Fire in Bone: A Jake Pettman Thriller

by Wes Markin

  Gabriel scanned the area.

  Mason eased himself into the shadows, optimistic he wouldn’t be seen.

  The bastard slipped his hands under the girl and lifted her.

  She flopped in his arms, and her limbs dangled.

  He carried her into his house and closed the door behind him.

  “Gotcha,” Mason said.

  When Cam and Carson Davis arrived home from closing the store, they found Felicity pinned to the wall by her throat.

  “Hands off, Dom,” Cam said.

  Dom looked at his older brother, then back at Felicity. “You don’t understand, Cam.”

  “Are you going to make me repeat myself, brother?”

  Dom released her.

  Gasping for air, Felicity reached for her throat.

  Dom eyed his brother. “Please listen to me, Cam—”

  Cam rose a finger to silence him.

  “Dad,” Carson said. “This can’t go on—”

  Cam turned the finger toward his son, and it had the same effect. “Go and see your children, Carson, upstairs.”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  Cam waited until he could hear the thumping of his son’s shoes on the stairs. He peeled off his jacket, threw it over a kitchen chair, and undid the top three buttons of his shirt. He watched Felicity stare at the floor, clutching her neck, still catching her breath. Then he looked at his fat brother leaning against the kitchen sink.

  “I was just trying to get the truth out of her,” Dom said.

  “With that?” Cam pointed at the lump in his brother’s pants.

  Dom glowed red and moved his hands to conceal his erection.

  “Get me a glass of water.” Cam nodded to Felicity.

  Felicity didn’t move; Dom, her assailant, was still blocking the sink.

  “Out of her fucking way, brother.”

  “Yes … sorry …” Dom moved to the side.

  Felicity filled a glass from the tap. She turned, strode over, and handed it to Cam. She then sat at the kitchen table.

  Cam drank the water in one mouthful, then fingered the rim of the glass. “I’ve not had a good day.”

  Neither Felicity nor Dom responded.

  “I had to poison a dog, and I quite like dogs.” He dropped the glass on the tiled floor, and it shattered. “So, to come back to a happy home is not too much to ask for.”

  Dom nodded. “But if you let me explain—”

  Cam silenced him with his finger again and retrieved a roll of dollars from his jeans’ pocket. He threw them onto the kitchen table in front of Felicity. “And we had such a good day at the shop too. Bastard Rogers was in the clink all day, so we doubled our takings. I was going to suggest a celebration to raise my spirits.” He looked at Felicity. “All of us together, you know, like the good old days, before everything got so serious with the new business.” He observed the smashed glass on the floor. “Dom, any problems in this house are dealt with by me, and me alone. You both know that already.”

  “Sorry, Cam,” Dom said.

  Cam pointed at his head. “Our family has only been blessed with one thinker. It’s not a problem, unless you make it so.

  Dom apologized again.

  “So, take off your shoes.”

  Dom paled. “Cam, I understand. I do. There is no need—”

  “Take off your shoes.” He looked from Dom to Felicity. “Both of you.”

  Felicity didn’t argue. She just kicked off her shoes under the kitchen table and glared at him.

  “Dom?” Cam said.

  Dom kicked off his shoes.

  Cam adjusted his position so he was standing directly behind the shattered glass. He opened his arms. “Now, who’s going to welcome me home with a hug?”

  Dom looked at Felicity, but she was still too busy glaring at Cam.

  “Felicity?” Dom said with a quiver in his voice.

  Cam smiled. “Now, really, Dom … I’m your big brother. You should be first over. Come on. Get over here, you big lug.” He widened his arms.

  Dom eased his way forward. “Please, Cam.”

  “Come to me, brother.”

  Dom stopped at the edge of the smashed glass and looked at his bare feet. He opened his arms to try to hug Cam without stepping into it.

  Cam stepped backward.

  Dom lifted a foot, looking down. “I don’t—”

  “Come.”

  Dom eased down his foot but avoided putting any pressure on it. “Is that enough?”

  Cam shook his head. “The other foot.”

  When Dom lifted the other foot and his weight went into the other, there was a crunch.

  Cam smiled as his brother winced and groaned. When tears of pain streaked Dom’s face, Cam pushed his brother away from him. “Enough! You stink. I’ve changed my mind. We’ll hug when you’ve showered.”

  Dom hopped backward and sat on the floor beside the sink, picking glass from his foot.

  “Felicity?” He turned in her direction.

  She stood at the table, then marched toward him.

  “Wow, you do look angry,” Cam said.

  “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “She’s lying,” Dom said.

  Cam glared at his brother. “Aren’t you busy putting your foot back together?” He turned back to Felicity. “Tell me what my brother is so concerned about and we’ll save our hugging until later after a few drinks.”

  Felicity shrugged. “I told him already. When the police came—”

  “The police?” Cam raised an eyebrow.

  Dom said, “I tried to tell you! Why do you think I was so wound up! They came about Brady.”

  “Brady? Why?”

  Felicity explained.

  “And that’s it?” Cam said.

  “That’s not it,” Dom said, wincing as he plucked out the glass. “That bitch was talking to them for a while.”

