Deadly Secrets

by Ann Christopher

  Kareem leaned in, as though he wanted to be close enough to smell any lies that might come out of Kerry’s mouth. “What made you flip on me and tell the feds about the warehouse?” There was a wounded note in his voice, as though he couldn’t quite understand why Kerry hadn’t chosen him to be on his team for a kickball game. “Didn’t we grow up together? Didn’t we ride our freaking Big Wheels up and down the street together in the neighborhood? Didn’t I bring you along with me when my business grew? Wasn’t I good to you?”

  Kerry’s knees were shaking now, giving way on him so that he slid down the wall inch by inch. But the longer he kept talking, the longer he stayed alive. So he prayed to God for help and asked God not to spit in his eye, because Kerry didn’t want the help for himself.

  “Maybe I got tired of being a parasite, K.J.” The use of Kareem’s childhood nickname during this final conversation seemed eerily appropriate, because they had meant something to each other once. They had been brothers. “Maybe I didn’t like the way you shot Yogi in the back of the head.” Shortly before his “death,” Kareem had killed his other lieutenant and another of their lifelong friends in a misplaced fit of anger. “Maybe I didn’t like what we became.”

  Wrong answer, apparently.

  Kareem’s face twisted in the darkness. It became grotesque, as though Picasso had rearranged the features on a demon. He raised his arm and brought it down with a vicious slash.

  Kerry’s cheek screamed. The scream ran across his chin and lower, across his neck, leaving a gaping cut so deep Kerry could swear he felt part of his soul leak out of his body.

  He cried out and, hearing his own voice, cursed Kareem for toying with him like a cat with a cricket when he could just as easily have finished the job with that stroke.

  “Bad answer, my brother.” Kareem was close enough for a goodbye kiss—close enough for those merciless eyes to be the only thing Kerry saw as he died—and held the tip of the knife at Kerry’s jugular. “Try to do better with this question, because this is the thing I really want to know: did you think you could get away with fucking my wife?”

  Jesus.

  Kerry worked on keeping it together and prayed that his poker face held out better than his knees, but the little bit of oxygen he’d been getting into his lungs now seemed to be blocked by blood coming from God knew where.

  He choked and spat. Prayed again.

  Because maybe Kareem was only guessing about what had happened between Kerry and Kira. Maybe he didn’t really know, and Kerry was too scared and fucked up at the moment to remember what Kareem might have overheard him say to Kira on the phone. If Kareem was only guessing about their affair, then Kira’s life was in Kerry’s hands and hung in the balance right now.

  The only question was this:

  Was Kerry a good enough liar to save her life?

  If Kareem knew that Kira had slept with him, or if Kerry admitted it now, then Kira was dead, too.

  Kareem’s pride demanded it.

  So Kerry locked his knees, arranged his features into his most disbelieving expression and used his peripheral vision to track the distance between him and his pistol on the floor and, more importantly, between him and his phone on the side table.

  Then he looked Kareem in the eye and faced down the demon, pretending he had the courage for the job.

  “Fucking your wife?” he echoed. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  After a long, considering pause, Kareem raised the knife again.

  6

  “You fucked my wife,” Kareem said again. “Admit it.”

  Finished with his minute examination of the knife, he pressed the tip beneath Kerry’s jaw line, right at his jugular. The exact spot where a little slice would cause a forceful spray that would empty Kerry’s body of whatever remained of his five pints of blood in minutes. But Kerry shoved that thought away. Nor would he worry about the wild light in Kareem’s eyes or the way his shaking hand caused the knife to take little nicks out of Kerry’s skin.

  Instead, Kerry held still and focused on the lies he needed to tell.

  “There you go being paranoid again, man. That’s the same thinking that made you shoot Yogi in the back of the head for dropping that dime on you when we both know Yogi never had a disloyal thought in his life. That kind of thinking’ll get you in serious trouble one day.”

  Humorless laugh from Kareem. “You’re right about that. Only one of my lieutenants was a traitor. I’m sorry Yogi died for your sins.”

