The sound she’d been waiting for came when she heard the blast of a shotgun. Jessica stopped running and turned to head back the way she had traveled. The time had come to fight.
Ronny Washington was the name of the man who owned the shotgun White had seen sticking out of the window of the pickup truck. He was the slowest of the group chasing Jessica. That made him the first to fall to Mr. White. White came up behind him, grabbed handfuls of Ronny’s jacket, and guided the running man face first into a tree. Ronny released a grunt, suffered a broken nose, split lips, and the loss of three front teeth. He was unaware of any of it because he was out cold.
White claimed the shotgun. He was bringing it up to fire when the man who’d been in front of Ronny looked back to see why his friend had grunted. When he saw White, he yelled a warning to the others. White blasted him with buckshot before he could bring around the rifle he was holding.
The remaining men took a couple of seconds to stop their momentum, turn, and locate White, who had taken cover behind a tree. The men stood their ground and fired at him until White tore apart the leg of the man on the right. The other two found trees of their own to hide behind. They realized the insufficiency of using the trees as cover when Jessica began shooting from behind them. When one of the men turned to fire back at her, White shot him. The blast struck the man on the side of his head and ended his life. At that same moment, White heard the man he had shot in the leg release a grunt of pain. He had been bringing his weapon up to shoot White when Jessica shot him in the back.
The last man left ducked back behind a tree in time to avoid getting hit by pellets from the final shotgun shell White had. With Jessica at his back, the man dropped his weapon and raised his hands up.
“I surrender! I surrender! Don’t shoot!”
“Come on out,” White said. The man, whose hair was long, had a set of impressive biceps, showcased by a sleeveless shirt. He lowered his arms and began walking toward White. When he was five yards away, he pulled out a knife and rushed toward White. He was aware of how many shells the shotgun held and knew it was empty. White reached out to grip the man’s wrist and halt the thrust of a blade that was aimed at his torso. After wrenching the man’s thick arm behind his back, he applied pressure to the wrist to make the man drop the knife. As the blade fell, White snaked his own arm around the man’s throat. He broke the guy’s neck by giving his head a vicious twist, then let the body drop to the ground.
The doctor in Jessica made her check the men to see if she could offer them aid. Most were obviously dead, and she walked by them without pausing. To White’s surprise, Ronny Washington was dead too. He’d been struck in the side by friendly fire that ruptured his heart.
“Are you all right?” White asked his wife. At the same time, Jessica was looking him over for injuries.
“I’m fine, and I think it’s safe to say that someone knows we’re here.” Jessica said.
White dug fresh shotgun shells out of Ronny Washington’s jacket pockets and reloaded the gun. He had also claimed the fixed blade knife that the man with the long hair had wielded. It was an Eickhorn KM 2000 that was about a foot long, and too fine a weapon to leave behind. White had secured it in his belt and stuffed the extra shells into the front pocket of the hoodie he wore.
“I don’t need Ballou’s prints to match the one’s on the glass we took. The only reason Nicole would send men after us would be to protect Ballou. The blond man has to be him.”
“I agree,” Jessica said. “And they’re in that house probably thinking we’ve been killed.”
A phone rang. White traced the sound to the pocket of the man with the long hair. He took it out and saw that a call was coming in from Marcus. White answered it and spoke.
“The men you sent to kill us are dead, Marcus. If you don’t want the same thing to happen to you, you’ll stay away.”
“I can’t do that, White. I’m not built that way, and I sure as hell aren’t afraid to face you.”
“Suit yourself,” White said, and ended the call. “Marcus is on his way here,” he told Jessica. “I heard traffic noises in the background.”
Jessica loaded a fresh magazine into her gun. “I’d rather you not have to face off against him. Let’s get Ballou and get out of here before he arrives.”
White led the way back to the house by taking a route through the trees. Kent Ballou’s time was running out.
Inside the house, Nicole was on the phone with Marcus. She had the call on speakerphone so that Ballou could hear it too.
