Simon Wood

by Accidents Waiting to Happen

  Bell coughed and flecks of blood speckled her mouth and chin and landed on Josh's face. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "I need to tell you."

  "Only if you have to, but it doesn't matter now."

  "I'm HIV positive."

  A blow, as powerful as the one to the back of his head, slammed him. His arm trembled around Bell's shoulders in shock. He stared at the pool at his feet, teeming with the killer virus. It was invisible to the human eye, but it was there. He was kneeling in poison.

  This woman's blood had the most devastating disease of the last thirty years. He'd had unprotected sex with this woman.

  Am I infected? Is Kate infected? Abby? His thoughts scared him. The ramifications of his possible contraction of HIV were horrific. His death sentence would be the death sentence of the people he loved.

  "I was diagnosed in San Diego. I was never going to tell you, but..." Her final words trailed off before she finished them.

  He held another dead woman in his arms. He withdrew his arm from around her and got to his feet. His shoes made sticking noises on the vinyl. He turned to leave.

  "I'd prefer if you stayed for a while, Josh."

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  James Mitchell stepped out from the shadows, a gun in his hand. "A murdered woman and that blood all over you. That wasn't very smart, was it now?"

  "I suppose you killed her," Josh said.

  Josh wasn't only angry with Mitchell for killing Bell, but with himself. It had never occurred to him that Mitchell was at the core of this carnage, but it should have.

  "Why did you kill her?"

  "Because I need her for this." Mitchell waved the gun in the direction of the slaughter. "To make your murder more convincing. It would be totally understandable if your blackmailing ex-mistress confessed your sins to the TV news and your wife, driving you to kill her in a fit of rage. Makes total sense. Don't you think?"

  "How did you know her?"

  "Oh, Bell and I have become, or I should say had become, good friends. We had a lot in common--you, for instance." Mitchell jabbed the gun at Josh. "She was pissed at you for dumping her. A lot of unresolved issues there."

  "And you call that resolved?" Josh pointed at Bell's corpse.

  "You could say that. You two certainly had a touching farewell." Mitchell cut Josh off before he asked another question. "What I need before we go any further is for your fingerprints to be on that knife handle. Then I can get all this wrapped up."

  "What if I don't?" Josh asked. It was a feeble attempt at resistance, nothing more than a schoolyard boast lacking any power or muscle to support it.

  "I'll shoot you, drag you over there and stick your hand on the knife."

  Josh studied the floor. It wasn't much of a choice.

  The killer would shoot him anyway. It was just a matter of when. He could either make the hit man's job easy or difficult.

  "Why did you kill Jenks?"

  Mitchell laughed and shook his head like he'd heard an old joke for the hundredth time. "That wasn't his real name. He was a competitor of mine employed to do my job. Career infighting--you know how it is."

  Josh didn't. He had no concept of what internal conflicts were encountered in the professional killing industry.

  Nor did he want to.

  Mitchell's tone turned cold. "And I'll be damned if one of my contracts will be taken away from me.

  That's why I killed Jenks. You were lucky you got away, otherwise both of you would have made it on the six o'clock news."

  Josh had guessed right about Mitchell's intent to kill him along with Jenks, and it still made his gut churn.

  Another realization did little to help settle his troubled stomach. If he hadn't fled the derelict factories, Bell wouldn't be dead. There would have been no reason to kill her. She'd been a bitch, but she hadn't deserved to die so violently. Was his life more valuable than Bell's?

  Was it better he lived and she died? Only if he lived through this night and stopped Mitchell from killing anyone else. It was also the only way he could ever forgive himself for Mark Keegan and Margaret Macey's deaths. Josh couldn't let himself be the victim tonight.

  "I don't see your fingerprints on that knife yet,"

  Mitchell said.

  "So, who's your employer--Pinnacle Investments?"

  "Yes."

  Bob was right. Josh smiled.

  "Happy that you know?" Mitchell asked.

  "Yeah. It makes sense of all this," Josh said.

  Mitchell indicated Bell with the gun. "So can we get on?"