  “Sorry you’re a murderer? Finally come to Jesus, have you, K.J.?”

  “No.” Kareem eased closer, causing another little bite of pain in Kerry’s neck. “But you’re about to. So you should confess. About fucking my wife.”

  Kerry stared him in the face and willed his eyes not to blink, even when a drop of sweat from his forehead rolled into his eyelashes and the resulting burn was a special kind of agony. “I told you. There’s nothing to confess.”

  A ghostly smile flickered across Kareem’s face.

  That was when Kerry’s rage began to take over.

  Why was this fair?

  Kareem, who’d been born a sociopath, become a murderer at the earliest opportunity and had no prospects of ever doing anything to benefit his fellow man, didn’t have a scratch or drop of blood on him, and would probably die at the age of ninety-nine amid the Egyptian cotton comfort of a bed inside a luxury house somewhere.

  Kerry, meanwhile, had just been given a second chance to lead a civilian life. Did he deserve it? Hell no. But he wanted to do something good with his medical training rather than use it to show a criminal how to launder money via a medical equipment company. Wanted to prove—to the world, yeah, but mostly to himself—that while he may have spent the first part of his adult life being a worthless piece of shit, he could redeem himself. He could be a doctor and help people. All he needed was the opportunity Jayne had handed him on a silver platter.

  But would he get to utilize the chance? When he was inches from a clean escape, at least as far as the feds were concerned? No, he would not. Because Kareem had finally caught up with him. And now Kerry was a sweating, shaking, snotty-nosed, wounded, bleeding and possibly dying man, and Kareem, the architect of Kerry’s misery and more evil than one corner of the world should be forced to endure, was standing there as calm, cool and collected as he always was.

  And he was smiling and having fun.

  Fun.

  The smile was the thing that infuriated Kerry.

  If he had to die today, fine. God knew he’d earned an early and vicious death.

  But he wasn’t going to amuse Kareem while he bled out.

  If only he could reach a weapon of some kind. Forget his gun on the floor. Anything hard would do right now. He scanned the room with his peripheral vision, wishing he’d thought to turn on the light. There was the bare coffee table… The floor lamp… The bottle of Jack on the end table…

  “Did you enjoy my wife, man? Did you get off on all the little noises she makes?”

  Kerry stiffened and hid his shock behind another gasp for air, but he couldn’t quite manage the red haze of anger. He knew not to listen to Kareem’s words. Reminded himself it was a trap designed to get Kerry to incriminate himself—

  “Did she suck your dick for you, my brother? She’s good at that. I taught her the way I like it. She always puts her heart into it.”

  It was all Kerry could do not to sacrifice his own life and take the blade to the neck just for the pleasure of ripping Kareem’s tongue out. Instead, he took a deep breath and tried to be the better chess player. That was all this was. A big mind game.

  “I’m surprised to hear you talk about your wife that way, K.J. Ah, but she’s not really your wife anymore, is she? That’s why you had to rape her, isn’t it? Show her who’s boss. That’s how you operate, isn’t it? Spending your life making sure everyone knows you’re in charge, you twisted fuck.”

  It worked.

  Kareem’s features warped
into a snarl of unadulterated malice as he raised the knife for a killing stroke.

  Kerry lunged sideways for the bottle of Jack.

  All of Kareem’s momentum hit thin air, making him stumble and giving Kerry the second he needed to close his fingers around the bottle’s neck, pivot back and swing for Kareem’s head.

  Bottle and side of skull connected with a sickening thud that made Kareem sink to his knees, drop the knife and yowl with pain.

  The bottle didn’t break, though.

  Energized by an adrenalin surge that made his own pain disappear, Kerry swung again but missed when Kareem dropped his head into his hands. Didn’t matter. Kerry’s rage was off its leash now, and nothing in his life had ever felt better than letting it run free.

  So he let go of the bottle and kicked Kareem in the thigh.

  Another yelp, and Kareem went down on his belly and wheezed.

