by Dale Mayer
“It’s all complete bullshit though.”
“Bullshit warms up and spreads,” he said, “so just stick with what you know your sister to have been like and don’t let his lies get in the way of your memory of her.”
Petra walked over and sagged into a chair. “It’s all just so wrong,” she whispered.
“We have an extra reason now to be even more cautious with your safety.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Cain said, “with Tristan in town, we’re all at risk.”
“You think he’ll attack us?”
“Absolutely,” Cain said. “I’m surprised he didn’t kill me and you immediately after he killed the neighbor cop.” At her gasp, Cain realized he was speaking largely out loud and not really for her benefit. “He probably didn’t, hoping to set you and me up for the death of the cop, like with your sister’s setup to blame someone else. Regardless he can’t really leave us alive. We’re already causing enough trouble right here,” he said.
“Not to mention the other issues that brought us here,” Cain continued. “We’ll just be thorns in Tristan’s side until something is done. And the fact of the matter is, if he did have something to do with the attempt on our lives in Perth, it’ll also piss him off that we showed up right here, in his hometown, and are additionally putting pressure on this situation with your sister. That, as much as anything, is the reason he’s bolted back home again. And very publicly too. He’s not hiding now, not like he was earlier. He’s sure to have seen a video of some kind, showing that we were here and how he needed to come take care of business. Even coming to your apartment was part of that deal. Anything to have me take the fall.”
“He did a pretty good job checking around, didn’t he?” Eton noted.
“Checking around what?” Petra asked.
*
Eton got up just then. He smacked Cain lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll be back.” And he walked out, closing the door behind him.
She looked at Cain. He looked at her but didn’t say anything. She frowned. “Where’s he going?”
“He’ll go see where your friend just went to.”
“Well, he’s already gone, so that won’t help much,” she said.
“Not quite,” he said. “I managed to slip a tracker into his pocket.”
She stopped and stared at him. “You what?”
He shrugged. “Sorry if you don’t like my methods,” he said, “but we have to get to the end of this.”
“I didn’t even see you do that,” she said in shock.
“That’s the whole idea,” he said, with a big smile. “You weren’t supposed to see me do anything. Hopefully he didn’t either.”
Chapter 12
Petra walked to the kitchen and sat down by the window. “What will we do now? Just sit here?”
“Unless you can think of anybody in town who can help us?”
“What are you trying to find?” she asked. “I don’t think what you’re looking for is the same thing as what I’m looking for.”
“You’re looking for justice for your sister. I’m looking for justice for my dead friend.”
She winced at that. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you’ve already lost somebody and had two other friends get hurt.”
“It’s not something I will ever forget,” he said, “and these guys are still coming after us.”
“You think Tristan’s setting up to come after you now?”
“Why? Don’t you?”
“Potentially,” she said. “But I also hope more than a few answers are coming our way.”
He nodded. “What about other friends of Tristan’s?”
“No clue,” she said. “He’s not somebody I’ve ever wanted to spend time around.”
“With good reason,” he said. “And what about his comment that your sister was depressed?”
“How would I know? It’s not like I had any kind of real communication with her after she left. I tried, but she up and disappeared, until we found her yesterday,” she said, her voice getting fainter. She gave her head a hard shake. “It’s just so beyond anything I could have imagined.”
“Maybe you can contact the police and see if there was any sign of a weapon with her.”
He hadn’t even finished speaking, when she already had her phone out. She waited until the detective answered her call. As soon as she heard his voice, she asked him flat-out, “Detective, was a weapon found with my sister? Was it a murder or are you considering suicide?”
“I don’t have details to give you at this point.”
“Why not?” she asked in exasperation. “Surely it’s not that hard to tell me if a weapon was found. It’s a yes or no question.”
“A weapon was found,” he confirmed. “But what I can’t say is whether she fired it yet.”
“So, at this point it could be either.”
“Exactly. I promise we’ll get you some information, as soon as we have some to share.”
“Well, somehow I doubt you’ll share too openly,” she said. “And it’s a little hard to sit around here waiting for answers, especially now that Tristan’s back.”
“What do you mean, Tristan’s back?” he asked.
“Tristan just knocked on my apartment door and said that he knew nothing about my sister’s death, but he understood that she committed suicide and that, if it wasn’t, it must have been his father.”
“How long ago did you see him?” he said, his voice all business.
“Maybe twenty minutes ago,” she said. “You didn’t know?”
“No,” he said. “How would we? He’s been out of town for a long time.”
“Well, he’s not now,” she said. “And I sure as hell would like to know what he’s up to.”
“You and me both,” he said. “We’ll pull him in and talk to him.” With that, he hung up.
She frowned and looked at the phone. “He seemed actually surprised that Tristan was here.”
