by Arno Joubert
Ryan glared at the people around him and then a slow smile formed on his lips. He shrugged. “Show me some evidence.”
Laiveaux removed his cell phone from his pocket. “Do you mind listening to this, Doctor?” he asked, pushing a button on the phone. It was a recording of a phone call between Dr. Ryan and David Beck. Laiveaux fast-forwarded it, listened for a bit, and then nodded. “Here’s the pertinent part.”
They could hear Dr. Ryan saying, “I’ll split the profits with you, David. I need someone to secure the catchments; the oil’s seeping into the groundwater, and we’re losing massive amounts of money.”
David responded, “You’re crazy. Oh, and did I mention this is illegal?”
“David, you do not comprehend the concept.”
“Are you threatening me, Doctor?”
“Damn, yes. Of course I’m threatening you.”
Lucy sobbed and then glared at Ryan. “David recorded all your phone calls. He was afraid that something would happen to him.” She stepped toward Ryan, looked up at him, and then slapped him through the face. “How could you? You’re a murderer.”
Alexa gently pulled Lucy away and then hugged her. “She asked you a question, Doctor.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed, and he licked his lips. “This is bullshit. You’ve got nothing. I cannot believe that you have the audacity—”
“Do you recognize this, Doctor?” Neil interrupted, holding up an old Nokia.
“My phone. Where did you get that?”
Neil shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. After you lent it to Alexa, General Laiveaux asked Major Sal Frydman to trace the call in an attempt to find her.”
Ryan’s face pulled into a grimace and he slapped a fist into his hand. “Shit!”
“Being the perfectionist that he is, Major Frydman went one step further,” Neil continued.
“He pulled a record of all my calls,” Ryan said, looking defeated.
Neil nodded.
“You initiated the refinery shutdowns, didn’t you?” Lucy asked.
Ryan looked away, then cursed again, softer this time.
“Why did you save me?” Alexa asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Anderson had David moved to an office up at the refinery. It was an ideal opportunity to get rid of him, and I did. But I needed to keep an eye on Lucy, make sure that she wasn’t on to me as well, and saving you was the only way to get into your little inner circle.”
“Patricia could have stopped the shutdowns, so you murdered her.”
Ryan kept quiet, answering with a small nod.
“And that’s why you tried to kill Pauline as well. She knew about the codes, and you were afraid that she somehow had gotten a copy from Patricia.”
Ryan gave Alexa a blank look. “Dear old Missy, she’s such a doomsday prepper.”
“What happened that night?” Alexa asked.
He gave a half-hearted shrug. “I followed you to the inn posing as Chris with his stupid goddamn hat and bolo tie. I don’t know why he wore that crap, but it was perfect camouflage.” His voice had no intonation, emotionless. “Like I said, Missy was a prepper. She had dozens of tanks of gas stocked up in a shed next to the inn. I simply opened a couple of valves and tossed in a match.”
Neil’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a hunter, so you must be quite a shot. You managed to kill Rosh as well. What about Lily Coulson, you kill her too?”
Ryan sighed. His answers rolled off his lips in a dull monotone, his features blank. “I needed to get rid of Chris. Andy wanted him to take over management of the refinery. He would have found out that I had it modified to refine the shale. So I had him framed for her murder.” He pursed his lips. “I thought I would be caught when Mary-Lou survived, but somehow she mistook me for Chris.”
Lucy strode to Joseph Ryan and glowered at him. “You’re such an asshole,” she said and punched him in the face. She turned around and strode away, shaking her hand and cursing as she went.
Ryan simply stood, his arms hanging by his side. Blood started trickling from his cheek where Lucy’s wedding ring had cut the skin.
Ryan watched her go and then dropped his eyes to the ground. “It was a competitive thing, I guess. Andy thought he was making the big bucks, living in his big mansion, posing for all the newspapers and fans. In the meantime, I was doing all the work.” He looked around aimlessly and then started plodding toward the mess tent. “I guess we both lost.”
