by Jeff Carson
“That’s pretty disgusting,” Wolf had told her once after she’d formed a particularly large ball of mucus-ridden Kleenex.
“I don’t feel very good,” she’d responded.
Wolf shut his eyes as a vise tightened around his throat. A wave of dizziness crashed over him and he almost fell sideways. He looked at the sky and sucked in a shaky breath. Then another. He stood like that until his mind blanked, then bent over and plucked the crusty ball of tissue and a wadded sandwich wrapper and shoved them in the bag.
An hour later he’d scoured the yard and the forest behind the house for every piece of trash he could find. For his effort, he received a sack of refuse and a headache that started in his neck and ended behind both eyes.
He stood at the back of the house and let a freshening breeze lick the sweat off his temples and freshly shaven head.
A veil of gray rain obscured the valley over Rocky Points now. Wind howled through the trees, sounding like rushing water, and through the noise he thought he heard a pop of tire tread running over a rock, and then another.
He froze until he heard the squeal of brakes and thump of a car door. He walked to the front of the house, taking his time.
Kristen Luke stood at the door, a twelve-pack of Newcastle hanging from one hand.
“Hey.”
She flinched. “Jesus. I didn’t see you.”
She backed down the wooden step of the deck.
They stared at one another while the wind lashed her ponytail against the side of her head. Her eyes were brighter than the last time he’d seen her. The bruise on her forehead had disappeared and only a thin scab remained.
“It’s cold.” She put down the beer on the step, zipped up her fleece, and folded her arms. “Aren’t you cold?”
He looked down at his now-open jacket flapping in the breeze. The wind needled through his stained short-sleeved shirt.
She took a few steps toward him.
He straightened, and the dizziness hit him again, making him stagger back as the edges of his vision darkened. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten or taken a drink of water.
Luke stopped dead. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”
He watched her turn and walk briskly to her rented sedan. She fired up the engine and peeled forward into the circular drive in front of the barn.
He stepped into her path.
The tires scraped to a stop and they stared at each other through the windshield.
She clasped the top of the steering wheel and leaned her forehead against both hands.
He waited for her to park, then walked to her window and knocked.
The glass slid down and she sat back against the seat. “What?”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Luke confined her gaze to the interior of the car. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut off the car.”
She poked a button and he pulled on the door handle. It opened and bounced on its hinges, and Luke looked up at him. “I said I’m sorry, damn it. Aren’t you going to acknowledge that?”
“Why are you sorry?”
She scoffed.
“It’s not your fault —any of this.”
She shook her head.
“So why are you sorry?”
She turned her head and locked her gaze on his. A fire danced behind her eyes for a moment. Then she sighed and climbed out of the car. She slammed the door, leaned against the window and folded her arms.
He walked to the twelve-pack and ripped it open, pulled out two bottles, and walked back to her with an outstretched hand. “Keys.”
“Why?”
“An old college trick to open these beers.”
She handed over a plastic key fob adorned with three buttons.
He studied it and handed it back, unbuckled his belt, and popped the two bottles with the buckle.
They both lifted the bottles to their mouths and took greedy pulls.
“Earnshaw’s finally talking,” she said.
Wolf pulled the corners of his mouth down and nodded. It was the first time he’d thought of the case in days.
“You don’t care.” Luke took another sip.
“Yeah. I’d rather mull over my fiancée and her kid leaving me for the millionth time. What’s he saying?”
She shrugged. “Lots of sniveling. He apologized to me for conspiring to murder my ass and leave me in a charred pile of ashes. He talked about how Swain and Staten had been lying low when Earnshaw and Nackley came to take me from Sluice–Byron County Hospital. They knew I could identify them, or suspected so, until they heard I had amnesia. When Earnshaw and Nackley learned I couldn’t remember my bra size, Earnshaw came up with that crap about me and Swain going out into the sticks for the gun-theft lead. Their plan was to take me back out there and finish me off.”
She sniffed and smiled. “Shit, if you hadn’t put your dumb nose in their business at the expense of your freaking wedding, I would have been bobbing at the bottom of a river right now.”
Wolf tilted the beer and finished it. “Another?”
She looked at her bottle, three-quarters full. “Yeah, sure.”
He walked back to the deck and returned with two more. “But then you remembered the witness.”
He pulled his buckle trick again.
“How about you just go inside for a bottle opener.”
He handed over the opened bottle and cinched his belt again.
She took it. “When they learned that the witness had ID’d Swain, Swain became a liability. They decided to sacrifice him for their greater good. Apparently, they’d never liked him anyway.” Luke sipped the beer and shook her head.
“So they shot him in the face?” Wolf asked. “And what? Were they going to burn you both inside that cabin? How’d they plan on explaining that when all was said and done?”
