Stanton watched her face as she grabbed him. He didn’t understand why she looked so panicked until his head hit the floor and everything went black.
61
When Stanton woke, he was lying on the couch in the break room. Laka sat next to him, and a couple of other officers were staring at him. Stanton tried to stand, but Laka pushed him back down.
“The paramedics are on their way,” she said.
“No, I can’t wait. I have to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere but the hospital. I’m having them keep you.”
“Laka, you need to move.”
She grinned. “Sorry, hoaloha, but you couldn’t take me on your best day, much less in the shit condition you’re in.”
The other officers began to slowly wander away. Stanton stayed quiet until they were gone and then said, “I think I know where she is.”
“Where?”
“It’ll take too long to explain. You have to let me go.”
“Just tell me where, and I’ll grab some people ’n’ go. Or, shit, let SWAT handle it. That’s what they’re trained for.”
“If Dane sees them coming, he’ll kill her. It has to be me.”
She shook her head. “You passed out from exhaustion, Jon. What if you did that behind the wheel? If you killed some poor family, you wouldn’t ever forgive yourself. I know you.”
“Then drive me.”
She exhaled and folded her arms. “You’re a stubborn haole, you know that?”
He sat up, and she didn’t resist him. He rose to his feet, and his knees were weak, but he hid it. She stood up, and the two of them left the break room and headed for the elevators.
Stanton had his window down in Laka’s car. The wind hit his face and kept him awake. If he passed out again, Laka would take him straight to the hospital, Julie or no.
“You sure they’re here?”
“No. Get off on the next exit.”
“It’s a house?”
“Yeah. Belonged to a guy who killed himself. Another family lives there now.”
“So you want us to raid this house by ourselves, and there’s who-knows-how-many members of this cult inside? That’s bullshit. No way we can do that.”
“I don’t have a choice.” A beat of silence passed between them, and then he turned to her. “Thanks for this. You’ve always had my back, and I haven’t always had yours.”
She shrugged it off and kept driving. She wasn’t the type to show emotion, but he knew she appreciated him saying it. Stanton turned back to the window and tried calling Julie one more time. It went to voicemail again.
They arrived at the house, which was large and well-kept with orange and lemon trees in the massive front yard. Laka parked a few houses down.
“Stay here,” Stanton said.
“No way.”
“If they see you, they might hurt her. Please, stay here.”
She bit her lip. “If you’re not out in ten minutes, and I mean exactly ten minutes, I’m calling SWAT and then running in after you.”
Stanton didn’t object. He just got out of the car and walked up to the house. He felt sick, his knees still wobbling from passing out. He stood in front of the door a long time. Reaching down, he hesitated over the doorknob before finally grabbing it and turning.
62
The home was silent. The furniture was clean. Photos on the mantel showed a family with one child. Stanton glanced at them and hoped they hadn’t been home when Dane got here, if he was here at all.
Both of the other victims had been killed at night. The best-case scenario was that Dane had stashed Julie in this house and planned on coming back tonight.
Stanton quickly searched the place. The bedrooms, four of them, were empty. He checked the garage, the closets, the cupboards… everywhere he could think of. A door near the kitchen looked heavier than the other doors. He went over to open it and heard something inside. He put his ear to the door. It was… someone crying. A woman.
Stanton opened the door, his heart pounding, and saw stairs leading down to a basement. He jumped them two at a time and turned a corner.
Julie was on her knees, nude, a bandana gagging her mouth, her hands tied behind her back. Next to her was Gary Newbolt, naked and in the same position.
Stanton took a step forward and felt the muzzle of the revolver against his temple.
“Easy, compadre.”
Dane stepped out from around a corner. Stanton glanced over: Mackie was holding the gun to his head. Another man who Stanton hadn’t seen before leaned against a wall. Dane noticed him looking and said, “This here’s Bobby. Bobby, Jon Stanton… he’s a brother.”
“Let her go, Dane.”
Dane grimaced as he approached Julie, staring down at her. His eyes seemed different, more alive. He looked like someone in a manic episode.
“If I did that, you’d never know what she did.”
“I know what she did, and it wasn’t her fault.”
“Really?” He shook his head. “I told you, you can’t ever know anybody.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “Not even your wife.”
“Let her go right now, and we walk. We’ll just walk away.”
Dane went to a table against the wall. He unrolled a cloth, revealing several bundles of wooden rods wrapped around a short axe.
“Know what this is?”
Stanton shook his head.
“It’s a fasces. The Romans used to use them. When someone had committed a heinous crime against the Empire, they would be killed with the fasces. They would be beaten to within an inch of their lives and then beheaded. It was usually applied to traitors.”
“Let her go.”
“Don’t you wanna know what she’s a traitor of?”
“I already know. She was involved with his schemes.”
“No, no, actually, she wasn’t involved in that at all. Were you, darling?”
Julie was crying, the makeup running down her face. Stanton wanted to run over and hold her, to tell her it would be all right. He glanced again at Mackie. His grip was weak, and he didn’t know how to hold the weapon properly.
Dane picked up the axe.
