Dead Enemies

by K. E. Garvey

  “I don’t know.”

  “And I don’t believe you. I’d hate to have to hurt you, Kitten. Don’t make me.”

  She looked between him and the bedroom door. “She went for a run.”

  He lowered the gun and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Leave it to Gail. She’s been screwing up my life since before she was born.” He turned his attention to his youngest daughter. “Seems some things never change. But you… all grown up. My kitten has grown into a cat.” He let out a throaty laugh.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to settle a debt, that’s all.”

  “Settle a debt? You owe her. After what you did to her you’re lucky she didn’t succeed in killing you.”

  He fixed his stare on her. “What do you mean, didn’t succeed?”

  Amy balled her fists and pushed them into the mattress on either side of her legs. She looked away from him, but he walked around the bed to continue talking to her.

  “Your sister tried to kill me? When?”

  “After what you did to her, can you blame her?”

  “When?” he demanded.

  Amy pushed herself away from him until the pillows bottled up behind her, keeping her from pushing any further. “That night. She poured antifreeze in your drink before you left. When Mom told us you were dead, she thought the antifreeze killed you and caused the accident.”

  “I should have known your old lady would have pulled some shit like that. I never expected to hear from Mooshie, but that explains why I never heard from you, Kitten. You always loved your old man, didn’t you?”

  “I cared for the man you pretended to be around me. I despise everything about the man you were around my sister. How could you do those things to her? You’re sick. Do you know that?”

  He took a step closer. She had perspiration circles under the arms of her cream-colored shirt. Her bottom lip had disappeared behind her teeth as she chewed on it.

  “She was never mine. That whore I married was sleeping around before the ink on our marriage license dried. Instead of turning your nose up at me and throwing accusations, you should know that I stepped up. Rather than tell the world what your mother had done. I stepped in and raised her bastard child as my own. Besides, you weren’t there to see the truth. Your sister was asking for it.”

  “She was a kid,” Amy screamed as she lunged for his gun.

  He had no trouble dodging her advance, and tripped her as she went by. A lamp crashed to the floor when she collided with a small, round table in front of the window. He reached down and hoisted her up by the waist of her shorts. When she was several feet off the floor, he flung her to the bed. She bounced once and landed on her side against the headboard.

  “Too bad your sister isn’t here to witness you taking up for her, but I strongly suggest you don’t try something like that again. Next time I won’t go so easy on you. Understand?”

  When she didn’t reply, he hardened his stare until she offered a barely perceptible nod.

  “Good. Not that I don’t trust you, but I can’t afford to have you do that more than once, so…” he reached over the bed and grabbed her by the wrist. “…come with me.”

  Once on her feet he took her by the back of the neck and pushed her through the living room. When they were in the kitchen he shoved her toward the table and told her to sit. She hesitated, but eventually did as he ordered.

  He pulled the roll of duct tape from his back pocket and pulled off a length, which he wrapped tightly around her hand and then attached it to the chrome leg of the chair with another length of tape. He did this with each of her hands and then each of her ankles. When he was through, he ripped off another piece of tape and let it hang from his hand at his side. “You got anything you want to say before I put this on you?” he asked.

  Several seconds went by. He could see she had something burning a hole in her mouth and waited for it to come out.

  When she spoke, her tone was hard and her voice trembled. “I hope you burn in hell.”

  He let out a hearty laugh as he stretched the tape across her mouth. “Kitten, that’s a given.”

  He returned the tape to his pocket and looked around the room. “Which door will she come in when she gets back? This one,” he asked as he pointed to the kitchen door.

  Her eyes were slits as she stared into him. Acting on instinct, he brought the back of his hand across her face with such force, her chair tipped over bringing her head down with a thud.

  “Seems you’re more like your sister than I had anticipated. Little bitches, just like your mother.” He waited for a reaction, even a groan in pain. After a moment, he kicked at one of her legs. Still no movement. “Fuck.”

  He shoved the gun into his waistband and ran a hand over his stubbled chin. He’d never known anyone to use the front door when entering Katherine’s house, so he went with the odds that Gail would come through the kitchen door when she arrived. He looked to Cheryl’s motionless body. He had to hide her. If Gail saw her lying there, she’d turn tail and run sure as shit.

  He drug Cheryl to the living room still attached to the chair, and hid her behind the couch. Gail would have to get two-thirds of the way into the room before she could spot her lying there. That was all he needed. He checked the front door to make sure it was locked, turned off all the lights, and then slid behind an accent chair in the corner of the living room closest to the kitchen. By the time she saw her sister, he would be standing between her and the only exit.

  He smiled into the darkness, and whispered, “Daddy’s home.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Sali - 2018

  Several times Sali tried to jog when the burning sensation in her calves began to subside only to have them flair after a short distance. Whether she would make the upcoming races she had already committed to hadn’t been determined, but she had to treat her legs as though she would. She kept to a slow walking pace even though babying them meant much longer until she got back to the house. Had she not forgot her phone she would call Amy to check in. She was probably worried sick as Sali had been gone much longer than she had anticipated. Leaving the house at all was probably not her best idea, but she wanted to give Amy and Paul privacy that wasn’t available in such small quarters. She hoped her poor decision paid off, and they were able to get past some of the obstacles plaguing them.

