At all costs

by John Gilstrap

  “I won’t do it,” she declared.

  Wiggins’s eyes flashed-a second of anger that disappeared instantly, replaced by his professional calm. He glared straight through Melissa’s eyes, into her brain. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t sign it. I don’t want you to sign it.” He snatched the note from beneath her hand and crumpled it up tightly, stuffing it into his pocket. When his hand came into view again, it held a knife. He snapped it open, revealing a finely honed three-inch blade. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She winced, anticipating pain, but panicked when she saw him heading out of the bedroom toward the stairs. “Where are you going?”

  He never slowed, didn’t say a word.

  “Oh, my God!” she yelled. “Lauren!” She bolted out of her writing chair and ran after the killer. She caught up with him at the top of the stairs and tried to tackle him, but he didn’t even seem to feel the impact. She fell to the floor and tried to hang on to his ankle, but he just kicked himself free.

  “Please!” she yelled. “Please! I’ll do it! Please don’t hurt her.”

  “I told you, Melissa,” Wiggins said calmly as he marched down the sweeping, carpeted staircase. “I told you this would happen, but you didn’t believe me.” His heels clicked as he stepped onto the hardwood of the foyer. “I’m going to have to get really creative with the boys.”

  “No!” she shrieked. “I’ll do it!” She sailed down the steps, barely touching them as she charged at him. “Touch my little girl, you son of a bitch, and I’ll kill you!”

  She was five feet away when Wiggins stopped suddenly and whirled, thrusting his hand into the air like a traffic cop in an intersection. She skidded to a halt and nearly fell.

  He glared at her and brought the point of his knife within inches of her face. “Are you asking for a second chance?”

  She nodded frantically. “Yes.”

  “Then ask me.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  “I am,” she whispered back. “I’m asking you for a second chance.”

  He smiled. “Ask me to let you kill yourself.”

  She tried. “Please,” she said. She choked on her voice as she began to sob. She slumped to her knees. “Please…”

  “Say the words,” he insisted, “or I’ll field-dress your little girl right there on the sofa.”

  She tried again. Really tried, but the words wouldn’t come. “Please…”

  “Say the words!” he boomed, his voice shaking the glass on a curio cabinet.

  She was helpless now. Terrified. Fear and sadness flowed from her soul like a raging river as she finally croaked out the words. “Please. Let. Me. Kill myself.”

  Wiggins stood over her, admiring his handiwork. Finally, he stooped down to her level and used one finger on the point of her chin to raise her eyes to meet his. “I don’t normally give second chances,” he whispered.

  “That’s it!” Nick yelled. “The white mailbox on the right. That’s my driveway!”

  Thorne hit his signal and slowed to make the turn. All very legal. All very slow.

  “Goddammit, Thorne, move it!”

  “Look!” the driver snarled. “If our target is already there, I’m sure as hell not charging up the driveway into a trap! It won’t make a difference, anyway…”

  Jake saw the words cut divots out of Nick’s heart.

  “… and if he isn’t there yet, then we’ve got nothing to worry about.” He cleared the mailbox and began inching his way up the long driveway, scanning the horizon for threats.

  “Whose van is that?” Jake asked, pointing to the end of the driveway. The block lettering on the side read “Mike’s Plumbing.”

  “Oh, shit,” Nick breathed. “Step on it, Thorne.”

  Thorne hesitated, then stopped. “This isn’t good.”

  It was three-twenty now, and the boys’ bus would arrive out front at any minute.

  This time the note was short and sweet. “Good-bye.” She’d addressed it individually to all of her family, and she’d signed it without objection. With her children’s lives in the balance, her own meant nothing.

  Wiggins led Melissa to the little balcony overlooking the foyer and handed her the rope. It was clothesline, really; an eight-foot nylon tube with little tufts of white stuffing sticking out of either end. “Tie this onto the railing,” he instructed.

  She moved mechanically, like her hands were suddenly a couple of sizes too big. Much to her surprise, though, they didn’t tremble. She was terrified, yet resigned to her fate. It was for her children.

  Wiggins watched her work, observing every detail.