Stanton snapped the gun away, twisting Mackie’s finger in the trigger guard. Stanton kicked him in the chest, freeing the man’s grip. He held the weapon on Mackie’s face before taking a few steps back and pointing it at Dane. Bobby didn’t move. He seemed calm, and his hands weren’t going down to any firearm tucked away in his clothes.
“Let her go. Now,” Stanton said to Dane.
Dane smiled. “Can’t do that, compadre. You’re gonna have to pull that trigger.”
“Let her go, Dane. I don’t want this.”
“I know you don’t, but God does. This is what He’s been waiting for, the choice you have to make.”
“I’m only going to tell you one more time. I swear it, Dane. Last time. Let… her… go.”
Dane touched the axe lightly to Gary’s face. He ripped off the bandana gagging him. Gary began to beg.
“I have money. I have a lot of money. You can have it all. I’ll give you—”
Dane struck him on the head. “Shut up before I cut your tongue out.”
Gary began to weep.
“I’m not messing around, Dane. If it comes down to you or them, I will put a bullet in you.”
“I know you would, man. I know.” He pressed the blade of the axe against Gary’s throat. “Tell him.”
Gary didn’t say anything.
“Tell him. Or I will cut your head off.” When Gary didn’t say anything, Dane grabbed him by his hair and leaned his head back, exposing his throat. “Tell him how long you’ve been fucking his wife.”
Stanton felt time freeze. A wave of nausea struck him. His muscles went limp. He looked at Julie, who wasn’t looking in his eyes.
Dane screamed, “Tell him!”
“Just a…” Gary stammered. “Just… we dated and… and…”
Dane pressed the axe firmly agains
t Gary’s throat, causing a tiny thread of blood to slide down his flesh.
“Two years,” Gary gasped. “For two years.”
“When was the last time?”
“Um… I don’t know. Four days… four days ago, I think. Saturday.”
Dane stared at Stanton as he asked, “Where?”
Gary hesitated and looked at Stanton before looking away. “At his house… in his bed.”
Stanton felt tears. His heart seemed to stop, and he couldn’t breathe. The gun felt limp in his hands, and he had a powerful desire to drop it and just give in to fatigue. He could faint right there, hit the floor, and not wake up again.
He stared at Julie. “It can’t be true.”
Dane pulled her gag off. She was weeping uncontrollably, trying to say something that was unintelligible through her sobs.
“Julie, it’s not true.”
She shook her head, shrieking the two words Stanton least wanted to hear: “I’m sorry.”
Stanton stumbled backward. His arm fell to his side, the gun lowered to his hip. He felt sick and thought he might vomit.
“The devil blinds us,” Dane said. “He puts a dark veil over our eyes so we can’t see things clearly written in front of us. She betrayed you in the worst way possible. She was going to marry you, Jon, and keep fucking this piece of shit.”
“No!” Julie shrieked. “No, I was going to tell you. I was trying to stop it. I was trying to stop it, Jon. I swear. I swear. He said… he said one more time, and then he’d leave us alone. He said just one more time…”
Stanton felt the bile rising in his throat. His mouth fell open as though he couldn’t control his muscles anymore. He had to lean against the wall because he knew he couldn’t hold himself up.
Dane twirled the axe in his hand and stood behind Julie.
“She has to pay for her betrayal.”
Stanton shook his head, but no words came out.
“She has to be lifted so she can be judged. It’s the right thing to do, Jon. You know it.”
“Don’t,” he said, tasting the tears on his lips.
“It has to happen, compadre.”
Stanton lifted the weapon, his hand trembling. “Don’t… please.”
“Me or her. You’re gonna have to choose, man. The woman who betrayed you or the brother who loved you enough to expose the truth.”
“Don’t do it, Dane. Please, I don’t want to do this.”
“Choose, brother.”
Dane swung the axe.
63
Laka sat in the car trying to listen to music, staring at her cell phone, watching the time. She folded her arms at one point and then unfolded them, leaned back in the seat and then leaned forward. She put her elbow on the door through the open window and chewed on her lower lip.
“Fuck it,” she mumbled. She picked up her cell phone and dialed dispatch. “Detective Laka Alemea, 134695, requesting backup at 423 Rombert Way, officer needs assistance. Suspects possibly armed and presumed extremely dangerous.”
“Roger that. I’ll get them out ASAP, Detective.”
She hung up and checked her firearm. She’d never shot anybody before and, truth be told, never wanted to even draw her weapon. The shooting range was fun, but there it was a game. This didn’t feel like a game. Her trembling hands made her miss sliding the clip back in. “Shit.” She took a second to breathe.
Putting the weapon back in her holster, she climbed out of the car. A woman was walking down the street with a small girl.
“Hello,” the woman said.
“Hi.”
“You visiting the Waymans?”
“Ma’am, you need to move away from this house as quickly as possible.”
“Well, but I don’t—”
Laka took her arm and gently led her down the street. “Trust me, you don’t want to be here in a minute.”
She took her down about fifteen feet, the woman protesting the entire time, then turned back to the house. When she looked back, the woman was still standing on the sidewalk, staring at her, a cell phone now glued to her ear, probably on the line with 911.
