by Jim Heskett
I jumped to my feet, then wobbled a little. “Rodrick, wait here for the police. I’ll be right back.”
I went inside and picked up the gun I’d used to kill Shelton. I started out the door, then another idea struck and I went upstairs to the bedroom and opened the nightstand. I picked up the stun gun Kareem had slipped into my pocket the night I’d met him.
With my two implements of destruction in hand, I tried not to look at the bodies as I left my house and crossed the yard. I glanced at Rodrick, who was standing under a tree, clutching his phone to his chest.
He was pointing at the gun in my hand and saying something, but I couldn’t hear him. I felt terrible for the guy, the confusion and disorder he must have been feeling.
But it was almost over. I knocked on Alan’s door.
In a minute, he came to the door. Opened it, and I pressed the stun gun into his chest before he had a chance to even open his mouth. He convulsed and fell to the floor, his bathrobe fluttering around him. I stepped over his limp body.
Alan’s house was a split-level with an entryway, then immediate stairs up to the kitchen and dining room, or stairs down to the living room. I knelt to look in the living room. The lights were off.
I looked up the stairs but couldn’t see anything.
“Hey there, Candle,” I heard Wyatt’s voice from upstairs. “I’m up here.”
I climbed the stairs, gun out. At the dinner table sat Wyatt, a shotgun across his lap. He was wearing a fedora, with a trench coat wrapped around his ample frame. He looked like a chubby private eye.
“Don’t be too hard on your poor neighbor there. We got his parents gagged and hog-tied in a warehouse in Cleveland. His dad was a hell of a fighter, nearly broke the jaw of one of our guys and dislocated the shoulder of another one. What I’m getting at is, this ain’t his fault. You have no idea how hard it was to orchestrate all of this.”
My teeth gritted so hard I could barely open my mouth. “Where is Grace?”
Wyatt sighed, then coughed. “I had hoped for this to all go down one way, not the way it did, know what I mean? Kareem was supposed to die, you were supposed to go to jail for killing him, and everyone would live happily ever after.”
“Where…is…my…wife?”
“But then you had to get all Indiana Jones on me, interfering with the plan every chance you got. I’ve learned a thing or two about managing people from this experience, I’ll tell you what. For example—”
“Darren is dead.”
Wyatt stroked the barrel of the shotgun. “I figured as much. It’s a shame because the kid had so much potential. Real eager to please, know what I mean? I had a feeling you were going to find a way to mess up things with my boy. Thought I’d best stay out of it and wait over here.”
He coughed for a few seconds until he took out a handkerchief and unleashed a torrent of mucus into it.
“Feeling okay?” I said with a sneer.
“Damn altitude gets me every time. I hate Colorado.”
He raised the shotgun, and I pointed the pistol at him.
“Now, Candle, m’boy, this here is a twelve-gauge. I’ll put thirty holes in you compared to one little pinprick you might put in me. Why don’t you have yourself a good think about that.”
“The one hole I put in Shelton’s forehead seemed to be good enough.”
He frowned. “I wish you hadn’t done that. Shelton was a good man. Well, if I can’t have it the way I want it, then I guess I’ll have to settle for the way I can get it. With Kareem Haddadi gone, I can still find a way to make it look like murder, but it just won’t have the same poetic justice I was going for.”
“Tell me where she is, or you die.”
“You don’t understand the score, now do you? If you’re alive, missing, in jail, it doesn’t matter. When Haddadi took it upon himself to reach out to you, we had to escalate things, but it would have turned out the same way. When your dad passed, we changed the plan.”
“What plan was that?”
“Blackmail, you idiot. We were going to have you kill Kareem and then blackmail your poor old dad to keep him quiet. But with him gone, we had to improvise a bit.”
“Keep him quiet about what?”
Wyatt sniffed but said nothing.
“Where are your two other guys? Thomason and Glenning?”
“Oh, they went back to Dallas. Everybody works for somebody, son. I’m just playing my part too. But none of that matters, now, does it? Because this only ends one way for you.”
I stared him down. “I don’t believe you.”
