by Ryan Schow
Breathless, nearly hyperventilating, Halden flipped the newspaper back over. He couldn’t read anymore. The enormity of this situation was not lost on him. It took a while to catch his breath, and when he did, he found himself mindlessly looking at a picture of Atlas Hargrove, the killer ex-cop. There was a large photo of him being dragged out of court by two bailiffs, both men having a hard time with the former SWAT commander.
The second Halden’s cell phone rang, he all but jumped out of his chair. The number wasn’t familiar. He picked it up anyway. “Halden Barnes,” he said, trying to project strength into his voice, a steadiness he did not feel inside.
“Your poor judgment cost Mr. Kim his life,” the man on the other end of the line said.
This scratchy, unrushed voice was the Grim Reaper scraping the blade edge of his scythe down the face of Halden’s soul. The foreboding nature of this call was not lost on him. Everything had changed. Everything. It was as if yet another cold, unnatural line of delineation had appeared. First his wife’s death, then this. Would he ever live a normal, reasonable, rational life again?
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, who you are, or how you got this number,” Halden said, clamping down on his fear, “but I’d appreciate you not calling back.”
The steady breathing, the dead calm the man must feel knowing Halden was too scared to hang up and too intrigued not to engage, was unnerving.
“Oh, you know, Mr. Barnes,” the malevolent voice said, his sadistic merriment now afoot.
Halden abruptly ended the call, set the phone on the table, then leaned away from it like it would bite him if he hung around it too long. A solitary beep indicated a new text. He sank inside. Halden didn’t want to touch the phone at first, but then he saw the text was from his daughter. He and Kaylee shared a ten-thousand-square-foot house, and he was constantly telling her if she wanted to talk when both of them were home, they could do so in person and not by text. He opened the text and saw an image of Kaylee in the shower. He didn’t know it was her at first, for she was a silhouette behind opaque glass, the details of her otherwise naked form heavily blurred. The bathroom décor was what clued him into the location.
At first, shock set in. But then a sharp, lucid fear charged forward, causing him to sit up fast. He looked to the living room, then back down at the phone. A second text came in: THIS WAS WHERE WE FOUND HER WHEN WE TOOK HER.
Shooting out of his chair, he grabbed a paring knife off the kitchen’s island and ran for the stairs. He was instantly aware of a struggle, and muffled noises coming from the staircase above.
The second Halden saw a black-clad man carrying his barely dressed daughter down the stairs, someone pressed the barrel of a gun against his ear. A gloved hand reached around and took Halden’s knife from him, prying it free after a short, halfhearted struggle.
“If you actually hear her scream, Halden,” the man with the gun said, “you won’t be able to sleep ever again.” He immediately recognized the voice he’d heard on the phone.
“I swear to God, you’d better not—” he started to say.
Kaylee wiggled around in her captor’s arms enough to sink her teeth into one of them. The thief cried out and pitched her forward, throwing Halden’s only child down the stairs. Her head and body hit the marble floor at the foot of the stairs with a dull thud. She fell completely still, her body stiff-looking, her eyes rolled up into her head. The sudden silence unnerved him.
The brute rubbed his arm where he’d been bitten. When he looked up, he locked eyes with Halden’s captor—the Grim Reaper. A second later, Grim shot this abject failure in the head. A pink mist fanned out behind him and he dropped dead, sliding lifelessly down the stairs, his face coming to a stop at the foot of the stairs.
If not for the suppressed fire, Halden might have lost the hearing in his left ear. As it were, the slight ringing did nothing to pull his eyes off Kaylee. He started to go to her, but Grim grabbed the collar of his dress shirt and yanked him back.
The tsk-tsk-tsk sounds Grim made in his ear made the situation worse. He was the cat and Halden was the mouse. Angrily, he shrugged his shoulder against Grim’s hand, tried to go to Kaylee anyway. Grim wouldn’t let him go. Halden tried to turn and get a look at him, but a hand shoved his face away.
“Let me go!” he roared.
He didn’t feel what happened next, for Grim’s reaction was swift and final. Only when Halden woke to a splitting headache did he realize he’d been pistol-whipped and laid out on the floor. The blood pooling before him, diluted and turned pink by at least a gallon of what smelled like bleach, wreaked havoc on his olfactory senses. Was this his blood? As his senses slowly returned, he realized it was not his blood; rather, he was seeing blood that had once belonged to Kaylee’s dead abductor.
Groaning, fighting against the pounding in his head, Halden struggled to sit up and look around. Curling his nose against the harsh chemical stench, he performed an internal assessment of his physical being while searching the foyer for Kaylee. She wasn’t there, nor did he expect to see her. His eyes invariably returned to the dead man who tried to take his daughter but ended up dead instead. Seeing this man in full focus, he felt his stomach buck.
The corpse was sprawled out on the floor before him. Well, what was left of him. He’d been mutilated beyond recognition. No head, no fingers, and by the look of him, no toes. This big slab of human meat was just blood, bleach and misery. He was also a hundred unanswered questions. Or perhaps he was just one question, and Kaylee was the answer. What happens when you try to burn Marcus Aetós and all his perverted friends? Your daughter is taken from you. The question and the answer. The indisputable truth.