Laka inhaled deeply and then went inside.
64
Stanton watched with cold revulsion. Time slowed. He saw the muscles in Dane’s arms flexing, the glitter of the blade in the light. The rush of Mackie from his side. Bobby moving from the wall and running toward Stanton. He saw all this in a flash.
The axe swung down so quickly Stanton didn’t register it fast enough. It embedded into Julie’s neck, a spatter of blood spraying over Dane. She screamed, and it snapped Stanton back.
“No!”
He fired three times in quick succession. Two rounds missed, but the third slammed into Dane’s temple. He flew against the wall, his feet lifting completely off the ground.
Before Stanton could do anything, Mackie hit him like a freight train. Stanton was on his back. Mackie had hold of the gun and was slowly pushing it up toward Stanton’s face.
Stanton pushed the weapon away, grunting as the barrel nearly pointed at him. He twisted his head away just as Mackie let off one round. The gunpowder burned, and his ears ached, the world becoming nothing but a dull ringing.
Bobby reached him now. He pulled a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at Stanton’s face. He said something, but Stanton couldn’t hear.
Stanton accepted it calmly. The bullet would rip through his face into his brain. It would bounce off the floor behind him and back into his skull. Death would be instant. No pain, no suffering, little anticipation. The relief would be immediate.
Bobby flew off his feet.
Laka stood in the doorway, shouting. Mackie stared at Stanton, snarling, and let go of the gun. He put his hands on his head and then climbed off, lying flat on his stomach as Laka approached. She was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear.
A calm euphoria came over him, and he wondered if he’d been shot. If people bleeding to death didn’t go into shock, many times they would grow calm and slip into death like a warm bath.
Laka cuffed Mackie and checked Bobby, who lay on the floor, unmoving. Stanton saw a black hole the size of a quarter in his cheek.
Laka came over and helped Stanton to his feet. When he looked down, he was surprised there was no blood. Laka was saying something to him, but he was looking past her. He was looking at Gary… and at Julie.
He ran over to Julie, who was on her back, blood pouring out of her in waves with each beat of her heart. Stanton pressed his fingers against the gash in her throat as the blood flowed over her, onto the floor and over him.
“No,” he said quietly. “No. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
She was trying to draw breath, but none came. Her eyes stared into his as the blood continued to flow over his fingers. He felt her growing cold.
He didn’t know how long he held her before she died, but it wasn’t long. Too much blood had been lost. No one could save her. The sparkle that had been in her eyes faded and then went away.
Stanton looked down. He was covered in blood. It stained his pants and shirt, it painted his flesh reddish-black. He stared at it like a man staring at his own flesh burning, and he thought he felt the itch of the blood seeping into him, a scar he would never forget. Then he saw Gary.
Gary was saying something to him. Though he couldn’t hear, he did make out the word “money” from his lips. Money… money.
Stanton laid Julie down gently and picked up the axe that lay on the floor. He stood over Gary, feeling the weight of the axe in his hand, and rage flowed through him. A deep, black rage that began in his bones and flowed to his fingertips and made his head buzz. Blood rushed through his body, as though he was waking up for the first time in a long time.
Gary was begging now. Stanton began to lift the axe.
He felt a touch on his arm, holding it down. Laka stood next to him, a look of pain on her face. He could barely make out what she was saying.
“It’s over, Jon. It’s
over.”
He squeezed the axe, feeling the hardness of it, the power of holding it over another man, the power of death. Gary had crawled against the wall, his eyes wide with fear, and Stanton saw him piss himself.
Stanton dropped the axe and stumbled out of the basement.
65
Stanton sat in the back of the ambulance. He stared at the pavement as police officers and medics rushed in and out of the house. Kai was there, as were several detectives from Homicide. Lorenzo and Jimmy were there. No one said anything to him. He had a blanket around his shoulders and wondered where it had come from, as he didn’t recall anyone giving him one.
He looked down at the blood crusted on his hands, closed them into tight fists, and lowered them. The ringing in his ears had finally stopped, but in one ear everything was toned down, and he knew his eardrum had burst.
Laka came over to him and set her hand on his thigh. They stared at each other but didn’t say anything. She had tears in her eyes.
It was then he saw the stretcher and the black plastic covering the body that was being hauled out of the house. Stanton rose and went over to it. The ME’s assistants stopped when they saw him. He stood over the body and slowly unzipped the bag.
Julie’s cold, pale face stared back at him. The beauty in it was gone. Whatever it was that gave the body life was gone, and the flesh looked artificial now, made of plastic.
He kissed her forehead, and then zipped the bag back up.
66
The sun blazed in a clear sky, and Stanton had to wear sunglasses. The airport wasn’t busy today, though even on a slow day thousands of people came in and out every hour. He enjoyed watching them, the hustle and bustle, families running to catch flights, couples holding hands, business people on their cell phones.
Laka pulled the car up to his terminal.
“Where you going?” she asked.
“No idea. First flight I see off the island.”
Purgatory (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 11) Page 17
