by Blake Pierce
“Was it Thurman?” she asked.
Nettles nodded weakly.
As she pressed on his throat with a wad of paper towels, Jessie felt the gears clicking in her mind. Whatever else he was, Xander Thurman was not an amateur. If he had wanted to kill Nettles, he would have. So why did he let him live?
Nettles coughed and a spray of red mist shot out from the opening in his neck. The wound was now bleeding more profusely.
“Hold on,” she said to Nettles. “I’m going to get something to tie this off.”
She ran to the coat closet and pulled out a scarf. On her way back, she saw the land line phone and picked it up to call 911. There was no dial tone. Had Thurman cut the phone lines too?
As she wrapped her scarf tightly around Nettles’s neck, she noticed that his weapon was missing. Movement out of the corner of her eye made her glance at the TV monitor again. The stairwell door at the end of the hall was slowly opening. And that’s when she realized why her father had let Nettles live.
He didn’t know which unit she lived in. Somehow he’d found her building but he couldn’t be sure which apartment was hers. So he had let Nettles “get away” so he could watch where he went on the security monitor in the lobby. And now that he had found it, he was coming for her.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
A cold chill went down Jessie’s spine.
She watched the TV monitor, frozen in fear, as a figure stepped through the stairwell door into the hallway. He walked slowly and methodically down the corridor. A ski mask covered his face except for his mouth and eyes, but she knew it was him. She recognized the tall, lean frame.
She suddenly flashed back to a formless memory from her childhood, of her father walking toward her as she sat strapped to that wooden chair in the cabin. This man walked the same way, leaning slightly forward as he moved, as if propelled by some exterior force stronger than himself, guiding him down his brutal path.
Another cough from Nettles pulled her out of her nightmare reverie. She looked down at him. He couldn’t speak but his eyes seemed to be saying “get out.” He wanted her to leave him and escape. But there was nowhere to go. Xander was almost to the door. She couldn’t jump out the window from forty feet up. Even if she survived, she’d simply be lying on the sidewalk with broken legs waiting for him to come down and finish her off. She was trapped.
That’s not true.
She remembered now what she’d been too terrified to recall moments earlier. There was another way out—the shaft with the rope ladder hidden by her bathroom closet. It was intended for just this kind of scenario.
She looked down at Nettles again, whose eyes were fluttering. He seemed to be barely conscious. There was no way she could get him down that narrow shaft. Even if she was strong enough, he’d never survive all that jostling and banging.
She looked at the monitor again. Her father was right outside the door. He was staring at it, unmoving. She knew that it would require more than just a swift kick to get it open. She had time, if she would just get her ass in gear.
Jessie stood back up and looked down at Nettles, whose eyes were open again, though they looked hazy.
“I’m going to have to leave you here,” she said quietly. “But I promise I’ll come back.”
She didn’t wait for his acknowledgment as she grabbed him by the arms and dragged him into her bedroom. She pulled him around to the far side of the bed, where he wouldn’t be visible from the bedroom door, then returned to the living room.
Xander was no longer staring at the door. Instead, he seemed to be pressing something against it. Jessie moved closer to the monitor and saw that it was some kind of putty. When he pulled several wires out of his pocket, she realized what he was doing: setting an explosive. He wasn’t going to try to knock the door down. He was going to blow it up.
Jessie knew she didn’t have much time. She grabbed the nightstick off the breakfast table, shoved her still-useless phone into her pocket, and was about to return to the bedroom when she had an idea.
Maybe she couldn’t call for help. But there was another way to get it to arrive. As quickly as she could, she moved one of her chairs into the center of the living room. Then she rolled up a thick wad of paper towels, turned on a stove burner, and lit the wad. The end immediately burst into flames.
She hurried over to the chair, stepped onto it and held the burning end up to the sprinkler. It took about seven seconds for the sprinkler to turn on and begin to scatter water throughout the room. At the same time, the fire alarm went off, sending a loud wailing echo throughout the building.
She looked over at the TV screen and saw that her father was smiling. She didn’t know if he was proud or amused. Either way, even as water sprayed down on him, he quickly resumed work on the explosive. He looked to be almost done.
She turned off the TV, grabbed the nightstick, and ran to the bedroom, where she closed the door, locked it with a deadbolt and chain, and then dropped the security bar down. After that, she moved to the bathroom and repeated the routine, fleetingly wondering how many people had chains, deadbolts, and security bars on their bathroom doors.
She opened the closet door, undid the hidden clasp on the left side, flipped the latch, and tugged on the shelving unit, which swung open to reveal the shaft and rope ladder attached to the brick wall behind it.
She shoved the nightstick into the back of her pants, stepped out onto the ladder, and pulled the shelving unit closed until she heard it click. Now completely surrounded by darkness, she made her way down the flimsy ladder as quickly as she safely could. With each cautious step, the sound of the fire alarm became more distant. She could see the dim laundry room light below and was almost to the bottom when she heard the explosion. Thurman was almost certainly in her apartment now.
