“Meaning?” Tanner asked.
“Meaning that it wouldn’t surprise me if my husband didn’t kill them all by the time we arrive.”
Tanner smiled.
“It seems that your husband and I have more in common than just our looks.”
“You kill for money. My husband kills in self-defense and to protect innocents.”
“No one paid me to save your life.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I was offered the contract and refused it because of your strong ties to the police and FBI. I then became curious about who would want you dead.”
“Who offered you the contract?”
“A man named Jim Horrigan, but he’s just a go-between. I think the owners of the Speakeasy Tavern were his clients.”
“And why would they want me dead?”
“I think they may be the ones who have been killing women in the area.”
“Ah, yes, I heard about that when we arrived, but I haven’t been asked to consult on it.”
“I think the men who hired Styles to kill you weren’t willing to risk your involvement and decided to be proactive.”
Jessica looked startled by Tanner’s hypothesis.
“If that’s true, then it’s a little frightening.”
“It’s just a theory, and tell me, did you mention the name of that bar to the cops?”
“I told an FBI agent about it and he said that they would look into it.”
“Fine.”
They drove along without speaking for several miles, but then Jessica had a question.
“Why does Ariana O’Grady want you dead?”
“I killed her father.”
“Someone hired you to murder him?”
“No, it was personal. I held him responsible for a friend’s death.”
“I see.”
“Dr. White?”
“Call me Jessica; after all, you did save my life.”
“All right, Jessica, you do understand that I plan to kill anyone we come across, yes?”
“I may have, as you put it, ‘strong police and FBI ties’, but I am not a proponent of turning the other cheek. I was also not exaggerating about my husband’s abilities. If you don’t kill these people after what they’ve done, my husband will.”
Tanner took his eyes from the road again and stared at Jessica. He could tell that every word coming from her mouth was the truth.
“I suddenly feel very lucky.”
“As well you should,” Jessica said.
CHAPTER 26 – Fire and ice
Shauna Roberts wept from fear and disgust as she watched Carter raise a fireplace poker to smash Jim Horrigan’s head.
Carter lowered his arm as he looked around the cabin.
“Hell, there’s no sense making a mess in here, I’ll crack his skull apart outside.”
Carter opened the cabin door and a gust of wind brought snow blowing in. He then took hold of Horrigan’s ankles and began dragging him out of the cabin. Horrigan stirred while moaning, but his eyes stayed shut, and the wound on his scalp left a trail of blood behind him as they went.
After dragging Horrigan out into the snow, Carter went back inside to grab the poker from where he’d placed it atop the table. However, he became distracted by Shauna and stopped in front of the cage to stare in at her.
When a gust of wind swirled through the cabin and blew the blanket off Shauna, to reveal her nakedness, Carter watched her with amusement, as she struggled to cover herself again while using her bound hands to reach for the blanket.
Carter was faster, and he plucked the blanket from the floor of the cell and smiled at Shauna.
“Randall was right, you are very special, and don’t worry, as soon as I get rid of Horrigan I’ll build a fire to warm this place. Once that’s done, the two of us will have all night to get to know each other.”
Shauna shivered from the cold, but also from rage, as she mumbled curses at Carter from her gagged mouth.
Carter laughed.
“You little whores are all the same. Full of hate and fire in the beginning and pathetic begging creatures in the—”
Movement appeared in Carter’s peripheral vision and he saw that Jim Horrigan had made it to his feet and was stumbling towards his SUV.
“Horrigan!”
Carter’s shout was ignored and he raced through the snow towards Horrigan while trying to recall if he had locked the vehicle’s doors.
He hadn’t, and Horrigan made it inside the vehicle before Carter could reach him.
Carter patted at his right pocket in a panic, but calmed when he felt the ring of keys there. He began to unlock the door with his key fob, as Horrigan grabbed something from the rear of the vehicle. It was a tire iron.
Horrigan looked as if he were about to pass out again, while blood ran down the side of his head in a steady flow from the wound he’d received. Still, he was armed with the tire iron and Carter knew that he might be injured if he tried to take him unarmed.
Then it hit Carter. There was a gun in the glovebox of the SUV. If Horrigan found that things could go bad in a hurry and so Carter knew that he had to act right away. He ran back to the cabin, grabbed the fireplace poker, and rushed back to Horrigan.
“Come out of there now or I’ll pull you out and bash your head in. I’ve got a lot more reach with this poker, Jim, and I’ll break your arm before you can ever take a swing at me.”
Horrigan, although dazed, did appear to be thinking, and Carter grew nervous when he saw Horrigan look at the dashboard near the glovebox.
Several seconds passed, and then Horrigan laid the tire iron atop the dashboard.
Outside the vehicle, Carter smiled, hit the button on the key fob and unlocked the door. He ripped it open and reached in to yank Horrigan out, and that was when Horrigan pressed the tip of a hot cigarette lighter directly into Carter’s left eye.
The agony was instant and intense and Carter stumbled backwards onto the snow while letting out a scream of pain.
