Mr. Sugar

by L. D. Fox

  “Where’s my gun?”

  53

  Blackwater Lake

  Overcast skies weren’t unseasonal this late in August, but rain definitely was. As was the bruise-purple shade of those low, thick clouds that had moved in with the speed and impetus of a glacier.

  He let the cruiser warm up in fast idle for as long as he dared; Angel was no doubt trying to wake up Bryce, and he didn’t want him climbing onto the cruiser.

  Not yet.

  Kelly let out a surprised gasp when he pushed forward the throttle and rocketed the cruiser from the boathouse. When he glanced back at her, she had both hands on the seatbelt around her waist and clung to it as if it was the only thing still keeping her attached to Earth.

  It probably was.

  He didn’t let up on the throttle until they were several feet away from the lakehouse.

  The wind bit into his face like a rabid dog, making his eyes stream and forcing his lips into a grim line. Kelly called out to him, but her voice was snatched away before he could make out words.

  That same wind churned up the surface of the lake. Ruffling it. Shaping it into small, sharp peaks. The cruiser skipped over them like a rock, jarring his teeth every time it impacted the water again. The vibrations ate through his fingers, making them tingle as he kept the boat aimed straight ahead.

  The first few drops of rain stung his cheeks. But he smiled at them with vicious delight.

  The fisherman was nowhere to be seen.

  54

  The Unforeseen

  “Here,” Bryce said, shoving his cellphone against Angel’s stomach.

  She fumbled but managed to take hold of it before it could fall to the floor. Clutching it, she stared wide-eyed up at him. “Cops?”

  “Of course cops.” He swept his gaze over the floor and found his Smith & Wesson. Hurrying over, he knelt to pick it up. And then froze, fingers paused to reach it.

  Why hadn’t Drew taken it with him? Why hadn’t he made sure Bryce couldn’t follow them?

  And why the hell was he still alive?

  “There’s no signal,” came Angel’s voice from behind.

  “So find one.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll know when you find it.”

  Beneath them, a boat motor purred into life. Bryce grimaced at the gun, flinched his fingers, and picked it up.

  It felt too cold. Too heavy. Like it wasn’t meant to be there. But if he didn’t take it with him, anyone could pick it up. Use it against him.

  For self-defense.

  That’s what he’d thought Drew was doing — and now his brother had proved him wrong.

  Drew wasn’t after him and Angel.

  He’d taken Kelly.

  Bryce tugged open the deck’s sliding door and rushed outside. He was in time to see Drew pulling out of the boathouse hidden beneath the deck.

  His brother glanced back, once. But it wasn’t to look back at the lakehouse. It was to look at Kelly, who was tugging at the seatbelt around her waist and looking panicked as the boat hit a few small waves.

  Bryce’s hair whipped around his head as a gust of wind attacked him and drove tiny bullets of rain into his cheeks. He lifted the gun, pointing it toward Drew. He had a clear shot.

  He could take him out.

  But what would that do to the boat? They’d already picked up significant speed. If Drew’s hand got caught in the wheel, it could capsize. Kelly wasn’t wearing a safety vest — neither of them were.

  She would be trapped under the boat. Held in place by that seatbelt she couldn’t seem to escape.

  He’d have to go after them in one of the jet skis and hope he could reach them in time. He gazed up at the tumultuous clouds above. A magnificent storm, brewing up there. Drew couldn’t have foreseen it, but it didn’t seem to be interfering with his plan, either.

  Whatever the fuck that was.

  55

  Mr. Sugar

  Why hadn’t she stopped even for a second to grab a scarf or a pair of gloves? God, but it was cold. Despite having her hands shoved under her armpits, her breath misted out here. A drop of rain fell on her cheek. Then another. Judging from how they stung, how cold they were, it could just as easily have been sleet too.

  She pulled Bryce’s cellphone from under her armpit and glanced at the screen.

  No signal.

  She wrestled hers out too. It had one bar, but every time she tried to make a call, it failed.