  She tied the knot carefully, making sure it would hold, even as she feared that the railing itself might not stand the strain of the jolt. Probably wouldn’t matter, anyway. Once her neck snapped, the rest would be academic.

  “Very good,” Wiggins praised. “Now, you see that little loop I tied on the other end?”

  She looked at him quizzically, then nodded.

  “Good. I need you to pull some rope back through the loop to form a noose.

  She did what she was told, looking up for confirmation that she was doing it right.

  “A little bigger,” he said.

  And bigger it grew. She knew that a single screwup would kill her children. She had doubted that once, but not anymore.

  He backed away now, putting some distance between himself and his victim. “Okay, Melissa,” he said softly. “The rest is up to you now.” He walked down the stairs to watch the action from the foyer.

  She looked at him strangely; like she suddenly didn’t know who he was. She still didn’t understand why, but the time had come to kill herself. She prayed it wouldn’t hurt too much. She eyed the rope in her hands, then slowly and deliberately slipped the noose over her head, adjusting it just so on her neck, with the knot lined up to her spine.

  She was crying now, though still amazingly calm as she slung one leg over the railing, and then the other, moving carefully to keep from falling. As if it would matter. The tiny ledge beyond the white wooden rail spindles protruded just enough to support Melissa’s heels; and even then, she had to jam her Achilles tendon into the spaces between them. With her hands behind her, knuckles white against the dark wood of the banister, she looked like the bowsprit of a great schooner. The tears flowed freely now as she looked down at her murderer.

  “You’re doing great, Melissa,” he coaxed. There was now an easy gentleness to his tone that she found more frightening than his anger. “You’re almost there. Just take a step.”

  She looked down at him, wanting to beg; hoping to tap into a tiny vein of compassion. But there was no pity in those eyes. There’d be no reprieve. She tried to speak but found her throat packed with sand. She swallowed dusty air and tried it again. “Promise me you won’t hurt the children,” she croaked.

  He put his fists on his hips and shook his head. “We’ve already been over this.”

  “Promise me.”

  His eyes narrowed as his features hardened. “Jump, Melissa. End it. Now. They’ll be home soon.”

  “Promise me!” A fierceness returned to her voice. It wasn’t a request anymore. It was a demand.

  He found it amusing. He stared at her for a moment longer, then finally shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I promise. Now jump!”

  She glared down on him, trying to kill the bastard with the strength of her hate alone. When he refused to break eye contact, though-when he chose instead to smile up at her-she knew the battle was lost. Out in the family room, she heard the mantel clock chime the half hour. Nicky and Joshua would be home at any minute. She had to get this done.

  Forgive me, she thought, and she adjusted the rope one last time behind her. Then she let go. And jumped.

  “He’s in there,” Thorne whispered, and he climbed out of the car.

  Jake followed, sliding out of the backseat. “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s what I’d drive if I thought I might have to dispose of a c
ouple of bodies. Call it intuition.”

  Nick stayed in the car as Jake and Thorne played commando, sneaking quietly up the grassy slope toward the house.

  “Screw this,” Nick spat. In one smooth motion, he slid over to the driver’s seat and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The rear wheels dug trenches in the grass as the big boat of a car launched forward, the acceleration slamming Jake’s door shut.

  He passed his partners in a blur, rocketing straight toward the front of the house. He covered the three hundred feet in no time at all, destroying a dozen azaleas and a thirty-year-old boxwood as he slid to a stop on the front walk.

  Stealth be damned, he jumped out of the car and dashed full speed up the two steps to the front door. When he found it ajar, he panicked and flew into the foyer. “Mel-oh, God!”

  Melissa saw the door fly open, even as she leapt into the air, and the reality of her rescue hit her like a bolt of lightning. Her body jerked and arced wildly as she abandoned her suicide and turned in midair, clamoring for a handhold on the railing. Her left hand nicked it but missed, and she brought her right around in a giant overhead arc, catching the polished banister in her palm.