Alexa watched him and then turned to Neil. “Get this pig out of my face.”
Neil stepped toward Ryan and started reciting him his Miranda rights, cuffing Ryan as he spoke. He pulled him toward the Hummer, and Ryan glanced back over his shoulder. “I guess this doesn’t mean much, but I’m sorry,” he said as he was pushed roughly into the car.
Alexa and Neil sat on the sofa of the Ocelot Inn watching the news. She had her feet in Neil’s lap, and he was massaging them gently. “Ooh, that’s good,” Alexa said drowsily.
On the television, Supreme Court Judge Martha Williamson stood at a podium reading a statement, an officer standing beside her, holding her by the arm.
“I’m sure that this misunderstanding will be cleared up in a couple of days.” She glanced up at the camera and smiled nervously. “I want to make it absolutely clear that I have no connection with Anderson Fitch or Refatex, none whatsoever.” She pursed her lips and looked straight into the camera. “I want my day in court.” The policeman tugged at her arm and pulled her toward an awaiting police vehicle, but the Judge continued shouting defiantly at the cameras, “I’m innocent, innocent until proven guilty!”
A young reporter with a receding hairline appeared on the screen. “With Anderson Fitch still unavailable for comment, we have to assume that the accusations made by Interpol against him and the judge are true. Will she have her day in court? The answer is yes. But based on the mountain of evidence proffered by Interpol to the Houston PD, legal opinion seems to be unanimous that Anderson Fitch and Martha Williamson’s days as free members of society are numbered.”
Alexa pressed a button on the remote, and the television blinked off. “Unavailable for comment?”
Neil grinned.
“What’s next?”
Neil stood up, and Alexa heard the fridge open and suck close. He returned and popped the caps off two beers and handed her one. “Let’s go to an island somewhere.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I’ll chat to the general; maybe I could bend his arm.”
“If it was up to him, you could cut off his arm, boil it, and feed it to him; he would accept anything you asked him.”
She punched his shoulder and laughed. “Have some respect, Neil. He is still our commander.”
“I’m just saying, in the condition you’re in, he would—”
She sat up. “My condition?”
“When last have you looked in a mirror, Miss Guerra?”
“Well, thank you for the compliment, Mr. Allen. You don’t look too fresh yourself, if I may say so.”
Neil grinned at her as she swallowed a sip of beer.
“When do you plan on fixing your tooth?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. I like the gangster look. What do you think?” He pulled a face and smiled, exposing the gap in his mouth.
“Over my dead body!” She laughed and then looked at him and smiled mischievously. “You know what the guys call that in Cape Town prisons?”
“What?”
“A passion gap.”
“A passion gap? Why would they ever call it that?”
Alexa slid her finger in and out of her mouth and winked. “Better blow jobs.”
“Shit, that’s gross, Alexa,” Neil shouted, pulling a face. Then he roared with laughter and pulled her toward him.
She wrapped her arms around Neil’s waist and rested her head on his chest with a contented sigh. She had everything she needed, right here and now. Neil was still chuckling, muttering the words “Passion Gap” as she fell asleep.
Andy Fitch woke up, his head feeli
ng ready to explode. He opened his eyes and saw a pretty nurse looking down at him, a concerned frown on her dainty little forehead. She turned around and called out to someone. “Doctor, he’s awake.”
He heard the patter of hasty footsteps and then saw a man lean over him, putting a cold piece of metal on his chest. “Oh, thank God. We thought you were a goner for a second.”
“How you find me?” Anderson Fitch mumbled, battling to form the words with his chafed lips.
The doctor glanced toward the nurse, a worried look on his face. “The Houston PD was searching the area for your corpse; we thought you were dead.”
“Wha’ ’appen?” Andy Fitch managed to force out. He had difficulty swallowing and his hand itched like crazy.
Biting the nail on his thumb, the doctor said, “They found you in the refinery basement. You were in there for ten days, living off cat food.” The doctor looked at him funny. “Mr. Fitch, the cop told me you said that you were bitten by a rabid cat, is this true?”