***
After watching Carter writhe atop the snow from the horrible injury he had inflicted, Horrigan fell beside him and tried to find the keys that had dropped when Carter was burned.
It proved a tough task, as there was nearly two feet of snow and Carter’s thrashing about may have moved the keys elsewhere.
In less than a minute, Horrigan felt his hands growing numb from the cold, while Carter seemed to be recovering to some extent from the trauma done to his eye. When Carter pulled himself up to his hands and knees, Horrigan stood, with his bad ankle screaming at him.
He was about to punch Carter when he saw the man’s hand come out of the snow with the fireplace poker in a tight grip.
Horrigan turned and hobbled towards the cabin as fast as he could, as Carter made it to his feet.
He reached the cabin, slammed the door, and slid a metal bolt in place. Outside, Carter cursed and banged on the door with the poker.
A sound from behind caused Horrigan to jump and he realized that it came from the girl he’d seen earlier. Shauna looked like an older version of Horrigan’s daughter, and it made him sick to see the abuse the girl had suffered.
After rushing over to the cage, Horrigan removed his jacket, shook off the snow that clung to it, then reached through the bars to drape it over her
That was when he saw that her hands were bound together with a zip tie.
As Carter continued to pound on the thick door with the fireplace poker, Horrigan searched a drawer in a table and found an old Swiss army knife.
“Hey honey, come closer to the bars so that I can cut your hands free.”
Shauna complied, and Horrigan went to work on the zip tie while trying his best to avoid staring at Shauna’s nakedness.
When her hands were free, she immediately fumbled at the strap beneath her hair that was holding the ball gag in place. She had to swallow a few times and wipe spittle from her lips, but then she was able to talk, as she zipped up Horrig
an’s jacket.
“Oh God, thank you, and do you have a phone?”
Horrigan did still have his phone, but after taking it from his pocket, he found that there was no cell signal. It then occurred to him that the banging on the door had ceased.
He was about to move towards the door to try to listen for sounds of movement when the roar of a gunshot came from outside and fire exploded in his chest.
Horrigan slid down to the floor with his back against the bars and wondered if he were about to die.
CHAPTER 27 – Glass and fire
Mr. White’s hands were bound behind his back with a pair of handcuffs and he was standing in the living room of the O’Grady home, which sat at the edge of the O’Grady ranch.
In the room with White, were Ariana, Brick, and the five mercenaries who had pretended to be FBI agents. Other than this group gathered in the living room, the huge home was empty.
Ariana’s younger brother, Ricky O’Grady, had married his girlfriend Amanda after getting her pregnant, and his new father-in-law insisted that Ricky come and work for him in Denver.
That left Ariana with the O’Grady ranch house all to herself, and she had given the servants some time off while ordering the ranch hands to stay away.
She had plans to murder Tanner and anyone else if it became necessary, but before Tanner died, she would torture him and learn where she could find Alexa, the woman who had scarred her face.
Brick had been staring at White off and on since his capture, and the huge man snapped his fingers as a memory surfaced.
“Springfield, back in ’97 or ’98, you beat Ralph Murphy to win the first Premium Fighter Championship.”
White said nothing, but stared back at Brick, while wondering if the man had been one of the opponents he had defeated that night. If so, he had no memory of him.
“I had to drop out of the finals because I broke an arm in a car wreck two days before the matches, but if I had been there I would have kicked your skinny ass.”
“No,” White said. “You would have lost like the rest of them.”
Brick moved closer and sneered.
“You cost me a bundle. I had a grand on Murphy that night.”
White looked over at Ariana.
“I see you have a habit of picking losers.”
Two of the mercenaries stood on either side of White. Ariana nodded at the fifth man, who was standing near the fireplace on the left. He was the largest of the mercs, with bulging biceps and a crew cut.
“Teach this man some respect.”
The man moved in front of White and punched him hard in the stomach. Mr. White bent over at the waist as if he were in pain, then moved forward, and raised his head fast.
White’s skull connected with the man’s chin. There came a loud clacking noise as the mercenary’s teeth came together, while his head snapped backwards and he fell atop a glass coffee table.
The glass gave way and the shattered pieces covered the man, as the shards of glass from the edges of the table rained down on him.
“Don’t open your eyes!” Brick shouted, but he was too late, and tiny bits of glass became embedded in the man’s corneas, causing him to scream.
When the man panicked and rubbed at his eyes, he only made matters worse.
One of the man’s friends turned towards White with a knife. White pivoted, making the man follow, and just as the man was about to thrust the blade at him, White kicked the man’s chest and sent him stumbling backwards.
Unfortunately, for the man, that’s where the fireplace was, and after tripping over the lip of the hearth, the man landed atop the flaming logs, setting his clothes on fire.
The other three men were rushing forward to pull him from the flames, when the frantic man propelled himself forward to escape the blaze. He landed at the other men’s feet and sent them off balance.
The men kept themselves from falling and began wrapping their friend in a rug to snuff out the flames, but the screams of the man who was on fire mixed with the moans of the man blinded by glass, and suddenly there was chaos.
