by Lee Goldberg, Scott Nicholson, J A Konrath, J Carson Black,
And, sometimes, you had to make your luck.
Joshua left the door open after he exited, and the dome light cast a dirty yellow glow. Jacob grabbed Renee’s wrist, his face a mask of wicked joy. She didn’t struggle. These two men had already torn her to shreds. There was nothing left worth fighting over.
Joshua opened the back door. “Bring her on.”
Jacob’s Southern accent returned, a bizarre replica of his brother’s. “Reckon we ought to bash her head in first, or just chuck her over the side?”
“You want to make sure. It ain’t the kind of thing you leave up to chance. What if she turns up alive six miles downstream?”
“That would be sand in the craw, all right.”
“You do it. You’ll enjoy it more than I will.”
“Why, thanks, Josh. I appreciate it.”
“I’m Jacob, remember? Don’t go getting all confused on me, or we’ll never get the story straight.”
“Right, Jake. You’re the Wells now. I’m just pig shit, rolling around with a Mexican whore in a Tennessee trailer park.”
“And you’re going to love every minute of it. I know I did, but now it’s time for the big switcheroo.”
Jacob’s hand tightened around Renee’s wrist, sending sparks of pain up her arm. Joshua handed his brother something, and Renee saw its rusty bulk in the dome light.
A pipe wrench.
She could almost see the police report: Blunt head trauma, followed by asphyxiation due to drowning.
Jacob’s latest accidental victim.
And who would be next? Joshua? Carlita? Or would he plant more seed, each sprout insured for a million dollars?
“Hold her for a sec.” Joshua got out of the driver’s side and went to the back door. He yanked it open and leaned in, his breath sour with beer and cigarettes and the lingering tang of salsa. “Come here, sweetie.”
Renee backed away, kicking, until she was across the seat. Joshua climbed in, and now she recognized that perverse grin, one glimpsed in the dim light of a night nearly a decade ago. The night of Mattie’s conception.
She shoved her foot toward his face. He caught it and his eyes twinkled in the greasy dome light, the cut on his forehead oozing blood again. “Hmm. She still got a little fight in her. Tempting me to go one more round. What say, brother, wanna watch just for old times’ sake?”
Jacob yanked her wrist. “I can fantasize about it later. Right now, we better get her in the river.”
Joshua’s face sagged, his smoker’s wrinkles deepening. “Reckon so. Give the water more time to wash away evidence.”
“Besides, we’ll still have Carlita.”
Renee wondered if they would play this sick game the rest of their lives. Swapping partners, playing with money and murder, tricking each other. But that was the future. She had none.
Joshua dragged her by the ankle. She grabbed for the armrest but it came off in her hand. Her fingernails broke as she clawed at the nylon seat covering. No saving grip there.
Jacob released her and got out of the car to join his brother. She knew this was her final chance. The passenger door was open, though it seemed miles away.
She twisted upward, reaching for the front seat, but Jacob had her other leg now and she was being worried between them like a butcher-shop bone in the mouths of two dogs.
“Treat her like a wishbone, brother,” Jacob said.
“I’m wishing for two million goddamned dollars. On three. One . . . ”
She wriggled, nothing.
“Two . . . ”
“Jacob,” she said. “Honey?”
But the word was a lie. Even his name was a lie. He had always been Joshua.
“Three.”
She was jerked into the moist night.
“Do her,” Joshua said.
He had Renee pinned to the rail, shoulders leaning toward the river, facing the whispering, frothing water below. Jacob tested the heft of the pipe wrench. How would she hit if she had actually fallen?
No, not “if.” When.
Think it out, Jakie, just like always. Momma’s cane . . . an accident. Could have happened to anybody. Anybody with a murderous son, that is.
Christine. That one had been the saddest. But she was barely formed, not even talking. All I did was save her from the life of a Wells. So that was a mercy killing.
Mattie. Too bad about her. But she was Joshua’s fault all the way, from sperm to burn victim.
The moon was out, the clouds like violet sheep counting down to a restless sleep. He wondered if blood would spatter onto the bridge railing. He’d have to strike her at an angle, so the pattern would fly out and into the water.
“Smash her up,” Joshua urged. “Just like you did the chickens.”
The wrench grew heavy in Jacob’s hand. “I didn’t do the chickens.”
Joshua, holding Renee’s arms behind her back, his crotch pressed against her rear, gave a thrust of his hips, causing the wooden railing to squeak with their combined weight. “Hell, yeah. You went donkeyshit, brother. Chopping their heads off, licking blood from the hatchet—”
“Stop it.”
Red. The night had gone from purple to red.
“You’re one sick fuck, all right.”
“Shut up. That wasn’t me. It was never me.”
“Tell it to the judge. I got a date with two million bucks.”
“I was only doing what you’d do, if you had the brains.” Jacob gripped the wrench so tight his hand hurt. The metal was slick with his sweat. He thought of the fingerprints he would leave behind. And the DNA, which he shared with Joshua. The DNA one of them had passed to Mattie.
