“No, I didn’t. I didn’t kill Mitch.”
“Why don’t I believe you? Oh, I know why. You’re a liar, David. You lied about Natalee. You lied about Mitch. Who knows what else you lied about.” She shook her head. “I can’t trust my own blood. How fucking sad is that?”
“But… that’s why I’m telling you this now. I want to come clean, Jess. I don’t want any more secrets between us. I get why you’re hesitant to believe me. Hell, I would be, too. But I’m telling you, I didn’t kill Mitch. I thought about it, I wanted to. God knows I wanted to. But things just kind of… worked themselves out.”
Fluttering, her eyes went wide again. “Worked themselves out? What kind of shit is that, David? I wanted to leave him, not kill him. Christ almighty.” She swiped at another tear. “I… I just don’t know if I can make it in this fucked up world. A month ago”—she coughed, cleared her throat—“I was standing in line at the mini-mart, buying M&M’s and Twinkies for my abusive pothead husband, bitching about the price of gas and how my friends looked like sluts in their stupid selfies. And now we’re talking about killing people.” She tossed her hands up, letting them fall, slapping her thighs. “Oh, and dead people are walking around trying to eat us. Can’t leave out that minor detail.” Her face fell into her palms, and she began to sob.
He sat on the bed beside her and rubbed her back. “We’ll make it, Jess. We’re survivors.”
“Are we, David? Are we really? I hated my job as an insurance agent. Hated it with a passion. Couldn’t wait to quit. Now, I’d give anything—anything—to be back behind that stupid desk, processing stupid claims, arguing with stupid people. Anything. Hell, I’d even take Mitch back with no divorce option if it meant the world would just… go back to normal.” She exploded into another coughing/sobbing fit.
“I know, Jess. I know.”
David released a heavy sigh. Should have known better than to attempt such a critical confession at that moment. Especially after such an emotionally and physically demanding day. But as usual, his timing sucked ass, and his secret supplication for a sympathetic reaction proved unheard and unanswered. No surprise there. Frankly, it was unrealistic to expect as much. He certainly wasn’t looking for hugs and kisses and kudos for his voluntary avowal. Just the love and support and understanding anyone attempting to conquer a disease would expect.
Several moments passed. Waving her hand, she said, “Go. Go kill your precious prisoner.”
He stopped rubbing her back. “My precious prisoner? Jess—”
“I get it,” she said. “He only tried to choke me to death. Feed me to a shuffler. And he only killed my husband. I don’t deserve any restitution in this deal. Go on. Go ahead. Kill him, since you’re such a killer now.”
He exhaled another weighty sigh. “Jess, look. I want the guy to suffer. I mean, I’m no killer. I’ve never killed anyone before. The thought of it’s just… hell, I’m not even sure I can go through with it. But every time I think I can’t, I think about what he did to Natalee. I think about her hand in that box. I think about her heart in that box. I think about those stupid, mocking poems. And when I think about it, I get so fired up and so… goddamn furious, I can’t even think straight. My emotions take over.”
Jessica dragged her forearm under her nose, sniffled. “But that’s exactly what he wants. Don’t you see that? He wants you fired up. He wants you pissed beyond belief. He wants your emotions ruling you, because then he controls you. You’re his. He owns you.”
“He doesn’t own me.”
“Yes, he does. You’re his bitch.”
David flinched. “His bitch?”
“Yes, his bitch.”
“How do you figure?”
This time, Jessica sighed deeply. “Weren’t you listening to me?” She arced a dismissive hand through the air. “Whatever. When’re you gonna do it?”
“Kill him?”
“What’ve we been talking about?”
Come clean. Remember your promise to her, and yourself.
“I… I was going to take him tonight.”
“Where?”
The question caught him off guard. “I’m not sure. Was gonna make him take me to—” He stopped abruptly, his gaze dropping to the floor.
“To where, David?”
He hesitated a moment, gathering the strength to answer the question. “To where… he was keeping Natalee.”
