by K. L Randis
“You sold your house, quit your jobs! How do you think that makes you look.”
“That crazy bitch sold our house?” Mike said, letting a gasp of air stifle under his moans of despair. “My God is that what she made me sign? All those papers she forced me to sign…”
“It’s like you don’t even exist. You nearly killed my girlfriend, left her for dead and disappeared.”
“She was your girlfriend? Oh Jared. Oh God help me,” he whispered.
Jared knelt on the floor in front of his father. The weight of the situation unfolding was unbearably complex. Layer by layer the reality of who was really governing the outcome of Jared’s revenge was peeled away.
If his dad was telling the truth then Jared’s vain attempt to bring Lacey’s killer to justice was hijacked. Jared let his emotions and cloudiness surrounding Lacey hinder his ability to see past Flick for who she was.
In the end, Lacey wasn’t the only victim. His parents were innocent bystanders to a sophisticated web of lies spun by the one person he should have been able to trust. Only the feeble leaders she originally chose to run her empire undermined her greed and thirst for power among the KingPins of the Poconos. Jared was her meal ticket back into the game and she needed him around as long as possible. When her heels were buried deep within the systems he was helping her set in motion, he was sure now that she would have had him killed too.
“You really had no idea?” Jared asked. His anger was once again shifted and displaced. “She killed Dex, you know for sure?”
Mike squeezed his eyes shut, nodding and motioning towards the side of the room. “I watched her do it Jared. He was begging for his life, talking about how loyal he was and how he didn’t mean to set you off. When he realized she was going to kill him he looked at me and told me that my son would never get his revenge. He smiled at me. You wanted to kill that man yourself?”
“Something like that,” Jared muttered.
Mike sighed. “I knew you were an addict but I never realized you could take another person’s life.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Jared replied sourly, thinking of Lacey. “And who are you to judge? Just because you’ve lived the mighty high sober life all this time it makes you better than me? I can’t make mistakes? What makes you so much better than me anyway, huh? Nothing.”
“You’re right,” Mike said eagerly. “I’m no better than you in the mistakes I’ve made in my life.”
Jared looked at him.
Mike continued. “But what makes me better than you is that I learned from those mistakes. I saw the damage I was doing to my own life and to your mother’s and I got help.”
Jared raised his eyebrows, not understanding the context.
“You think you’re the only one who had a substance abuse problem? Ah shit. I wish we didn’t have to do this here,” Mike said shifting in his chair. After a lengthy gush of air from his chest he looked at Jared. “I was an alcoholic, Jared. Big time. Wild Turkey was my poison, but really any liquor.”
Jared’s mouth dropped. “For how long?”
“Until you were three. I hit your mom one night, sent her flying into the living room wall and couldn’t remember a damn thing the next morning. She had you sitting on her hip with a suitcase in one hand when I came to. She told me that if I didn’t get in the car with her that moment and go to rehab I would never see you two again. I believed her.”
“So she made you to go to rehab?”
“No,” Mike said. “You did.” His eyes moistened and he looked away momentarily. “You were three. You’d have no daddy. Everything I ever talked about for so many years, all the dreams I had with your mom about taking you to ball games and school dances was slipping away. I couldn’t lose you.” Mike opened his hand inviting Jared to take it.
He hesitated at first but then reached for him, feeling the warmth of his father’s hands surrounding his own in a gesture of affection he hadn’t felt in years. “But I lost you anyway, didn’t I, to the drugs? They took you from me anyway even though I tried everything I could to stop it. I wasn’t hard on you because I didn’t understand, Jared. I was hard on you because your mom was hard on me and it was the best thing she’s ever done for me. Please know that.”
Jared knew better than to break down there, as much as he wanted to. Launching into a boundless protective mode he shook his head in understanding and scanned the room for his dad’s belongings. He spotted his dad’s jacket in the corner of the room and noted that his wallet was likely zipped inside one of the internal chest pockets.
“Thanks, Dad, but I can’t let you go.” Jared stood up, brushing the grime from his jeans and shaking off his hands.
“Wh-What? Jared I don’t understand…”
“I can’t let you go, I’m sorry.”
“Jared, no, please…”
“I think I know where Mom is,” Jared started. “And if I’m going to stay ahead of Flick I need to leave you here so she doesn’t suspect I know anything.”
The color returned to Mike’s face as Jared crossed his arms in front of his chest, staring at the floor and nodding to himself as he formulated his thoughts. “I have an idea.”
Mike slowly nodded. “I’ll do whatever I can. What’d you have in mind?”
CHAPTER NINE
The closer Jared got to the old apartment he shared with Tina the more confident he was that his mom was being held hostage inside. Flick’s adage of keeping things within plain sight apparently played a bigger role in her control games than she led Jared to believe. It only took Jared and his dad a solid nine minutes to devise a way to get him and his mom safely out of harms way but the particulars would be difficult to pull off without Hailey’s help.
Pulling onto his old street he pressed the call button under the favorites on his phone. HAILEY flashed across his screen and he made a face at the glowing words when he heard her voicemail right away.
