Jack - Perfect Burn: Hot Crime Romance

by Alice May Ball

  There was no way to know whether he had seen me or not. All I could do was make myself as ready as possible. The instant the door opened, I emptied the teakettle in his face as fast and as hard as I could.

  He screamed and recoiled, reeling. If I had just shoved him back, he would have gone straight over the balcony.

  That wasn’t what I’d planned, and that was when I knew that I had set this up wrong. My reasoning was that he would have a gun, so I wanted to get behind him. My plan had been to grab him and pull him inside. I should have shoved him over the balcony. Too late, though.

  He had a gun, I was right about that. As soon as I had him inside, I jumped on his back. With his arm over his face, he waved the gun with the other hand. As he staggered, he rose and shoved me back against the door, slamming it shut. I had nothing to use as a weapon but the plastic kettle.

  The base of it had some sharp ridges, so I hit him around the head with it. Still blinded, he waved the gun around. The kettle fit over the gun and his hand. There must still have been some hot water left in it. He groaned loudly.

  Clinging onto his back, I kicked against the door to shove him forward. When I boiled the teakettle, I had opened the sandwich toaster and turned it on full. It seemed like it could be a weapon, if I could get it on him. Or, as I thought now, maybe I could get him onto it.

  As he lurched toward the shelf, he turned and slung me to the floor. I pulled my knee up hard into his groin, but he twisted so I only caught his thigh. He shook the plastic teakettle off his hand. The knuckles and top joints of his fingers were red and raw. He brought the gun to the side of my head.

  His hand was on my stomach. As he pinned me down, I felt his fingers begin to move.

  “Before I blow your brains out…” I writhed in protest as his hand moved up to my breast. “…maybe first I’ll fuck them out.” He chuckled. “Could be like an anesthetic.” He grabbed me by the throat.

  I flinched away from his hot breath. “Good old Doctor Ratke,” he said. “I’ll save you from suffering.”

  He held my throat tight as he stood, leaning back against the shelf by the TV. He lifted me by my hair. The gun was still at the side of my head. My face was level with his crotch. He unzipped his pants. Then he hauled out his fat, half-hard prick.

  “Open wide.” Hesitantly, I moved my face nearer. “Come on, you know you have to take your medicine.” The thing was right in front of my face. I struggled not to gag on the smell. I opened my mouth to blow on it and stretched my left hand out just a little farther.

  He grabbed the top of my head to force my mouth onto him. Just as I got hold of the sandwich toaster.

  The cord came out of the wall as I pulled it. It snapped shut on his hand. He yelled and dropped the gun, knocking over the TV as he flailed.

  “You fucking bitch!” he howled. I was only able to get a passing swipe at his cock with the toaster. I had hoped to slam the fucker shut in it.

  He toppled. As he pitched forward, his forehead smacked hard on the corner of the bed. In the instant he was still falling, the light dimmed in his eyes and his body crumpled from the inside.

  The door to the room burst open.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  HALEY SHOOK, PRESSED UP against the wall by the TV. Ratke was sprawled in a heap by one corner of the bed, not moving. There was a Glock pistol on the floor by Haley’s feet.

  My instinct was to go to Haley first, but I knew I had to check Ratke’s pulse first. See what kind of a threat he might pose. I picked up the gun and crouched by the side of him. His eyes were open and dull. With two fingers I tried to find a pulse in his neck, but I couldn’t. I held my phone by his nose and mouth for more than two minutes. The glass didn’t fog.

  Ratke was not a danger. As soon as I stood and turned to see her, Haley jumped and wrapped her shaking body around me. She shivered like she was freezing. I spread my arms around her, covered her and pulled her to me. I wanted to keep her with me forever. Damnit.

  Well, for me, forever might not be all that long. I dragged the comforter off the bed and pulled it around her.

  A phone beeped and I didn’t recognize the tone. It was a theme from an old movie. Terminator or Alien, or something. I looked at Haley. She shook her head. The tone sounded again. It came from Ratke’s jacket. Haley shuddered violently.

  I hugged her tight before I reached into Ratke’s pocket for the phone. On the screen it said,

  Msg From: Gregor

  Is loose end cut off now?

  I hit ‘reply.’

  Sent:

  Yes it is

  Haley watched. Her voice trembled. “Gregor will probably know that wasn’t Ratke.”

  “How?”

  “If they’re used to texting.” Her whole body still shook as she talked. I held her and she let me. “If you texted something to Tynie, and somebody else texted back, you’d probably know, right?”

  I nodded. “Maybe.”

  She murmured into my chest. “He was going to kill me, Ryan. He was going to rape me, and then kill me. He had a gun.”