Jessica’s gaze followed his to the floor, suddenly understanding the reluctance in his response.
Continuing, he said, “I’m assuming it’d be his home, wherever that might be. Then… then I…”
“Then what?” She was rubbing his back, now.
“I wanted to say goodbye to Natalee, in my own way. Get the rest of her. Then, I was going to… torture… Doc.” He cringed when he heard the words out loud. They sounded so… evil.
Jessica didn’t respond, only moved her hand up and down his back.
“I’m going to do bad things to him, Jess. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d say those words and actually mean them literally. I mean, I’m going to kill him, Jess. Kill him. End a man’s life. What the fuck’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you. It’s him or you. Simple as that.”
“Do you think the world will ever go back? To the way it was?”
Their eyes met, both holding the same answer.
That’s when the unexpected knock at the door came.
Chapter 29
Randy’s enormous form filled the doorway, eclipsing the hall behind him.
David glimpsed his hulking silhouette. Holding Jessica’s hand, he said, “Randy, give us just another minute or two, would ya?”
“Um, David…” His speech slurred, like he was speaking around a fresh root canal.
Impatience pricking him, David snapped, “What, Randy?” He turned his gaze to the overweight man, and that’s when he noticed the glinting metal mashed into Randy’s beard from behind. He spotted the blood running from his nose next, followed by the glistening crimson on his whiskers and lips.
“Oh, shit,” David whispered. He shot to his feet.
Doc stepped out from behind Randy while shoving him through the doorway, pistol pressed firmly to his cheek. He closed the door using his heel. His southern gentleman drawl calmly caressed the air, a contradiction to the soaring tension. “Well, well. David Morris. El Jefe to some. Wife killer to me. All the same, a murderer by any name. A rose is a rose and smells and such. Speaking of roses, did you enjoy my poetry in a box? I admit it was rather rudimentary, but sometimes less is simply more.”
David’s hand crossed to his pistol.
“Ah-ah,” Doc said, sliding behind his human shield, “now, that would be awfully unwise given your current predicament. And his.”
“Let him go.”
“Pardon me? Let him go? Are you reading from a script?”
Randy mumbled, “I’m sorry, David. He jumped me when—”
“Please speak only when spoken to, sir.” Doc said, gouging Randy’s cheek with the man’s own pistol. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Letting him go.” He paused a beat. “No.”
David swallowed hard, a tremble in his tone. “Your fight’s not with him. It’s with me.”
“Oh, I beg to differ. My fight’s with every single one of you in this room.”
Jessica stood, prompting Doc to point the pistol at her. “You killed my husband—”
Doc dipped his chin at David. “And he killed my wife.”
“And you killed mine,” David countered, his features hard and rigid. Anger and alarm coursed through every crease on his face.
Doc’s lips bent into a sinister grin. “Ah, yes, well… I suppose that does put me ahead by one, since we’re keeping score. But, Mr. Morris… you started it.”
The crass comments struck David like a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire and nails and wasps. His hearing went mushy, and a traitorous fist of helplessness punched his throat from the inside an
d lodged itself there, cursing his carelessness. All at once, he couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe or speak. Or think. He blinked, the simple act of standing taking every bit of effort, his muscles and tendons telling him to fuck off.
And he found himself in that hellish pasture all over again, swinging on a single hair of hope. Letting go, begging for sizzling stray lead to pierce his skull, saving him the effort of offing himself and giving him a lazy pass out of this life. Oh well, you tried. Better luck next life.
Get your fucking head in the goddamned game, already. This is exactly what you wanted. You’re face to face with the motherfucker. Be careful what you wish for, or you just… might… get it.
Doc’s voice faded back in. “… I will not ask you again.”
The metallic clatter of a compact handgun hitting the floor snapped off the cool cinderblock walls, yanking David back into the unfolding nightmare.
