Alex Kava Bundle

by Alex Kava

He adjusted the hard foam pillow, wishing he had brought his own. Since his accident he had learned to appreciate the value of a soft but firm pillow. He wondered if he’d be able to stay out here for two whole weeks without a decent one. Geez! He was already looking for excuses to leave. What the hell was wrong with him?

  He watched the shadows of tree branches dance across the ceiling every time the lightning blinked. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d lay awake in bed, unable to sleep and worried about how he would pay his monthly bills, wondering which credit card he would take out a cash advance from this time. He had come such a long way since those sleepless nights. Now he worried that his good fortune—his windfall, as his father would have called it—could all disappear with one severe case of writer’s block.

  Sometimes he could hear his father’s voice in the back of his head telling him, “What makes you think you deserve all this? You think you’re something special? You think you’re better than the rest of us?”

  His father had been gone for almost five years, and yet he lived inside Andrew’s head, in a tiny dark corner in the back, just enough of a presence to keep Andrew in line. To warn him when he dared to get too confident. To bring him back to earth when he dared to dream too big.

  Andrew closed his eyes and tried to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest. He needed to think of something else. Or perhaps someone else. He tried to conjure up Erin’s image and how she made him feel when she smiled at him or laughed. She had a great laugh. He remembered—

  A noise startled him and his eyes flew open. He stayed still, holding his breath and listening. It hadn’t been thunder. That he was sure of. It sounded as though it had come from inside the cabin.

  He waited and listened. Squinted into the dark. He had left a lamp on in the main room, but its dim light didn’t reach the hallway to the bedrooms. He waited out the rumble of thunder then listened again.

  Nothing.

  Maybe his imagination was playing tricks on him. He probably shouldn’t have had three beers when he was still taking pain meds. It also didn’t help matters to be dreaming up a killer for his novel in the middle of a thunderstorm.

  He heard it again. And this time he was almost certain it came from inside the cabin.

  He tried to concentrate, tried to explain the sound away. It could simply be one of the open windows or a loose screen banging against the sill with the wind. There had to be a logical explanation.

  That’s when Andrew saw a shadow move along the wall of the hallway.

  Someone was inside the cabin.

  CHAPTER 29

  2:23 a.m.

  Andrew tried to stay calm. He could barely hear over the pounding of his heart. Could it be a park worker? Someone who’d came to warn him about the storm or check up on him? Was it a knock on the door that had wakened him? It made sense. A park worker would have a key.

  Damn! Had he even locked the door? Of course he had. He was a city boy. It was instinctive.

  Then his stomach did a somersault. He wasn’t sure the flimsy screen door to the porch had been locked. All the back-and-forth he and Tommy had done to the grill. And he knew he had left the door between the porch and the cabin unlocked. He always left it like that so he wouldn’t accidentally lock himself out. He was in the middle of the woods, for God’s sake. Why would he need to lock doors?

  The intruder had to be a park worker. Someone checking to make sure he was okay. Someone who didn’t call out because he didn’t want to disturb him. Someone who—

  He heard a floorboard creak. His eyes darted around the small bedroom as he tried to lie still, tried not to make a sound. His suitcase sat on a chair in the corner. His mind frantically went through the contents. Damn it! Everything was airport security approved. He had even changed to fucking Gillette Super Blue disposable razors.

  There was a shuffling sound. He couldn’t tell if it was headed in his direction. Andrew slid out of bed and onto the floor. His injured shoulder banged against the bed rail. He bit down on his lip until the pain subsided. He crawled between the bed and wall to the closet. Straining his eyes to see, he waited for a flicker of lightning. Nothing inside the closet. Not even a broom. Then he remembered the wooden rod for hanging clothes. He had noticed it because he thought it was silly to think anyone would bring clothes that required hanging to a cabin in the middle of the woods.

