by Harvey, JM
Victoria flung the door open on an inferno.
The heat almost knocked her down. Every surface in the room was engulfed. The desk was a bonfire, the walls and bookshelves curtains of flame, but the worst of it was Herby himself. He had been doused in gasoline. Flames rose from his scalp like a road flare, leaking a greasy column of smoke that smelled like burning chorizo. She jerked her gaze off Herby and looked toward the open hallway door, fifteen feet away. Fifteen feet that was a wall of fire. She’d never make it! She’d be burned alive. And what if she did reach the hallway? It, too, was on fire, a corridor of flames. Her eyes leapt to the window behind Herby’s desk. Eight feet away. It was her only chance…
Victoria turned and jerked a parka off of the rack behind her. It was big enough for three of her, more tent than coat. She spun it around, held it up in front of her face and charged out of the closet, heading straight at the window.
The pain was instantaneous. Fire licked up around her legs, singeing her toes and calves like raw chicken as she crossed the space like a bottle rocket, leaping at the last moment, the parka held up over her head.
She hit the window head on, crashing through the glass and diving over the lintel like a swimmer coming off a low-board, her arms wrapped around her head. She hit the patio headfirst then somersaulted end over end, her elbows and knees ratcheting off the bricks, ending in a heap, still entangled in the parka. But she didn’t shrug the coat off; she just lay there under it, sucking greedy breaths through the musty fabric, too weak to move.
Unfortunately, the crash of breaking glass had not gone unnoticed. She hadn’t been lying on the bricks for more than a half-minute when the coat was ripped off of her by Garland Sutton.
“Well, looky, looky,” he said amiably, staring at her down the barrel of a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun. She recognized Garland from the TV interviews he had given during the civil trial that had netted Abby Sutton three million dollars and Valentine a lifetime of recriminations. On TV, Garland had looked like slick-talking preacher with his hard eyes, shiny hair and silk suits, but he didn’t look much like a preacher now. His jeans were dirty, his hair was wild and his eyes were bloodshot. The only thing clean about him was the gleaming barrel of the chopped-down shotgun.
Victoria wilted against the bricks. She had faced death multiple times in the last three days, but in that moment she knew that her luck had finally run out.
“What the hell is going on?” Laroy Hockley called out from the far end of the patio, out of Victoria’s sight.
Garland kept his eyes on her. “This bitch was hiding in the closet,” he said in his deadpan, east Texas drawl. “She went flying out the window when I lit the place up.”
“What? A woman?” Laroy asked, his voice coming closer.
“My guess is she’s a hooker. A little afternoon dee-light. You know ol’ Herby.” Garland winked at Victoria, but his eyes were as ruthless and empty as the shotgun’s bore. “What say, honey, you a working girl?” he asked, his eyes skimming over her from head to toe, lingering on the good parts. When his eyes stopped on her face again they held the naked, predatory gaze of a rapist.
Victoria made no reply, but her heart thudded into a higher gear. She took in a deep. shuddering breath and then another and another, pumping oxygen into her brain, trying to clear her head as she balled her fists and drew her knees in tight. Garland Sutton would have to kill her before she’d let him touch her.
Even as she prepared for the last fight of her life, Victoria was aware of the sound of footsteps padding down the bricks, coming nearer, but she didn’t take her eyes off Garland until Laroy Hockley appeared at the old man’s shoulder.
The skin around Laroy’s eyes went tight and his hands turned into fists but he didn’t say anything; he just stared down at her, the muscles in his jaw knotted.
“I say we take her back to my place and put some questions to her,” Garland suggested then winked at her. “She probably don’t know anything, but that’ll just make the questioning more fun.”
Laroy made no reply to that; he just kept staring at Victoria.
Laroy was dressed casually, in a pink polo shirt and faded canvas shorts. He had boat shoes on his feet and skintight elastic gloves on his hands. A pistol was clipped to his belt in a quick-draw holster. He looked like a yuppie heading out for an afternoon sail, except for the gloves and the pistol.