Randy whimpered, eyes closed tight, lips moving. David didn’t peg him as the praying type, but with death whispering in his ear and kissing his cheek…
Jessica hissed, “David! Do what he says!” She nodded at the Sig Sauer pistol she’d tossed to the tile per Doc’s instruction.
A tar pit of faint and fear anchored him in its unrelenting undertow. He desperately craved that coursing aplomb he exhibited at the trailer house—Mitch’s home—where he handily put Sammy and Gills to rout. But those two clowns were just the warm-up act, the main event now excruciatingly underway. He was out of his league. He’d gotten lucky before. And he knew it.
Again, Jessica prodded him. “Your gun.” She cocked her head and eyes at Doc. “Do what he says.”
David’s gaze fell on his cousin, and she stared back, her words telling him one thing, but her eyes begged another.
“You should listen to her, David Morris.” Doc continued stabbing the gun’s barrel into Randy’s thick beard. His stare was vicious and relentless—the look of a man not afraid to die because he simply had nothing left to lose.
Options were nonexistent. Doc was large and in charge.
You’re his bitch.
Jessica’s words resounded like a town church bell in his head, vibrating his very skull. The truth infuriated and frustrated David. He did not want to cooperate with this sociopath. He was not ‘his bitch.’ But yet, here he was. Helpless, and being told exactly what to do. Just like someone’s—
bitch.
David held his palms to Doc, fingers splayed, then deliberately unsnapped the thumb break on his holster. But he stopped, hand hovering. Seriously considering—
To Randy, Doc said, “Say, ‘ah.’”
Randy opened his mouth, and Doc rammed the gun’s barrel into his mouth. The metal clacked painfully against his teeth, and the big man gagged like he was in the rough hands of an incompetent dentist.
“Now,” Doc said to David, “I know what you’re contemplating, and it would behoove you to reconsider. Lives literally depend on you not being foolish.”
As much as it pained David, he reluctantly complied, fingers pinching and lifting El Jefe from its hand-tooled home. He crouched, setting the prized piece on the floor. He stayed there for a moment, his gaze cradling the weapon, before standing again. But those rusty, iron-willed cogs of intrepid resolve jolted free, Doc’s words a potent shot of WD-40.
Lives literally depend on you…
Lives… literally… depend… on…
Me.
On me. What I think, what I do. How I act. It’s too late for Natalee. For Karla. Maybe even for me. But it’s not too late for Jessica and Randy. For Bryan. It’s not too late for them—
“Kick it over.” Doc twisted the barrel in Randy’s mouth, and the big man squeaked like a mouse whose tail had been stepped on.
David glared at him, reluctance again taking hold.
“Mr. Morris,” Doc said, “no matter what scenario you have playing in that rebellious mind of yours, I can assure you, it ends badly. For you, these two, and anyone else who comes running to your rescue.”
David obeyed, kicking his sidearm across the floor.
Uneasy breaths steamed the room as Doc crouched and picked up the pistol. He then ordered David to drop his knife to the floor, and David obeyed.
But the last cog spun free before Doc could say anything else, and David blurted, “I lost my daughter. And my wife. My girl before. My wife… after.”
Doc stared at David for a long moment, the air heavy with muddled emotion.
“Were you driving?” Doc asked, his gaze and lips dropping to the floor. “When you ran over my Kate? Were you behind the wheel?”
David breathed deep. All eyes darted to him. “Yes.”
“Were these two with you?”
“No.”
Doc’s eyes flicked to David, twinkling disbelief.
“Who was with you?”
“No one.”
“You were by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“So you, and you alone, killed my Kate?”
David pursed his lips, nodded. Through a whisper, “Yes.”
Doc shoved the gleaming sidearm into Randy’s face again, and the man mewled in pain. “I didn’t hear you.”
A deep frown carved David’s face as he growled the word. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
A deep exhale. “Yes. I killed Kate.”
Doc seemed to consider this for a moment. Seriously consider it.
David said, “I was alone. It was just me.” His eyes darted to Jessica. “And no one else.”