His eyes fell to a square of cardboard staked to the dead man’s back. The handwriting on the cardboard, as well as Halden’s paring knife, came into focus. Halden crawled through some of the blood/bleach mix before leaning over and pulling out the knife. With it came the cardboard square. The body side of the cardboard was stained with blood, but the blood hadn’t seeped through entirely. On the cardboard, in ballpoint pen, someone had scrawled a message. He squinted, letting his eyes focus on the writing.
The headless man does not exist. Neither do I. You exist for now too, but that can change. Do you want Kaylee back in pieces? We can FedEx her back if you make us. We can cut her, but we can cut you, too. Is that what you want? Be smart. Live your life, and leave this thing alone, for now your debt has been settled. But all that can change. It’s up to you.
As he read the note, he felt himself spiraling, the panic rushing in, his entire being afflicted with a deep and profound sadness, and worlds of fear. Halden hurried to the nearest toilet, flipped up the lid, dropped to his knees and convulsed.
He should never have gone to William with this story. He should never have told him what he knew. But he had. And that was why—when he was done puking—he pulled himself together, washed out his mouth with Listerine, and made a call to the last person he’d thought he would ever reach out to.
“I need help,” he said the moment his call was answered.
When Halden explained what had happened in broad brushstrokes, his former friend gave him a number and said, “Just text him your name and he’ll contact you. It could be days, or hours. It’s up to him.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Halden?”
“Yes?”
“You have to pretend Kaylee is already dead or you’ll drive yourself crazy,” he said, characteristically cold. But then, in a very solemn, very heartfelt tone, he added, “As appalling as this sounds, this is how you’ll get through the day.”
“What if she’s already dead?” Halden asked, breathless.
“Then you’ll already be in the frame of mind to accept it. For your sake, despite our differences, I pray this is not the case for you.”
Chapter Six
LEOPOLD WENTWORTH
Leopold Wentworth peeled the incredibly attractive woman away from her friends for a glass
of brandy and a cigar. Sadly, he’d already forgotten her name. Not that it mattered. If things progressed between them, he’d find a way to refresh his memory. Now, on the balcony overlooking the city twenty floors down, the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder like old friends trying to decide if they were going to become lovers or just two ships docked at the same port.
She turned and said, “How’s your drink?”
He smiled and absorbed her aura. Even though he was incredibly attracted to her, he couldn’t dismiss her as a potential problem. Nowadays, if a woman didn’t put up much of a fight, or if she succumbed to one’s charms too easily, a man like Leopold would become increasingly suspicious. It was safe to say he was paranoid. And with his occupation, there was safety in paranoia, for a man as dangerous as Leopold was never without enemies.
Delighted to be with her, he lifted his glass and appraised her with a keen eye. “It’s neither the best nor the worst, but the company,” he said seductively, “well, the company is simply divine.”
Tilting her head sideways, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she said, “Look at how sweet you are.”
She sipped her drink, enjoyed her cigar, then blew a cloud of smoke into the brisk evening air. While she gazed out over the city, Leopold took in the details of her. Her dress hugged her body like a glove. Even though he enjoyed the swell of her breasts and hips, he was more interested in all the places she might conceal something untoward. At the forefront of his concerns was a recording device; after that he worried about compact weapons.
She turned those intoxicating eyes on him. “I feel you looking at me, assessing me, almost like I’m the glass of brandy you really want to drink and this is just a cheap substitute,” she said, lightly flicking the rim of her tumbler.
“I could produce one of a thousand denials, but you wouldn’t believe any of them, would you?” He casually sipped his drink.
“Depends on how convincing you are. Do you like what you see, Leopold?”
“There are dozens of women here, every bit as beautiful as you,” he said, his cunning eyes dancing with her dangerous eyes. “What I want to know is this, my dear: what makes you different? What makes you special? How are you your own perfect rose?”
“I could give you a bullet point list of personal achievements and sound like every other bimbo at this party vying for your attention,” she teased, “or we can continue drinking, and conversing, and you could find out about me along the way, in a manner less rushed, and certainly less formal.”
“If I am to admit one thing,” he countered, “it’s that I appreciate a woman on the other end of a cigar.”
“Is that a veiled dick-sucking joke?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he replied. “Men like me enjoy a sultry voice in bed. The cigar and brandy work in concert to produce such an effect.”
Studying him thoughtfully, she took the lapel of his jacket, ran her fingers underneath it and said, “What does a man like you do when a sexy stranger touches his suit? I’m imagining this jacket cost more than an average car, yes?”
“I’ll take the fifth,” he replied, coy.
“Yet here you are, letting me touch it like it’s something you pulled off the rack. Now I see you wondering about the lotions and oils I may have on my fingers, the effect they’ll have on the material.”
Inside, he felt himself smile. He was really beginning to enjoy this woman.
“I just want you to know I’m not the kind of girl who would touch a suit like yours with dirty, oily fingers. Not that I can’t do dirty. I can.”
As he watched her, she slow-walked her gaze all the way up his body, from the shoes to the pants and jacket, right up to his chin and slowly over the details of his face.
