“It’s under the—”
Grim held up his palm. “Don’t want to know. Don’t care. We’re not taking it. We’re leaving. We’ll never bother you again. I swear. But… if you could tell me… give me some closure.” Grim took off the electrode pads, gently. “Do you want me to beg? If you want me to beg my sister’s killer, I’ll do it.”
“I didn’t kill Lori, you idiot. I’ve told you that a dozen times. I love her. I blame myself, because I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t do enough. Maybe I could have stopped it. Maybe I could have saved her.”
“What happened to Lori, Fabler?”
“If I tell you… it won’t give you closure. Believe me, Grim. All it will do is drive you crazy. Like it drove me crazy.”
“Knowing is better than not knowing.”
“Sometimes it isn’t. Knowing is impotence. Helplessness. Living with an impossible situation that you can never tell anyone about, because no one will believe it. You question your own sanity. You question everything you’ve ever known. I never told you, and it wasn’t to be cruel. It was me being merciful.”
“I need to know, Fabler. Please.”
Fabler closed his eyes. “Lift me back up. I’ll tell you everything.”
Presley took one side of the chair, Grim the other, and they managed to muscle Fabler up into a seated position.
“August thirteenth, two thousand and fourteen. After eleven pm. Lori and I were in bed.” Fabler opened his eyes. “Who are those guys?”
At least it didn’t until Presley followed Fabler’s line of sight, and looked over her shoulder at the two men standing in the hall.
Kadir, and his buddy, Doruk. Guns in their hands, pointed at her and Grim.
Tucked under Kadir’s left armpit was Grim’s carbine; and under Doruk’s was the KRISS. Grim left them in the other room to make sure Fabler didn’t somehow grab them.
“Hello, Presley.” Kadir grinned. His pock-marked face, unusually red, made him look like a jack-o-lantern three weeks after Halloween.
“Took you long enough to find me, Kadir. I was worried you’d given up.”
He chuckled, sounded forced. “Worried? Why is that?”
“I got your money. That, and more.”
“You mean the six hundred K in gold this moron has stashed?”
“What happened to your face?”
Kadir’s slow but large partner brightened up. “He got the poison ivy. Leaves of three, let it be.”
“I thought I heard you in the bushes. So you crawled into some poison ivy when you were following me?” She smiled, trying to look genuine. “I’m touched by your dedication.”
“You were easy to find, Presley. I traced your prescription meds.”
“What meds?” Fabler strained toward Presley, looking quite insane. “You said you didn’t take any meds when I hired you.”
“Looks like we both lie about a lot, Fabler.”
Fabler shook his head. “Goddammit, Presley. No family. No meds. Red hair. Blue eyes. That was all for a reason.”
Kadir looked amused. “Our girl here takes Xanax for panic attacks, and Prazosin for night terrors. She’s quite the mess.”
Presley covered her surprise with another smile.
“I saw a lot of violence on tour, Kadir. Some of us can’t deal with it as well as you can.”
“You were fine a few weeks ago, when you broke my nose. And my finger. Good thing I can shoot lefty, huh? Doruk, go get her gun. She’s got it in her ankle holster.”
Doruk, who possessed the width of a kitchen appliance, waddled over to her. He was big enough to keep a gun pressed to her neck while reaching down and taking her DoubleTap.
“Okay, you two, that’s enough. Put down the guns. I’m a cop.”
Presley gave Grim laser eyes, trying to silently tell him, STFU, I’m handling this.
Grim’s order made Kadir grin even wider. “Ex-cop, don’t you mean? I know a retard crossing guard that got more authority than you, Grim.”
Doruk’s face bunched up. “Cousin Jimmy ain’t no retard. He just ain’t good at the maths.”
Kadir sneered at him. “It must run in the family. Go shut the ex-cop up, Doruk. Then put him in a chair. Use the duct tape on the table.”
“Will you hold my gun?”
Kadir rolled his eyes, and Doruk handed the gun over. He walked up and stared down at Grim. The bigger man had at least five inches and seventy pounds on him. “Kadir says I gotta shut you up.”
Grim tried to stand his ground. “Do you always do what he tells you to—”
A fist, the size of a ham, smacked against Grim’s cheek and he went tumbling across the kitchen, landing on all fours after a full-body roll.
“You let him sucker punch you, you idiot.” Fabler growled at Grim. “Get up and fight.”
Grim tried to shake it off, and somehow managed to get back to his feet. The left side of his face had already begun to swell up like the end of a Rocky movie.
