B00C179BP0 EBOK

by J W Becton

  Suddenly, I felt like chatting again.

  “You’d really become a mall cop?” I asked, my tone skeptical.

  “I would,” he said, turning his head in surprise at my sudden launch into conversation. “After all the ways I’ve screwed up my life, I’ve learned that a job falls pretty low on the priority list. Or it should, anyway. Got better things to worry about than the prestige of my resume.”

  That’s the way I’d always felt about catching my sister’s attacker—that it was more important than any job. At least until recently, when I’d gotten so close to catching the guy. Suddenly, I was worried about everything and everyone.

  Would Tricia and my parents be able to handle a trial?

  Why wasn’t I able to focus on catching the bastard and making sure he got what he deserved, consequences be damned?

  Before I could continue that train of thought, Vincent gestured out the window as a sedan pulled into the driveway we were watching.

  I sat up straighter, feeling the uneasy prickle begin in my spine again.

  This could be Slidell.

  Without realizing I’d done it, I leaned forward until my chest hit the dash, focusing on the sedan, which pulled slowly into the one-car garage, its red brake lights blinking at us like a broken neon sign.

  Remembering the binoculars, I pulled them from where they’d fallen on the floorboard and focused on the still-open garage door, willing the driver to walk outside.

  After a few moments, a young woman in jeans and a sweater emerged, and I followed her lazy, unhurried movements as she walked toward the road, likely making a trek to the mailbox. About halfway down the driveway, she spun, apparently responding to the person in the garage. Turning my focus back in that direction, I sat immobile, riveted, as a second woman appeared at the opening of the garage door, the light from within giving her more mature attire a back-lit glow.

  Hair tucked in a business-like updo and wearing a turtleneck sweater, khaki pants, and a woolen-looking coat, the older woman carried three large shopping bags from various department stores. The younger girl—a teenager, I realized—was now returning from the mailbox, her long blond hair pulled into a ponytail that swung behind her as she walked toward her mother.

  The prickle in my spine ratcheted to full-fledged tingle, and my scalp began to itch.

  Looking at the girl, lithe, blond, and beautiful, was like being sucked back in time to the days when my sister was that young. For a moment, it was as if I were looking at innocent Tricia as she drove away in her Z-28, blond ponytail hanging over the seat back, never to return again. Not the way that I knew her, anyway.

  “She looks a lot like…” Vincent’s unfinished sentence echoed my thoughts. “I hope we have the wrong house, the wrong people.”

  I turned away from the scene and looked at Vincent’s profile.

  “Me too,” I said. “God, me too. That girl. She could be my sister.”

  Over the years, I had considered the terrifying possibility that my sister’s rapist might still be an active predator, but I had always discounted it. His DNA and fingerprints had never been connected with another reported assault, but seeing a potential victim renewed my fear.

  Vincent and I sat in silence as the women we assumed to be Marnie Jacobs and her teenage daughter disappeared back into the garage and closed the door behind them. Seconds later, lights flickered on inside the house, starting downstairs and then expanding to the top floor. The place took on the aspect of life and cheer, and to me, it seemed so incongruous—lovely women, cheery house, happy family, maybe living with my sister’s rapist.

  But perhaps Marnie had seen the light and severed her relationship with Slidell. Maybe they were no longer together. Maybe the blond facsimile of my sister was safe. Maybe this wasn’t Marnie Jacobs after all. But we had to be sure.

  By tacit agreement, Vincent and I waited in tense silence, hoping that Slidell would show up and yet also fearing that he might.

  About an hour and a half later, just when I was about to propose calling it a night partially for the sake of my bladder and partially because I thought perhaps Marnie had shed herself of the asshole, another vehicle pulled into the drive. The car was a late-model four-door, curvy and sleek, and I expected a businessman to emerge.

