by James Hunt
The Sleeping Girls
James Hunt
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
About the Author
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1
It took Ronald’s wife three shakes before she finally woke him up, stealing him away from a dream that hadn’t been so cold and unforgiving as the past year. Startled by his wife’s urgency, Ronald removed his earplugs, his mind sluggish from sleep and the warmth of their bed.
“What?” Ronald asked, his voice hoarse.
“I heard something.” Sheila pulled the covers to her chin, whispering. “I think someone is in the house.”
Ronald looked from his wife to their closed bedroom door. They both lay still, both listening for what his wife had said she’d heard. But when there was nothing, Ronald shook his head.
“It was probably the wind,” Ronald said.
“No, it sounded like the front door opening. Ron, I’m not making this up.”
Ronald waited a few more seconds before he finally removed the covers and placed his bare feet on the soft carpet. “Stay here.”
Soundless, he picked up the bat by his nightstand and stepped from their room and onto the cold tile in the hallway.
The bedrooms were located in the back of the house. And down the hall from him and his wife’s room was the second bedroom. One that had been unoccupied for too long.
Ronald moved slowly down the hall, gently placing one foot in front of the other, twisting the rubber grip on the bat’s handle.
Family pictures lined the hallway; vacations and holidays before their lives shattered into fragments of happier times. And while these moments used to invoke joy, now they only filled the house with ghosts. Ghosts that haunted them at every turn, reminding them of what they had lost and how he had failed as a father.
The middle of the hallway that connected the two bedrooms opened up to the dining room and Ronald slowed, keeping close to the wall as he peered inside.
The darkness transformed the furniture into more hideous creatures, but Ronald saw no one hiding in the shadows. He quietly moved through the dining room and into the kitchen.
Moonlight shone through the window over the sink, spilling onto the counters and floor. Ronald kept the bat raised high, his hands aching from squeezing the handle so tight. But the longer he moved through the house and saw nothing, the more he lowered his guard.
But when Ronald passed from the kitchen and into the living room, a groan echoed from the foyer, and he froze. Fear broke a cold sweat beneath his shirt, and goosebumps spread over his arms. He’d heard that noise a million times living in this house. It was the sound of the front door hinges when it opened and closed.
Because of the house’s design, Ronald wouldn’t be able to see the front door until he was closer, his view blocked by the walls of the foyer.
With his senses heightened, Ronald retained the element of surprise, keeping quiet with the help of the carpet as he moved toward the front door. He held his breath, and his heart pounded so hard that he thought it might make his presence known.
Ronald stopped with his back against the wall next to the foyer’s entrance. His muscles hummed from the adrenaline. His mouth had gone dry, and he heard nothing but the rush of blood in his head. He tensed, hesitant to confront the intruder.
What if the man had a knife? A gun?
Ronald tightened his grip on the bat, and then leaped into the foyer, raising the bat high to strike the intruder down. But there was no one.
The wind blew the door back and forth, triggering that familiar groan. But aside from the parked cars in the driveway and the cold wind rustling the leaves and bushes on the ground, their street was quiet and calm.
Ronald checked the door frame, searching for any signs of forced entry, but he found none, and when he closed the door, sealing out the night, he tried to remember if he had locked the door, but in his sweaty, adrenaline-induced fugue state, Ronald couldn’t be sure. If he hadn’t, then the door swinging open on its own wasn’t out of the question.
The cold had been known to cause the wood of the door jamb to shrink, and it might have just drifted open. He lowered the bat and locked the door, convinced that everything was fine.
But when Shelia screamed, her voice carrying from the back of the house, Ronald sprinted to his wife, darting through the living room, kitchen, and dining room, chasing the screams to the bedroom hallway. “Sheila? Sheila!”
The narrow hallway and the momentum from Ronald’s sprint caused him to slam into the wall, knocking one of their family pictures to the ground. The glass shattered, and Ronald saw Sheila standing in the doorway to their daughter’s bedroom.
“Sheila, what are you—” Ronald stepped past her and into the bedroom. When he saw who lay in the bed, the bat slipped from his hand.
Katy lay on top of the comforter, her body straight and perfectly still, dressed in a floral-patterned sundress that would have been more appropriate in the summer.
Ronald walked to the bedside, staring down at his little girl, whose hands lay folded on top of one another over her stomach. She was so still and looked so pale.
It had been a year since they’d seen Katy. A year of waiting to hear from her, a year waiting for a call, or for her to come home. And now that wish was fulfilled. But when he slowly pressed his finger against her neck, he collapsed to his knees. She was dead.