“Lucky shot, big guy.” Grim spat, but it didn’t get past his lips and the blood dribbled down his chin. “Now why don’t you try that—”
Presley winced as Doruk socked Grim again, this time hitting him so hard that one—
possibly two—teeth clicked against the wall and bounced onto the floor.
This time when Grim went down, he didn’t get back up.
Fabler muttered something. It sounded like, “this keeps getting better and better.”
Doruk picked a limp Grim up and slumped him into a kitchen chair. Then he taped him up.
“Fabler. Look at me.”
Fabler peeked an eye open, staring at Presley.
“Where’s the gold, Fabler?”
“If I tell them, they’ll kill us all.”
“They won’t kill us.” She glanced at Kadir. “Kadir is smart. He’s going to make triple what I owe his boss. That covers his time and trouble. Plus, we’ve got this unspoken thing going on between us. Don’t we, Kadir?”
Kadir’s grin slipped a notch. He appeared uncertain.
“Call it romantic tension. You remember those moments we had back in Houston, don’t you, Kadir? You were nice to me. I liked that. You’re good with the ladies when you want to be.”
Presley considered biting her lower lip, decided that would be too much, and instead went for a slight pout.
“The money is under the floorboards, in the secret room. Find the board with the fingerhole in it.” He looked at Presley, hard. “It’s in the fifth position.”
But something in Fabler’s expression told Presley she shouldn’t ask. Instead she nodded, then smiled at Kadir. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go pay this debt.”
Kadir smiled again, an ugly thing. “Yeah. Let’s go do that. Lead the way.”
She walked past him, her hip barely grazing his.
“And stop the flirty shit, Presley. I’m not one of those lame-ass, cheating husbands you lead around by the dick. You’re not in control here. I am.”
Then
she felt the gun press against her back and all of Presley’s bravado disappeared.
FABLER ○ 8:48am
Fabler was unsure how to feel about still being alive.
Dying had been a horrible, terrifying experience. One he’d go to great lengths to avoid. Worse than being tased. Worse than anything that happened during his combat years.
Almost worse than that night.
But being dead might have been the worst thing of all.
Part of Fabler held out hope that the last few years had been a delusion. His own mind trying to protect him from Lori’s death by imagining some fantastic, horrible, impossible scenario, with an equally ridiculous solution. And maybe, just maybe, some of that religious mumbo-jumbo he’d been force-fed as a kid was true, and there was an afterlife, and maybe he could have a shot at being with Lori again.
But after death there had been nothing. Just a sensation similar to falling asleep, but in the most awful way possible.
Grim made a sound and jerked upright in his chair, eyes wide. “Did I win?” He had so much duct tape around his upper body it was almost comical, in a mummy sort of way.
“I gotta say, Grim, that I’m getting pretty close to dropping you as a friend.”
Grim’s swollen face broke into a grin, and for a moment Fabler grinned back.
Grim soured first, his smile drooping to a wince. “Jesus, Doruk, what did you hit me with? A cinder block?”
Doruk stood next to Fabler’s fridge, rooting around inside. “My hand. I got big hands. How’d you know my name is Doruk?”
“That’s what Kadir called you. Where is he?” Grim swiveled his head around. “Where’s Presley?”
“They went to get the gold.” Doruk found some lunch meat, honey ham, and ate it straight from the package.
Grim struggled against his bonds, only managing to scoot the chair across the floor a few inches. “Listen, Doruk, your buddy Kadir… I’ve met guys like him before. He ain’t right in the head.”
“I know. He’s got a mean streak.”
“We can’t let him do mean things to Presley, Doruk.”
Doruk shrugged. “Kadir does what Kadir wants.”
“So it’s fine with you that he could be beating her up right now?”
“It would be fair. Presley beat up Kadir. Twice.”
“What if he’s raping her, Doruk? Can you live with that?”
Doruk chuckled.
“You think that’s funny, you overgrown asshole?”
Doruk shoved the rest of the ham into his mouth. “Kadir can’t rape nobody. His junk doesn’t work. He don’t know I know, but Uncle Alpay—he’s my Uncle and my boss—he was reading Kadir’s medical records to the gang and we were all laughing about it. Kadir got butt cancer. You know, the one when the doc sticks his finger up your shit chute?”
“Prostate cancer?”
“Yeah. Kadir got it bad. They took out his prostrate
Fabler eyed Grim, who seemed to care more about Presley than their current predicament.
“Jesus, Grim, you’ve been watching her for so long you’ve got a thing for her.”
Grim glared at him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Fabler.”
“Bullshit. Where’d you find her? Clearanceemployment.com?”
“I called a friend at the VA.”
“And you met her and got a crush.”