  Why the hell wasn’t there goddamn cellphone towers all over America yet? Seriously? How could places like this still exist after all the technological advancements and crap the last however many years?

  For a second — perhaps even less — Bryce’s cellphone found a bar of signal. Then it winked out.

  She spun around, lifting up both phones, eyes glued to that small symbol on their screens, her teeth clenching.

  Nothing.

  Her boots crunched on grit as she raced up the stairs to the driveway. Another flicker — two on Bryce’ — gone as soon as it arrived. She swung around, hunting through the cars for something, anything.

  Below, the front door crashed open. She gave a yell of surprise, spinning around and watching Bryce as he ran around the side of the house.

  “Bryce!”

  The man swung to face her, his eyes narrowed against the wind. “What?”

  “Where are you going?”

  He let out a bark of a laugh. “After them. You phone for help?”

  “No signal!” She held out the phones to him, realized he probably couldn’t see their screens from so far away, and then turned them to face her.

  Her phone had found a signal.

  “Got it!” she yelled, pressing the call button to dial 911.

  Bryce threw her a thumbs up and disappeared into the boathouse.

  “Bryce!” she called after him, but he didn’t come out again.

  “This is 911, what is your emergency?”

  Angel gulped in air, trying to congregate the whirlwind of panicked thoughts in her mind into something coherent. “It’s… there’s… someone’s—”

  “Ma’am, what’s your emergency?”

  “I—someone’s trying to kill us.” Angel’s voice broke. “M-Mr. Sugar’s trying to kill us.”

  56

  Fool Me Twice

  Drew glanced around. A tiny smile touched his mouth when he saw the boathouse spitting out a bright red jet ski.

  “Couldn’t have planned it better myself,” he murmured, releasing the throttle.

  The cruiser’s angry growling simmered into a purr. Behind him, Kelly made a frantic, panicked sound. Drew turned to her, lifting a finger to his lips.

  “Ssh.”

  She paused, and then renewed her efforts to unfasten the seat belt. The woman had apparently never been on a boat before, else she would have been able to figure out how to work the safety latch on the buckle.

  Maybe it was time to show her.

  He walked over, stretching out his arms as if the sun baked down on them and it couldn’t have been a finer day for boating. He tried to ignore the fat drops of rain pelting his head and shoulders.

  “Need a hand?”

  Kelly stopped, bunching her hands against her throat when he crouched in front of her. He clipped open the seatbelt and carefully drew it away from her.

  “Better?”

  “What—” she cut off, looking from left to right and then wiping her hands over her face. “Why are we here?”

  Drew took his cellphone from his pocket. “Signal, remember? So you could phone that tow truck?”

  Kelly blinked at him a few times, and slowly reached for the phone. He grabbed her wrist, tugging her forward in the seat.

  “You fucked him again, didn’t you? You and Angel both.”

  The woman struggled to get her arm back and then went limp. Her tears didn’t glitter — there wasn’t enough sunlight for that — but they made her muddy-green eyes luminous with moisture.

 
“Yes,” she said with a sob. She nodded. A tear sped down her cheek, collecting at the bottom of her chin.

  “You hypocritical bitch.” Drew put his head on the side, studying her until she squirmed. “Lecturing me about morals, when you can’t even go one week without fucking my brother? Twice? Did you get us mixed up again?”

  She sniffed loudly, using the heel of her free hand to swipe at her eyes. Then she shook her head, her lips trembling when she forced her eyes back to him.

  “You know what they say, Kelly.” He rose to his feet, chin on his chest to look down at the woman. “Fool me once… shame on me. Fool me twice, shame—”

  “Drew!”

  He turned, face expressionless as he watched Bryce scramble onto the cruiser’s swimming platform.

  “Glad you could join us, bro,” Drew said, his voice thick. He glanced back at Kelly. “She was just telling me how much you were having, back at the lakehouse.”

  Bryce froze, holding out both hands. “You okay there, peaches?”

  “Yeah,” Kelly said with another sob.