She dropped the last few feet to the ground and scurried through the tiny crawl space out into the laundry room. A thirty-something guy who was pouring liquid detergent into a washer yelped when he saw her appear out of nowhere. The fire alarm wasn’t audible down here and there was no water coming from the ceiling. Apparently folks doing their laundry were on their own in a fire.
“There’s an intruder in the building,” she said as she moved briskly past him. “Go next door to the coffee shop and call nine-one-one.”
He stared at her dumbly.
“Do it!” she yelled before running out the door and up the stairs to the lobby level. When she emerged, she saw that the floor was soaked with water from the sprinklers. Residents were emerging from the elevators and stairwell and filing out of the building, confused by the combination of water, noise, and broken glass, likely caused by the explosion they’d just heard.
Jessie ran to the security station, pushing past bewildered tenants. When she got to the desk, she saw Fred the security guard lying on the floor in a pool of blood coming from his neck. Apparently, Xander hadn’t been as delicate in how he handled him.
On the ground next to him was Jimmy the doorman. He wasn’t bleeding as badly but the small bit that was coming from the back of his head told her that he had fared no better. It appeared that Xander had jammed the knife into the back of his skull.
She looked away quickly, trying to push the horror around her out of her mind. She would mourn these men later. Right now she had a job to do. On the ground beside Jimmy’s body was a gun. She recognized it as the standard-issue weapon for LAPD uniformed officers. It must have been Nettles’s. She picked it up.
A scream from somewhere in the crowd made her look up. Two women were leaning over a man lying on his back, unmoving.
Beatty!
She ran over and pushed her way through the rubbernecking crowd to get to him. He was bleeding from the back of the head, just like Jimmy. She felt a howl of grief begin to rise in her chest when he suddenly groaned.
“Beatty, you’re alive!” she said, clasping his hands in hers. She looked at his head. It seemed that the blood was the result of blunt force trauma and not a stabbing.
“Jessie,” he mumbled borderline intelligibly.
“I’m here,” she told him.
“Thurman’s here,” he muttered.
“I know. He’s in my apartment. I’m going back up. Are you okay?”
“Wait…” he whispered. “Wait for backup.”
“I can’t,” Jessie said. “Nettles is up there, He’s hurt bad. Xander will kill him when he finds him. I’ve got to go.”
Beatty tried to grab her wrist as she stood up but she shook free. She turned to one of the women who had screamed earlier.
“He’s a cop,” she said. “Get him outside. Take care of him. Call nine-one-one. When help arrives, tell them to go to the fourth floor. And warn them to be careful. There’s a killer up there.”
The woman opened her mouth to speak but Jessie was gone before she got a word out.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Jessie was short of breath.
The elevators weren’t working so she had to take the stairs. The combination of sprinting up them and her heart beating almost out of her chest had her gasping for air.
She pushed open the fourth-floor stairwell door and peeked out. It was seemingly devoid of people but a thick cloud of smoke made visibility difficult. She crouched down low, trying to remember her training from the academy.
Most of it was hazy, but she knew she was supposed to look for potential hiding spots from threats, stay aware of what was behind her, and not fire her weapon until she was certain her target was a source of danger.
She moved carefully, her eyes darting everywhere as her back hugged the same wall as her door. A shadow emerged from the smoke and she raised Nettles’s gun, flicking off the safety. Her finger lingered on the trigger as she tried to determine what was coming at her.
She was just about to fire when an older woman, a neighbor she saw occasionally but had never spoken to except to say hello, emerged from the smoke. She was clutching a small dog in her arms and looked bewildered. Jessie lowered her gun and waved the woman over.
“Go down the stairs at the end of the hall and exit the building,” she whispered. “The elevators are inoperable. Do you understand?”
The woman nodded and did as she was told, disappearing once again into the thick smoke. Jessie was just returning her attention back in the direction of her apartment when she was knocked to the ground by a second explosion.
Her ears were ringing. As she pulled herself back up to a sitting position, she tried to get her bearings. After a few moments, she started to stand up, using one hand to steady herself against the wall while the other gripped the gun tightly.
Why was there another explosion?
She pictured Xander in her apartment and wondered what would cause him to use a second explosive. It only took a second for her to understand. He hadn’t been able to access her bedroom and had used the same technique he’d employed on the front door.
The realization gave her a sudden surge of hope, the first she’d felt since she’d initially seen Nettles clutching his bloody throat. If he’d just set off the explosion at her bedroom door, then she had a significant, if brief, advantage. Xander thought she was in her bedroom and she knew that’s where he was. He didn’t have a clue as to her location but she knew his exactly.
She rushed to her door, moving as fast as she could while being half-blinded by the gray noxious cloud all around her. When she reached what was left of it, essentially a big gaping hole that extended about fifteen feet across, she stopped, allowed herself the briefest second to regroup, and then swung her body right so that she was facing into the remnants of her apartment, her gun raised, her eyes hunting for any movement.
It was too smoky to see much but she ducked down anyway, scurrying along the charred breakfast bar until she was able to peek around it in the direction of her bedroom. That’s when she saw him.