While that was going on, White had raced off down a hallway. Brick was about to give chase when Ariana screamed for him to stop.
“Forget him for now. We need to put out this fire.”
Brick turned his head and saw that the man who had fallen into the flames was being helped. However, a tablecloth had caught fire, as well as the edge of a drape.
Brick grunted in frustration as he turned to see that White was gone from view, and then he went about containing the blaze.
***
Mr. White rushed through the huge home while looking for a basement door. If there were tools in the house that could help him get free of the handcuffs, then a basement tool room or tool chest would be his best bet.
He spied a rear door in the kitchen but decided against using it to escape out into the night. The temperature was near freezing, there were mounds of snow, and he had no coat to protect against the cold.
If he were out there for any length of time, he would be risking his life and his health, and he needed to be ready for when Jessica arrived.
Ariana had told White that Jessica was on her way there with Tanner and that once she had the hit man she would let him and Jessica go. He didn’t know why Tanner would agree to such a trade, but he knew that Ariana would kill them all once they arrived.
He had evened the odds some by taking out two of Ariana’s men, but if he could only get free of the cuffs, he could kill them all, which would assure Jessica’s safety.
He fumbled at several doors with his bound hands but they all turned out to be either a closet or a bedroom.
When he entered a large home office, he used the toe of his boot to open the drawers, hoping to find something that might help him get free of the cuffs. When he came across the scattering of paper clips in the top drawer, he turned, bent his knees, and grabbed one of them. It would take time, but he figured that he could eventually pick the lock.
When he turned back around, his hope faded, as he saw Brick entering the room with a gun pointed his way.
Brick walked over smiling.
“Let’s see what’s in your hand.”
White opened his hand and revealed the paper clip.
“Nice try, and you damn near burnt the house down.”
Brick slapped at his hand, spun him around, and punched him in the stomach.
The blow was powerful and White exhaled in a huff, before falling to his knees and resting his head atop the edge of the desk, above the open drawer.
Brick laughed.
“One punch weakened your knees. You wouldn’t have stood a chance against me in the steel cage.”
Brick lifted him up with one hand and White soon found himself locked inside a closet, then something heavy was being pushed in front of it.
As he heard Brick’s footsteps fade away, he spit out the paper clip he had snagged from the drawer with his tongue. Brick’s punch hadn’t weakened his knees, but he needed to drop down so that he could get his face near the drawer.
After a series of maneuvers that placed the clip in his hands, White went to work on undoing the cuffs.
It took him five frustrating minutes, but he managed to free himself. It had taken that long because his left hand was a little stiff from the cuts he had received earlier while taking the knife away from Tanner.
The wounds weren’t deep, thanks to the glove he’d been wearing at the time, but the cuts had already begun to form scabs and limited his dexterity.
After considering his chances of being underestimated again, White realized that when they came to get him he would be facing at least two men carrying weapons.
White placed the cuffs back on his wrists, but this time they were loose enough to squeeze his hands through.
Then came the hard part, he waited.
CHAPTER 28 – Number 12
FBI agent Alan Watson was parked outside the Speakeasy Tavern in a squad car. He was trying on
ce again to make contact with Jessica White or her husband.
Jessica had sent him a text saying that she would be out of touch for a time and that she was safe, but Watson still worried.
The mystery man who had saved her from Styles told her that Styles had been hired by the owners of the Speakeasy Tavern, but a check of the owners, Carter and Randall Mason, showed no criminal background.
Watson’s nephew, a Boulder police officer also named Watson, asked his uncle a question.
“Should we wait here and hope to get a warrant, or go north and check out that cabin the Mason Brothers own?”
“We’ll stay here; I called and asked the local P.D. to check out the cabin. The chief there was on duty and said that he would send one of his men.”
***
At that moment, a rookie cop named Jason Marin was driving his patrol vehicle onto the property where the cabin was. Although new to the force and only twenty-five, Marin had been in the army and was a combat veteran.
When he heard the blast of Carter’s gun, he immediately cut his headlights and rolled down his window. When a second blast came and was followed by what sounded like a scream, he radioed in that there were shots being fired on the property, and then he left his vehicle with a shotgun in his hands.
Marin had to tread through deep snow, but once he was in the trees at the side of the cabin the going became easier.
The third shot sounded off just as Marin spotted Carter, and he eased closer with the shotgun pressed against his shoulder.
***
Inside the cabin, Horrigan lay on the floor with one hand pressed against the wound in his chest, as behind him Shauna cried and fought the urge to scream again.
His wound was the result of the first shot fired, but Carter had fired two more that had blasted small holes in the door, and one of the slugs had ricocheted off the fireplace and destroyed the battery-powered lantern.
The lack of light was actually a blessing, because the holes in the door were big enough to see through, and Carter still had one good eye.
“You blinded me, Jim, you sonofabitch, you blinded my left eye and I’m going to make you suffer for it.”
The Contract: Kill Jessica White Page 10