“White took out five of our best men like they were nothing, but hold on and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“We’re not defenseless, Marcus. I have my shotgun and Kent has a rifle.”
“You’d be better off finding someplace to hide. These people hunt serial killers and come out on top. Your guns won’t intimidate them.”
“I still won’t hide in my own house,” Nicole said.
“White is dangerous.”
“Maybe so, but he won’t survive a shotgun blast to that pretty face of his.”
“Be careful, Nicole. I’m on my way.”
The call ended and a second later Ballou and Nicole heard the sound of glass breaking echo down the hallway that led to the kitchen. Nicole used her phone to check the security cameras in the area and saw Mr. White entering through a window. She lost some of the bravado she had when she saw that White carried a shotgun of his own. While she wouldn’t take Marcus’s advice to hide, she saw no reason to force a confrontation. Nicole started walking toward the stairs.
“We’ll stay one step ahead of White by watching him on the security app. That will buy Marcus time to get here.”
Ballou reached out and took her wrist to halt her stride. “There’s two of us. We can get White in a crossfire and kill him.”
Nicole broke free of his grip. “There are two of us, yes, but there are two of them too. The doctor. I didn’t see her with her husband.” Nicole’s fingers flew over the phone as she searched the cameras for a view of Jessica. She found her entering through the damaged door in the sunroom. “They’re coming at us from both hallways. We have to go up the stairs.”
“We could still fight. The odds are even.”
“And what if they win? No, Kent, we’ll stall them until Marcus arrives. Then, the odds will be in our favor.”
Ballou nodded his agreement. They reached the landing and were halfway up the second staircase when White stepped out of the hallway on the left. Nicole fired at him, but by the time she pulled the trigger, White had already ducked back out of sight. Her aim had been bad as well, and she had taken a chunk out of the top of the wooden banister.
When Jessica appeared in the opposite corridor, White pointed at the stairs.
“They’re up there. I just heard a door slam shut.”
“I heard it too. It sounded like they entered the master bedroom.”
“And there’s a balcony attached to that room that overlooks the swimming pool.”
Nicole was confused by what she was seeing on her phone. “They’re leaving.”
“Maybe Marcus arrived and scared them off.”
“Hold on. Let me switch over to the exterior cameras and see where they went.” It took Nicole a few moments to locate the relevant camera. But when she did, she was surprised once again. “Look at him. White’s down near the pool and he’s running away.”
Ballou pointed at the screen. “He’s not running away. He’s headed toward the house.”
The exterior camera’s programmed rotation allowed it to keep White in view. When he leapt up high with his arms outstretched, they were able to see what he was doing. The camera had no sound, only pictures, but from inside the bedroom they could hear the slap of White’s palms as they struck the bottom edge of the balcony.
“He’s trying to climb up here to enter through the balcony,” Ballou said.
Nicole smiled as she racked the shotgun. “I’ve got a cure for that.” With Ballou
following, she unlocked the balcony doors and looked toward the railing, where White had already managed to climb up and get a leg over it. Having to climb required that his hands be empty. The shotgun had been left behind and his gun was at his back, inside his waistband.
“Nice try, asshole,” Ballou said, as he raised his gun. Beside him, Nicole laughed and brought up her shotgun. They both screamed in pain as Jessica fired on them from the ground, while using the shotgun they had taken off one of Nicole’s men. Jessica was on the right side of the balcony with only a view of the couple from the waist up.
Some of the shotgun pellets failed to reach them because they were blocked by the railing of the balcony. Of the ones that made it past, most hit Nicole in her ribs and lower abdomen. Ballou suffered superficial wounds to the outstretched arm that was holding his gun, as well as the shoulder on that same side.
Ballou’s physical pain, along with the emotional anguish he felt at seeing Nicole writhe in agony at his feet, had allowed White to complete his climb and close in on Ballou. He wrest the handgun from Ballou’s grip while stepping on Nicole’s shotgun to keep her from using it. White then realized that Nicole was no threat. The woman’s blood was flowing onto the blue tile of the balcony floor as she moaned and thrashed from the pain.