  He slid his body up the wall, stopped and listened. He reached into the closet, feeling for the rod. Please, please let it not be secured. His fingers wrapped around the smooth wooden rod. He stopped and listened. There was a soft rustle and then a crackle. He held his breath. Damn! He still couldn’t hear over the pounding of his heart in his ears.

  He leaned his cheek against the paneling and cocked his head toward the door to the bedroom. Another crackle, maybe a slow ripping sound. The intruder was going through his things. He tried to remember where he had left his wallet. Maybe whoever it was would take it and leave. Andrew lifted the rod out of its slots, and quietly, slowly he eased it up and out of the closet. He got a better grip. He raised his good arm, testing to see how high he could lift it before the pain shot across his shoulder and stopped him. Not bad, though he wished he had taken more of the physical therapy his doctor had nagged him about.

  He made his way to the door, then hesitated and listened. He thought he saw a blue glow that wasn’t lightning. The refrigerator, maybe? A hungry thief?

  Andrew tightened his grip on the rod. It felt good in his hand. It felt good enough that maybe this son of a bitch wouldn’t be taking his wallet, after all.

  CHAPTER 30

  2:35 a.m.

  Andrew kept his back against the paneling, sliding inch by inch down the hallway. He held the rod down by his side, ready, despite his sweaty palm. The sounds continued from the kitchen area. The blue glow from the refrigerator lit the opposite wall. He could see a partial shadow, and it looked crouched over. Now was his chance, while the asshole was going through the fridge.

  He rushed out of the hallway, three long steps, raising the clothes rod and ready to swing. The woman spun around, her eyes wide, and her hands immediately flew up to protect herself from the blow. But Andrew stopped.

  “Who are you? And what the hell are you doing?’’

  She was filthy, her clothes slathered with mud. She batted wet strands of dirty-blond hair out of her eyes. Her face looked bruised, her cheek scraped raw, though it was hard to tell what was bruises and what was dirt.

  “I asked, what the hell are you doing?”

  He saw her eyes look over his shoulder. He felt the breeze and smelled the rain, and he knew the door between the cabin and the porch was open. He turned slowly, keeping an eye on her. The small lamp he had left on sat in the corner on the floor, its dim yellow glow enough for Andrew to see the two men out on the porch. One sat by the table. The other stood behind him. From what he could smell, they were as filthy and wet as the woman.

  “What do you want?” Andrew asked. At some point his fear had transferred to anger. Anger was better, he reminded himself, and tightened his grip once again on the wooden rod.

  “We just needed to come in out of the storm,” one of the men said as he shifted his weight in the chair.

  It was too dark on the porch for Andrew to see either man’s eyes or much of their faces. The flickers of lightning were fading, the thunder a distant echo.

  “Did your car break down?” Andrew glanced again at the woman. Her eyes kept darting from Andrew to the man, but she avoided Andrew’s eyes. There seemed to be a nervous energy to her, yet she stood still, with her hands in the pockets of her jeans, as if she didn’t quite trust Andrew.

  When she didn’t answer he looked over at the other man. The one standing had moved closer to the screen as if there was something down below that had caught his interest.

  “Yeah, you might say we had a bit of a car accident.”

  There was something in the way he said it that made Andrew adjust his grip on the rod. He wondered how
hard it would be to move closer to the door that separated the porch. Could he close and lock it before they reacted, before they realized what he was doing? Then he’d still have the woman to deal with. He glanced at her again. She was small, wet and scared. Yeah, she was scared. But was she scared of Andrew or of the two men on the porch?

  “It’s a hell of a night to be out, that’s for sure.” Andrew tried to sound sympathetic. He moved into the room, pretending to look out the window. “Looks like the worst of it may be over.”

  A couple more feet and he could rush to slam the door. Damn! He’d need to drop the rod in order to do it. He was thinking like a two-handed man instead of a one-handed one.

  “I can drive you to Louisville.” He kept talking. He still had the element of surprise on his side. He was about to make his move, when the man stood up. In one slow, easy motion he raised his hand to Andrew as if to offer to shake it. It was such a casual gesture that Andrew loosened his grip on the rod. He didn’t even see the gun until it was too late.