  And that’s just what I saw: a businessman dressed in his weekend golf attire who looked like he belonged with the woman we’d seen earlier. Relative to the height of the garage door, the man appeared to be somewhere between five-foot-eight inches and six feet tall, and he was dressed in a collared shirt and windbreaker. He appeared clean and groomed, and though I detected a bit of middle-aged spread around his belt line, he was not overweight.

  The man shut his car door and then leaned over the hood to pick something out of the windshield wipers. He tossed what looked like a handful of pine needles into the yard behind him. As he came around the car and into the brighter coach lights beside the garage, I was able to see more details, including the precise crew cut of his salt-and-pepper hair.

  The witnesses of the assault in the Orr County bar had described the escaped suspect as clean, well-dressed, average height, average weight, with a graying crew cut. This man fit their description.

  He could be Clayton Leslie Slidell.

  I yanked out my phone and attempted to take several pictures using the highest zoom setting, but I suspected it was all for naught.

  It didn’t matter anyway, I thought. I would make sure Tripp and the Orr County PD tried to serve the warrant at this house.

  Turning off the camera, I sat back, almost in shock. I was staring at the man who may have derailed my sister’s life.

  Unable to process the possibility fully, I simply watched as the man rounded his car, walked crisply up the sidewalk and onto the porch, unlocked the front door, and disappeared inside the house.

  “Crap,” Vincent said. “They’re still cohabiting.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling as if my brain had shifted into neutral.

  I had the craziest impulse to ask Vincent what we should do next. It would be comforting to hear someone else say it aloud, but of course I knew the typical process well.

  We should immediately notify Orr County that the suspect had been spotted, and they would, in turn, attempt to serve the warrant at this address and bring him into custody. He’d be fingerprinted, and they would compare his prints to the prints in Tricia’s file. Then we’d know whether or not he was the guy whose fingerprints had been all over my sister’s car.

  That would give us enough for a warrant for his DNA, if he wouldn’t agree to provide a sample of his own free will. Either way, the DNA would provide certainty: had I found my sister’s rapist after all these years?

  But now there was another—and more disturbing—question in my mind: was he still an active sexual predator?

  Ten

  The boss was pissed—something had gone bad wrong—and Michael Lacarova hadn’t bothered to stick around to find out what in the hell had happened.

  He was smart enough to know what to fear, and he feared the boss.

  Tucking himself away in the small, greasy office of the garage, Lacarova listened through the crack in the door.

  He knew he couldn’t really hide from her, not when she owned him. He had to go along with her wishes and whims, whether or not he liked what she did.

  But not for long.

  Soon, he decided, he would be free of her power.

  He just wasn’t sure how he would break out yet.

  Maybe he’d hop on his bike, take off for nowhere in particular. Somewhere far, far away from Mercer, Georgia. He might change his name and disappear in a puff of smoke for all anyone knew. But somehow, he would be free again. Until then, the key to his survival was keeping himself on the boss’s good side.

  Not like the idiot in the garage with her now.

  Slowly, quietly, Lacarova eased the door open a fraction of an inch more so that he could make out what was going on.

  Angled
as he was, he couldn’t see well, and he twisted his body until he caught a glimpse of the boss’s profile as she lit an acetylene torch. The flame burst forth with a pop, and then he heard her call his name.

  “Michael! Son, come here.”

  Under his breath, he cursed the familial appellation, wishing desperately that he could run like hell, pretend he hadn’t heard, pretend he wasn’t even there. But he knew from experience that the boss’s call could not be ignored.

  Not without severe repercussions, and she had already selected her weapon. She wouldn’t hesitate to use it on him as well.

  Forcing himself to open the door wide, Lacarova slunk from his hiding spot and entered the main area of the garage, hands shoved deep in the front pockets of his jeans.

  The boss stood before him, torch in hand, and even though she had Eddie Wohl—fool that he was—trussed up in zip ties, he had no idea what was about to happen.

  Lacarova knew, and he knew that he was going to be a part of it.