Xander Thurman stepped through the husk of her bedroom into the living room. He was no longer wearing the ski mask and she could see him clearly. He held a long hunting knife in his right hand. His once black hair was littered with spots of gray. His face, still surprisingly youthful, was only just starting to develop the wrinkled lines appropriate to his age. His bright green eyes shined with the same, frenzied energy she remembered from when she was little, when he was consumed by enthusiasm for what he was doing. He looked…happy.
Jessie stood up and pointed her gun at him. He saw her and turned to face her directly. She couldn’t help notice that the man she’d once considered a giant was now only a few inches taller than she was.
“Drop the knife, interlace your fingers behind your head, and get on your knees,” she ordered, her voice clear and firm.
He smiled at her, seemingly unsurprised to see her.
“Junebug,” he said affectionately, apparently untroubled by the sight of his daughter pointing a gun at him. “It’s been too long. You have no idea how long I’ve been searching for you. And now, finally, reunion!”
“I’m glad you’re in such high spirits,” Jessie said. “I’m more than happy to reminisce once you’re cuffed and behind bars. All you have to do is drop the knife, interlace your fingers behind your head, and get on your knees. Do it now!”
“Is this any way to treat your long-lost daddy?” Thurman asked, taking a step toward her. “How can we be a big, happy family again if you treat a loved one in this manner?”
“I am going to end this reunion fast with a bullet in your forehead if you don’t do as I say. I won’t ask again—knife, fingers, knees. Now!”
“Okay, okay,” he replied, dropping the knife so that it landed upright with the tip jutting out of the floor. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you want brains splattered all over the place. It’s that familial bloodlust rearing its head, I guess. See, Junebug, we’re not so different.”
“I’m nothing like you,” she told him.
The smile faded from his lips and the next time he spoke, his voice was hard.
“You are exactly like me,” he said, his voice ice cold.
There was a loud beep from the bedroom that made both of them turn their heads. Then Xander returned his attention to Jessie again and smiled.
“Oh, right,” he said. “I guess you’re not in the bathroom after all. You better duck.”
Jessie had half a second to process that Xander had set another explosive on her bathroom door before everything around her burst into a tornado of fire and debris.
*
When Jessie got her bearings again, Xander Thurman was nowhere to be found. If she was lucky, he’d been blown to bits.
She grabbed hold of what was left of the breakfast bar and pulled herself to her feet. The gun was missing and flames licked the ceiling and walls of the apartment.
She wanted to go into the bedroom and grab Nettles but the heat emanating from the room was too much to bear. She remembered there was a fire extinguisher on the wall in the hallway, assuming the hallway was still there.
She stumbled out into the hall and moved to her right, using memory more than sight to find the extinguisher. It was closer than she realized and she almost slammed into it as she tripped over the rutted, smoldering carpeting.
Most of the glass on the metal box had been shattered, leaving just a few random, dangling shards, making the extinguisher hard to safely access. Jessie remembered the nightstick still shoved into the back of her pants and pulled it out, knocking the remaining pieces away. As she did, in the reflection of the largest shard still clinging to the box, she saw movement behind her.
She spun around, swinging the nightstick in front of her. It made firm contact with the right forearm of her father, who was clutching the knife in his hand as he dived at her. The weapon went flying. Now without the knife, he barreled into her, knocking her to the ground.
Jessie felt the wind leave her body as she first slammed to the floor and then felt his weight land on top of her. He looked down at her, apparently oblivious to the massive burn on the right side of his
face and the blood pouring down his forehead from what looked like a chunk of drywall embedded in it.
“You betrayed the family, Junebug,” he growled. “Just like your mother did. I wanted you to be the Thurman family savior. But it looks like you’re going to be the sacrifice.”
Now able to suck in some air, Jessie gripped the nightstick hard and swung it at his head. It made solid contact as she heard a sickening cracking sound. Yowling furiously, he yanked her to her feet and slammed her against the wall. The nightstick fell from her grip. She tried to shift into a position to knee him in the groin but he was too close and she couldn’t get any leverage.
She saw his hand dart behind his back and pull something from his back pocket. He held it out in his palm for her to see. It was a switchblade. He flicked out the blade and raised it above his head, his eyes flashing. Then he repeated the same words he’d whispered in her ear twenty-three years ago as she sat strapped to a chair, about to watch her mother die.
“You have to see, little Junebug. You have to know the truth.”
And then he brought the blade down, hard and fast, as the sound of a distant shot rang out.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Jessie was still leaning against the wall but her father was no longer in front of her. She looked to her left and saw him lying on the ground, curled up in a ball. Then she looked to her right down the hall and saw someone with a gun aimed in their general direction. The smoke parted and she realized that it was Officer Tim Beatty.
“Don’t move!” he shouted.
She had no intention of moving. But following his line of sight, she realized he wasn’t yelling at her. She looked back to her left and saw her father slowly getting to his feet. His left arm hung limply at his side, a gaping, pulpy hole taking up most of his left shoulder.