  Until the blast filled the room.

  CHAPTER 31

  2:47 a.m.

  Melanie couldn’t believe it. Jared had meant to kill the man. Just like that. The bullet had grazed his forehead and knocked him off his feet. A half inch to the left and it would have gone through his fucking brain.

  Now Jared stood over him, his finger still on the trigger. The man looked as if he was out of it, rubbing his fingertips over the wound and looking at the blood as if he couldn’t believe it was his own. Melanie stood back and watched. So did Charlie. She expected Jared to lift the gun and fire another shot. She expected to see the man’s head explode this time. She wanted to close her eyes and, yet, she couldn’t look away.

  Instead of lifting the gun and firing it, Jared turned. He just walked away. Melanie stared at him as he sat down in one of the easy chairs. From the side of the table he grabbed what looked like a leather briefcase and suddenly became interested in its contents. He rifled through the case’s pockets, undoing zippers, taking out notepaper, examining it all and shoving it back into the case. He pulled out a couple of books, checked the covers and started to shove them into the briefcase, as well, when he stopped. Jared examined one of the back covers of the books, glanced at the man on the floor then at the cover.

  “You’re this guy,” he said, flipping the book over to look at the front again. “You wrote this book, huh? Andrew Kane.”

  Melanie watched the man—Kane. He looked up at Jared when he said his name, so maybe he was okay. Maybe the bullet hadn’t done any damage.

  “So you write books,” Jared continued.

  She couldn’t decide if Jared was impressed or if he was making fun. She didn’t seem to be very good at reading her brother lately.

  “How many books have you written, Andrew Kane?” Jared was flipping through the book, stopping several times, and it looked to Melanie as though he was actually reading parts.

  She finally sat down across from Jared on the worn sofa. She couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt to sit, and only now did she realize her legs were numb. Her arms felt raw, and even in the dim yellow light she could see all the scratches and cuts. She pulled her legs up under her and wrapped her battered arms around herself in an effort to stop shivering. Her wet, aching, cold muscles seemed secondary to trying to figure out what the hell Jared was up to.

  Melanie tried to remember when the last time was that she had seen Jared with a book. Even as a kid he rarely read or did homework, usually getting someone else to do it for him. But here he was, sitting back, apparently fascinated, not just with this book but that he had an author right in front of him. Wounded and bleeding, but right in front of him. Right where Jared liked to have people he wanted to control.

  All Melanie could think was, Poor Andrew Kane. If only he had simply left his fucking keys inside his car. That was all Jared had wanted. Melanie had offered to slip in, find the keys and slip back out. No one else needed to get hurt, Melanie had said, remembering the blood splatters all over Charlie’s coveralls. But no. Jared decided he needed something to eat. Evading the law evidently gave him an appetite.

  “Seriously, how many books have you written?” Jared asked again.

  Melanie watched as Andrew Kane untangled his legs from underneath himself and leaned against the wall. It seemed to be an effort for him to move. She wondered how he had ever intended to defend himself with only a pole, his right arm practically attached to the side of his body.

  “That’s my fifth one,” he told Jared in a voice that sounded stronger then he looked. Then he sat there watching Jared, waiting for the next question, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for them to be sitting down having a conversation about writing books right after Jared had tried to blow his head off.

  “I write a little poetry,” Jared said, and Melanie stared at her brother, trying to keep her jaw from dropping. She glanced at Charlie to see if he was buying any of this bullshit. Charlie, however, had found a bag of cookies and was working his way to the bottom.

  “Do you know ‘Richard Cory’?” Jared asked the writer.

  Now Melanie wanted to laugh. How ridiculous that Jared would think he and Andrew Kane would know any of the same people. Yet to her surprise Kane answered, “‘And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.’”