  Drew laughed and slid his cellphone back into his pocket. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “Because I know you, Drew.” Bryce’s hands dropped to his sides, but his right hand kept tensing. “You don’t let things go. You let them fester like a sore. Until they pop… and then all sorts of crazy things start happening.”

  He laughed again, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nice visuals. Very poetic. And what bad things, pray tell, am I planning?”

  “Got no fucking clue,” Bryce said, his fingers twitching. “But no way you’re going through with any of them.”

  He barely managed to suppress a flinch when Bryce yanked a gun from behind his back. When his brother aimed it at his chest, he kept his eyes fixed on Bryce’s face. His eyes, his mouth, his jaw.

  The man was as high as an astronaut orbiting Earth.

  Drew put out his hands, slowly enough that even Bryce’s hopped-up mind couldn’t construe the movement as a threat.

  “Now, Bryce…” he said in a low, careful voice. “I think you might be overreacting a little, don’t you?”

  “What? No! I know you.” Bryce shook the gun. “You think I don’t know what you did? I fucking know you.”

  “What did I do?” Drew shrugged, both his hands facing Bryce palm out as he shrugged. “Just treating Kelly to a boat ride—”

  “Not her!” Bryce’s mouth contorted into a snarl. “Juliet!”

  “Juliet?” He glanced at Kelly.

  She glanced from him to his brother with wide eyes and a parted mouth while she massaged her wrist where he’d grabbed her.

  “Fuck!” Bryce yelled, drawing his eyes back. The man’s jaw bunched.

  “Bryce?”

  He shook the gun again, his lips working before words came out.

  “You could just have divorced her, you know.” Bryce’s voice began shaking. The gun dipped, its tip wavering and bobbing the tighter Bryce’s face became. “Why didn’t you just fucking divorce her?”

  Drew put his head to the side and slowly lowered his hands. “But she’s dead. Why would I want to divorce my dead wife?”

  “Instead of killing her! You could have divorced her instead of, instead of—”

  “Killing her?” Drew cut in with a laugh. He put a hand on his chest, turning to Kelly. “He thinks I killed my wife.”

  Kelly’s face went white. She gripped both sides of the seat and pushed herself to her feet, staggering away from Drew.

  “Now you’ve gone and upset Kelly,” he said.

  But when he turned back to Bryce, the man was right in front of him.

  He ducked.

  The air above his head swirled at the force of Bryce’s swing. His brother reeled, thrown off balance by lack of impact.

  Drew’s lips curled into a snarl as he grabbed his brother’s waist and ran them both back. Bryce grunted when they met with the cruiser’s railing.

  Something struck him hard on the back of the head. Hard enough to send stars scattering across his vision. He yelled, wrenching himself free from Bryce and touching the back of his head.

  Blood coated his fingertips.

  “You fuck,” he spat.

  Bryce caught him when he charged again, and they both tumbled to the deck. Drew got a knee in his brother’s groin, but Bryce simultaneously landed an elbow on his nose. He fell back with a gurgling cry, both hands over his face as blood spilled down the back of his throat and filled his mouth with liquid copper. Bryce was silent, but his face had paled as he curled in on himself.

  The gun wasn’t in his hands anymore.

  Drew spun around, leaving an arc of red in his wake, but he couldn’t see the gun anywhere.

  Kelly tottered away from them, turning and retching violently over the side of the boat.

  Bryce’s fist caught the side of his jaw when he turned back. His teeth clacked hard, severing a chunk of his tongue. He spat it out, but his mouth just filled with blood again.

  “You had it all worked out, didn’t you?” Bryce yelled, drawing back his arm for another punch.

  He laughed, easily ducking Bryce’s wild swing. The man was too wired to aim correctly, too hot-blooded to think. Unable to calculate. To wait.

  “Did I now?” he asked, wincing at the pain those words produced. He spat out another mouthful of blood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “You rigged her car. Cut her brake lines. Fucked with her ABS. Something. I know you did.”

  “Strange.” His words were muffled now how he was trying to keep his tongue still. “Investigator didn’t find anything.”

  “Course not!” Bryce swung again. Missed again.