She shrugged. “They had a story prepared.”
“But the Chung Do ruined their plans.”
“Yep.” Her breath shuddered and Wolf watched her finish off her beer with a long swill.
“What did they do to you?” he asked. She closed her eyes and he felt a stab of shame. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m drunk.”
“They stripped me naked. Made me take a shower while four of them watched. Then, when I was dried and fresh, the little scary one shot me up with something I hope I never see again. Because, by God, I’ll shove the needle between my toes and press the plunger. I swear I’ve never felt so good.” She chuckled and looked at him. “Don’t tell the psychologist I said that.”
The wind died and the light dimmed fast.
They both faced the incoming storm.
“What did they do to you?” she asked.
“Nothing as bad as what they did to Nackley and Staten.”
They stood in silence as raindrops started to fall.
“They were about to kill me but I bluffed them that I knew something about the cards left at the scene. Something they’d overlooked. I knew if I refused to tell them my revelation, they’d bring you into the room and start humiliating or torturing you to get me to talk.”
She looked at him. “But you were bluffing?”
He nodded.
“So there was no revelation. Just the promise of my torture.”
He said nothing.
“Hmm. Good plan.”
“I knew I was dead,” he said. “But I also knew that if you were in the room we’d both make it through. I had no clue how, but I knew.”
He closed his eyes as the sky opened up. Freezing rain ran over his scalp and down his neck like electric shocks.
An empty bottle landed at his feet, and a cold, thin hand reached up and grasped his.
He concentrated on the pain of the icy deluge and drank it in. He stood unmoved, eyes closed. His jacket pulled on his shoulders as the water soaked in. His jeans numbed his legs. Pools gathered in his boots. His teeth chattered inside his skull.
Sometime later, Luke pulled her hand from his and he o
pened his eyes to see that the rain had stopped. The flowers on the headgate drooped, their battered heads reflected in the shimmering puddles on the road.
Luke sloughed off her fleece, opened the car door, and slapped it on the rear seat. “Well, I’m headed out.”
“Where you going?”
She gazed past him. “I start a new job next week.”
“Where?”
She blinked. “Denver.”
“With the Denver FO?”
“Nope.”
“Then with who?”
“With whom.”
“Screw you.”
“Let’s just say all the escapades have been noticed.” She smiled and opened the driver’s-side door, and then her face went serious. “Give me a call when you’re sober, if you can remember. Meanwhile, I’m going to fire this thing up, get the heater going, you know, so I don’t die. I suggest you go in and take a hot shower when I leave.”
She sat down and shut the door. The engine purred to life and her cursing floated out the open window as she turned knobs on the dashboard.
The car rolled forward and stopped.
“Oh yeah,” she said, looking up at him, “I almost forgot.”
“What’s that?”
She shifted back into park, opened the door, and got out. She stepped toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
His breath jetted out of his chattering teeth as her ice-cold body pressed against his.
“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear, and she kissed him gently below his eye.
Then she let go, climbed back in, and drove away.
He watched the sedan splash through puddles and barrel through the headgate.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much for reading Rain (David Wolf Book 11). I hope you enjoyed the story, and if you did, thank you for taking a few moments to leave a review. As an independent author, exposure is everything, and positive reviews help so much to get that exposure. If you’d be so kind as to leave an honest few words, I’d appreciate it very much.
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I love interacting with readers so please feel free to email me at [email protected] so I can thank you personally. Otherwise, thank you very much for your support by other means, such as sharing or lending the books with your friends/family/book clubs/or anyone else you think might be interested in reading the David Wolf series. Thanks again and I hope to see you again inside another Wolf story.
NEWSLETTER
Would you like to know about future David Wolf books the moment they are published? You can visit my blog and sign up for the New Release Newsletter at this link –
http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html
As a gift for signing up you’ll receive a complimentary copy of Gut Decision—A David Wolf Short Story, which is a harrowing tale that takes place years ago during David Wolf’s first days in the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department.
David Wolf Series in Order
Gut Decision (A David Wolf Short Story)– Sign up for the new release newsletter at http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html and receive a complimentary copy sent to your inbox.
Foreign Deceit (David Wolf Book 1)
The Silversmith (David Wolf Book 2)
Alive and Killing (David Wolf Book 3)
Deadly Conditions (David Wolf Book 4)
Cold Lake (David Wolf Book 5)
Smoked Out (David Wolf Book 6)
To the Bone (David Wolf Book 7)
Dire (David Wolf Book 8)
Signature (David Wolf Book 9)
Dark Mountain (David Wolf Book 10)
Rain (David Wolf Book 11)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