  “Yeah, I love that poem.” Jared smiled. “Here’s this guy, this Richard Cory, and everybody fucking admires him because he’s rich and handsome and has it all. Or so it appears, right? And yet, this guy goes home and blows his fucking head off. Goes to show not everything is what it appears to be, right?”

  It was a poem, a fucking poem. Melanie couldn’t believe she was sitting here wet, cold and filthy while Jared exchanged rhymes with a man he had tried to kill. This had to be the perfect ending to a nightmare she hoped was, indeed, ending soon.

  PART 3

  Under the Radar

  CHAPTER 32

  8:05 a.m.

  Hall of Justice

  When Grace arrived at work, she found Max Kramer in her office, sitting in her visitor’s chair, using her phone while he waited. He glanced at her, holding up one finger to indicate that he was almost finished with his call. No apology for using her phone. Finally he said into the receiver, “No, it’s white. That’s all I can tell you. I gotta go.” And he hung up, sitting back in the chair, taking his Starbucks coffee cup from the corner of her desk and sipping it, as if this was his office.

  The coffee’s aroma filled the small space, reminding Grace that their office brew couldn’t possibly be related to this wonderful scent. She tried to focus on that rather than be pissed off by Kramer’s presumptuous attitude.

  “Forgot my cell phone,” he said almost as an afterthought and still no apology.

  “You must have heard how bad our coffee is,” she said instead of addressing his rudeness. She slipped past him to get behind her desk, putting down the mug of coffee she’d brought in with her.

  “I’m addicted to this stuff. In fact, I’ve started chewing gum in the afternoon to curb my withdrawals.”

  She pulled out a couple of files from the two stacks on her desk and glanced across at him. That wasn’t his only addiction. She could tell that he bit his nails, too. Expensive suit, salon-cut hair, silk tie and yet he paid no attention to his hands. Odd for an attorney, she thought, since her own hands were an integral part of her court presentations. She probably couldn’t make a closing argument without using her hands. Of course, Vince would most likely say she couldn’t talk without using her hands.

  “Your client has several priors,” she said, getting down to business. A brief chit-chat about coffee was all the niceties she was willing to grant the man who’d fought for Jared Barnett’s release. “What makes you think she has any room to bargain?”

  “She may be able to identify who’s responsible for the string of convenience-store robberies.” He said it like it was an official announcement, then
sat back and sipped his coffee, looking pleased with himself, as if he had handed her the thief’s name, address and DNA sample.

  “What makes…” Grace stopped to check the name, “Carrie Ann Comstock think she might be able to do that?”

  “She was in the vicinity of the store on Fiftieth and Ames when it was robbed. She saw the man leave.”

  “The store was robbed at one-fifteen in the morning. What exactly was she doing in the vicinity at the time of the robbery?”

  She watched his hands. His fingers tapped the oversize cup that he held between both hands. His right hand index fingernail had been bitten down to the quick. She decided she didn’t trust an attorney who bit his nails and spent more money on his hair than she did.

  “It really isn’t important what she was doing.”

  That was exactly what she’d expected him to say. She sat back in her chair with her hands wrapped around her mug, as if ready for a showdown.

  “So she thinks she got a good enough look that she might be able to identify him?”

  “She got a good enough look that she was able to recognize him,” Max Kramer said with a smile.

  “Why didn’t she come forward sooner?”

  He shrugged, a practiced gesture that raised his shoulders almost to his earlobes. “Who knows? So do we have a deal?”

  “Hey, Grace.” Pakula suddenly filled her open doorway. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you had—” He stopped when he recognized Max Kramer. “I didn’t realize you had a pile of trash in here.”

  Grace had to restrain her smile. Instead, she watched Kramer shake his head and shift his weight in the chair to give Pakula his back. Detective Tommy Pakula had been one of the detectives involved in Barnett’s case and his appeal process. Grace knew the detective well enough to know it’d be easier to cut out Pakula’s tongue than to get him to refrain from speaking his mind. He leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, waiting for Grace to indicate whether or not she wanted to be interrupted, whether or not she needed rescuing.