  "Sure," Josh said, "I just needed to know."

  He turned his back on the killer and faced Bell. He hoped that Mitchell didn't shoot him in the back of the head before he had the chance to do anything. He took a deep breath before he stepped into the bloody mess to grab the knife in Bell's chest. He gripped the blade with his right hand. The wooden handle felt comfortable in his grasp. It was the sight of the knife buried up to the hilt in his ex-mistress that was uncomfortable.

  "That's it, Josh, get some nice thick prints on that handle. Come on, do it like you mean it," his killer said, peering over Josh on tiptoe from the kitchen doorway.

  "Are you sure you can make this look like a convincing lover's disagreement turned murder, story at eleven?"

  "Oh, you wouldn't believe how I'll make this look.

  You'd be impressed. It's a shame you won't see it."

  "So how did you make Margaret Macey's death look?"

  "Margaret Macey, Jesus." Mitchell blurted out a laugh. "I didn't do a thing. You did it all for me. I wasn't expecting that, I can tell you. It was a dream come true. I saw you running out and I was worried. I thought you had screwed everything up, but instead you finished my job just as I wanted. It was beautiful."

  Josh glanced over his shoulder at Mitchell. Mitchell's focus was on the recollection rather than him. His guard was down. He hoped Mitchell thought he was a willing victim who was going to roll over and die for him. Josh pulled on the knife embedded in Bell's chest.

  "What did you do to scare her?" Mitchell asked.

  "She thought I was you."

  Mitchell laughed again.

  The knife was stuck tight and required more effort than Josh expected. He'd forgotten the blade was in a person until he looked at Bell. Her eyes didn't register Josh's desecration. He felt nauseated.

  He glanced back at Mitchell. He hoped the killer wouldn't see him tug on the handle. If Mitchell saw him, the hit man would put a bullet in his head without a second thought. Josh's brains would be splattered all over the wall, game over. The resistance broke, the blade slid from its human scabbard.

  "That's enough. You don't have to hold the thing all night," Mitchell said.

  Josh snapped around in a heartbeat with the knife in his hand and threw it at Mitchell. Slipping in Bell's blood at the moment of release, Josh fell backward onto the blood-soaked floor. He crashed into the cabinet behind him, knocking his head on its door.

  Mitchell reacted in an instant. He aimed and fired the gun.

  The knife hit Mitchell in the chest as he squeezed the trigger on the semiautomatic. Josh's slip caused the thrown knife to skew its trajectory and the blade batted flatly against the killer before it clattered to the floor.

  The knife did knock Mitchell's aim off and his shot went wild into the ceiling.

  Josh clambered to his feet and rushed the hit man.

  Before Mitchell could aim again, Josh smashed into the smaller man, driving him into the kitchen door frame. Mitchell yelped, but brought his knee up into Josh's gut. Josh lost his grip on the would-be killer.

  The hit man brought his knee up again, this time into Josh's face.

  The force of the blow jerked Josh's head back and he released the hit man and clutched his nose, surprised to find it intact. The pain was nauseating. He stumbled backward, trod on Bell's discarded beer bottle and fell again.

  Mitchell steadied his aim at
the falling man and fired the weapon.

  Josh fell and struck the floor, the bottle slithering across the vinyl. He saw the flash of flame and a two inch hole appeared in the particleboard door to the left of his head. The odor of burnt wood and hot glue from the door's wound smelled like a sawmill.

  The bottle banged against the skirting board and ricocheted back across the floor toward Josh's outstretched hand. Acting on reflex, he grabbed the bottle by the neck and threw it at Mitchell.

  This time Josh's aim was true. The bottle hit Mitchell in the head, thudding into his left eyebrow.

  Smashing on impact, fragments of glass sprayed over the man's face. He yelled through gritted teeth, his free hand to his eyes. His gun hand pointed in the general direction of Josh. The killer tottered backward into the living room.