  That was what he hated more than anything, even more than the constant torture of knowing that he had gotten into this mess on his own merits and hadn’t been able to get himself out of it.

  “Michael,” the boss said as she picked up a piece of pipe in her gloved hand and began to heat it with the already burning torch. “Mr. Wohl here has informed me that we’re having a problem with good Dr. Keller. Seems he might be talking to the cops, sharing some of our secrets with them.”

  “Oh,” Lacarova said, feeling certain that fewer words were the best option in this scenario. Of all the reasons he’d imagined for the boss to haul Eddie into the garage, this was unexpected. He wanted to ask why she didn’t have the doc himself here, facing a blowtorch instead of Eddie, but he didn’t risk inquiring.

  Questions would only make her angrier, and that wouldn’t do anybody any good.

  “Mr. Wohl, it seems, did not adequately communicate our position to the doctor when they last spoke,” she said as she continued to wave the torch along the length of the pipe, heating it gradually, deliberately, “which is unfortunate. If he had, then we wouldn’t be here now. The doctor would be under control, and I wouldn’t be required to take corrective action.”

  Understanding ignited in Eddie’s eyes as he stared down at the heating pipe and began to pull at the zip ties that bound his wrists.

  “Look, all I know is that he gave papers to some state agent,” he said as he began to backpedal, crashing into the workbench and scattering tools, trying to explain himself. “They were nothing. We’re jumping to conclusions here.”

  The boss gazed skeptically at him over the reddening pipe, and Eddie skittered sideways along the edge of the table.

  “So we’re jumping to conclusions, are we? Those papers were nothing,” she repeated, glancing sidelong at Lacarova to address him. “Seems to me that we do have a problem: either the doc talked, or Eddie’s wasting my time. No matter what, we have a problem that must be fixed. And I’m all about fixing problems, aren’t I, son? The first solution is to remind Wohl here how we keep people in line. How we’ll need to keep the doc in line.”

  Wohl stopped scrambling away and straightened, trying to appear tough and unafraid and failing miserably in the face of the now-glowing pipe.

  “Yeah, how’s that?” he squeaked.

  His attempt at bravery was lunacy, and Lacarova looked away. That was the wrong question to ask when the boss was holding a torch and the expression on her face contained such evil, gleeful delight.

  “People are accident prone,” she said. “Just look around at all these wrecked cars. Think of all the injured people who go to that clinic. Accidents happen. Isn’t that right? They happen even to Wohl. Unfortunately, he managed to burn his leg on the exhaust pipe of his motorcycle on his drive over here.”

  Wohl’s eyes widened in fear.

  “The hell I did,” he said, focusing with renewed anger on the section of glowing red pipe in the boss’s hands.

  The boss looked at Lacarova.

  “Sure he did,” she said. “Hike up his right pant leg there. See for yourself.”

  Lacarova hesitated, trying to hide the shaking in his hands. He hated this garbage, the games, the torture, but he was in too deep. The boss had so much info on him that he’d never see the outside of a jail cell if he betrayed her, at least not without an airtight escape plan. So he did as he was told.

  Lacarova dropped to one knee, but when he tried to jerk the man’s trouser leg over his calf, Eddie landed a good solid kick to his side.

  Grunting from the impact of the steel-toed work boot, Lacarova retaliated with a low tackle, effectively taking Eddie’s legs out from under him. He crashed to the floor, his breathing labored, and Lacarova took the opportunity to expose Eddie’s calf as the boss had demanded.

  “There’s no burn,” he said. He had known there wouldn’t be, of course.

  “Oh, my mistake,” the boss said, sneering. “But we can remedy that. Hold him still.”

  Lacarova hesitated again and looked into the boss’s eyes. They held the reflection of the glowing pipe and smoldering hatred. He would do as he was told. He had to.

  Eddie tried to struggle, but Lacarova pinned him down, using his weight to hold him steady on the dirty garage floor while the boss applied the pipe to Wohl’s flesh.