“Hello Victoria,” he said wearily.
“What happened to you, Laroy?” Victoria replied, the words coming in an unbidden rush. “What have you done?” She blushed at the plaintive tone of her voice, the disappointed note of a teenage girl. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t juxtapose the boy she had known with the murderer standing before her. Her memories of Laroy had been tarnished by the night he had gone too far, but much of the two years that they had dated remained precious to her. Years that had seen her make her first moves toward adulthood. Her first drink; her first openly rebellious arguments with her disapproving father; her first time with a man. All of those events had included Laroy.
Laroy didn’t get a chance to reply to her question.
“You know this bitch?” Garland asked in confusion.
Laroy nodded. “Victoria Justice.”
Garland’s face went through a comical series of changes as the name hit home. “You shitting me?” he said. “Justice? This is his wife? The lady lawyer?”
Laroy nodded again. “Felony Trial Division Chief Victoria Justice.”
A wide smile slowly spread across Garland’s face, revealing prison dentures as white and even as fence posts. “Well that might work out just fine,” he said happily. “I kind of owe that son of a bitch a murder or two. But first, I say we make her pull the train.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Laroy snapped.
Victoria could see the wheels turning behind Laroy’s eyes. The calculations. Figuring the angles. There were no painful remembrances, no compassion for old loves. “She could be worth fifteen million to us alive.”
So that was why Laroy was here with Garland: he was after the money.
Jesus, wasn’t everyone?
Garland thought about that then nodded slowly. “Why, that just might be the smartest thing I’ve heard you say all day,” he said. His eyes skimmed over her body one more time and her skin crawled. “Ain’t a female thing in this world worth fifteen million dollars, but I admit I’d pay a pretty penny for a taste of her myself.”
“You’re not going to get away with this,” Victoria said as she instinctively slipped into the familiar role of a prosecutor facing a felon. “Too many people have died,” she kept her eyes on Garland, making them hard. “You’ve left a blood trail that leads right to your door, Sutton. You’ll die on the table down at Huntsville.”
Garland laughed. “Your husband will be riding the lightning, not me. I—”
“Shut up, Garland,” Laroy said.
Garland’s expression went pinched and mean, but he snapped his mouth closed.
“Why are you here?” Laroy asked her. “Were you following me?”
“Why did you kill Herby?” she asked in reply, holding his gaze, not backing off. She had lived her life on both feet; she’d die the same way.
“This isn’t show and tell,” he said, “What are you doing here?”
Victoria shook her head. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
Laroy nodded. “But there are good ways of dying and bad ways,” he pointed out. “Tell us where the money is and I’ll make it quick.”
Raw rage slashed straight through the fear Victoria was feeling, blasting it away in the space of a breath.
“There is no money,” she snapped. “All you’re going to get out of this is a death sentence. I’ll make damned sure of that, Laroy.”
Garland laughed. “You’ll be in a box by sundown, pretty lady. But I’m gonna work you like a racehorse first. I’m gonna—”
“Shut up,” Laroy said, turning angry eyes on Garland.
Garland g
lared back and the shotgun’s aim drifted from Victoria to Laroy’s belly.
But Laroy wasn’t scared. He glanced contemptuously at the twelve-gauge and said, “We don’t have time for this old man. Lower that snake-charmer and hand me her purse.” Laroy pointed at Victoria’s handbag lying on the patio at Garland’s feet. She didn’t even remember carrying it through the window.
Garland took a long cud-chewing moment to think about that, but finally he nodded shortly.
“All right,” he said. “For now.” He lowered the shotgun, stooped and snatched up the purse. He handed it to Laroy.
Laroy popped open her purse and pawed through it for a moment, pitching her compact and makeup case, hairbrush and wallet to the bricks. Finally he just turned the bag over and dumped the remaining contents. Lipstick, comb, checkbook, baby lotion, loose change and her cell phone all showered down. Laroy toed the mess around, obviously looking for something and not finding it. Finally he looked up at Garland.