He tried it again, faced with the same sweet singsong of words from Hailey’s voicemail. Leaving a short message he rubbed the front of his nose and closed his phone. He didn’t want to call her parent’s house if he could help it but if she didn’t get back to him he would need to. For now he needed to make sure his hunches were right.
Parking a measurable distance away he cut the engine and scouted the property. The once illuminated apartment was utterly dreary. It looked deserted in terms of current tenants and dark curtains blanketed the interior. If he was lucky enough that the real estate broker didn’t change the locks between rentals, he knew there was still a hidden key somewhere on the side of the house he could use to get inside.
The knob turned easily and Jared pulled up on the door to prevent it from squeaking open like he used to do when sneaking inside. He had his Glock poised as he turned the knob to secure the door behind him. The living room and kitchen were exposed and empty, showing no sign of tenants. A barely visible glow under the bedroom door told Jared that he wasn’t alone and he tiptoed his way to the corner of the room.
He didn’t see any cars lining the street or parked out front so he had to risk opening the door to one of Flick’s guards. If his mom was inside though, and mirrored the condition his dad was in, he didn’t care about some bloodshed.
Placing his hand on the knob he calculated his entrance and with a rush he pushed on the door, flinging it vigorously into the wall.
He was prepared for the muffled cries and tears of his mom screeching beneath her mask of duct tape as she rocked in her chair, surprised to see him. He was even prepared for the brute force of a guard or two if they had rushed at him or pulled their guns but they never came. What he wasn’t prepared for was seeing Hailey equally bound and tied in a separate chair, her head hunched over and her face streaked with just as much runny mascara as his mom. When he was sure that the room was empty he ran to her, pulling the tape from her face and letting her scream in waves of relief and panic.
“Jared! Please untie us, please get us out of here!”
“How’d you get here baby, what’d she do to you?”
“I never made it to the bus stop. They grabbed me. Who are they? How did you find us?
Jared reached to his right and pulled the tape from his mom’s mouth, absorbing the bout of cries and desperate pleas from her as well. “Jared! Oh, your dad, I don’t know where your dad is. I’ve been here for so long. The man and lady who check on us will be back shortly, you don’t have much time. Get us untied!”
“I can’t do that mom.”
“Damn it Jared, put your family issues aside for a minute and untie us!” Hailey screeched.
All at once the room exploded in a flurry of panicked cries and yelling, both women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. While he understood, he only had moments to spare and he needed them to listen. He hated to do it, but he reached across and replaced the duct tape gags. Hailey’s eyes widened to the circumference of a teacup and his mom looked like she would faint.
“I need you two to focus for a minute,” Jared said, waiting for the panic to subside. When they continued to wriggle under their restraints he slammed the bedroom door shut and shouted. “ENOUGH! LISTEN!”
Both women plummeted into silence. “Dad is safe, first of all,” he said looking at his mom. “I need you two to trust me. If I untie you it’ll only put you in more danger. The woman who took you will know I was here and she’ll kill you both. I need to think a minute. If you’ll be quiet I’ll take the tape off, okay?”
Nods came from both sides of the room. He removed the tape and tapped his foot, staring at the back wall and wondering how he was going to maneuver Flick into his grasp now that Hailey’s help was out of the question.
“Does Flick ever come here. Er, a woman. Usually wearing heels?” Jared asked his mom.
“Yeah, I’ve seen her. She only comes into the bedroom every now and then though, not every time. She was here earlier with two men. She used the bathroom, mentioned something about going to some store and they left. I don’t think they’ll be gone long.”
Jared nodded. “Hailey are you hurt, baby?”
“I don’t know what’s happening Jared. Did I do something wrong to deserve this? I can’t remember…”
He realized that Hailey’s fears were probably more outstanding than his mom’s since her memory loss couldn’t even help her deduct why she was kidnapped. He knelt at her side, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and letting her bury her face in his shoulder. “No baby, you’ve done nothing wrong. I’m here. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and made his way into the main bathroom, scanning the room for any signs that Flick was there.
When he found what he needed he re-entered the bedroom and asked if they were ready to have the tape on their mouths secured again.
“Where are you going?” Hailey asked.
“To make sure Flick doesn’t hurt anyone else anymore.”
He kissed her cheeks and stroked the top of her head. Then he moved to his mom and made sure her gag was back in place. “I love you, Mom.” He kissed her forehead and without another word he left the apartment and made his way to the U.S. Marshal’s office.
CHAPTER TEN
U.S. Marshal Marvin Price tapped his pen against his desk wondering if he should believe the disheveled man sitting across from him. For years he had closely monitored Flick, tracing her every move and judgment call, trying to pin any of the outstanding shady business he knew she was conducting to the wall. He always fell flat and she was always just out of arm’s reach. Now a self-proclaimed KingPin of the Poconos was sitting in his office, begging him to trust his story about a scandal so expansive it could promote him right into the white house. Not that he wanted that.