  The worst part wasn’t the sound of Wohl’s yelling.

  Or cursing.

  Or his attempts to escape or kick out at the boss.

  Or even the sick smell of frying human flesh as she held the pipe to his leg.

  No, the worst part was that Lacarova had no choice.

  After it was over and Wohl had fled, no doubt to the hospital with the story that he’d burned his leg on the exhaust pipe of his bike, Lacarova and the boss were alone in the garage.

  “Wohl will come in line now, but you’re going to have to take care of the doctor,” she told him.

  “The nurse can’t do the job?” he asked, though he wished immediately to snatch back the question.

  The boss’s eyes gleamed with sadistic anger, and that was all the response he needed.

  “You want me to pay him a visit?” he asked, restraining a sigh. “Talk to him. Make him see what needs to be done.”

  “No,” the boss said, “we’re beyond talking now. The doc needs to know that I’m serious. I don’t cotton to do-gooder whistleblower types. Now is the time to close the ranks, make sure no one else talks. Set an example….”

  “Okay,” Lacarova said, feeling the itch of panic rise up his spine.

  “We need to hit him where it hurts, make sure he knows that we can get to him.” A slow, sick smile spread across her lips. “And what do we target when we want to make sure he sees our power?” she asked.

  “The face?” Lacarova asked, hoping he sounded confident and snide.

  “Son, that tone’s about as helpful as a back pocket on a shirt,” she said, sneering at him again. “He has a kid, right? Kids are a weakness.”

  Lacarova stared at her, loathe to speak a word when she was like this.

  “And kids are careless, right?” she said, still smiling, “especially when they play too close to the street. They could get hit by a passing car, simple as that.”

  Jesus Tap-dancing Christ, he thought. She wanted him to run over a kid.

  He stared at her, feeling anger and revulsion rise to his throat. He had done a lot of bad shit for this woman, but he had never killed anybody.

  He swallowed hard and felt his Adam’s apple bob up and down.

  “No way,” he said. “No goddamn way am I doing that. I’m not a murderer.”

  The boss’s eyes turned hard and her mouth tightened up like metal wire.

  “You are what I say you are.”

  And wasn’t that the truth? The boss had dirt on him for miles, could convince the cops of anything, could send him to jail for near eternity.

  She looked meaningfully at the pipe where it cooled on the stainless steel workbench, remind
ing him what she was capable of doing to him.

  Still, he held firm.

  “No, find someone else,” he said, taking a step toward her, feigning confidence. He was not much taller than her, but he was solid and well muscled, and he tried to use his bulk to his advantage. “I can think of at least two of your recruits who wouldn’t flinch at the idea, or you could do it your damn self. But I’m not interested.”

  Her mouth hardened.

  “Do you fully understand the consequences of refusing me?”

  Oh, he understood, and that’s why fear coursed beneath the surface of his skin. He knew the boss had risen to the top by keeping herself clean while dirtying everyone around her. She gave the orders, ran things from afar, made torture look like an accident, but never got her hands dirty. So if the cops ever came knocking, the boss would look clean and pure; she had made sure of that.

  She stepped closer to him and then reached behind him on the Peg-Board and selected a screwdriver. She ran her manicured nail along its length as she began to speak.

  “I could send someone else, someone the police can’t trace to me, but I don’t know how thorough they will be. And things sure won’t look good for you when they find out that a car from this shop—this shop that you manage—was used in the crime. With your fingerprints all over it. Your name on the pink slip. And with your history….”

  “You’d put the whole operation in danger?” Lacarova asked, already knowing the answer. This woman was crazy; she’d send the authorities to her own house if she knew he’d be there to take the fall. In the eyes of the cops, she was pure as spring rain, and he was something dredged up from the septic system.

  Lips twisted into an almost seductive smile, she pointed the screwdriver at his neck and then slid it along his body until it jabbed him in the balls.