“Well. This certainly poses quite the conundrum.”
David’s brows dropped. “How so? I just confessed. I’m your man. Case closed.”
“Well, yes, you see, I have it on moderately good authority that you were indeed not alone the night you murdered my Kate. That these two, along with the young boy, were along for the ride. Witnesses—and accomplices—as it were.”
David swallowed hard. “It was just me. Only me. I’ve already told you. They left in another vehicle before me. I drove the truck by myself.”
“So you say.” Doc tapped his lips with the pistol’s barrel, giving Randy’s cheek a respite. “If I were to question the child, Bryan… would he corroborate your little tale?”
David licked his lips before plunking down another lie. A lie he hoped was wisely spent. “He’d say he didn’t know what you were talking about.” David upped the ante. “We can bring him in and ask—”
“You’re playing a game you can’t possibly win, David Morris. I had the opportunity to visit with young Bryan earlier today.”
This time, David tried swallowing, but couldn’t. He knew Doc was telling the truth.
“Don’t you want to know what he said?”
David simply stared.
Almost begrudgingly, Doc said, “You’re a hero to that young boy.”
A minuscule smile cracked David’s lips.
“Which sickens me,” Doc continued, “that you’re what he looks up to. That if he manages to mature into a man, he’ll most likely turn out just like you.”
“You know I’m telling the truth,” David lied. “So let’s take our fight elsewhere, leave the innocent out of it.”
“Then a compromise is in order.”
David actually released a sigh of stilted relief. “Compromise?”
“Yes, you see, we’ve reached the proverbial impasse. You say one thing, I believe another. He said, she said, they said, we said, and so on and so forth. No proof. No credible, non-biased witnesses. The only witnesses are those involved, all with a dog in the race. Now, I consider myself the equitable type, giving the benefit of the doubt and whatnot when warranted.”
“Then what’s your proposition?”
“For you, death’s a given. For everyone else, a fighting chance.”
David eyed him curiously. “What does that mean?”
“That means that I don’t kill them directly.”
“You kill them indirectly? That’s no fighting c
hance.”
“Oh, but it is.”
“I thought we agreed to leave them out of it? That the fight’s between you and me?”
“You and I. The fight’s between you… and I. And we’re going to settle our differences, you and I, which means you will die for certain. They will most likely die, but with the slim chance of living.”
“That ain’t what we agreed to—”
“We didn’t agree to anything. Now, if you’re dissatisfied with those terms, then I’d be more than happy to reinstate the original plan, which was to execute all of you on the spot, including young Bryan. In other words, zero fighting chance.” Doc glared at David for several seconds, then added, “So what’ll it be, Mr. Morris?”
David stood silent, jaws clenched, his harsh stare penetrating the madman flanking Randy. Finally, tight nods of acquiescence.
“Now, where are my coat, my hat, and my guns?”
“What’re you going to do to—”
“One more outburst from you, Mr. Morris, and their slim chance becomes none. Got it?”
David’s gaze dove to the floor.
“Now, if you’ll kindly point me to my things, we’ll get this show on the road.”
* * *
In spite of a day trumped by terror, the Alamo slept soundly, entombed in a dead slumber. At almost one o’clock in the morning, the halls resembled some secret underground labyrinth—sparsely lit, claustrophobic, and little used. The moat of freshly ground corpses contributed a new rancidity that permeated the building, creeping on the air, oozing like black ink through calm water.
In the south hall, a speck of activity as one man was preparing to kill another, the taste of revenge on his tongue.
The two men stood just outside Jessica Thompson’s door. Dipping his chin at the dull deadbolt, Doc spoke quiet, succinct orders. “Lock it.”
David stared at him for a second, then slotted the master key given to him by the Janitor. He hesitated, then twisted his wrist. Tumblers tripped, securely locking Jessica and Randy inside the room. David exhaled deeply, righting the key, then tugging the metal out of the keyhole.
Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row Page 25