  The thickening fog muted the lights she passed. Oncoming headlights looked like two spritzes of spray paint until they were directly in front of her. She was less than an eighth of a mile from her aunt’s house when she saw several lights go out. She was having trouble determining her exact location in the fog, but she was certain the lights had come from their house. The next closest house was further down the road and around a bend in the road. She fixed her gaze in the direction she’d seen the lights, and picked up her walking pace without breaking into a jog. Amy knew how dangerous it could be to turn the lights on at night, but maybe Paul had turned them on inadvertently. Amy may have forgotten to tell him it was candlelight or no light until Warren was captured.

  When she reached the edge of the property, she stopped and stared at the silhouette of the house in the moonlight. It looked so peaceful, so calm, a passerby would have no way of knowing the events that had happened in that house, or the tension that flowed through it like electricity now. She cut through the yard and past the house. Amy was on edge and Sali thought it best to let the officer know she needed to get into the house before startling her sister. She knocked softly on the garage door, and waited. Nothing. She knocked again, this time with more force. Still nothing. She gave the knob a turn and the door easily opened. The officers switched so often, she was never sure of the name of the current one of duty, so she simply said, “Hello.”

  She took several steps inside and almost tripped over an object on the floor directly in front of her. It gave slightly when she pushed at it with the toe of her sneaker. The fog veiled the moon glow making it difficult to see anything
with clarity. She bent and touched the object in front of her. Cloth. Clothing? Keeping herself in a flight stance, she ran her hand the length of the cloth until it reached what felt like a belt.

  A cold shudder raced through her. She backed out of the garage without turning around, and pulled the door closed behind her. He had found them, and considering what she had seen in the garage, she knew he had moved on to the house. Amy was in trouble. Without thinking, she sprinted across the driveway and yard until she reached the porch. She came to a dead stop and threw her hands out in front of her as if she were battling an invisible enemy. Her breaths came ragged and fast and she quickly felt lightheaded. The harder she tried to think, the harder thinking became. Amy needed her help. That single thought fueled her up the stairs and to the kitchen door. She reached into her pocket and pulled out Paul’s keys. She had been in such a rush to get out of the house she hadn’t grabbed anything belonging to her on the way out.

  Every minute she wasted on the porch was a minute longer he had to harm Amy if he hadn’t already. She hurried off the porch and felt around the flowerbed until she found two melon-sized rocks she had remembered seeing when they first arrived. Once back on the porch, she counted to three and hurled one of the rocks through the glass in the kitchen door, and then on the count of two, hurled the other through living room window. While reaching through the broken window, she said a prayer that Warren would hesitate between the two sounds giving her time to get into the house before he was on her.

  The kitchen door slammed against the wall behind it, and she was yanked to the floor by a hand on her wrist. Her head hit off of something solid and the room went dark.

  When she came to she was looking at Amy’s legs, her ankles taped to one of the kitchen chairs. She turned to find Warren standing over her, a gun in one hand and a smirk painted across his face.

  “Well, well,” he said as he reached for her hair.

  She grabbed it at the root as he pulled her to her feet by a fistful of hair tangled around his fingers.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “If you try anything…anything at all… I’ll kill her one vital organ at a time, and I’ll make you watch me do it. Do you understand?”

  Sali strained against him. She caught Amy’s face from the corner of her eye. Her left cheek was bruised and swollen, and her eyes were closed. Was she already dead? A guttural sound filled the room as she threw herself against him in an attempt to knock him to the floor, hopefully dislodging the gun from his hand. Instead, he yanked her to the side shoving her into the couch. She fell to the floor, his hand still wrapped in her hair. The scream she heard was her own.

  “Still don’t take instruction well, I see,” he said as he pulled her to her feet. “That was your freebie. The next one will cost you.” He took aim at Amy’s torso.

  “No!” She covered her mouth with a hand. When she pulled it away, more calmly she said, “No. I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt her anymore.”

  He lowered the gun to her side, and with a little jab at her ribs began pushing her toward the bedroom. “Good girl.” Once in the bedroom, he shoved her to the bed and closed the door behind them. “You and me… we have some unfinished business.”

  She pulled herself to a seated position, but said nothing. He flipped the light on and suddenly, she was a kid again, facing Warren, expecting the worst, and not knowing what to do to keep it from happening. Once again, she was a very active participant in a situation she had no control over. The feeling paralyzed her.

  He began to pace in front of her. His age was evident in his walk, his posture. The years away had not been kind. She mentally weighed the odds of being able to overtake him given the opportunity. When he finally spoke again, his voice had taken on a hard edge. He had transformed into the perverted father of her childhood, lording himself over his defenseless victim.

