by Jim Heskett
To hell with caution.
Layne leaps over the suitcases, fast-walking toward Elijah. Many of the onlookers have returned to focusing on themselves and their problems, but a few still follow with curious apprehension. Layne no longer cares.
The man has almost reached the front sliding glass doors. In his forward hand, he holds a valet ticket, headed straight for the man in the velvet jacket standing at the podium out front. Layne can see the intensity in his eyes. Elijah probably thinks if he can engage the valet, then he’s home free.
Layne exits the front door just as Elijah hands his ticket to the younger man. Layne pulls right up behind him, standing only six inches back. He sticks the hunting knife into Elijah’s back. With one hand on the target’s shoulder, Layne gives the tip of the blade enough pressure to tear Elijah’s shirt, but not enough to draw blood. Not yet. Not here.
Layne also sucks his upper lip into his mouth, a trick he learned from his brother years ago. He does this to alter the shape of his face, since he knows he’s going to have to speak to the valet. It makes his nose flatter and his upper lip seem smaller. A tiny change, but one Layne knows will make working with a sketch artist challenging, in case this goes south.
“We’ll be right back for that car,” Layne says to the valet. “Can you watch the bag, please?”
Elijah opens his mouth to protest, but Layne jerks him toward the side of the hotel. The valet raises an eyebrow, but soon he’s busy helping the next hotel guest retrieve their car. Layne keeps an eye on him, and the kid doesn’t give them a second look. As far as Layne can tell, he’s not suspicious.
Elijah tries to break free, but Layne’s momentum escorts the man around the side of the building, through a raised garden and then toward a fenced-in area marked Maintenance. On this side of the hotel, there are people walking around, carrying drinks from the nearest beach bar, snapping pictures. But no one is near the maintenance section, which has a chain-link fence, but with plastic slats inserted through the chain links to shield the inside of the caged area.
Layne stows the knife and grips Elijah by the arm. The target tries to twist away, but Layne stomps the heel of his tennis shoe on the man’s foot, causing him to stumble with a gurgling whimper. But not loud enough to attract attention.
Ahead, there’s a gate with an electrified fence around the enclosed area to the side. With his free hand, Layne removes the metal garrote and flicks it at the control box. It sizzles, and the electricity winks out. But not all of it, apparently, as Layne can see lights on in the resort’s windows above.
A quick glance around shows no surprise from the nearest passersby. Everyone too concerned with their own vacations to worry about the weird guys on the other side of the garden.
Layne opens the gate and pushes Elijah inside the fenced-in area. Probably sixty seconds until resort staff arrive to see why the power went out. Hopefully, this won't take that long.
Layne shoves Elijah away, then draws the knife.
“I’m innocent,” Elijah says.
“Is that right? Then how come you aren’t screaming for someone to come rescue you right now?”
Elijah sputters, his eyes searching the area. Probably with escape on his mind. “I don’t know who you are, but—”
“But you knew why I was there, the second you saw me, didn’t you? You knew exactly what you did to make me come calling. You’ve probably been waiting for someone like me. Am I wrong?”
“Look, whatever they told you about me, it’s not true… I’m a businessman, not a monster. I’m not doing anything that’s not already being done. If you kill me, people are just going to find someone else to provide them with the same service I do. You’ll barely make a scratch on the industry.”
With gritted teeth, Layne can’t argue the bastard’s point. He knows eliminating Elijah is barely a drop in the proverbial bucket.
But he still has to do it. This man still deserves to pay for what he’s done. Not only that, it’s still Layne’s job, at least for now. Until Layne hangs up his pistols for good, this is how he earns his paycheck.
Elijah adopts a pleading look. “Just let me go. Don’t make me an example, or a symbol. I’m just a guy. One of hundreds.”
“Doesn’t matter, man,” Layne says, “because you will never be able to hurt anyone else again.”
“But—“
Layne doesn’t give him a chance to finish. He’s supposed to make it look like an accident, but he’s changed his mind. Other traffickers should know about this man’s death. It should be a warning to them, despite the target’s pleas to the contrary.
He slashes the blade across the Elijah’s neck. Immediately after, he untucks the man’s shirt and lifts it over his head, to keep blood from squirting on Layne’s nice rehearsal dinner clothes.
Now, Layne has to make a quick decision. The plan had been to kill Elijah in his room, where he could have been dumped into the garbage chute. But out here, there is no such easy disposal. Back on the mainland, Layne’s boss Daphne has limitless ways to clean up a dead body. Not here. Too many tourists between this caged area and the ocean to go that way. Too many people on the southern side to attempt moving a body into the trees.
And, with resort staff incoming, Layne has no choice but to use what he has at hand. He has to leave without doing a full evidence check.
His eyes search the nearby area for anything he might have touched. He thinks about the bellhop, wondering if the kid got a good look at either him or Elijah. Maybe the lip-change and baseball cap hasn’t been enough of a mask.
Doesn’t matter. Time is up.
Layne collects his tools and sprints away from the area, back toward the resort where he will marry Inessa tomorrow. On the way back, he finds a single spot of blood on the inner thigh of his pants. No time to change, but if he keeps his legs together as much as possible, no one will notice.