  Cam lifted a finger again. “Watch your mouth, Dom. What else, Felicity?”

  “Nothing.”

  Cam sighed. “Look down, Felicity.”

  She surveyed the blood-stained glass.

  “You can either stand in it or sweep it up. What else?”

  She shrugged again. “I don’t suppose it matters anyway. You already know about the dead girl. They wanted information about your rivalry with Mason.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What time was this?”

  After Felicity told him, Cam thought about it. It couldn’t be about the poisoned dog. The timeframe didn’t fit. The police were here because they suspected Mason over that dead girl—Collette Jewell. It was happening again. He smiled. “What did you tell them?”

  “Not much,” she sneered.

  He smiled and widened his eyes. “I love this new feisty you, Felicity, so I’ll give you another chance. What … did … you … tell … them?”

  “I told them how the rivalry started.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they threatened to take Brady to the station. I thought giving them information they could probably get elsewhere was the safer of the two options.”

  Cam nodded. “So, you told them about Liam poisoning our father’s cattle?”

  She nodded.

  “Good decision, Felicity.” He watched his brother, who looked shellshocked. “Did you hear that, Dom? She made the right decision.”

  Dom nodded and muttered under his breath.

  Cam paced around the kitchen, thinking. “They could have got that information anyway, and you know what this means, don’t you?”

  Dom sucked in air through gritted teeth as he cleared debris from his wound.

  “It means Liam will be on the cops’ radar too. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll finally find him. They could even drag this bastard back to town! Imagine that!”

  Dom looked up at him. “Really?”

  Cam nodded.

  “Both of them? Both of those fucking brothers in Blue Falls?” Dom smiled.

  Cam s
miled too. “Maybe, I was wrong. Maybe, there is still cause for celebration after all.”

  12

  JAKE’S DREAMS WERE full of dead children. After waking, he reached to the other side of the bed and let his hand settle on Piper’s back. He closed his eyes and tried to push the dead children from his thoughts, so he could rest.

  In Jake’s arms lay Paul Conway, or at least what was left of him. Paul had been caught in the blast zone of a car bomb set for Paul’s neighbor, an aging KGB defector. “I’m sorry,” Jake said, because although he hadn’t planted the bomb, he’d been working for the monsters who had.

  The boy with the broken face stared up at Jake.

  “I truly am,” Jake said.

  Paul opened his mouth to speak, but blood swelled up and out of his mouth and gushed down the sides of his burnt face.

  Jake clutched the dead boy to his chest and wept. He could sense the people crowded around him, close to him, taunting him, and heard them whisper his name over and over. Jake realized the person in his arms was no longer Paul Conway. He now cradled the head of Madelyn Thompson, the girl recovered from the killing pit.

  Her lips and sides of her mouth were cracked and blistered from the disinfectant she’d been forced to drink. “You came too late for me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “But you put a stop to it.”

  “I tried to.” Jake was now standing at Lookout Corner by the Skweda River.

  Two men were laying two small bodies in the undergrowth—the Bickfords.

  “Stop!” Jake said.

  After laying down the bodies, the two men towered over them and spent some time staring down, considering their handiwork.

  Jake turned and looked across the river. The water flowed fast and smashed into the rock jutting out.

  He heard Madelyn Thompson’s voice again. “You tried to stop it.”

  “You can never stop it,” Jake said.

  “Jake?”

  “It goes on and on—”

  “Jake?”

  Jake opened his eyes.

  Piper was leaning over him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sweating, and you were calling out.”

  “Yes, it wasn’t the most pleasant dream. I’ve had it twice tonight.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not, really. Not now.” His cell vibrated. “What time is it?”

  “About three in the morning.”

  Which meant it was probably a call from the UK. He scrambled for the phone. “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Sheila said.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jake sat upright in bed. This wasn’t like his ex-wife. She’d not phoned him since he’d left, and when he would phone her, she would sound far more caustic and dismissive than this. “What’s happened?”

  “I think someone’s watching the house.”

  Jake clutched his chest. It felt as if someone had just reached into his ribcage and taken hold of his heart. “How do you know?”

  “Two nights ago, I saw a car on the street I didn’t recognise—a black BMW. I noticed it from my bedroom window. Last night, it was back again.”

  Jake swung his legs out of bed. He wanted to feel his feet on the ground. He wanted to feel steadier. “Is someone sitting in it?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Someone may have a new car, or a late-night visitor. Go and knock on some—”

  “I’ve done that already. I wanted to see if there was a problem before phoning you.”

  Desperate to avoid calling me at all costs. Is that really what it has come to? “You should phone me whenever there is a problem. This is more important than your feelings towards me.”

  “Well, we have a problem.”

  Jake felt Piper’s hand on his back. He stood up and let it fall away and paced around the room. “Is the car there now?”

  “No. It’s always gone by morning.”

  “Do you have a registration.”

  “Yes.” She read it to him.

  “Okay, let me think.”

  “Is this because of the people you were mixed up with?”