And maybe Christine. He didn’t know how often Joshua had slipped into his bed over the years.
The blood in the Chevy would be Joshua’s. The cops would figure it out. Even though Jacob had the same blood.
“Do it, Jakie,” Renee wheezed from constricted lungs. “Just like we talked about.”
Joshua turned toward him, his face as twisted as the rubberized troll heads hanging from the rearview mirror. Confusion. The dumb bastard had been late out of the womb, and had always been two steps behind his entire life.
Jacob swung the wrench.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Blood everywhere,” Jacob said, mopping at the stains on the railing.
“No murder is perfect,” Renee said. She wanted to vomit, but her gut was like a clenched fist. “You taught me that, if nothing else.”
“I can’t help it if you’re lousy at choosing.”
“I guess you should go get Carlita. Think you guys will be happy together?”
“What do you care? You’re getting what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
Jacob leaned over the railing. “He’ll be downriver soon. As drunk as he was, nobody will question a fall.”
Renee glanced at her husband’s exposed neck, alabaster in the moon’s warm glow. The wrench lay on the seat of the Chevy. She could have it out and bring it down in a matter of seconds.
She loved him.
When you loved somebody, you owed him.
“Mattie,” she said, her voice breaking a little. The rush of the kill had faded, leaving her feeling washed out and limp. Her heart was a husk rattling against her dry ribs.
Maybe all the tears were gone forever.
Jacob came to her, took her hands. He almost kissed her. Then he glanced up at the hill, where the Wells house stood dark and brooding, as if remembering some memory tucked in a far, dusty closet. The first flickers teased the windows, and smoke drifted on the air. Davidson and her crew would be on the way soon, late as always, left to sift through the ashes of the Wells family secrets.
He reached into the car, grabbed the wrinkled pack of cigarettes, and stuffed one in his mouth. He lit it, then reached under the seat and pulled out a beer. Warm, it sprayed foam all over his pants when he pulled the tab. He reached up and tapped the twin rubber heads, sending them swin
ging.
Just like Joshua. He looks just like his brother.
And on the heels of that thought came another, rising bright and strong from the murk of her confusion.
What if we killed the wrong one?
But maybe there was no right one.
Renee looked over the rail. In the gloom, she could barely make out the broken form on the rocks below.
“Oh, God, Jake, he’s moving. He’s still alive!”
Jacob ran to the railing, cigarette smoke pluming from his mouth along with his whispered “Shit.”
He leaned over, straining against the darkness. “I don’t see nothing.”
“I do,” she said. “I see it all now.”
The wrench was heavy. But she managed. Oh, yes, she managed.
The crunch was subdued, like hitting a bag of ice wrapped in a towel. Jacob gave a small bleat of surprise and collapsed onto the rail, head and arms trailing over the far side.
She didn’t check his pulse. She didn’t want to touch him. If he took a long time to die, he deserved it.
She patted her belly.
She’d never mentioned it to Jacob. Three months along.
Whether it was Jacob’s or Joshua’s, she would never know.
But it didn’t matter. One Wells was as good as another.
And a Wells never fails.
As she headed up the dirt road to free Carlita, she glanced at the house, the orange flames now rising to heaven in a wavering thread.
I love you, Mattie. I love you, Christine.
She was relieved to see the burning house blur in her vision.
She was still human, if only barely.
As long as she could cry, there was hope for her yet.
Renee staggered across a land long polluted and ruined, tears streaming down her cheeks. The tears wouldn’t wash away the past, but they might clear her vision for the future.
She had a child to raise.
One last chance.
THE END
About Scott Nicholson
Table of Contents
ABOUT J.A. KONRATH
J.A. Konrath is the author of seven novels in the Jack Daniels series, along with dozens of short stories. The eighth, STIRRED, will be available in 2011.
Under the name Jack Kilborn, he wrote the horror novels AFRAID, ENDURANCE, TRAPPED, SERIAL UNCUT (written with Blake Crouch) and DRACULAS (written with Blake Crouch, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson.)
Under the name Joe Kimball, he wrote two novels in the TIMECASTER sci-fi series which feature Jack Daniels's grandson as the hero, and Harry McGlade III. Visit Joe at http://www.JAKonrath.com.