  Josh got to his feet and charged the hit man. He knew he had to disarm the killer before he had the chance to recover. Throwing household items was no defense against a gun. Charging at the blinded Mitchell, Josh grabbed the wooden chopping block from the countertop.

  Raising the board above his head, Josh brought the block down, edge on, onto Mitchell's gun arm.

  The resulting sharp crack told both men Mitchell's arm was broken. The hit man screamed in agony and the pistol went flying from his grasp.

  Driven on by his initial success, Josh swung the wooden board like a major league batter. This time the board smashed into Mitchell's face just as he removed his hand from in front of it. The resounding thud echoed like the crack of a baseball going out of the park.

  Mitchell careened back, clipping an armchair, and fell to the floor. Blood spread between the hit man's fingers covering his nose and eyes, spilling down his face.

  He grimaced and exposed teeth rimmed with red in a split and rapidly swelling mouth.

  Shocked by the carnage inflicted on the man's face, Josh turned the chopping block over and saw a blood spattered bloom the size of an open hand smeared over its surface. Disgusted, he sneered, dropped the wooden board and looked for the gun.

  Mitchell moaned.

  Searching the carpeted floor, Josh found the gun.

  The weapon had landed in the corner of the room. He snatched the weapon up. It was heavier than he expected.

  Having never owned or fired a gun, he never imagined the pistol would be such an effort to hold, let alone shoot.

  Josh turned the gun on the killer. He would hold the hit man at bay with it while he called the cops. They can sort the whole fucking thing out now. Josh had done his part. He'd found the killer who knew everything the police needed to know. They could take it from here. The gunshot surprised Josh and he fell backward against the wall. He immediately checked himself for a wound and found none.

  Mitchell was sitting up with another gun in his left hand, this weapon smaller than the one Josh held. He was grinning through an open wound of a mouth and squinting through lacerated and bloody eyes. His right arm hung limply at his side. The hit man fired again.

  The second shot also missed its target.

  "It always pays to bring two guns," Mitchell said through his broken face.

  Without hesitation, Josh jerked his arm out at the killer and fired once, twice, three times in rapid succession.

  The first bullet went wild, the second hit Mitchell's right shoulder and the third hit him in the chest.

  Mitchell jerked with each impact from the bullets, but didn't go down. He did not fire his weapon. Josh, not taking it as a sign of surrender, took another step forward and fired for the fourth time. Another burst of light flared from the gun muzzle, another simultaneous explosion deafened, another spent cartridge ejected onto the carpet, more burnt cordite filled the room and Mitchell took a second hit to the chest. This time, he went down.

  Please be dead. Please be fucking dead, Josh's mind chanted as he rushed over to the killer. Mitchell might have been on his back, but that gun was still in his hand. And as much as he hated having to go near the man, it wasn't over until he saw a corpse. He stood over Mitchell and saw rasping breaths leaving the hit man's body. Josh prepared to fire for the last time.

  The professional winced in pain. His body sent messages to his brain, none of them good. How could three small chunks of metal feel like cannonballs thrown at his chest? Talking was a bitch--it felt as if his teeth were dice shaken in a cup and scattered across a table.

  He knew several of them were loose. He breathed through his mouth. Breathing through his nose made his face ache. He thanked God there was no glass in his eyes. Pain was relative. His broken arm stung when stationary, but it screamed when he moved it. It all hurt, but it hurt less if he kept still.

  Michaels stood over him. His own 9mm pistol was in Michaels's hand. He found the situation funny. The hunted had turned hunter. Michaels aimed the pistol at his face.

  "Don't do it." The professional's teeth shifted when he spoke. He sucked a gasp of air into his mouth to cool his aching gums.

  "Why shouldn't I? I doubt you'd do the same for me if I was lying there."

  Michaels shook. The professional didn't know if it was from fear or anger.

  "You're probably right, but I want you to know something."

  Michaels showed little interest in anything the professional had to say. However, he let the gun drop to his side.

  A man joined Josh Michaels. He stood behind him and peered over his shoulder. The professional didn't recognize the man, who was dressed in running clothes, and Michaels seemed unaware of the man at his back.