“We’re taking her with us,” he said and produced a set of handcuffs from his pocket.
“I’m not going anywhere—” Victoria began, but Laroy was fast. He ducked down, grabbed her elbow, flipped her over on her face and dropped his knee into her back, knocking the breath from her lungs. He pinned her to the patio, wrenched her right hand up behind her back, snapped on a cuff, and then repeated the procedure with her left.
Laroy stood and looked at Garland. “Take her to the car,” he said. “Gag her and put her in the trunk. I’ll light up the second floor and meet you in the alley.”
“Yowza, boss,” Garland said. “Anything else you want me to do? Shine your shoes? Shake your pecker for you after you take a piss?”
“Damn it Garland,” Laroy lost his cool again, “just take her to the car!” He turned, trotted down the patio and disappeared through the kitchen door without waiting for a reply.
“Prick,” Garland muttered at Laroy’s back then looked down at Victoria.
“Get on your feet,” he said and gave her a sharp toe in the ribs. When Victoria still didn’t respond quickly enough, Garland ducked down, grabbed the chain between the handcuffs and jerked her to her feet, almost wrenching her shoulders from their sockets. The old man was strong, Victoria noted as she bit back a yelp of pain. She was no lightweight, but Garland had hauled her up one handed.
“Move it,” he said and shoved her down the patio. He prodded her along with the barrel of the shotgun, jabbing her kidneys with every step. She paused for the briefest of moments at the kitchen door and looked inside. Smoke drifted out through the gap accompanied by the crackling sound of the growing fire. Garland wasn’t happy with the delay; he rammed the shotgun into her spine. Victoria stumbled and almost went down, but managed to regain her footing by doing a drunken pirouette, not an easy task with her hands cuffed behind her back. That’s when she saw a man coming over the privacy fence dividing Herby’s backyard from the one next door.
The guy had a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and a black kerchief tied over the bottom half of his face. A long-barreled pistol was in his right hand. He dropped lithely to the bricks and trotted almost silently down the patio, heading for her and Garland like a guided missile. The pistol in his hand came up in one smooth motion as he neared them, the barrel extended by a perforated silencer that made the small gun almost a foot long.
Garland had his back to the fence, his concentration fixed on her, he never saw the gun or the man wielding it, but he heard something at the last second and started to turn. Too late. The shooter touched the barrel of the silencer to the skin behind Garland’s ear and pulled the trigger.
The gun made a flat ‘pop’ that barely broke the hot stillness of the backyard and Garland’s head snapped sideways like he had been hit with a hammer. Two more ‘pops’ followed the first like a short string of firecrackers, each one knocking Garland’s head further and further to the left. But Garland didn’t go down immediately. He stayed on his feet for a protracted moment, blood leaking from the three small holes in the side of his skull, his expression one of deep confusion. Then his knees buckled and he lost his grip on the shotgun. It clattered to the bricks and Garland followed it down, landing on his back, his legs tucked up under him.
Victoria looked up quickly, fearfully, at the shooter, wondering if she was next, but he was already walking past her, heading for the kitchen door, moving fast and quiet. He stopped halfway through the doorway and looked back over his shoulder at her. Only a narrow sliver of his face was visible between the brim of the cap and the top of the kerchief, enough to make out that he was probably Hispanic or Asian.
“I’ll be right back,” he said and disappeared.
Ten seconds later gunfire came from inside the house. Two distinctive weapons, the low popping sounds that she recognized as the shooter’s silenced pistol followed by the roar of four large caliber rounds. One of the kitchen windows exploded and two bullets punched splintering holes through the kitchen wall, just feet from Victoria’s head. She leapt to the left as three more soft pops were followed by another four booming shots. Then silence.
The quiet lasted for several moments before the cicadas in the shrubbery started chirring, first one then a hundred of them, shrilly signaling the ‘all clear,’ but Victoria knew better. She was considering which way to run when the shooter reappeared in the kitchen doorway.