  I wanted to ask her questions, but for now, just getting her to feel better would be enough. I decided to get her out of there. “Shall I take you to the Dragon Lady’s house?”

  She nodded. After I scooped up everything we’d left in the room, I gave the sink a wipe, for all the good that would do. If anyone looked, we’d have left hairs in the bed, traces on the cups. There was DNA everywhere. Still, a guy like Ratke turns up dead, it wouldn’t be a major investigation.

  It was almost dark when I took her down the steps to the van. I kept her wrapped in the comforter. Even with the heat on blast in the van, it still took until we were halfway across town before her shaking started to wane. I said, “Look, I’m sure you won’t want to see me after this…” And she looked at me, so sad. I wanted to hold her. Hug her and love her. And I knew that wasn’t what she wanted.

  “Please,” she said. “Don’t talk, Ryan.”

  She’d been through Hell and back. All that she did and all that she had to deal with, all of it was because of me. I couldn’t blame her if all that she wanted was to say adios and get me well and truly out of her life for good. She looked so uncomfortable. I didn’t want to say anything more to make it any worse for her. There was no way to imagine how this lovely girl would get over experiences like she’d had.

  But I understood that she wanted to start. To get away from all of it, including me. Me most of all, probably. Start to forget and to get her life back.

  We were in another of the nice parts of town. Given the circumstances of my life, I tend to forget there even are quiet, clean, well-kept streets like these. Homes with well-maintained brickwork, freshly painted doors and windows—clean, shiny cars in the driveways. The Dragon Lady’s house was wide and low with lots of glass. Behind the thick hedges, it looked like there was a pool out back by the high lamps.

  As we pulled in, Haley said, “Ryan, it really could have worked…” Her eyebrows pointed, like she was waiting for something. For me to go, I guessed. I wanted to say, We could still be friends, but that would be bullshit. I needed to say, You won’t see me again, because after today, if I’m not dead, I’ll be in jail.

  But I didn’t want to make it any harder for her than it already was. There was no reason she should care anyway. I gave her the little Beretta.

  “I can’t.” She tried to push it back to me.

  “I can’t keep you safe, Haley. But this can help.”