  He drove his shoulder into Bryce’s side, throwing the man to the deck with the help of his own unbalanced momentum. Bryce’s breath left him in a blustering snort when they struck the deck.

  They struggled, Drew trying to grab hold of the man’s arms before he could twist onto his back. He managed to get his arm around his neck, but Bryce was bucking so hard that he lost his grip and was sent hurtling over the deck where he slammed against the stern of the boat.

  “You were there!” Bryce screamed as he surged to his feet. He stood for a moment, swaying, and then stormed forward. “You waited for her to fuck out. For her car to go over the side. Then you went and fixed it!”

  Drew wanted to laugh, but Bryce kicked him in the face before he could get more than a chuckle out. Blackness and stars whirled as his skin went ice cold.

  “Did you watch her die? Huh?” A fist landed on his cheekbone. The bone cracked, rendered both as sound and sensation. “Did you watch her taking her last breath while you went under that hood and got rid of all the fucking evidence?”

  Blood splashed from his mouth when he laughed. Bryce drew back his arm, the muscles in his jaw bunching and his eyes glittering with phenomenal rage.

  “Don’t,” came Kelly’s tremulous voice.

  There was a soft click, somehow too loud despite the pattering of rain on plastic and skin.

  “Bryce, please, don’t.”

  “Jesus,” Bryce muttered, his arm dropping an inch. “Kelly, don’t—”

  “Stand up.”

  “Kelly, he—”

  “Get up. Please, Bryce.”

  Bryce obeyed, but with a reluctance that made his legs stutter. He lifted his hands, tossing his head to get his hair from his eyes.

  More rain fell now. Still big drops, but more. The sound of them hitting the boat and the water slowly grew louder. There was barely any light left in the day — the clouds had ripped twilight from its bed more than two hours earlier and were ushering in an early night.

  “Thanks, Kelly.” He spat out blood, grabbed the railing, and hoisted himself to his feet. “You know, I think he’s gone mental. I mean, here I am—”

  “Shut up, Drew.”

  His eyes flew back to Kelly. Her face was still unnaturally pale; her lips pinched, her eyes narrowed.
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br />   “Kelly…”

  “You’re both going to stop talking.” She cocked her head. “And sit. Both of you. Opposite sides.”

  When none of them moved, she gestured with the gun.

  When they still didn’t move, she shot a round into the coaming.

  “Jesus!” Bryce was on his knees, hands over his head, a split second before he was.

  They both peeked out at Kelly from under the umbrellas of their arms, Bryce looking as shocked as he felt.

  “Got your attention, did I?” Kelly yelled, her voice breaking. “Get. Get!”

  She gestured wildly with the gun, making him flinch. Bryce scrambled into the closest seat, hands gripping the sides.

  He could feel his brother’s eyes on him as he made his way to the opposite side of the boat. Taking his seat with as much decorum as he could muster — what with a strung out chick like Kelly holding a gun on him — he turned and glared at Bryce.

  “Good.” Kelly dropped the gun, and then lifted it toward Drew. “Put on the belt.”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart,” he muttered, clipping himself in.

  “You too,” she said, the gun swinging to Bryce.

  He did as she said, eyes never leaving her face. Drew looked at them, a frown growing between his eyebrows. For someone who’d slept with him twice, Kelly sure wasn’t very trusting of his brother.

  The woman gave them each a nod and lowered the gun to her side. “Now…” she took a breath, glanced up at the sky like she’d just realized it had started to rain, and shivered. “None of you move.”

  She fumbled in her pocket and took out her cellphone. Her face melted with relief when she glanced down at the screen. Her head dipped as she began tapping out a number. The gun dangled from limp fingers at her side, forgotten.

  “That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

  Drew looked up at the sound of Bryce’s voice. He shrugged. “Sounds like a lot of work. Would’ve been easier just to divorce her.”

  Bryce threw back his head and snorted. “You?”

  “Why’d I spend so much time and effort on someone who didn’t love me anymore? Where’s the logic in that?”