“He got away,” the man said, his voice disembodied behind the kerchief. He crossed the bricks to stand in front of her. “Turn around,” he told her as he tucked the pistol into his waistband and pulled his T-shirt down over it.
Wordlessly, Victoria did as she was told. The man’s hands worked at the cuffs for a second and she was suddenly free. He tucked the handcuffs into his back pocket, stooped, swept her possession into her purse, stood, and handed her the handbag.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He seemed to consider the question for a moment, but when he spoke he didn’t answer it.
“You all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “Who are you?” she asked again.
“An old friend of your husband’s,” he said with a chuckle. “Get out of here. And forget you ever saw me.” He turned and headed back the way he had come, vaulting himself easily over the ten foot privacy fence, disappearing like smoke.
Victoria looked down at Garland. A fly landed on one of the tiny wounds in the dead man’s head, its mandibles working greedily. Another fly buzzed in beside the first. The dinner bell had just been rung.
In the distance a siren wailed. Victoria turned away and hurried around the side of the house.
51
Valentine turned into the driveway in front of his home and parked in the shade of the pecan trees that dominated the front yard, his thoughts churning. He had accomplished nothing that day. He was still a target for a pair of psychopaths. Still a danger to his own family.
With the air conditioner off, the Mustang’s interior started to heat up fast, but he made no move to exit the car. He was dreading the silence of the empty house. The boys were a non-stop soundtrack of babble and shouts, laughter and tears. You got used to it and, pretty soon, you couldn’t live without it. He rolled the window down, but that didn’t help the temperature much. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and still he sat there, his thoughts shifting from the twins back to the money. And the gold coins.
He couldn’t shake the thought that it had to be close to the Suttons’ last hideout. Mentally, he walked back through the house once again, then let his mind wander the neighboring streets, all ground that had been thoroughly covered by cops, insurance investigators and citizens with metal detectors. But other thoughts intruded. Flashes of memories from the basement. The blood and bodies. The smells of burning gasoline from the chainsaw. Of blood and feces—
And that’s when it hit him. He shot up straight in his seat. He knew where the money was. He was almost certain. The one spot that no one would have looked…
“I need a shove
l,” he said aloud, thinking fast. There wasn’t more than a couple of hours of daylight left, and he’d need every bit of it for what he intended to do. He reached for the door handle, but reaching was as far as he got before a circle of cold steel touched him on the back of his sweaty neck.
Val jumped so hard his head hit the Mustang’s roof. He knew instantly that the spot of cold was a pistol barrel and that he was dead, but that knowledge didn’t slow his gun hand down. He had the .45 out and was working the safety when Deputy Henry Erath spoke, his breath humid in Val’s ear.
“You’re fast, Vicious, but you ain’t faster than a bullet,” he said like a TV show cop. But his gun was real enough. “Drop the pistol or your next stop will be the county morgue.”
Val froze, the .45 at chest level, his mind spinning through the options. Every conceivable scenario ended with his brains splattered across the dash. Slowly he flipped the .45’s safety, relaxed his fingers and let the pistol drop. It hit his thigh then thumped to the carpet at his feet.
“Out of the car,” Erath said, “Slowly. Use your right hand to open the door.”
Val did as he was instructed. He popped the door open then eased out of the car. Keeping his hands out wide, fingers splayed, he turned to face Erath, who was backing away, his gun at hip level, tight to his body just in case Val got stupid. But Val had no intentions of making a move. Erath had an easy way with the pistol that suggested much practice, Val had little doubt that he’d be shot to doll rags before he could take a step.
“Come toward me slowly,” Erath said, crooking a finger at Val, as he continued to back away, out into the sunshine, his pistol leveled on Val’s belly.
Val silently did as instructed.
“Stop right there,” Erath commanded as Val emerged from the shadows of the trees, the head-on glare of the setting sun almost blinding him. But, even with the sun in his face, he could still see one of the Special Tactics Unit’s black Suburbans parked at the curb. There were no other cops in sight and no regular people either. The street was somnolent in the early evening heat; everyone with any sense was hunkered in front of their air conditioner.