Andy Fitch had difficulty swallowing. “Yes, pretty Bella.”
The doctor nodded slowly. “Okay, that confirms the symptoms. I started with the treatment when you arrived.” He bit the side of his lip and ran a jerky hand through his thinning hair. “I don’t know whether we got to you in time.”
Fitch shook his head. It felt like the right half of his face was hanging on the ground. “Whaddya mean?”
“Your condition is getting worse.” He turned toward the nurse. “Get me some more vaccine, like yesterday. I want to try to double the dose.”
Anderson Fitch tried to sit up. Vaccine? Did he have rabies? “Abies?” he managed to grunt.
The doctor nodded solemnly. “It looks like it, Mr. Fitch. I’m truly sorry.”
The nurse pulled a cordless phone from somewhere. She punched a number and a frantic conversation ensued. After a minute, she cupped the receiver and whispered, “They can only send it tomorrow.”
The doctor cursed. “Then get them to send a helicopter.” He sucked in a deep breath and gave a long sigh, trying to compose himself. “Okay, thanks.” He turned to Fitch with the same grave expression on his face the vet had when he told Fitch his dog was dying. “Look, Mr. Fitch, I think I need to be honest with you. Rabies has no cure once it has taken hold. It’s a painful death, and the best that I can do is to try to make you as comfortable as possible.”
Fitch frowned and then smiled slowly as the doctor’s head morphed into a Spongebob Squarepants figurine. “Funny.”
The doctor's sad face cast a nervous glance at Nurse Cutie Pie.
Fitch clutched the bedding nervously as the man’s face contorted into the devil’s, spiky red horns growing from his head. Fitch coughed as his stomach convulsed.
“Oh, shit, he’s foaming around the mouth.”
Now the both of them shape-shifted again, Sad Face becoming a roast chicken and Cutie Pie a snow cone with strawberry syrup. They both looked yummy.
The doctor touched Fitch’s clammy brow, and Fitch grabbed the doctor’s arm and then sunk his teeth deep into the flesh, ripping out a chunk of meat from his forearm. The doctor shrieked and Fitch fell back in bed, chomping contentedly on the tasty piece of meat.
The last thing Fitch heard was the nurse saying, “Make that two doses of the vaccine.”
Then his stomach spasmed again and everything faded to black.
Alexa took a sip of the lemonade that Missy had poured from the pitcher. It was deliciously sweet and cool. They were seated on a bench beneath a shady oak tree in the gardens of the Ocelot Inn.
The rebuilding of the inn was progressing faster than she had anticipated; the carpenters were already assembling the roof trusses in place. Luckily, the fire brigade had gotten to the scene on time, and a large section of the building could be salvaged.
The townspeople had all contributed to the rebuilding process, using their own specialized set of skills to speed the process along. Carpenters, plumbers, and electricians all pulled their weight, Missy rewarding them with free beers and meals.
Voelkner proved to be a huge help as well, and Missy doted on him like a proud mother hen.
Mary-Lou stood beaming up at Chris Fitch, giggling as he performed a curtsy in front of her. He took her hand and danced with her, swinging her around in a pirouette while whistling a cheerful ditty.
“Who wants lemonade?” Missy called, holding up the pitcher. Voelkner’s glass was first in the queue.
Chris grabbed Mary-Lou, swung her onto his back, and then hurried their way. “I’m parched,” he said, filling two glasses.
Missy smiled and squeezed Alexa’s hand in her lap. “Chris has set up a community trust with the money he inherited.”
Alexa glanced at Chris. “May I ask how much you got?”
Chris combed his fingers through his hair and handed a glass to Mary-Lou. “The US government’s going to come out the clear winner. After everything’s been calculated, the guy from the IRS reckons I should get at least $50 million, give or take. ”
“You’re too young to retire,” Alexa joked.
Chris Fitch shook his head as he drained his glass and placed it on the table. “You won’t keep me away from Interpol for all the money in the world.” He looked up, seemingly embarrassed. “That is, if I still have a job.”