Jack Daniels thrillers
Whiskey Sour
Bloody Mary
Rusty Nail
Dirty Martini
Fuzzy Navel
Cherry Bomb
Shaken
Stirred
Killers Uncut with Blake Crouch
Serial Killers Uncut with Blake Crouch
Birds of Prey with Blake Crouch
Shot of Tequila
Banana Hammock
Jack Daniels Stories (collected stories)
Serial Uncut with Blake Crouch
Killers with Blake Crouch
Suckers with Jeff Strand
Planter's Punch with Tom Schreck
Floaters with Henry Perez
Burners with Henry Perez
Truck Stop
Symbios (writing as Joe Kimball)
Flee (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Exposed (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Babe on Board (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Wild Night is Calling (with Ann Voss Peterson)
Shapeshifters Anonymous
The Screaming
With a Twist
Street Music
Other works
Afraid
Endurance
Trapped
Draculas with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson
Origin
The List
Disturb
65 Proof (short story omnibus)
Crime Stories (collected stories)
Horror Stories (collected stories)
Dumb Jokes & Vulgar Poems
A Newbie's Guide to Publishing
Table of Contents
ABOUT BLAKE CROUCH
Blake Crouch was born near the piedmont town of Statesville, North Carolina in 1978. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated in 2000 with degrees in English and Creative Writing. Blake lives with his family in southwest Colorado, where he is at work on a new book. His website is http://www.blakecrouch.com.
Blake Crouch’s Works Available on Kindle
Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers
Desert Places
Locked Doors
Break You
Stirred
Thicker Than Blood
Other works
Run
Draculas with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson
Abandon
Snowbound
Famous
Perfect Little Town (horror novella)
Bad Girl (short story)
Serial with Jack Kilborn
Serial Uncut with J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn
Killers with Jack Kilborn
Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and J.A. Konrath
Serial Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and J.A. Konrath
Birds of Prey with Jack Kilborn and J.A. Konrath
Shining Rock (short story)
*69 (short story)
On the Good, Red Road (short story)
Remaking (short story)
The Meteorologist (short story)
The Pain of Others (novella)
Unconditional (short story)
Four Live Rounds (collected stories)
Six in the Cylinder (collected stories)
Fully Loaded (complete collected stories)
Table of Contents
ABOUT J. CARSON BLACK
J. Carson Black is the bestselling and critically-acclaimed author of eight books, including the Laura Cardinal crime fiction series. Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Black has found inspiration for her writing in everything from real life horrors to the headlines screaming today’s news. Her thrillers THE SHOP and ICON will be published by Thomas & Mercer in 2012.
Novels and Short Stories
The Shop
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Dark Side of the Moon
The Devil's Hour
The Laura Cardinal Novels
Darkscope
Dark Horse
The Desert Waits
The BlueLight Special (two short stories)
Pony Rides (short story)
Table of Contents
ABOUT LEE GOLDBERG
Lee Goldberg is a two-time Edgar Award nominee and one-time Shamus Award nominee whose many TV writing and/or producing credits include “Martial Law,” “Diagnosis Murder,” “The Cosby Mysteries,” “Hunter,” “Spenser: For Hire,” “Nero Wolfe,” “Missing,” and “Monk.” He’s also the author of My Gun Has Bullets, Beyond the Beyond, Successful Television Writing, The Walk, and the Diagnosis Murder and Monk series of original mysteries.
Also by Lee Goldberg
The Walk
My Gun Has Bullets
Dead Space
Three Ways to Die
The Jury Series
Judgment
Adjourned
Payback
Guilty
Non-fiction
Television Fast Forward
Unsold TV Pilots: The Greatest Shows You Never Saw
Tied In: The Business, History and Craft of Media Tie-in Writing
Table of Contents
ABOUT SCOTT NICHOLSON
Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than 30 books, including The Red Church, Liquid Fear, Chronic Fear, The Harvest, and Speed Dating with the Dead. He collaborated with bestselling author J.R
. Rain on Cursed, The Vampire Club, Bad Blood, and Ghost College. Nicholson has also written the children’s books If I Were Your Monster, Too Many Witches, Ida Claire, and Duncan the Punkin, and created the graphic novels Dirt and Grave Conditions, in addition to writing six screenplays and 80 short stories. Connect with him on Facebook, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Twitter, his blog, or his website, or visit his Author Central page to learn more about his Kindle books.
Novels
Creative Spirit
Disintegration
The Red Church
Speed Dating with the Dead
The Skull Ring
Drummer Boy
The Harvest
As I Die Lying
Burial to Follow
Liquid Fear
Chronic Fear
Cursed (with J.R. Rain)
Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)
Ghost College (with J.R. Rain)
The Vampire Club (with J.R. Rain)
October Girls
Crime Beat
Transparent Lovers
Troubled (UK only)
Solom (UK only)
The Gorge (UK only)
Story Collections
Curtains
Flowers
Ashes
The First
Zombie Bits
Head Cases
Gateway Drug
These Things Happened
Children’s Books
If I Were Your Monster (with Lee Davis)
Too Many Witches (with Lee Davis)
Ida Claire (with Lee Davis)
Duncan the Punkin (with Sergio Castro)
Screenplays
The Skull Ring: The Screenplay
Creative Spirit: The Screenplay
The Gorge: The Screenplay
Writing
Write Good or Die
The Indie Journey: Secrets to Writing Success
BOX SETS
Ethereal Messenger
Mystery Dance
Horror Movies: Three Screenplays
Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Novels