  She slammed heavily into the ledge and the spindles. A splintering crack! startled her, and for just a fraction of an instant, she feared that the wood had snapped. Then the bolt of agony reached her brain, launched from her ruined shoulder. Suddenly, the railing felt white-hot in her palm, and as her grip started to slip, she said another prayer for her children.

  Nick had never seen the man before in his life, but he knew from his eyes exactly who he was. The entire scene registered with the speed of a camera flash. The murderer in the foyer. His wife struggling overhead.

  Little Lauren, looking sleepy and disheveled, took it all in from the kitchen doorway.

  Wiggins moved toward Nick with viper-speed. But for an extra two feet of separation, Nick would have died right there. As it was, Wiggins had to close the gap by a step, and Nick used the half-second delay to dive out of the way. As he skidded across the floor, his attacker changed course.

  Nick saw the kick coming, and he rolled to his right, just as he heard Lauren’s panicked voice yell, “Daddy!” The kick missed, but Wiggins adjusted one more time, settling for a crushing blow to Nick’s ankle. He stomped on it; like someone else might stomp on a bug.

  Nick howled in agony. He tried to pull his leg away, but the foot just flopped to the side, like it didn’t even belong to him. His vision seemed to liquefy. Again, he saw the kick coming, this one to his head and moving a million miles per hour.

  Lauren screamed one more time.

  Thorne moved with tremendous speed, sailing across the foyer in no time flat. For the final ten feet, he was airborne, arriving shoulder-first and launching Wiggins into the opposite wall. The murderer hit hard, knocking a curio cabinet off the wall and sending the shattered remains of Melissa Thomas’s most prized pottery skittering across the floor.

  Thorne recovered quickly, but Wiggins was faster, sweeping the newcomer’s legs out from under him with a vicious roundhouse kick. Wiggins was on him the instant he hit the floor, and suddenly, the struggle looked like something you’d see in the halls of a high school: a wrestling match, with only a few punches thrown-and those to little effect-as each man struggled for dominance over the other.

  Jake moved in, weapon drawn, and pulled Nick out of the way by his armpits. “Help my wife,” Nick groaned, and he pointed overhead.

  Melissa looked like she was trying to swim, her legs kicking uselessly in the air as she dangled from her one good arm. What the hell? Jake wondered, and then he saw the rope. “Oh, my God!”

  The two fighters broke apart as Thorne’s head snapped back and a smear of blood flooded the lower half of his face. Thorne countered with two savage lefts to the killer’s mouth. A tooth hit the floor, and the men locked it up again.

  Jake took the stairs two at a time. As he arrived at the top, he saw the angulation in Melissa’s ruined shoulder and realized for the first time just how desperate her situation was. If she let go, she was dead.

  Melissa greeted Jake with a look of faint recognition. “You-” she said, not completing the sentence. She eyed the Glock in his fist and gurgled out something like “Shoot him.”

  Jake didn’t bother to respond. He needed the killer alive and prayed Thorne would be able to hold his own while he concentrated on saving this woman’s life. He examined the complex knot on the railing for just a second before abandoning it as hopeless. Reaching over the top, he grabbed a fistful of shirt and heaved her high enough to where she could regain her foothold on the ledge.

  “Shoot him!” she said, air returning to her lungs.

  He helped her climb back over the banister. “I can’t,” he said.

  A heavy thump and a crash whipped his attention back down the stairs as Thorne and Wiggins exploded apart, each tumbling backward onto the wooden floor. Thorne landed in the broken glass.

  Wiggins landed on Lauren.

  “Mommmeeeee!!!”

  In an instant, Wiggins had the little girl in his grasp, his forearm around her middle, squeezing her hard enough to turn her face red. The Beretta appeared in his other hand, and he brought it toward the little girl’s head.

  Melissa and Nick shrieked in unison, “No!”

  On the floor, Thorne rolled to his side, and there was a flash of silver as he slapped his own weapon out of its holster. A tongue of flame six inches long jumped from the muzzle of Thorne’s big. 45, and the house rocked with noise as Wiggins’s gun hand left his arm. Fingers flew through the air like chips from a log, and the Beretta dropped harmlessly onto the polished hardwood surface of the foyer.