“That’s some story, kid. You have to work with me here,” Price said. “You walk into my office after calling our tip line saying that you have a wealth of knowledge about the source of this Lace pill that’s been floating around the county. You spin a web of stories so twisted and deep about a law enforcement officer and some of her co-workers that I’ll probably have a hard time sleeping tonight, and you want me to believe that you are just willingly walking in here to hand this gift of Intel to me because…?”
“I don’t expect you to believe anything,” Jared started. “All I know is that my family is in danger. I know from a fairly reliable source that your finger has been itching to scratch Flick off the radar for some time now and I thought a friendly chat about the source of this info wouldn’t fall on deaf ears if I spoke to you directly, sir.”
Price pressed his hands together and brought them to his mouth, subtly rubbing his mustache. After a moment he opened his hands, smiling. “So?”
“So what?”
“So what’s in it for you? I can’t imagine you’d want to drop all of this in my lap without some sort of deal.”
“Of course not.”
Price raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“I’d like full immunity for myself and my family’s involvement,” Jared said. After a moment’s pause he added, “And a friend.”
“There’s always a friend,” Price said. “So let me get this straight. You spill your guts to me, we take Flick down while you testify and we spin you, your family and a friend into witness protection as restitution?”
“No,” Jared said leaning back in his chair. “No testifying, no written statements.”
“I’m not sure you know how this works, son.”
“I’m not sure you understand what kind of info I’m offering here,” Jared said, cutting him off. “We’re not talking about popping a dealer in a parking lot for a baggie of pills and some chronic. The magnitude of what I have will bring down an entire empire that supplies one of the fastest expanding drugs through this entire county, in addition to handing you your woman.” Jared pushed a pointer finger into the top of Price’s desk.
“And how exactly do you expect me to prosecute any of this without any witnesses or statement? You say you know so much yet have no idea the risk I’d be taking just taking your word for it.”
Jared produced a gallon-sized Ziploc bag from the depths of his hoodie and slammed it onto the Marshal’s desk. It was filled to the brim with Lace, freshly iced. The Marshal’s eyes widened and he pushed his chair back. “Do you have any idea how long I can put you away for bringing that in here?” Price stammered.
“Not nearly as long as Flick will get put away when I tell you exactly where her production warehouse is,” Jared said. “Her prints would be all over the place, you could nail her ass to the wall until she’s over a hundred. You’ll also have a chance to hear her confess to the kidnapping and murder of several people if you wire me and follow me to a location where two of my family members are, at this exact moment, being held captive.”
“What kind of guarantee can you give me that her prints would be at a crime scene?”
“Not prints, blood.”
“Blood?”
“Women bleed, Marshal. Once every month for one to five days as a matter of fact. You’ll have your DNA evidence tying her there when you take a peek in the garbage can.” Jared winked.
Price grimaced. “That all you have?”
“Of course not. At a separate location, also where a family member of mine is being held, you’ll find a multimillion-dollar stash of Lace. It’s a car wash actually. Equally as impressive will be the stash that is at the location where the two women are. It will undoubtedly tie Flick to each of three locations, without a shadow of a doubt that she frequented them, ran them and used them for her own power and gain.”
Jared sat back in his recliner, rubbing the soft leather beneath his fingers and letting the silence help the Marshal make his decision. “So do we have a deal? No testifying, no identifying any involvement on my part at all. My family’s either. I’m sure there are strings you can pull to make this all happen. Witness protection isn’t our thing. We’d like to stay in the area and the only way we can safely do that is if it
looks like a drug raid that was founded by the long arm of the law.”
“And how do I know that you’re not the one pioneering all of this?” Price asked. “You’re making it awfully easy for me to swoop in and throw the book at Flick, but how do I know your involvement in this is nil?”
“I think the better question is do you really care?” Jared said, standing to his feet. “I’ve been pointing my fingers in everyone else’s direction but my own for too long Marshal. If I have any chance in living the kind of life I want to I need this to happen. Off the record? I’m not innocent in this but there are bigger fish to fry. I want my life back. A real one. I might not deserve it but my family does. I’d like to give that to them.”
“So why send you in there at all with a wire? Why not give us the locations and let us do our jobs?”
“I need to see her face when you show up. I think you can appreciate that.”
“And you’re sure this is how you want things to go? You seem lost kid.”
“You can never be lost if you know where you’ve been.”
The Marshal nodded. “So who’s this friend?”
“Friend?”
“The one you want immunity for.”
“Oh,” Jared said, his teeth reaching the corners of his mouth. “You’ll find him at the production house. His name’s Larry. Go easy on him though, he’ll probably put up a fight until he realizes he’s a free man.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It took longer than Jared had anticipated but Flick arrived at the apartment several hours after he had settled into the bedroom with his mom and Hailey. The wire seemed to weigh a ton sitting under his shirt and he had tested it several times prior to the raid. When the doorknob turned he was standing between each of the women, both of them securely tied to their respective chairs and shaking beneath their restraints. He hated to put them in the middle of the take down but he had no choice. It was the only way out.