  “I don’t know.” And he genuinely didn’t. He knew he was a wanted man, that giving SEROCU the slip had put a target on his head. But would they really move against a civilian family out of revenge or to draw him out? Surely, he wasn’t worth that amount of heat. Yet, here was his worst fear in danger of being realized. There was, of course, only one option. “I’ll have to call you back. You’re not going anywhere, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” As soon as he’d finished the call, he dialled the UK international code and punched in a number he’d dialled thousands of times in the past but not for a long while.

  “DCI Michael Yorke, can I help you?”

  “Mike, it’s me.”

  Silence.

  “It’s me. Jake.”

  “I know who it is.”

  “I guess it must be a shock, but—”

  “Let me pull over. You’re on speaker, but I’m struggling to keep the car straight right now.”

  “Sorry, Mike.”

  “Jake, where are you?”

  “I’m far away.”

  “Yes, I’m aware. You sent a postcard from New England.”

  “I wanted to let you know I was okay; you deserved that.”

  “I deserved that.” Yorke grunted.

  “Sorry, yes … that I was alive, that I was safe. You’re my best friend.”

  “Am I?”

  “Of course.”

  “So why don’t you tell me why you left?”

  Jake sighed. He paced around the motel room. “I can’t do that Mike.”

  “Shouldn’t best friends be open and honest?”

  “Not if it puts them in danger, no.”

  “It’s SEROCU, isn’t it? You got mixed up in something.”

  Jake didn’t reply.

  “I’m assuming then that this isn’t a social call?”

  Jake sighed again. “I wish that it was. I’m sorry, Mike, but I need you right now. I really do.”

  “Need me?”

  “Yes.”

  Yorke sighed. “You know I would never refuse you, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “Yet, you refuse me the truth?”

  Jake felt a tear in the corner of his eye. “Don’t Mike. Not now.”

  “When then?”

  “It’s not safe for me to … Look, I love you like a brother.”

  Silence.

  “Mike?”

  “Jake, come home. Do you want me to beg you?”

  “There’s nothing I want more, Mike, but it can never happen.”

  “This is all my bloody fault.”

  “I’m a big boy. The choices I made were mine, not yours.”

  “I took my eye off the ball. I always had your back, but I got distracted.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t been distracted, you probably wouldn’t still be here, buddy. The lives you saved. You’re the best man I’ve ever known, Mike …” He took a deep breath. “I need you to check on Sheila and Frank for me.”

  A pause. “I do, Jake … regularly. I want whoever you’ve had dealings with to know that moving on your family would be costly to them, that they are heavily monitored.”

  “I know, and I’m so grateful, but Sheila is convinced someone is watching the house.” Jake recounted the details of his phone call with Sheila. He also gave him the vehicle’s registration number.

  “I’ll phone back on this number when I know something,” Yorke said.

  “Thanks, Mike. You can’t let anything happen to my family.”

  “I won’t, Jake.”

  After the phone call, Jake sat back on the bed.

  Piper attempted to stroke his back. This time, he let her. “What’s happened?”

  He told about Sheila’s concern.

  “Then who d
id you call?”

  “The best man I know.”

  She stroked his back. “Well, then you must hold him in high regard, because you’re the best man I know.”

  Jake started to cry. “You couldn’t be any more wrong, Piper.”

  They fucked, as they so often did, long into the night.

  Then Louise left her two exhausted subordinates and returned to her room. They were staying in the Shephard’s Hotel in New Lincoln, the wealthier of the three towns pinned to the Skweda, so she had a television and minibar. She indulged in both as she lay back on the double bed. When she realized CNN had dragged nothing meaningful from the world this evening, she killed the television and reviewed her interview with Mason.

  There was no need for recordings or transcripts, because she wasn’t interested in the words. She’d scrutinized his story to death already. She was interested in his face, his eye movements, his twitching, and his posture. With her eyes closed, she observed him in memory.

  He was innocent. He hadn’t killed the little girl or those two young men in 1975. But there was something; he knew something. And that something may just unravel this whole web.

  She texted her husband, Robert. Been a heavy night, but it did the trick. Will get some sleep now. Missing you x

  Then she scrolled through snaps of her three young girls on her cell and waited for the vodka and her sexual exertions to work their magic and put her to sleep.

  Four in the morning and Liam Rogers couldn’t sleep. With dangers coming in from so many different angles, his brother was responding too slowly for his liking.

  “It’s in hand,” Mason had said before retiring.

  In hand.

  Liam snorted. Had Gabriel Jewell, Jake Pettman, or the Davis brothers ever been in anyone’s hand? And were they really about to settle into one now?

  Liam left his brother’s sofa. He equipped himself with the hammer he’d killed Bobby and Henry with and the pliers with which he had taken the mementos. Then he pulled on a ski mask. He also slipped Mason’s cellphone, which he’d left charging in the lounge, into his pocket. It wouldn’t be cold, so he didn’t bother changing out of his pajamas, but he did slip on a dark gray raincoat and zipped it up.

  He was careful exiting through the kitchen door, so as not to wake his brother, who would attempt, and potentially succeed, in talking him out of this. With the kitchen door closed behind him, he embraced the darkness and the emptiness of Main Street. So, where to first then? The Davis farm? Jewell’s home? The Blue Falls Motel? So much choice. He relished this freedom.