  Kerry stood over him, panting and triumphant. He’d meant to kick Kareem in the ribs, but he’d lost a lot of blood and, let’s face it, his balance and strength were probably a little off.

  But hey.

  This was cool too.

  He kicked Kareem in the side this time.

  Kareem spasmed and cried out.

  “I gave up everything for you!” Kerry shouted. Kick. “Everything! Do you get that? I wanted to be there for you the way you were there for me back in the day, but you corrupt everything!” Kick. “And now I have nothing!” Kick. “No medical practice! No life! No wife or kids or dog! My grandmother refused to see me before she died! Do you know what that was like? My grandmother raised me and she had all that pain on her soul when she died!”

  Both feet now. Kick-kick. One more time. Kick.

  Kerry wore himself out, stumbling around like the drunk he was halfway to being, but he didn’t care. This eruption had been years in the making. Why hold back?

  “And for what, K.J.?” he asked, panting and blinking to clear his vision as Kareem levered up on his elbows and tried to military-crawl away from him. Kerry didn’t try to stop him; there was nowhere for him to go. “For what? So I could set up a medical equipment company to help you launder your dirty money? So I could watch you shoot Yogi in the back of the head? So I could see the blood running down the insides of Kira’s legs after you raped her?”

  Kareem’s shoulders started shaking with laughter.

  Kareem rolled onto his back and rested his arm over his eyes, busting a gut the way Kerry had seen him do at Eddie Murphy movies. He laughed until he choked, then choked until he spat up a mouthful of blood, and Kerry was so startled and winded that he watched him do it all without trying to stop him.

  “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Kira, my wife, who you fucked,” Kareem said, finally lowering his arm and hauling himself to a cross-legged position. “You ain’t shit without me, Kerry. Everything you have and are and ever will be is because of me. You’re only a doctor because of me. Everything you own is because I paid you the money to own it. You think you’re so honorable right now, and you think you were a hero when you snitched on me, but where was your honor when you were accepting your cut of the proceeds? Huh? Where was your moral code then?”

  Kerry dropped back a couple steps and leaned against the nearest wall, powered both by the renewed physical pain and the intense shame of being called out for what he was—a criminal, the same as Kareem. Maybe he wasn’t a murdering criminal, but he was damn sure a criminal.

  His grandmother must be spinning in her grave.

  “Why so quiet, man?” Kareem asked in a softly taunting voice. “You don’t like it when I hold the mirror up for you? Didn’t think you’d see my face looking back at you, did you?”

  Kerry swiped his arm across his wet face and eyes, once again tracked the distance between him and his gun on the floor, then pressed his hand to his side and tried to keep more of his soul from leaching out. But the cut bled on, and honestly—how much effort was Kerry’s ruined soul worth, anyway?

  Still, pride demanded that Kerry differentiate himself from this monster any way he could.

  “I’m not you, K.J.,” he said. “You know why?”

  Kareem smirked. “Do tell.”

  “Because I have a conscience and you have a black hole. If you had it to do all over again, you would. If I had it to do all over again, I’d kill you the first chance I got.”

  Kareem leered, revealing blood-smeared teeth. “There you go being me again. What kind of man of honor talks about killing someone in cold blood?”

  Kerry was done with this conversation. Done with Kareem. Done with this life in Kareem’s shadow, one way or the other. The indicator arrow for his strength level was approaching empty, and it was now or never.

  “You know what, K.J.? You’re right. I’m not honorable at all.”

  With that, Kerry dropped into a squat and lunged for his gun.

  Right as Kareem leaned sideways and grabbed for the knife.

  Kerry was more desperate and therefore quicker. His fingers closed around his nine-millimeter’s cool metal butt by the time Kareem got hold of the knife and one foot planted on the floor.

  In that one wild second when it could have gone either way, a dozen fully formed thoughts flashed through Kerry’s brain like the seizure-inducing lights at a night club.

  He thought about his grandmother and how much he wished he could apologize to her.