  When she got out, I didn’t look back. I knew if I hesitated for just one second, I wouldn’t leave. And there were things I had to do. None of them good. It was hard to swallow as I drove away.

  ~~~~

  It was late by the time I parked the RAV4 in the lot of the old mall. The broken, deserted hulk was cold at night. Colder somehow on the inside than out in the lot. There were no lights. Nothing but the weak moonlight that poured through the cracks and holes in the remains of the glass dome.

  Th
e inside was all a flat, blue-gray in the gloom, and it was hard to judge distance and space. Everything echoed, but the source of the sounds was impossible to locate. A strong smell of stagnant water came up from the flooded food court a level below.

  The collapsed storefronts and concession stands looked bigger and were harder to see and identify. Moving slowly and as quietly as I could, I kept to the walls at the edges. Only the walls were all jagged hollows. A clatter sounded like stones. Something breaking or falling. Then there were splashes.

  By reflex I was reaching for the gun, but I guessed the miniature rock fall was Gregor, trying to spook me out, get me to show my weapon.

  His text had said to meet him here. Even though I made as little sound as possible when I dragged the boards away from the doorway, he must have heard me breaking in. So why didn’t he call out, show himself? This felt wrong. I backed into a storefront, over a pile of clothes and rubble.

  Gregor was behind me before I knew it. His arm was around my throat. A ring of steel pressed hard into the side of my head. He felt down the side of my jacket. Found the Glock and lifted it out.

  Now I wished I’d kept the little Beretta in my sock.

  In the distance I heard a siren sound, just for an instant. Looking sideways at Gregor, watching his face, I knew. He called them. That was his plan, his getaway. He planned to feed me to the cops. Alive or dead? I wondered absently how he saw this playing out.

  His hand on my shoulder, at last I knew why it felt so familiar, why it affected me so much. His grip was just like my father’s. He squeezed the top of my shoulder in the exact same way and in the same place as my father had. The fucker. Whenever he wanted to make me do something, he’d give my shoulder a warning pinch.

  Right into my ear, Gregor whispered, “Okay Jacker, here it is. You have choice to make. You tell me where is the little loose end you’ve been trying to keep hidden all through this sorry, godforsaken mess, and I give you to the cops.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a choice, Gregor.”

  “It is if you consider the alternative.” He shoved the gun harder against my head. It felt like he drew blood.

  “Just leave her out of it. She won’t do you any harm. She’s not a ‘loose end.’ Let it go.”

  “She was a loose end the moment you first picked her up, Jacker. You should probably have silenced her straight away. Would have saved everyone a lot of pain and grief. Including her. It will go bad at the end.”

  “So, how do you want this to work? I tell you where she is and you leave me here for the cops to find, is that it?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  I told him the address of the motel. Said she was there, waiting.

  “Oh, thank you,” he snarled. “So I know that isn’t true. And now I know something else.”

  I waited. He pushed the gun harder at my head. I definitely felt a warm trickle run onto the back of my neck. His voice lowered. “I don’t have to worry about Ratke anymore, do I?”

  There were vehicles moving outside. A few strips of light broke in through the doorway. “All right,” he said, “where’s the fucking key for the car?” I handed it to him. “You’re not going to give the girl up, and I’ve got to get gone.”

  “What’s your hurry?” I asked him. “Sounds like all your friends just showed up.”

  “This is the last job, Jacker. I’m out. This is my getaway.”

  A loud bang sounded. As I went down, I heard it echo from the top of my head and reverberate through my body. I sank to my knees. Pain flashed through me in the vague shape of a pistol grip.

  As I slumped to the floor, Gregor’s boots ran past me and made for the next exit along. This would be a bad time to lose consciousness. The pool of darkness rose to engulf me.

  When I shoved myself up on my elbows, my head hung like it was on a string. And it hurt like hell. Dragging myself up onto one knee, my head still drooped. A raw pain pulsed hot from my head through the back of my neck and into my shoulder blade.

  Standing left me disoriented and nauseous. Sound returned to the world like I was coming to the edge of a tunnel. After a deep breath, I staggered after Gregor. There was noise ahead. Voices, groans, scuffles, a thud. Clattering. More voices.

  I tried to move quietly, but I was clumsy and I kept stumbling into things. Debris. And walls. As I lurched and shambled onto the ramp to the exit where Gregor had gone, two men were ahead. I slipped and sprawled on the floor.

  One man stood over the other. Gregor was the man standing and he turned slowly. The one on the floor was a cop. He was looking up, into the barrel of Gregor’s gun. The cop’s hand was reaching, slapping the floor. He was looking for his gun. It was in front of me.

  In an agony of slow motion, I stretched out for the gun. It took both hands to hold it up at Gregor.

  “Don’t do it.” My voice sounded like I was drunk. “It’s not worth it, Gregor.” It was hard to talk. Gregor was reaching into his pocket. Oh, I thought, that must be where he put the Glock when he took it off me. “Gregor, if you shoot a cop, you won’t ever make your getaway.”

  I had the gun sighted on him. Unsteadily, sure. But enough for him to know I could have pulled the trigger by now. If he went for the Glock, I’d shoot him. With my unsteady hands, it would be a rotten shot. But he was near. It would take a big piece out of him. He took his chance and ran.

  I told the cop, “Stay there. Stay down,” and I struggled for the door.

  There were maybe a dozen cruisers. The RAV4 was neatly positioned, away from the cops and near the exit. Gregor ran for it, low and quiet. If he could get in the car without them seeing, he had a chance of getting away.

  The RAV was maybe twenty yards away. Gregor snuck into the car, and shut the door. I saw the glow of the dashboard lights. He could do it. He could have his getaway.

  Clumsily, too slowly, I pulled the duplicate fob out of my pocket.

  Gregor started the RAV and it lurched. I squeezed the button on the back of the fob. All the RAV’s lights flashed and the car stopped dead, rocking from the momentum. Cops spilled out of all of the cruisers. They ran, low to the ground, unholstering their weapons.

  Just sit quiet and take it, Gregor, I thought, Fight another day.

  That wasn’t his style, though. Dumb fucker.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I WENT TO THE courthouse for Ryan’s trial, even though his lawyer told me that he didn’t want me there. The whole thing lasted about fifteen minutes. He didn’t look up when he was led in, flanked by two guards. He answered to confirm his name and he didn’t speak another word after that.

  I tried to visit. After talking to his lawyer, I went through the background checks and made myself available for the two visiting days each week. A very helpful woman in the prison superintendent’s office let me know that he was eligible to have visitors. She wouldn’t tell me whether he had any others, although I knew that Tynie went to see him once.

  It hurt and enraged Tynie that he couldn’t go back, but he couldn’t put up with being searched. Having people surround him and put their hands on him was more than he could take. The prison guards must have been pretty understanding to let him in at all, because I can imagine the shaking that he would have done, and the yelling when they patted him down.

  In the first few weeks, I even wrote him letters. No matter how I tried, Ryan didn’t once consent for me to visit him, despite my putting in a request for every visitation time slot. After a few months, I gave up.

  But he couldn’t stop me from waiting at the gates on the day of his release.