  “You ruined my life, you little bitch. I wasn’t hurting you, not really, but you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.” He leaned over her. “I should put a bullet between your eyes and be done with you, but somehow that doesn’t seem like enough to compensate for more than twenty years of my suffering.”

  He seethed and spit as he spoke, years of harbored anger spraying droplets across her face. She was repulsed and running out of time. Her situation and chance of survival deteriorated the more worked up he became.

  She had to turn the tables on him, but how?

  He opened his mouth to speak, and in a moment beyond her control she blurt out something so unexpected, so shocking, she felt as though she were standing outside the present moment looking in at it. “I want to have sex with you.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Warren - 2018

  Warren froze in place, leaning toward her with his mouth hung open. He straightened his posture slowly. Could he have heard her right, or had sleep deprivation and anticipation chosen this moment to fuck with him. He waved the gun in her direction. “What did you say?”

  “I said I want to have sex with you. I thought you’d be on board with that.”

  He turned away from her for a second to break whatever spell he felt himself falling under. When he turned back, he asked, “Why?”

  “I’m not a scared little girl anymore. I’m a grown woman who can now experience it as it should be.”

  Her voice didn’t falter. She maintained eye contact. What the hell was she doing?

  “What are you up to? Do you think I’m so goddamned stupid I’d throw it away for a piece of ass?”

  “That does seem to be a habit of yours, but no. You’re holding the gun. You’re in complete control. I just thought our story should end as it began.”

  Did she just wink? He raised the gun and pointed it at her head.

  “I’m not being facetious. It’s fact. The difference is that back then I was an onlooker whereas now, I’d be an active participant.” She lowered her head and her voice. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

  He studied her face in search of a look, a twitch, anything to betray her words. Instead, she wore the beckoning expression her mother wore each time she was looking for a trade: “I’ll give it to you if you watch the girls for me tomorrow,” “You give me what I want and I’ll give you what you want,” and her favorite, “By the way, I need money for school clothes tomorrow.”

  He backed up a step. “You’re looking to trade sex for your life. Seems to me I’m getting the short end. You weren’t that good.”

  She slid closer to the edge of the bed causing him to raise the gun again. She looked past it. “How would you know? Back then I was a scared little girl who thought you were my father, but I know better now. Now, I’m a woman with memories, memories of you, me, us, and the secret time we spent together. I wasn’t able to enjoy the time then, but that’s all changed.”

  She slid further on the bed until her feet touched the floor.

  “That’s far enough.” His tone was harsher than he had intended. “I’m not so sure about this. Why now all of a sudden? I suppose you’re going to tell me looking down the barrel of a gun makes you horny?”

  She smiled under hooded eyes. Was she trying to keep him from seeing the truth in them, or was this the adult, sexy version of Gail?

  “Are you going to deny our connection? You’re holding the gun, what are you worried about?”

  “Warren, you let Gail be.”

  Both he and Sali turned toward the window.

  “How’d you do that?” he asked.

  Sali took a half-step away from him. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “And whose blood is on your underwear? You been out whoring around on me?”

  He hurried to the window and pulled the curtain back. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Is that any way to talk to your wife. Come on, Warren. Get yourself out here and tell me who you’ve been sleeping around with.”

  Warren waved the gun erratically in front of Sali’s face. “She’s dead.”

  Sali sat on the bed a
nd pushed herself away from where he stood. “Who told you that? Mom has lived here with Aunt Katherine since you went to jail.”

  He swiped at the beads of sweat heavily dotting his brow, and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “No. No. Why would Katherine have lied?”

  “To protect her.”

  He began pacing again taking long strides across the short room.

  “Warren. I know what you’ve been doing. Annie brought Randall by today. He’s got your eyes. You come out here right this minute, or I’m going to share what I know with the police.”

  He stopped mid-step, wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, and looked from Sali to the window. “Do you think she means it? You think she really knows?” His nerves sparked, pinprick burning sensations that grew as he waited for her to answer.

  “Can you afford not to believe her?”

  He gave her words thought as he walked another circle at the foot of the bed. He waved the gun through the air as he yelled back at her. “She’s bluffing, dammit. And there you go again taking her side.”

  Sali shrugged her shoulders and leaned against the headboard.

  The muscles in his neck tensed until they hurt. “Goddam bitches. You, your mother, that Lester girl… all pains in my ass.” He returned to the window and poked an index finger at it as he spoke. “You want me to let Gail go? Huh, do you? Well then you need to come get her.”

  After several moments, he looked in the general direction of the bed. “She ain’t going to do it. All blow and no show, she ain’t going to do it. Now my old man, well, he’s a different story. You see, he never would’a called out from the darkness of the yard. No ma’am. He would’a barreled through the door and not stopped until he had me pinned in a corner, his fist in my face” He waved a hand toward the ceiling. “Yeah, that bible-thumping son-of-a-bitch knew how to get the job done.”

  “You win, Warren. We’re coming in.”

  He whirled around to meet the sound of her voice, and then turned toward the bed. “Who’s she got out there? Who’s we?”