Jessica called up to her husband. “Are you all right?”
“I’m good, but Nicole is in a bad way and Ballou has minor wounds to his right arm.”
“I’m coming up.”
Ballou sank to his knees beside Nicole, oblivious to his own injuries. “Oh baby, oh God no. Hold on, Nicole. Hold on.”
When White touched his good shoulder, Ballou thought he was trying to drag him away. He slapped at White’s hand. “I won’t leave her.”
White grunted and moved away while carrying the weapons. When he returned moments later with his wife, Ballou understood that he had unlocked the bedroom door to let her in.
Jessica carried a first aid kit that she’d remembered seeing on a shelf littered with cookbooks inside the kitchen. It was wholly inadequate to care for Nicole’s wounds. By the time Jessica reached her, she was lying on her back and making gasping sounds. The amount of blood pooled around her was enough to let Jessica know that Nicole was near death.
“Save her, you bitch!” Ballou spat, while reaching out to grab ahold of Jessica’s arm.
White’s fist struck with the speed of a whip and sent Ballou tumbling through the patio doors and back into the bedroom. He lay on his side unmoving, as he’d been knocked unconscious.
Nicole’s earlier writhing had caused her phone to slip out of the pocket of the jeans she wore. The device made a musical sound as it announced the arrival of a text. White leaned over to read it, then looked over at Jessica.
“Marcus is here.”
Marcus had come close to crashing his car into the vehicles of his men when he rounded a curve in Nicole’s long and winding driveway. With the way blocked, he exited his car while looking for signs of an ambush. When nothing happened, he disregarded caution and ran until he reached the locked security gates.
Checking his phone, he saw that there had been no reply to the text he’d sent off before leaving the car. While leaning with his broad back against one of the stone pillars that supported the gates, Marcus tried Nicole again, then phoned Ballou. Neither one answered.
He was about to input the security code that would cause the gates to swing open when he stopped himself. The noise the metal gates made when they opened would announce his arrival. He moved from the gates and farther along the fence until he found a spot where he couldn’t be observed through a window. Seconds later he had scaled the fence and dropped to the other side, where he retrieved the weapon he had slipped through the bars before climbing. It was a Heckler & Koch MP5 with a thirty round magazine attached.
Before entering the house, Marcus circled it. When he came across the broken window in the kitchen, he gripped his gun tighter. It was his job to protect Nicole, and above that, he liked the lady.
“If you’ve hurt her, White, I’ll kill you,” Marcus said under his breath. He continued his trip around the house and was aware of how unnaturally quiet it was. Nicole’s caretaker was always busy in or out of the house with one chore or another, and the cook played classical music while she worked in the kitchen. Along with the lack of human sounds, there also seemed to be a cessation of nature, as if the birds and the squirrels sensed the tension in the air and had moved away to a more relaxed zone.
After making a complete circuit, Marcus circled back to the sunroom and entered through the damaged door. After opening the door, he peeked down the empty hallway and listened.
Nothing. No sound, and thankfully, no signs of violence. Marcus took out his phone, and as Nicole had done earlier, he used the cameras to conduct a search of the home. There was obvious damage showing on a balustrade located on the lower staircase, but other than that he could see nothing amiss. No, there was one other thing off. The camera that was positioned to show the balcony was dead. One or more of the cameras malfunctioning wasn’t unusual, but Marcus made a note to tread carefully when he searched that area. It was possible that White had set a trap for him.
He left the sunroom with the MP5 held at the ready and moved down the hall. There were areas without cameras, such as the supply closets, bathrooms, bedrooms, and the walk-in pantry. Marcus searched them first and found no one hiding there. The door leading down into the basement was locked, so he deemed that area safe for the time being.