“We won’t fire you for all the money in the world,” Alexa said with a wink. “So, what are you going to do with all that money?”
Missy chuckled and then poured Mary-Lou another glass of lemonade as she tugged on the old woman’s dress. “You won’t believe it.” She sipped her lemonade and looked at Alexa with a twinkle in her eye.
“Well go on then.”
“The Fitch Academy has become one of the best funded institutions doing research on renewable energy.” She threw her hands in the air, in a “praise the Lord” gesture. “In the world.”
Alexa smiled. How ironic.
Missy lifted Mary-Lou onto her lap. “Lucy Beck and I will be heading the recruitment program. We’ve already managed to enlist a Nobel Laureate, Dr. Harvey Banks. We want Dabbort Creek to be independent of fossil fuel energy within five years’ time.”
Alexa nodded and then glanced up as Neil sauntered toward them carrying a couple of duffle bags. “Ally, your men have left.” He smiled and then nodded. He had a brand new front tooth, although the color did not match the ones beside it. “Good day, folks.”
Alexa stood up. “We need to go.”
Missy took her hand with a frown. “You sure you don’t want to stay a while longer? Rest up a bit?”
Neil shook his head and then leaned down and gave her a hug. “We’ve spent enough time resting. To tell you the honest truth—” he started to say and then gave a sheepish grin.
“What?” Missy said, glancing between Neil and Alexa.
Chris slapped Neil on the shoulder. “They’re bored out of their skulls!”
Missy tsk-tsked and then stood up, straightening her dress. She gave Alexa and Neil a motherly hug. “Young folks of today.” She waved a hand like she was swatting away a fly. “Never mind, you both come visit soon, you hear?”
Alexa nodded and then gave Missy a hug and a peck on the cheek.
Missy turned to Voelkner. “As for you, young man,” she said waving a finger, a stern look on her face.
Voelkner’s shoulders slumped.
She grabbed him, hugged him, and then planted two wet kisses on his cheeks and one on his mouth. “I sure am going to miss you.”
Voelkner look flabbergasted. “Me too.”
Mary-Lou glanced up at Alexa. “You’re so pretty. You look just like my momma.”
Alexa laughed and picked her up, hugging her tightly. “You’re such a special girl, Mary-Lou.” She gently placed her on the ground and kneeled in front of her. “You look after your gran and daddy, you hear me now?”
Mary-Lou nodded and then pulled Chris Fitch by the hand. “C’mon, Daddy, let’s dance some more.”
Alexa waved, and C
hris regarded her sadly over his shoulder as Mary-Lou pulled him away. “Good-bye, Captain.”
“Good-bye, Lieutenant,” Alexa called and headed toward the car.
“You all don’t be strangers now,” Missy shouted, wagging a finger.
Neil and Alexa climbed into the car and then roared away, waving their hands.
They hated overdrawn adieus.
Let’s Talk!
I’ve been rushing to finalize Book 4 of the Fatal Series starring Captain Alexa Guerra, and it’s almost done.
There is a caveat, though. And it is this.
I have kinda reached a crossroads in my writing career, I’ve been doing this on and off for close to twenty years, and it’s tough. Look, I’ll be the first person to tell you that writing is like a drug to me, a story mulls around in my head and I have to get it down on paper for the characters to stop harassing me. I’ll never stop.
But.
Writing is a lonesome occupation. So I’m going to ask you, my reader, a huge favor.
Please get in touch with me. Write me at [email protected] and tell me what you think, what you enjoyed and where you reckon I should improve. Hey, I’m no Stephen King or Thomas Mann for that matter, but I do think I spin an interesting yarn and if you would like to continue on this journey with me, please let me know.
And if you have a moment to spare, please leave a review for this episode or any of the other episodes you may have read.
It would be greatly appreciated.
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Hope to hear from you Guerrians soon!
Arno Joubert
Author of the FATAL Series