Layne slows as he nears the rear courtyard, so people won’t see his pumping shoulders and ruddy face. He works on his cover story for a few seconds—upset stomach, slight fever to explain the sweat, but he’s feeling much better now.
Layne tells the story a couple times as he meanders through the crowd, back to the table. There’s an empty seat next to his future wife, where she offers a guarded smile at his return.
32
The snow that day fell as it always did: light at first. Light enough, and for long enough, that it seemed like it might not be a heavy storm. But, by mid-afternoon, Winnie Caldwell knew there was a big one coming. The kind where she would feel her roof creaking at night from the weight of the snow.
She drove north of town toward the Colorado Western Slope Big Cat Sanctuary, with her gun in the passenger seat. The weather concerned her. Not because of what it would do to the roads, but more of what it would do to her driving. Winnie was drunk. She’d been hitting the adult beverages a little too hard today, and now she was operating heavy machinery.
Winnie knew driving drunk was bad. She fully accepted that idea to her core. But, in her experience, driving successfully when drunk could be achieved, with adherence to a few specific rules. One, don’t drive drunk when suffering from a lack of sleep, or when on any pain medications.
Also, eliminate distractions while driving. For example, she never listened to the car stereo when tipsy.
She felt fine, though. Perfectly fine. Her vision felt laser-clear, her hearing seemed honed, and her thoughts clicked along like a diesel engine on a track. Full speed ahead.
Ideas popped off like firecrackers inside her brain. Too many to count.
This snow storm was a distraction she didn’t need, though. When half her vision turned to white, she knew the roads would soon become a soppy, frozen mess. And she had a funny feeling the washer fluid would run out soon. The little dashboard light hadn’t turned on yet, but she knew it was coming. Only a matter of time.
Still, Winnie drove. It had to be done. And she felt fine. Perfectly fine.
Her eyes kept flicking to th
e revolver sitting next to a loose pile of mail from yesterday she had yet to open. This needed to be done. The Big Cat people sent their razor-toothed lawyers after the town of Shotgun with no remorse. Week after week of verbal and paper-based assault to keep the screws turned. None of Winnie’s humanitarian appeals had made a lick of difference. She’d asked Jordan to look into it, but she hadn’t heard a word from him since then.
Maybe now, she needed to get serious. If Winnie stood up and fought for her town, would the sanctuary see reason? Probably not with words. Probably not a stern letter asking for relief, either. No, they had progressed way past the point of all the nicey-nicey babble with each other, and it was time for action.
Bold action.
Maybe a bullet to the head of a tiger would make them see reason.
Even thinking that made Winnie realize it was a crazy idea, but it also seemed like the only thing left on the table. Something they could not ignore, and would make them see Shotgun and Mayor Winnie Caldwell deserved to be taken seriously.
Part of her knew this had no chance of working. Part of her knew she wasn’t the sort of person to murder a sentient creature. This action would culminate with her going to jail, becoming a news story people shared around social media as a funny anecdote. A few hours of minor internet fame, then done.
But the other options had been exhausted.
This had to be done.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to pull the trigger. She hoped she didn’t have to pull the trigger. Maybe if they really believed she intended to do it, then she wouldn’t have to. The threat of violence might be enough.
It could work.
She arrived at Colorado Western Slope Big Cat Sanctuary to find it unusually quiet. While she knew the summer months were the busiest, it didn’t even seem as if the place had opened today. A desolate parking lot, plus all the electronic signs were dark and dormant.
She checked the time on the dashboard clock. It was still within business hours, so why the barren concrete desert out front?
Winnie parked at the circle drive near the office. These people knew her car, and they should have come rushing out already. Winnie’s newest version of the plan—as admittedly weak as it was—would be to wave her gun around and threaten to shoot one of the tigers through the cages. If they didn’t take her seriously, then she would actually do it. Maybe.
But her plan hit a snag when no one came rushing out to greet her. Where was everybody?
Winnie stashed the revolver in her purse, slung her purse over her shoulder, and left the car. The world had a sort of eerie green glow to it. A quiet voice inside her said that the green glow wasn’t real, but it certainly felt real. There were other little extra bits of foodle faddle in her sensory information, like strange noises and smells and little pinpricks on her skin. She didn’t know how much of it was real. Some of it, sure. But probably not all of it.
Sucking deep breaths to calm herself, she took a few steps toward the office, and then noted something out of the corner of her eye. The padlock over the main employee entrance to the cages was not locked. Someone had forgotten to tend to it.
How could that be possible? Why were there no sounds of conversation anywhere?
Winnie couldn’t resist satiating her curiosity. She opened the outer gate, which led to a complex system of hallways created by chain-link fences. Like a glass maze at a state fair. She navigated through the maze, opening gates to reach the heart of the grounds’ power: the security building. She didn’t know why she was headed there, but it seemed like a place that would contain answers. Secrets. Something unbearably strange had happened here, but her brain couldn’t put it together.
And since there was no one else here, she might as well see what she could find in their office.
As she navigated through the gate system, she saw a lion sitting out in his enclosure, watching her. He seemed content to let the snow gather on his back as he hunkered down. But his eyes stayed locked on her with every step.