He was about to walk out of the kitchen after checking the pantry when he noticed something odd. There was an empty spot on the set of shelves that held mostly cookbooks. Marcus struggled to recall what had been there before but came up blank. With the mystery niggling at his mind, he headed to the stairs.
An examination of the damaged banister revealed a pattern that suggested buckshot had caused it. Nicole had mentioned on the phone that she had a shotgun. It looked as if she had gotten a chance to use it.
While transitioning to the second set of stairs by way of the landing, Marcus felt exposed. If White appeared at the top of the steps, on the high ground, he’d be at a disadvantage. He moved onto the landing ready to unleash hell with his rifle if that occurred. Again, nothing happened, and Marcus was beginning to think the house was empty.
Before entering the master bedroom, he checked the other rooms on the second floor and saw that they were empty and undisturbed. As he opened the door to Nicole’s bedroom, he was filled with the sense that he had arrived too late. Perhaps the doctor and her husband had already left the estate with Nicole and Ballou as captives. Despite that, he was careful, and when the door opened to reveal Ballou lying on the floor, Marcus was on full alert for an attack.
He dropped down as if he were getting set to do a one-arm push-up and scanned his eyes from right to left. Before advancing any farther, he had to make certain there was no one concealed under the bed or hiding behind the floor-to-ceiling drapes that covered the windows. He saw no one under the bed or feet beneath the drapes. After checking the walk-in closet, he knelt down beside Ballou.
There was a purple bruise forming on the left side of Ballou’s head. Whatever had hit him had rendered him unconscious. Pillowcases from the bed had been used to bind his wrists and ankles.
Remembering the deactivated camera out on the balcony, Marcus guessed that was where White could be found. He called out.
“White, if you have Nicole out there to use as a shield it won’t help you. I’ve got more people coming. Once they show up, there’s no way you make it out of here.”
There was no answer. Marcus called again. “White. I know you’re here. Give up now and I’ll give you and your wife an easy death. And if you’ve hurt Nicole, I’ll make sure the doctor dies screaming in agony.”
A sound. Very faint. But Marcus was certain that he had heard it, and it sounded like a soft growl.
Moving away from Ballou while still in a crouch, Marcus used the ba
rrel of his weapon to push down on the knob of one of the balcony doors. The latch released and he gave the door a shove. It revealed a scene that hit him like something from a nightmare.
Nicole was sprawled out in a puddle of her own blood. Her pale flesh and motionless body told Marcus that she was dead the moment he saw her.
He moved through the doorway with a building rage and a sense of sadness vying for dominance within him. A glance beyond the body told him that there was no one else on the balcony.
Marcus stared down at Nicole, and as he did so, he saw movement reflected in the sheen of the still wet blood. He turned to look up and see Mr. White falling towards him from the roof above the balcony.
Aware of the advantage Marcus would have by being able to access the security cameras, White had come up with a plan.
After disabling the camera on the balcony, he and Jessica used pillowcases to secure Ballou. When they returned to the balcony, they saw that Nicole had breathed her last.
White pointed upwards. “We’ll hide on the roof. When Marcus discovers Nicole, he’ll be distracted. That’s when I’ll strike.”
He clambered up onto the slanted roof of the home then offered a hand to help Jessica up. Long minutes passed before they heard Marcus’s deep booming voice, as he announced that they would never escape. When Marcus threatened his wife, an involuntary growl had risen up within White. Next, they saw one of the balcony doors swing open. Marcus appeared a moment later, his eyes and attention focused on Nicole. Freeing the combat blade from his belt, White leapt from the roof to end Marcus’s threat. To his shock, the big man spun around and gazed up at him, somehow aware of the attack.
Marcus brought his rifle up not to fire but to block the blade that White sought to sink into his flesh. The impact of the two weapons resulted in Marcus dropping the rifle. It didn’t matter since it had been rendered useless. White’s blade got jammed up inside the MP5’s trigger guard, forcing the trigger forward instead of backwards and making the weapon inoperable. It also deprived White of the blade.
Past Imperfect Page 18
