and stroked it like he did after they made love. He wanted her back more than anything.
Derrick rolled Rachel over to look at her face. He saw the cord wrapped tightly around her neck. The skin puckered where it strained against the strangulation. The sight brought more tears and a fresh wail of sorrow. But it soon turned to rage. Derrick sobbed and stared at his wife’s face. He continued to stroke her hair while his thoughts turned to retribution. Michael had to pay for this. It was his fault that Rachel was dead because he came here to hurt his family. Several means of torture flashed before Derrick’s eyes. He wanted to try all of them on Michael. He was glad that Martin had come by when he had before more tragedy had struck. Michael and his accomplice could have killed him too. Or worse. The girls. As quickly as that thought arose, Derrick envisioned the twins covered in blood and disfigured on their beds. He winced the vision out of his mind and returned to thoughts of payback.
He knew that he had to get moving and he had to get out of here before the girls came back downstairs and found this mess. He wondered who he should call to come babysit and then changed his mind. Derrick didn’t want someone else to see the carnage or ask lots of questions. He would have to put the girls to sleep and hope that they stayed put. He could lock up the garage while he was out.
“I’m so sorry, Rachel. I never wanted to hurt you. We were supposed to be together forever.” He started sobbing again and kissed her cold lips. “Please forgive me, honey. I did everything for you but I fucked up. I fucked up.” He shook her lifeless shoulders and then calmed again. “I will take care of the girls for you. I’ll make sure everything works out. I promise. I love you.”
Derrick gently rested her head on the floor and straightened her bathrobe so that it covered her properly. He folded her hands across her chest and kissed her forehead. He lingered there for a moment longer to breathe in her smell. It hurt him deeply that he would not smell her anymore.
As he rose to check on his daughters, Derrick paused to look around. The grisly scene once again sunk into his brain. The horror and the destruction all around must be paid for. He needed to get his own pound of flesh in exchange for taking his wife away. For causing so much pain. For jeopardizing his future and the future of his family. Derrick brushed off the filth of the garage floor and then straightened his clothes. He turned toward the door. He would have to find a way of tucking the girls into bed without letting them know what happened. If they found out about Rachel then everything would be ruined. He would have to call the police which would bring the news reporters and then all chances of getting promoted would be washed away. He might be able to cover it up somehow but first he had to take care of Michael Wright. Then he would take care of Andrew. And then work his way through Michael’s wife and daughter. He thought he would save Michael’s daughter, Allison, for last. So he could savor her death which was inevitable anyway.
Derrick closed the garage door tight without looking around one more time. As the door clicked shut, it was as if the horror of the garage was locked away in a compartment somewhere. He felt more composed and locked the door. He knew what he had to do.
Chapter 40
The smell of exhaust fumes filled Michael’s nose. He couldn’t make out where it was coming from. His world was total darkness and it felt like he was floating in a black pool filled with black water under a black sky. The only sensation that made it through to his consciousness was the choking smell of exhaust. Little by little he gained access to his other senses. Michael heard what sounded like whistling but it could have just as easily been birds in a sunny meadow. He felt an enormous pain echoing throughout his skull and he tasted the coppery blood on his tongue. It was impossible to move his hands. They were duct-taped in his lap. He tried to moan but it was stifled by the tape around his mouth too. His nose squeaked each time he breathed in as the cartilage was dislodged and in the way of his right nostril.
As Michael came back to the physical world, he opened his eyes to survey his surroundings. He was wedged into the cab compartment of a pickup truck. There wasn’t much room between the front seats and his face. Michael made out the monstrous shape of a large man sitting in behind the wheel. The fuzzy memory of what had happened began to creep back. The last thing he remembered was sitting on the floor in Derrick’s living room. Derrick had smashed his face and he was bleeding and then this guy showed up. Then mountain man said that Murph had killed Derrick’s wife and all hell broke loose. Now he found himself tied up.
Michael searched his thoughts for reasons why Murph would have killed Rachel. But he couldn’t find any. Murph was a grizzled war veteran but he had the heart of a teddy bear. And Murph was the kind of guy who would rather fight someone twice his size than beat on a smaller person. It was unfathomable that he was capable of harming her. Even if she discovered him breaking into the house, the most Murph would have done would be to hold her down and tie her up so she couldn’t spoil the plan. He couldn’t have done what this beast said he did.
The large man in the front seat looked over his right shoulder as if to see through the back window of the truck. Michael squinted his eyes so that the man wouldn’t notice that he was awake. Even with his eyes squinted shut he was able to get a good look at the side of the man’s face. He looked familiar to Michael but he started to think about Andrew. Michael had to figure out a way to get out of this situation and find his boy before anything else happened. It had to be Derrick who took Andrew. Otherwise, there was no reason for him to go to such lengths to cover everything up. Or maybe Michael gave Derrick too much credit, he thought.
Where could Andrew be? Was he okay? Michael was so worried about his son. He knew time was short and the stakes had gotten much higher. If Rachel and Murph were dead, then things didn’t look good for him or his son. He figured Derrick had to tie up loose ends if he wasn’t going to go to the police. He wondered what went so wrong in the last few days. It seemed like yesterday that he was jogging to the park when he saw that guy...that guy! It all rushed into Michael’s mind. He knew why this guy looked familiar now. It was the guy who had chased that car into the park. And he was the same guy who stopped by the other morning when he took the trash out. He said he was a new neighbor from up the block but he wasn’t. It was the same guy from the park. He must have been following Michael after the night at the park. It all made more sense now. Michael realized that HE was the loose end from the murder in the park. And now he was a loose end in what happened in Derrick’s house. What he couldn’t figure out was what one thing had to do with the other. That part didn’t make any sense at all.
Regardless, he was going to get that Derrick Graves when he broke free. He had to make Derrick pay for what he had done to Michael, what he knew Derrick had done and what he suspected he might find out. Andrew’s abduction had to be related to Derrick even if he didn’t have the proof just yet.
Michael had to come up with a plan to get out of here. The more he concentrated, the more his headache pounded. It still felt like an anvil had clobbered him. If he didn’t get untied soon he knew he would be feeling much more pain than just a headache and a broken nose.
The large man looked over his shoulder again. Michael, peeking through squinted eyes, saw that the man was watching something out the window. The truck hadn’t moved since he awoke so he assumed the guy was waiting for someone. Probably Derrick. He also noticed that the man checked him out while straining over the seat. Apparently, the man was satisfied that Michael was still out cold and secure. Michael was relieved that his ruse was intact. He knew his chances were better for escape if he added the element of surprise to his advantage. Playing dead worked on bears and he hoped it worked equally as well on the hulking man.