by Osborne, Jon
Bradley stopped running and looked down at his chest. A nauseating circle of blood soaked into his Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt. He looked up at Dana again, pain and confusion coloring in his pale blue eyes.
Dana’s heart snapped clean in two inside her chest as her mind flared with a dizzying rush of sadness, rage and indescribable agony. She would have gladly taken a million bullets to the chest had she been able to spare Bradley just this one.
Springing to her feet, she dashed over to him and caught her son just as he collapsed to the cement.
Dana cradled the little boy’s head close to her breast as her world spun wildly out of control, just like it had always done ever since she’d been four years old. Just like it always would for the rest of her life. Because there would be no getting over this, she knew that. Not ever.
Bradley eyes swam with absolute terror as he locked his blurry gaze onto hers. “Am I going to die, Mommy?” he breathed, coughing up bright pink sprays of blood through his trembling blue lips.
Hard as it was for her to accomplish, Dana forced herself to answer the little boy. She needed to do this, though. She knew that, too.
She choked out the words through the boulder of pain stuck in her throat. “No, my darling little baby boy,” she sobbed; blinking away the blinding tears so that she could continue to hold his rapidly fading stare. “You’re never going to die.”
And it was the truth.
In one sense, at least.
Sadly, though, Dana’s final words to the most important person she’d ever met in her entire life – the most important person she’d ever meet again until the very day she died herself – had been the truth in but one, heartbreaking sense only.
CHAPTER 159
From high overhead on the rocky ledge overlooking the gorilla enclosure, Jack Yuntz snapped shut the metal fasteners on his guitar case, securing the beautiful new AR-47 military assault rifle inside.
Slipping away into the cover of the nearby woods a moment later, he sighed contentedly as he headed for the highway three hundred yards away. The AR-47 had been just one of the many perks he’d received from the late, great Jared von Waldenberg – may the idiot’s eternal soul rest in peace forever. Or burn in hell. Jack really didn’t care.
Jack smiled to himself, remembering the almost comical scene he’d just wrought. Dana Whitestone cradling the little boy’s head in her arms, blubbering like the weak fool she’d always been. The little boy not knowing what the hell to think as his life force expired just like one of those little red flags on a parking meter. Still, even after all this, Jack wasn’t anywhere near finished yet, now was he?
Nope, not even close.
Jared von Waldenberg – stupid as the man had been – had at least made good on his promise to spring Jack from the Connelly Institute. With a little help from the inside, the entire thing had gone down as smoothly as if they’d extracted him from a kindergarten class underneath the distracted gaze of a harried substitute teacher. And when he’d checked his overseas bank account earlier that morning, Jack had seen that the money von Waldenberg had promised him had already been sitting there for more than a week.
Enough to set him up for life.
And now that he’d made good on his end of the deal, Jack could now concentrate all his noble efforts on Dana Whitestone, just as he’d always planned to do ever since the very beginning, ever since the day that she’d snapped silver handcuffs around his wrists back in the ritzy Presidential Suite of the Fontainebleau Hotel in downtown Manhattan eighteen months earlier.
First, though, he wanted to play with Dana Whitestone a little more. Tease her a bit. Challenge her. See just how good the bitch really was.
Manhood wasn’t very far away now, after all – just a few more years. And after that, the final showdown could take place.
But first, a little more fun.
Jack resisted the urge to break out into song as he finally reached the highway fifteen long minutes later.
Never before in his life had ever gotten such a charge out of playing chess.
CHAPTER 160
Bradley’s funeral three days later barely registered in Dana’s drugged-up mind. She’d become a living zombie thanks to the Xanax – enough to stun a thoroughbred horse. She hadn’t tasted her food, hadn’t heard all the well-intentioned words people had said to her during the service. Hadn’t felt anything at all.
Good thing, too. Because if Dana had felt anything, she knew she’d go clinically insane. Of course, that possibility still remained, though, didn’t it? Of course it did. Maybe when she quit taking the drugs, which she planned to do just as soon as everybody stopped watching her. And they would stop watching her, Dana knew. They always did.
After that, who knew? She supposed she’d just have to wait and find out.
Almost time to join all the others on the other side.
Bruce Blankenship’s left arm was draped around her shoulder as they made their way up to the tiny white casket. Dana looked directly at the little boy, but she didn’t actually see him. What she did see, however, was the envelope attached to the colorful flower arrangement five feet to the right of the coffin. An envelope that had been addressed to her.
In a daze, she covered the short space and plucked the envelope off the flowers. She felt nothing as she read the note inside. No grief. No anger. No pain.
Nothing.
CHECKMATE, AGENT WHITESTONE. THAT WAS A LOT OF FUN. WANT TO PLAY AGAIN?
YOURS TRULY,
JY
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading my book! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review, as I’d like to know what you think! I’d also like to take this opportunity to invite you to join me on my Facebook page here. Hope to see you there!