He laughed. “And that’s what I love about you. You think, with all this going on, that there’s still a chance you matter. Like your opinion counts for something. Even after everything we did to you, like kidnapping your wife, taking you up on that mountain top to scare you, even killing people you know, you still got the balls to stand there and think you’re gonna win. Shit, me and Shelton had a little bet to see what you’d do with that dead nigger’s body. I thought you’d drop her in a dumpster.”
“Her name was Keisha.”
“Ain’t that sweet.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds. He was right about the shotgun versus the pistol, and I didn’t know what to do. What was he waiting for?
He let loose another barrage of coughs, and I saw my chance. I dropped to the floor, aimed, and shot a hole in his ankle. I was aiming for his knee, but that would do.
Wyatt screamed and dropped the shotgun as his hands flew to his ankle. Bone fragments poked out underneath the hem of the trench coat.
I raised the pistol again and squeezed the trigger. The bullet tore a hole in Wyatt’s throat, and he slumped in the chair, a river of blood rushing down his shirt, just as it had when Martin had died in my living room.
I dropped the gun. I think it was out of bullets, anyway. I hadn’t been counting.
Wyatt’s eyes were wide, staring at me. He was trying to talk, but he could only gurgle and leak blood from the corner of his mouth.
I heard a noise behind me and whirled to see Alan pointing down the stairs. “Basement. I’m so sorry, Candle. I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I staggered toward Alan then turned to the door his finger was indicating. I opened it to a dark room, and a set of stairs leading down. I hadn’t spent much time at Alan’s house before; never seen his basement.
Down the unfinished wooden stairs, one at a time, and then I saw her. Lying on a twin bed, her pregnant belly bulging. It had only been a week, but she seemed to have grown.
I rushed to her and knelt beside the bed. Her eyes were closed. I brushed her hair back from her face, and caressed the curve of her stomach which housed my unborn son. Our son.
She stirred.
“Hey baby,” she said, her voice light and slow. “I was dreaming about you. Are you back from your trip already?”
She was drugged, barely conscious. “Yes,” I said, and I couldn’t stop touching her face. Her sweet face, so pure and soft. “I’ve been back for a few days. We’re going to get you out of here.”
“Why?” she said, her eyes dimming.
“We need to go, baby. We need to get you to a hospital.”
I wrapped my arms around her and tugged to get her out of bed. Every part of my body resisted trying to carry extra weight. With all the injuries I’d been subjected to over the last week, I could hardly believe I had anything left to give.
“Candle, let me help,” said a voice from the stairs. Alan trundled down the steps, then stopped at the bottom. “I am so, so, sorry,” he said. “I never wanted to lie to you, but they have my family. They said they’d kill them if I didn’t cooperate. You understand, right?”
I didn’t want to respond. I wanted to zap him again with the stun gun, and press it into his heart until he stopped breathing. How could he have done this to me?
I ignored him. “Grace, how did you call me? Did you get away?”
“That was me,”
Alan said. “I was trying to text, but I accidentally hit the call button. Candle, I’m so, so sorry. Please, let me help you.”
I stared at him, a strange mix of vile hatred and pity running through my head. “Get her legs,” was all I could say.
Together, we carried her up the stairs and into the living room. Alan flipped on the lights.
Her eyes were open, and she smiled. “I missed you,” she said. “I’ve been so tired lately.”
I couldn’t stop touching her stomach, running my hand back and forth over the curve our child made. “I missed you too, baby. Everything is going to be okay now. I’m never going to leave you again. I’m going to be right here beside you from now on, alright?”
“Sounds good,” she murmured in her gravelly drug-state.
“I’ll call the cops,” Alan said. “I’m going to tell them everything.”
“There’s no need to call anyone,” I said as the first chirp of the siren echoed from down the street.
I left Grace on the couch and walked to the window as the cul de sac started to fill up with ambulances and cop cars. Blue and yellow lights flickering, bouncing off the snow coming down in sheets. Rodrick was out there, waving his arms and pointing toward Alan’s house.
Through the mist, I spotted something small and brown, four-legged and wobbly. A dog. The same dog I’d met out in the open space, the one who’d defended me against the coyote. He was wandering down the street, head down. Sniffing.
The dog stopped to look at Rodrick and padded over to him, then sat down in my front yard, watching the men and women in uniforms spill out of their official vehicles as Rodrick was frantically waving them toward Alan’s house.
Grace was safe. I was home. It was over.
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