2
Seattle’s South Park neighborhood was riddled with decay. The roads, the buildings, the people that hunched forward on their shambled walks were falling apart. It had become a forgotten place by those with the power to change it, and it was now controlled by those whose greatest tool was intimidation through violence.
But there were those that still sought to right the wrongs on the streets where fresh blood was spilled daily. Either by violence or by drugs, the piles of bodies on Seattle’s south side were growing taller every day.
A homeless man kept his head down as he walked, pulling his large coat tight over his body to help shield against the rain and the cold. He walked past a faded blue Chevy Malibu parked in one of the alleys between a pair of dilapidated buildings. He didn’t turn his head to look, but a gloved hand wiped away the fog that had collected on the front windshield.
The inside of the car was cold, the only heat that brought relief was the hot breath jettisoned from the four anxious mouths. Every pair of eyes watched the building on
the corner. Once upon a time, it had been a Laundromat, but the storefront sign had been torn down, and a closed sign hung from the inside of barred windows.
The location had been chosen by the South Side gang, whose members currently occupied the old sedan. The leader of the gang, Marco, had swiped the place from beneath an Oriental couple a few years back. It was currently used for any shady dealings that the South Siders needed to handle, like today.
It was a familiar story in this neighborhood. The more violent you were, the more fear that you inspired, the more you conquered. And in these streets, few were more feared than the pair of gangs that had chosen to meet today for the exchange. But so far, no one had shown.
But while the three men in the car were focused on the building, it was Susan Pritcher who watched the homeless man pass, her emerald eyes fixated on him. She wondered what happened in his life to put him on the streets. Had he no family? No friends?
Either way, it didn’t matter now. The man had fallen too far down the rabbit hole like so many others in the city.
Susan knew that most folks would look at the man and think to themselves, ‘that’ll never be me. No way. Not in a million years.’ But people didn’t understand how close they lived to the edge every day. All it took was one push, and you would find yourself on the outside looking in.
Dressed in a coat that was too big for her, and smelled of the previous owner’s sweat and body odor, Susan struggled to remain still in the backseat. She sat behind the driver, sweating beneath her layers despite the cold.
The three men in the car with her made her look like a child, but at twenty-four she was far removed from childhood, despite her size. She was only five feet tall and barely cleared the scales at one hundred pounds. She’d always been self-conscious about her petite frame, which she had inherited from a mother she never met, save through the pictures that her father kept in an old shoe box. A father who loved the bottle more than he loved anything or anyone else.
Despite the hate she felt for the woman who left her with him; Susan couldn’t deny how much she resembled her mother. They had the same pale skin, wavy brown hair, and green eyes. The only difference between them was the freckles that dotted her cheeks, clustered beneath her eyes, and the slight overbite that she inherited from her father. Besides those small differences, the two could have been twins.
Johnny Carson sat in the backseat next to Susan, his nickname given to him because he was the only white boy in the South Siders, not because of his resemblance to the former Tonight Show host. This version of Carson was tall, skinny, and had the skull of a poorly misshapen Mr. Potato Head. He removed a small bag of coke from his pocket and laid out a bump on his hand. “You think Marco will let us waste them?” He snorted the coke, flinging his head back and shutting his eyes. “WOO!” He laughed and reached into the front waistband of his pants and pulled out the concealed 9mm Glock beneath. “Nothing to start a morning like killing some Third Streeters.” He stuck his tongue out, exposing the stud that pierced the end of his tongue.
Susan stared at the weapon. She wasn’t armed, per Marco’s instructions. She was there more as a hostage than an accomplice. It was her that had arranged the meet between the two gangs. But should the deal go south, then it would be her head that rolled.
Freddy Martinez sat in the front passenger seat. He was Marco’s top lieutenant and most trusted advisor, and he kept his eyes trained on the abandoned laundromat. “This is a business exchange. We don’t shoot unless they do.”
A hand touched Susan’s knee, and she jerked away, finding Carson smiling at her.
“Easy, girl,” Carson said, still holding the Glock in his right hand. “I just thought we might pass the time.” He reached for her wrist and then quickly placed it over his crotch. “I’ve got another nine for you, right here—FUCK!”
Susan squeezed Carson’s balls, paralyzing the over-compensating punk. “Touch me again, and I’ll take these with me.” She tightened her grip. “Got it?”
“Y-yeah.” Carson nodded quickly.
Martin and Freddy chuckled as Susan let go.
“Where the hell are they?” Carson asked, still glowering from his denied advances. “I’m freezing my ass off in here. Can’t we turn on the heat?”