“Do you think I’m too young for you, Leopold?”
“It depends on how old you are.”
“I’m thirty-two,” she said.
He offered her an amused frown.
“Fine, thirty-six.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Forty-one?”
Now he smiled.
“We’re just twelve years apart, my dear, so I’d say no, you’re not too young for me,” Leopold replied. “Besides, I already know how old you are, I just wanted to see if you were going to be honest about it.”
“If I’d told you the truth the first time, would you have believed me?”
“I already knew the answer, so yes, but I would have been suspicious,” he said, running a strand of her hair through his fingers.
She puckered her lips, raised her chin, appraised him with needy eyes. He let go of her hair, turned to face the lights of the city below, then let the remnants of a cool, canyon breeze graze over him.
He toked on his cigar, blew out the smoke. “I think the differences between us, the ones you should be concerned about, are less age-associated and more socioeconomic.”
“Meaning?”
His phone chirped. He had a text. The message he read on the rather large screen was both invigorating and depressing. The sole reason people called that number was to give him copious amounts of money. Normally he wouldn’t mind, but with tonight’s company, he took the intrusion as a sign of fate.
“Can you hold that thought?” he asked.
“If I must,” she said, pulling her energy back, her aura visibly waning.
“Darling,” he grinned, “you must.”
He turned and gave her a hug, cheek to cheek, his hand on her lower back, drifting dangerously close to the high curve of her ass.
“You hug me like you’re not coming back,” she said, sad.
“I suppose it depends on the call.”
“Should I wait?”
He saw hints of desperation which he took as compliments. “Why don’t you head back inside and mingle? I’ll find you when I’m done.”
“What if someone else finds me first?” she asked, not exactly teasing, but perhaps gauging his interest in her before saying yes to lesser fare.
He smiled, looked deep into her eyes and liked what he saw. He skimmed her features, taking in the finer points of her makeup before returning to her eyes. “It’s not who finds you, love, it’s who you pick, and that is entirely up to you.”
“Why do I get the feeling that the choice is mine most days, but today it’s yours?”
“Because you’re a smart woman. You’re also every man’s desire. So much so that I’d say you’re always in the driver’s seat of your life. Just not with me. And not today.”
He leaned forward, kissed her lightly on the cheek.
“I’m not sure how to take that.”
“Tonight, to some degree, I choose your fate, not you.”
“And are you choosing me?”
“Not yet,” he replied. He touched her arm, slid down the smooth line of skin and took her hand into his. “There’s something about you I find invigorating and delightful.”
“For any other man, that would be enough.”
Letting go of her hand, he began pulling away from her. “Be a good girl and go mingle.” She made a sad face, almost like she was twenty and trying to be cute. Frowning, he said, “Oh, come on now, you’re too old for that kind of a face.”
And with that, he left her for quieter quarters. When he was alone, he dialed the number, unable to stop thinking about her and that bedroom voice she’d promised him. The taste of brandy and cigar smoke on a woman’s mouth was an acquired one, but then again, so was everything new and unusual when you had everything you ever wanted.
Well, almost everything…
“You picked a most inopportune time to leave a message,” Leopold said to the man who answered.
“For that, I apologize. My name is Halden Barnes and I was given this number by a friend. He did so in confidence, of course.”
Leopold placed the multibillionaire’s name, immediately regretting the brisk edge to his tone. “Good evening, Mr. Barnes. It’s no problem at all. What exactly can I do for you?”
�
�If you’ve chosen a bad time for yourself,” Halden said, a clipped edge to his voice, “perhaps you could choose another. I can always find a way to fit you in.”
Leopold grinned. Even in need of his unique services, the multibillionaire knew his station in life—far above Leopold’s caste, for sure. If the two of them compared bank accounts, Leopold knew he’d come up short. So short, in fact, it would be laughable.
“I’ve stepped away from company,” Leopold said, “so right now you have my full attention.”
“She must have been beautiful,” Halden replied, his instincts on point but his vernacular slightly off-kilter.
“Depending on the length of this conversation, I have time to step back into that particular fold. But should this carry on too long, I’m certain I’ll be sacrificing an otherwise delightful evening to scratch an itch.”
“I’ll get right to the point, then. I have a problem, and I’m told you’re a man with solutions.”
“I’m not a fixer.”
“And yet I need something fixed.”
“This little dance we’re doing,” Leopold said, “I’d expect it from someone of lesser means, perhaps this young lady I’m almost courting…”
“A man like you is moved by money and justice, are you not?”
“I am,” Leopold said.
“Then forget about that piece of ass you have cooling in the corner, and understand that when I tell you what has happened—and how generous I can be when it comes to compensation—you can forgo your more carnal desires for a conversation that’s as long or as short as I want it to be.”
He swallowed hard, marveled at the turn of events. He’d just gone from being in charge to being told what to do.
“I understand,” he heard himself say.
That was when Halden spoke, sparing no detail, letting Leopold know exactly what he was getting into with this case. When Halden was done telling him about Kaylee and the headless cretin lying dead on his marble floor, he said, “I can send someone to clean up the body right away.”