  Even though the professional saw the man, he wasn't sure if he was really there. Unlike Michaels, the ceiling or walls, the jogger lacked substance. The running man was like a reflection off a lake.

  "Know what?" Josh said.

  It clicked. The professional now knew the running man. The runner was Stuart Shore, an AIDS patient.

  He had been the first. The first one Dexter Tyrell had hired him to kill. He'd mowed down the jogger on a 300

  Simon Wood

  deserted Seattle highway one rainy fall morning almost two and a half years ago. But Stuart was unharmed, exhibiting none of the lacerations or broken bones from the last time he had seen him. He was as he had been the moment before his murder. The last time the hit man had seen Stuart, he'd crushed his neck under the wheels of a car to make his death look like a hitand-run.

  Stuart looked down at the professional like Josh Michaels did. He wanted to know what his murderer had to say, too. Others joined Michaels and Stuart.

  The room was filling with them, all a transparent reflection of who they once were. People stood behind Michaels and the dead jogger. The murdered poured in from the kitchen and the bedroom. Much to his discomfort, he turned his head over his shoulder and saw them filing in through the front door. They were all there. All the innocent people he had killed for Pinnacle Investments.

  They swarmed around him jostling for position, hoping to get a better look. There must have been over fifty people crammed into that house. All the people he had killed. He didn't remember all their names, but he did remember how and where he'd killed them. The farmer he'd pushed into his threshing machine poked his head between two others. His family and friends never knew if it had been an accident or suicide. Jesse Torino--he'd beaten and shot her before stealing her purse to make it look like a smash 'n grab gone wrong.

  The professional recognized a guy who worked with computers. He'd tampered with his car to make it look like a bad overhaul and the car had crashed into a truck, killing the computer analyst and seriously injuring the truck driver. Two people were allowed front row access. Mark Keegan led Margaret Macey to the head of the throng. Keegan glanced at Josh and flashed him a smile Josh didn't see. Keegan turned his gaze back to his killer, his features hardening.

  All of them wanted to know. They wanted to know his name, his real name. Not the names he'd used to get close to them to gain their trust before killing them. It was time to tell.

  More than that, the professional wanted to
tell them his real name. For years he'd lived a life where the people he came in contact with never knew who he truly was. He couldn't remember the last time someone said his real name, and it made his heart sink. He wanted someone to say his name. Just once.

  The professional smiled. In a bizarre twist, the killer was touched that so many would turn out for this occasion.

  He had always thought he would die alone, without a friend or foe present.

  "I want you to know my name," the professional said. The blood in his throat made speech difficult.

  "I didn't think it was James Mitchell. But tell it to someone who gives a shit," Josh said.

  Michaels's lack of interest hurt the hit man. Seeing the gun being raised, he feared Michaels would shoot him before he got the chance to say his name. He didn't wait for an invitation.

  "John Kelso. My name is John Kelso." He blurted out his own name like a stool pigeon under the bright lights of a cop's interview room.

  The murdered victims of John Kelso murmured his name amongst themselves.

  "Jesus, is that important to you?" Josh asked.

  Kelso swallowed and tasted his blood running back down his nose. "Yes."

  Michaels snapped his head away from Kelso and out the window. Police sirens filled the air with their wail.

  Their sound was muted by distance, but it wouldn't be long before their arrival. Neighbors must have called them during the gunplay.

  Michaels, panicked by the sound of approaching police cars, lost his hardness. He recognized time was running out.

  "Tell me, did you tamper with my plane?" he demanded.

  Kelso

  glanced at Keegan at the front of the crowd.

  "Yes, I did."

  Michaels drew in a deep breath and exhaled, closing his eyes momentarily. "I wish I could kill you all over again."

  Slowly, Kelso's victims became more solid and Josh Michaels and the house took on a hazy quality. Kelso knew his time was running out.

  The sirens grew louder. Michaels made for the front door. Kelso grabbed his leg. Josh stopped and looked down at him.

  "Say my name," Kelso commanded.