  The impact of Thorne’s bullet spun the attacker into the wall with tremendous force, but he never let go of the girl, who flopped in his arm like a doll.

  Jake flew down the stairs as Thorne drew a bead for his kill shot. “God, Thorne, no!” He slapped at the chrome-plated. 45 even as it rocked the house one more time. “We need him alive, goddammit!”

  “Get out of my way!” Thorne yelled, and he brought the gun around one more time.

  But he was too late. Wiggins had shifted arms again, the tattered stump of bone and tissue painting horrifying red stripes across Lauren’s pink coveralls. She stood tall and still in his arms, though, her feet dangling by his knees as his knife blade pushed into the underside of her jaw, just far enough to draw a bead of blood.

  “Put the piece down or I’ll cut her throat!” he commanded.

  Thorne never broke his aim. “Like I give a shit,” he growled. “Go ahead and cut it. I’d love to see your brain on the floor.”

  “Oh, my God!” Melissa shrieked.

  Nick was standing again, his weight on his only good foot. “Thorne!” he yelled. “For Christ’s sake, put your gun down. That’s my daughter!”

  “Then make another one. I’m gonna kill this asshole.”

  Wiggins smiled, even as he backed out of the foyer, toward the kitchen. “You gonna shoot right through her, tough guy?”

  Thorne shrugged. “If I have to.”

  Jake didn’t know what to do. He knew without the tiniest doubt that Thorne couldn’t have cared less about that little girl. Jake moved in behind him, his own weapon drawn, as together they backed the killer through the kitchen, toward Melissa’s workroom.

  “Don’t kill him, Thorne,” Jake said softly, nearly whispering in his ear. “If you kill him, it’s all over. We don’t have squat for real evidence. That’s what we’re here for, remember?”

  “Stay out of my way, Jake.”

  Melissa and Nick joined the group, helping each other move as best they could. “Nick!” she wailed. “Stop him! My God, who are these people? What are they doing here?”

  Thorne never broke eye contact with his target as he hissed, “Do me a favor, Nick, and get control of your wife.”

  “Fuck you!” Melissa shouted. She darted out in front of Thorne, blocking his aim, an
d facing Wiggins eye-to-eye.

  Nick panicked. “Melissa, no!”

  “Please let her go,” she pleaded. “I tried…”

  Wiggins was gone. Keeping the flailing, sobbing little girl between himself and his pursuers, he glided out of the kitchen and through the glass doors of Melissa’s studio.

  “Get out of my way!” Thorne shouted as Melissa tried to block his path.

  “He’ll kill her!” she screamed. She grabbed Thorne’s jacket in her fists. “Let him go!”

  Thorne settled the issue with a slap that sent Melissa reeling.

  Jake stood watching, horrified. He saw Nick’s wife hit the floor shoulder-first and heard her scream in pain. Nick shot him a look of pure hatred as he hobbled over to help her. Jake stared for a moment, absorbing his friend’s anger, but there was nothing to say. He hurried to follow Thorne into the yard.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Out back, the grass gave way quickly to woods; small scrubby stuff up front, backed up by a thick forest of brilliantly colored young hardwoods-a final insult to the property’s nearly forgotten heritage as a farm.

  Movement drew Jake’s attention to his left as he saw a flash of Thorne’s back disappearing among the colors. He followed at a dead run. With the sun resting low on the horizon, streams of light painted a confusing mosaic through the leaves, making it difficult to keep Thorne in sight. Jake couldn’t see their quarry at all.

  When Thorne stopped, Jake was with him in an instant. “Where are they?”

  Thorne gestured for silence, using the muzzle of his pistol as an extension of his vision as he scanned the forest for movement. “I saw him,” he whispered. “He’s here.”

  The words triggered a chill. Where could he be, then? He didn’t have that much of a lead.

  “There!” Jake pointed. “Isn’t that blood?”

  In the distance, they heard Melissa’s plaintive voice. “Lauren! Lauren, honey, we’re coming!”

  Out in front, and off to the right, they heard a child’s muffled cry. Together, they moved toward it, following the blood trail and listening for additional noise.