“No,” Freddy said. “I don’t want to draw attention to us.” He leaned against his door, rhythmically tapping his left forefinger against his left kneecap.
Carson tugged his beanie down and covered his ears. “Whatever, man. I don’t think they’re even gonna show.”
“Susan said they’ll show, so they’ll show,” Freddy said, then slowly craned his head around, his hard gaze set on Susan. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Susan answered. “They’ll show.”
Freddy’s gaze lingered on her for a moment longer before he faced forward again. The men around her saw Susan as nothing more than a lamb that had wandered into a den of wolves, lost in the wilderness. But none of them knew the truth. She had made sure of that.
A hand slapped against Carson’s window, startling everyone. It was the homeless man that had passed them earlier. He must have circled around the block and come up from behind them in the alley.
“Hey, can I borrow a dollar?” The man’s voice was muffled by the window, but it still sounded weak and old.
“This stupid mother—” Carson flung the door open, knocking the homeless man to the damp pavement as he got out.
“Carson, stop!” Susan reached for him, but he was already out of the car. She opened her door and ran around to the other side.
“You came knocking on the wrong door, old man!” Carson had his pistol out, waving the flashy chrome at the old man who had landed on his back, hands lifted in self-defense, shaking.
“Please, I was just—”
“You were just trying to what?” Carson aimed the weapon between the old man’s eyes, his finger on the trigger. “You looking for some cash for an eight ball, old timer? Starting to get those shakes?”
Susan reached for Carson’s arm and spun him around. “That’s enough!”
Carson shoved Susan off of him, moving her effortlessly. But the distraction gave the old man enough time to get up and flee around the corner.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Carson asked, his eyes already bloodshot from the coke. “You think you can tell me what to do? Now that old man will think the South Siders show mercy.” He aimed the weapon at Susan. “And we don’t show mercy.”
The click of a safety being disengaged from behind Carson erased the snarl from his face, and he froze. Freddy was behind him, his own gun pressed against the base of Carson’s skull.
“Freddy, what the—”
“Shut. Up.” Freddy barred his teeth. “This is supposed to be low key. It’s not some fucking coke bender where you play pin the bullet on the vagrant. Got it?”
Carson nodded, and Freddy removed the pistol.
The driver, Martin, stepped out of the vehicle. “Fred.”
Every head turned toward the Laundromat where two cars had pulled into the side parking lot of the corner building. Eight men stepped out, four of them holding duffel bags.
“Shit, that’s Big Ken,” Carson said.
“Yeah,” Freddy said, studying the gang as he typed a text into his phone.
Susan leaned forward, pretending to get a better look at the rival gang members across the street, but instead glanced at Freddy’s screen. She knew he was texting Marco, the South Siders gang leader, but the glare prevented her from reading the text before he sent it.
It was a text that Susan had wanted to see, and she would have had a good opportunity in the car, but now that they were all standing in the alley, she was too far away.
Freddy pocketed the phone. “Let’s roll.”
Carson grabbed the bag out of the trunk, everyone already understanding their roles in the exchange. Freddy would handle the talking, Carson and Martin were muscle, and Susan was there as the ambassador, having orchestra
ted the deal in the first place.
The cold wind bit through Susan’s layers and the sweat she had collected during their wait in the car froze to ice.
But somehow, despite the pounding in her head and her chest, she managed to cross the street and followed Freddy toward the back of the building where they passed one of the rival gang’s men watching the door.
Inside, the lights had already been flipped on, the weak fluorescent bulbs flickering, adding to the broken ambiance of the old building. The back room was filled with old washers, stacks of expired detergent, and rows of rusted dry-cleaning racks.
Susan counted eleven killers in the room, and most of them found her when she stepped inside. She was the only woman but had developed her own reputation on the streets. She had forged the relationships necessary to bring this meeting to fruition. She had done things that would haunt her. But so long as this worked, it would all be worth it.
The Third Streeters had been rivals to the South Siders for the past quarter century. So much blood had been spilled that neither side remembered what started the violence in the first place. The only reason they considered this deal was the success of the three-day ceasefire that both sides upheld.
Susan recognized most of the Third Streeters and was glad that their top lieutenant, Kip Fifty, was present at the exchange.
It had been Susan’s relationship with Kip Fifty that set all of this in motion. She had been searching for a way into either gang, and Kip provided the best opportunity. He was smart, well-spoken, and could have been a lawyer the way he handled his business. He had even managed to invest some of the Third Streeters’ capital into legitimate investments. But Kip was just as violent as any of them.