Winnie stopped and faced him. He was on the other side of the fence, about fifty feet away. Perched, quiet, but capable of sudden violence. A threat.
She pointed her gun at him, to see if the lion would react. No perceptible change.
“Do it,” she growled at herself. “Pull the trigger. This lion would kill and eat you, if he had the chance. Show them you’re serious.”
Her finger touched the trigger, and she gave it a little pressure. Not enough to fire. She told herself to squeeze, to do it do it do it do it…
But she couldn’t do it. Arm extended, finger on the trigger, she couldn’t make the pad of her index finger flex.
So, she lifted the gun a few inches higher, closed her eyes, and squeezed. The blast of the gun made her yelp. She knew the shot would miss high, but she wanted to see if she could do it.
When she opened her eyes, she saw the lion spring to his feet and scurry away, toward the eastern side of his enclosure.
Where the gate was open.
Winnie gasped. “Is this real?”
She squinted, unsure if her eyes were playing tricks. The snow was thicker now, just as she’d prophesied. Falling in splintered sheets of white.
But that gate definitely looked open. Not an illusion.
The lion entered the chain link hallway maze, a hundred direct feet away, but six or seven turns from reaching Winnie, if he did come in her direction. If she stayed right here, he would find his way through the maze in another minute.
And now she noticed there were more lions in that enclosure. She could see four or five, but it was hard to tell for sure through the blanket of snow.
Either way, there was nothing between her and at least one lion except for a chain-link fence that suddenly felt woefully inadequate.
Where was everyone?
“This can’t be happening,” she said as she turned toward the Security building. She knew better than to run, which would activate the animal’s prey drive. But she did walk with purpose, eyes wide open, suddenly feeling extremely sober. Sober and alert with alarms blaring all over the inside of her head.
“Hello?” she called at the top of her lungs. No answer.
When she reached the Security building, all the lights were off and the doors were locked. She didn’t care at all about her espionage mission any longer. Now, she had to get away from these damn cats. Something had gone seriously wrong around here, and every passing second put her closer to a panic attack.
Winnie pivoted toward the main building and broke out into a sprint. She had a clear stretch of concrete between her and her destination. Somewhere, a cat made a gurgling grunt of a roar, but she didn’t see anything over her shoulder.
When she reached a side door, she jerked it back. “Hey!” she yelled before she could even see inside. When her eyes settled a little, she noted shelving with various goods and carpet underfoot. She had opened the door to a gift shop. Dark. Cash registers unlit. Cute and furry stuffed cats looked down on her from their perches along the metal shelves.
“Where are all the people? Someone has to help gets these cats back in their enclosures.”
No answer. No motion at all anywhere inside the building that she could see.
Winnie broke out into a dash. She moved through the obstacle course of the gift shop, then into a circular room. An empty museum area with placards on the walls and paper mache cats in various poses around the room.
And that’s when Winnie’s eyes drifted down to the pool of blood, and then the body.
She didn’t know his name, but she remembered the face. A Latino man who’d had a patch of acne-scarred skin in one particular spot on his cheek, but the rest of his face had been blemish-free. One of the sanctuary’s security team. He was dead on the floor next to an exhibit about cats in Africa. A trail of blood led around the corner.
Her shaking hands raised the pistol, and it felt like a million pounds weighing down her grip.
Winnie followed the trail of blood to a larger room near t
he front entrance. In this room, she found half a dozen employees of the BCS, dead on the floor in a haphazard pile. In the mess of red, Winnie couldn’t tell where one body ended, and another began.
No one here could help Winnie return the cats to their cages. No one could help her at all. Someone had slaughtered the entire human population at the Big Cat Sanctuary.
Part III
Jellicle Cats
33
After emerging from the mine with nothing to show for it, Layne drove back toward town. There had to be a way to find the rest of the buried cable in the mine. But, then again, maybe it wasn’t important. Maybe the cable had nothing to do with anything, and Layne needed to focus his efforts on tracking and exposing the Disciples in town.
Or focus on bringing Keegan’s killer to justice.
Or maybe tracking the cable meant everything. Layne had a feeling that he only had to locate the right domino to flick, and the rest would fall into place. If Layne found satisfaction for Keegan, it would come as a package deal.
Maybe following the cable would lead him to an underground cave with oodles of methamphetamine production equipment. Then a single grenade would cripple their operation. But inside the mine, the cable had disappeared into a wall, which meant he would have to find its trail somewhere else in those collapse-prone tunnels. He didn’t like that option at all, but he might not have a better one.
By now, the sun was setting and heavy snow tumbled from the sky. Based on the consistency, Layne expected at least a foot of new accumulation tonight. The snow didn’t bother him at all, since his cabin in the southwest of Colorado also lived at eight thousand-ish feet, so he was used to the high elevation’s six months of winter.
As he started down the mountain pass leading to town, he saw his dad’s cabin out of the corner of his eye. The kitchen light was on, and instinct told Layne to pull in. Part of it was sheer muscle memory, as he had driven this route enough times that not turning into the cabin would’ve felt odd.