“Not exactly.”
“You hired her and now you’ve got feelings for her.”
“She’s a good person, Fabler.”
“She’s a fine human being, and a good soldier. But that’s not the point. You’ve got a thing for her.”
“Maybe it’s mutual.”
“Mutual? Like with Heather? You loved her, and she treated you like dirt.”
“Heather loved me.”
“Didn’t she leave you for the UPS guy?”
“The mailman.”
Doruk slapped his giant thigh, guffawing. “Your chick left you for the mailman. That’s brutal.”
Grim scowled at Doruk. “Can you try eating with your mouth closed? It’s gross, man.”
“Sorry.” Doruk’s shoulders slumped.
“It’s not love? Is it? Grim, you jackass? Are you in love with her?”
Doruk chuckled. “I was in love once. A hooker. She turned out to be one of those girls who was a boy. I still see her sometimes. You think that makes me gay?”
“She’s great at sucking dick. Her name is Peggy.”
“That’s great, Doruk.” Fabler turned back to Grim. “So the woman I hired to help me was a mole, placed here by the asshole who sent me to prison, and now you two are getting romantic. Did you sleep with her?”
Doruk hunted through the fridge again. “She spent the night at his place.”
“You slept with her? Seriously? I haven’t gotten laid in three years, and you’re nailing my assistant.”
“Three years. That sucks. I can call Peggy, if you want. She only charges fifty bucks. Hey, what kind of lunch meat is this?”
“Salami.”
“It don’t look like salami.”
“It’s soppressata.”
“I thought you said it was salami.”
“Soppressata salami, Doruk.”
“Does it taste good?”
“Go ahead and help yourself.”
Doruk ate a slice. “It’s good. You got good food in your house.”
Pilgrim strained against his bonds, and all it did was make him bleed more. “Look, Fabler, this is all on you, not me.”
“I’m handcuffed to my damn chair, you dickhead. How is that on me?”
“You tried to kill Presley.”
“No I didn’t.”
“You shot her.”
“I thought she was someone else.”
“What was all that crazy stuff you made her do? All those psychotic training exercises? Running around with the welding mask on? That crazy body armor?”
“You don’t understand, Grim. There’s so much you don’t understand.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“Or else, what? You’ll kill me again?”
Grim frowned. “Low blow. I feel bad about that.”
“You feel bad? You tortured me, then killed me. Think about how I’m feeling.”
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make it about you.”
“You sent me to prison for three years, Grim.”
“You killed Lori.”
“For the millionth time, I didn’t kill—”
“What was all that training for, Fabler? Were you planning on hunting Presley down? Chasing her through the woods like a Van Damme movie? Like you did with my sister?”
resley to help me get Lori back.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Presley was bait, for the ones who took Lori. I figured if I trained her, the two of us could put up a good fight against them.”
“Them? Who the hell is them, Fabler?”
Fabler didn’t answer.
“You mean Lori’s not dead?”
“Of course she’s not dead.”
“What happened to Lori, Fabler? Tell me.”
Doruk raised his hand. “I’d also like to know what happened to Lori. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever to find out.”
“Fine.” Fabler sighed. “But you’re not going to believe me. There’s a reason I never told this to anyone, Grim. Not to you. Not to my garbage lawyer. Not to the court. You think you hate me now, you’re going to be furious with me once I tell you this.”
Doruk killed the rest of the salami. “Just tell it already. It’s like you keep teasing and teasing.”
“Okay. Okay…” Fabler closed his eyes, willing himself to remember the single worst day of his life. “August thirteenth, two thousand fourteen. Around half past eleven at night.” He paused, his eyes welling up. “This… is… what happened to Lori.”
AUTHOR NOTE 3
I know. Cliffhangers suck.
I apologize. But not really.
This isn’t technically a cliffhanger. It’s the first book of a two book series.
I told you that at the start.
My goal has always been to entertain you, intrigue you, hook you, and make you want to spend more time with these characters.
The second half of this series, WHAT HAPPENED TO LORI – BOOK 2: REVELATIONS, reveals what happened to Lori in the very first scene.
Questions will be answered. Mysteries solved. Reveals revealed.
If that seems like click bait, the resemblance is intentional.
When there are thousands of entertainment options screaming for your attention, longform fiction is forced to adapt to keep up.
In your likes and upvotes era of social media, where you consume most information in 240 character snippets, reading a 90,000 word novel shows how smart, mature, and evolved you are. I thank you, and applaud you, for spending your leisure time with a book.
BOOK 2 will pay off in a big way for you. The next book is CRAZY.
What Happened to Lori Page 32