  He thought about Kira and how he was glad she’d escaped and found a better life and a man she could be proud of, even if that man could never be him.

  He thought about Jayne, the second chance she’d given him, and how much he wanted to take advantage of it.

  He wished he’d kept up with the shooting lessons he’d taken years ago.

  Most of all, he focused on Kareem’s flashing eyes and thought about how much he wanted to extinguish the light in them forever.

  If he only ever did one worthwhile thing in his life, God, please let it be this.

  He aimed for the dead center of Kareem’s chest and fired.

  Crack.

  Kareem’s eyes widened with unmistakable surprise as he spasmed and dropped the knife.

  A cloud of blood and gore fanned out behind him before he rolled into the fetal position.

  Kerry blinked with utter disbelief. Had he actually hit that mutha?

  Still squatting, he wobbled forward a step as Kareem writhed and moaned. And he wondered if he had the stomach to shoot a man while he was down, even if that man was Kareem.

  And then, quite suddenly, the indicator arrow on Kerry’s strength clicked over to Empty. Whatever adrenalin had stood between him and the pain quietly stepped aside and let the pain have at him.

  He toppled back on his butt, dropping the gun in a futile effort to break his fall. His vision faded. His lungs slowed down.

  The pain and rage remained.

  He pointed all that rage at himself.

  He could shake his fist at fate for putting him into a poor family. He could curse Kareem for luring him over to the Dark Side and for finding him tonight, when Kerry was on the verge of becoming a good citizen. He could hate Kira for saying she could never love a criminal like him.

  But who was really at fault here?

  Who’d made all the wrong decisions? Who’d repeatedly faced the right path and the wrong path, and chosen the wrong path every time?

  Now there was nothing left of Kerry but this crying, sweating, bleeding and, before it was all over, puking, pissing and shitting shell of what had once passed for a man.

  And that was exactly what Kerry deserved.

  So he laughed. God sure did have a sense of humor, didn’t he? On top of everything else, Kerry the victim would die of the kinds of wounds (relatively shallow, he now realized, but bloody as hell) that Kerry the doc would have easily fixed back in the day.

  And cried, because he sure was fucked.

  Then he passed out as the peace of his fading brain’s white light washed over him.

  �
�Wake up.”

  Kerry moaned.

  “Wake. The fuck. Up.”

  There was a metallic click. The rustle of plastic. And then the steady pressure of something cool and hard pressing on Kerry’s forehead with the force of an elephant’s foot.

  Kerry slammed back into consciousness like a crash test dummy on impact.

  It was still dark, with moonlight filtering in the windows. Still raining, judging by the steady pattering. He was still lying on the floor, still gasping for every half-breath he could manage. His side was still alight with agony.

  Above him?

  The eerie and indistinct glint of Kareem’s eyes as he knelt alongside Kerry and pressed that muzzle to his head.

  Kerry blinked, trying to clear his vision. When that didn’t work, he let his eyes roll closed. The darkness was an unspeakable relief, gone too soon.

  The forehead pressure increased.

  Kerry got his eyes open again.

  “You shot me, you punk-ass bitch,” Kareem said, and there was no amusement this time.

  “Where’d I get you?”

  “Shoulder.”

  Shoulder. Shit.

  “Well…” Kerry drew another tortured breath. “In fairness…you…had it coming, K.J.”

  Kareem leaned closer, forming an intimate triangle with the only things in the room that mattered: the two men and the gun between them.

  “I want you to look into my eyes, Kerry. I want them to be the last thing you ever see before you die. I want you to know who killed you.”

  Kerry looked. He saw the malice and triumph.

  Then he shrugged. “You’re…the trigger man, K.J. I’m the…one responsible.”

  Kareem blinked. Frowned. “You think I’ve got time for your riddles?”

  Kerry’s eyes closed. “I don’t have any time, either, man.”

  More forehead pressure, until that muzzle felt like a drill bit well on its way to the center of his brain.

  Kerry glared up at Kareem, who wouldn’t leave him in peace and also didn’t seem inclined to finish the job.