“Well, it’s great timing in terms of them having somebody to talk to who’s a potential suspect,” he said. “It’s shitty timing if Tristan can somehow ‘prove’ he wasn’t here earlier, shooting his neighbor cop, which of course you know he’ll do.”
“Right. If nothing else,” she said, “he can always get your surveillance feed subpoenaed.” He broke out laughing at that. She just glared at him. “I also have to deal with my father.”
“You’re getting a tox screen done,” he said. “What else would you like to do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe talk to my aunt?”
“Will that help?”
“No, probably not,” she said. “But it might make me feel better.”
“Then let’s go,” he said. “Absolutely no reason not to.”
“Says you,” she said, with half a smile.
As they stood, he said, “If nothing else, the walk will do you some good.”
“And what about Eton?”
“Eton will let me know if he finds anything.”
“Fine,” she said, “let’s go then.”
As soon as they were outside, she looked around. “It’s such a weird feeling to think that everybody’s gone.”
“Well, not quite everybody,” he said.
“No, not everyone. It just seems like everyone,” she said sadly.
He reached out and laced his fingers with hers. “Just stay positive.”
“I’m trying,” she said. “It’s … so frustrating.”
“I know,” he said.
As they walked down the street toward her aunt’s place, she looked at him. “I thought you were leaving today.”
“Change of plans,” he said easily. “Tristan’s shown up here, so we don’t have to go hunting him down somewhere else.”
“Was that where you were heading?”
“Yep, until he went on the move. Perfect for us.”
“You know he’s probably just here to take you out, right?”
“Yep, that’s what we figured,” he said.
“
So are we safe to walk around so openly?”
Cain chuckled, nodded. “You bet. We’ve got eyes on us at all times.” He pointed upward and all around as well.
She looked around suspiciously. “Is this a setup?”
“In what way?” he asked.
Such innocence was in his voice that she sighed. “Are you setting this up for him to attack us while we’re out on a walk?”
“Hell, no!” he said. “I wouldn’t take a chance with your life like that.”
She wasn’t sure she believed him or not. “I think you would do whatever you need to do to further your objectives,” she murmured.
“Not at the risk of your life,” he said in a reassuring manner.
“Well, I hope not,” she said. “Enough shit has been going down around here lately.”
“Another reason why we need to talk to your aunt.”
“I doubt she’ll have anything to say,” she said.
“You might be surprised,” he answered.
She shrugged. “My aunt and I have never gotten along.”
“It sounds like some really old history is there.”
“Very,” she said. “But it’s over now, just like so much else.”
“You can still have a relationship with them, if you want to,” he said. “Just because your father has passed on doesn’t mean that you have to walk away from them too.”
“I highly suspect there is nothing to walk away from,” she murmured.
“And that would be sad, but it’s possible,” he said.
“They’re up here,” she said, as they went down a side street.
“Is this a different way?” he asked.
“Not quite,” she said, “just another entrance into the back of the house.”
“And you want to take the back road, why?”
“I can’t really explain it,” she said, “but my instincts are telling me to go that way.”
“Well, the one thing that me and my team have always learned to trust is our instincts.”
She shook her head. “My instincts aren’t yours though.”
“No, maybe not, but you’d be surprised at what we learn and understand about ourselves from something like this.”
As they walked up to the house from the back alley, she opened the gate, and they stepped into the backyard. Inside the house a fight was going on, and things sounded pretty tense. Petra stopped in place, looked at him, and said, “Obviously this isn’t a good time.”
“Is there ever a good time?” he asked.
“No, of course not.” But then she hesitated.
“Do you want to do something or not?”
She shrugged. “Well, we need answers.”
“We do,” he said, with a light laugh.
She frowned. “I still don’t think they’ll help much.”
As they walked to the house, she heard the conversation better. “It’s about money.”
“That seems to be one of the biggest problems in their world.” As they got closer, he pulled her against one of the big vine-covered arbors that they had dotting the area.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Something weird is going on,” he said.
She looked at him and said, “You mean, weirder than normal?”
He smiled down at her. “Absolutely weirder than normal.” And she waited for him to let her go.
But he was hell-bent on holding her tight. Finally he said, “Can you hear the conversation?”
She nodded. “But I’m not listening to it.”
“Listen to it,” he said, his voice hard. “I’m not completely versed in this dialect.”
She listened, her eyes closed, and then she stiffened. “They’re talking about my father and his money,” she murmured.
He nodded. “That’s what I heard too.”
She strained her ears.
Her aunt screamed at her uncle, “We needed the money.”
“We got paid,” he said, snapping back at his wife. Petra didn’t think she’d ever heard her uncle talk like that to Migi.
“But we don’t have enough. It’s not enough. We need more,” Migi shouted.
“Then you know what the answer is,” her uncle snapped at her again.
“I should never have married you,” she roared.
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said, “and I shouldn’t have married you either. We’ve had this argument over and over again though,” he said, “and it won’t change anything now.”
“We need money,” she said, “so we have to make decisions.”
“What decision do you want to make?” he asked.
“She has to go,” she said.
“You’re the one who wanted me to take care of her father, and I was happy to leave him as he was.”
“Sure, cleaning his butt every day,” she sneered. “That’s hardly the life for us.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but it kept us in food.”
“But then you killed him for money, but where is it?” she snapped.
“Well, I was supposed to get paid more than what I got from him. What am I supposed to do now?”
“You let him cheat you out of it,” she snapped. “Go and get the rest of the money.”
“He told me that he’d kill me if I came back for more.”
“Sure he did,” she snapped. She stared out the window, and Cain and Petra saw Migi pointing outside. “We should never have sold off the land.”
“What could we have done though?” her uncle said sadly.
“We should have just hired workers,” she murmured. “It would have been tough for a year, but that would have been all. Now we keep selling off our assets, and we have nothing left.”
“And, once again,” he said, “there are still very few answers for us right now.”
“You were supposed to get all the money. I told you.”
“He said he didn’t have it. Then, because I kept pushing him, he said he’d kill me if I came back.”
Petra started at that.
“I highly doubt it. Since when did you ever push for anything?”
Such a sneering tone was in her aunt’s voice that Petra winced for her uncle, even though the conversation was just too hard to believe. She was still stuck on the fact that they were talking about having killed her father, and she didn’t even know how that could be. It was all so wrong on so many levels.
As she stood here, locked in Cain’s arms, she listened for more, but the conversation moved to the front of the house.
Finally he spoke up. “Did I hear what I thought I heard?”
Tears dotted her eyes, and she nodded. “They were paid to kill my father.”
“And your uncle didn’t get all the money, right?”
She nodded. “No, apparently not. She was bitter at that too. He wasn’t even worth paying the full price for. Because they had no recourse, they’d already done the deed and now they shared the guilt.” She rested her head against Cain’s chest. “It’s still all so wrong,” she whispered. “I don’t understand it.”
“We’ll get there,” he said, “and they will pay.”
She murmured, as she shook her head. “Nobody’s paid for anything yet,” she said, “except me.”
“Hold that thought,” he said. “We will get justice for your father. And your sister.”
Just then the kitchen door slammed open, hard.
Cain immediately pulled her back tight and whispered against her ear, “Is there any way to get out of here, so we’re not seen?”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide, as she considered the backyard, and then she shook her head. “No. They’ll come right by here,” she whispered. “We have to get out of here and fast.”
He leaned down and whispered into her ear, “Too late. Your uncle’s already outside.” And she froze in his arms.
*
Cain held Petra close, as her uncle stormed past them. Cain pulled her just far enough around the trellis that they were hidden a
gainst the fence and behind the greenery. Her uncle would have to turn and actually look hard to see them. Cain studied the fence behind him, wondering if he could pick her up and toss her over the side, so at least Petra would not be in danger. It was one thing to suspect the aunt and uncle of murder; it was another thing to have confirmation.
With one kill under their belt, it wasn’t hard for them to consider a second one, especially if it would save their assets. And, in this case, they might even get a bonus for it. Although payment and collection were apparently a problem. The uncle stormed into the back alleyway, and Cain whispered, “We’ll give him a minute, then we’ll head out and turn around, as if we’re coming in from the alleyway again.”
She looked up, still dazed, but she nodded. He gave it a count check to the kitchen and then quickly raced her to the gate that had bounced closed after the uncle went through. As he pushed it open, he saw the uncle at the far end of the alleyway, so he walked around the house and came up through the neighbor’s yard and went to the front yard and then approached.
“Change of plans?”
“Your uncle was out there.”
She nodded. “He tends to spend a fair amount of time storming up and down the back alley.”
“Probably the only way he survived living with your aunt all this time.”
“But apparently not my father,” she said bitterly.
“You know that this does give credence to your fear that they might have done something to him, debilitating him in the first place.”
She hunched her shoulders at that. “I just want to kill them both,” she whispered.
“That won’t help,” he said, “but I understand the sentiment.”
“What is it with the people in this town?” she asked.
“When you end up with something like this—a town that is sinking, with really depressed economics, you find people get desperate,” he said. “Some towns pull together and help each other. In this case it seems to be an issue of annihilating the competition.”
She was bitter about that too. But he squeezed her hand, pulled her forward, and said, “Listen. We need to talk to your aunt right now. She’s pretty upset and a little on the wild side, so who knows what she might let out.”
Cain walked Petra around to the front, and they intentionally made a lot of noise. They stomped on the front step as they headed to the front door. As she opened the door, she called out to her aunt. Migi answered from the back, in the kitchen. As they came around the corner, they found her aunt, sitting at the table, glaring at them.
