She could hear her own breathing, feel the beat of her heart. Five minutes by her watch, the night still, and then she took the Glock from her belt, moved up to the side door. The light went on again, and she stepped up onto the bucket, shattered the bulb with the gun butt. The yard fell dark again.
She got down, put the bucket back, then stood against the wall in the new darkness, waiting to see if the noise would draw anyone.
Another five minutes. She took out her penlight, switched it on, played the beam across the side door. Saw for the first time the black gap along the jamb. The door was closed but hadn’t latched. She switched off the light.
She could walk away now, as Chance had said. Get back in the car, head home. But then she’d never know what she’d left behind here, or who might be coming after her.
The Glock at her side, she went up the three steps to the door, pushed it open with gloved fingers. Darkness inside, an acrid smell. She listened, heard nothing, then went in, switched on the penlight again.
Ahead of her, a dark empty kitchen. To the left, a narrow corridor with cheap paneling. Two doors opened off the hallway. She moved toward the first one, shone the light inside. A small bathroom, just toilet and sink. The second door was closed.
The hallway ended in a carpeted office. Two desks on opposite sides of the room, filing cabinets against the wall. The smell stronger here, bitter, scorched. Faint light came through the front windows.
Above one of the desks was an open metal cabinet, car keys hanging inside. Across the room, a small red glow. She raised the penlight, saw a credenza along the wall, a coffeemaker atop it, the red light at its base. That was where the smell was coming from. No coffee left in the beaker, just a burned crust along the bottom. A thin crack ran down the glass. She touched the switch, shut it off.
A car went by on the highway, its headlights coming through the drawn shades, moving across the room. She waited until it passed.
Another smell in here, one she couldn’t identify. She shone the penlight around. Next to the coffeemaker, a fax machine, color brochures lined up neatly on a table beside it. A copy machine in one corner. Beside it, a silver Mesa safe, the door open. There were papers strewn on the carpet around it, ledger books. She edged around the desk, bent to pick up one of the ledgers, and saw the body there.
It was a woman in her sixties, splayed out on the floor beside an overturned swivel chair. She wore a dress, had one nyloned leg tucked beneath her. Her eyes were open. There was a thick pool of blood under her head, dark spatter on the paneling behind.
All the desk drawers had been pulled out and emptied onto the floor—papers, brochures, office supplies. She imagined the way it must have happened. They’d come in the side door, moving fast. The woman at the desk here, standing when she saw them, then taking a round to the forehead. The blood on the floor was dark but still shone. She hadn’t been dead long.
She played the light across the desks. Printers, but no computers, just cables leading nowhere. That meant they’d likely had laptops, and whoever had done this had taken them.
She went back down the hallway to the closed door. It was unlocked. She opened it, shone the penlight down wooden steps to a carpeted floor. She listened for a moment, then touched the wall switch inside the door. Fluorescent ceiling lights blinked on downstairs.
She switched off the penlight, put it away. Not wanting to go down there, but knowing she had to. The Glock in a two-handed grip, she moved down the steps quietly, gun up, waiting for a target.
There was a water heater against one wall, stacked boxes against another. More filing cabinets. And there in the center of the room, a man on his knees, shirtless, a dark hood over his head. His arms were extended above him, clothesline tied around his wrists, then to pipes that ran along the ceiling. He’d slumped forward, but the clothesline kept him from falling all the way. His chest and stomach were smeared with dark blood, crisscrossed with puncture marks, too small for bullets. The carpet below him was dark and discolored. The coppery smell of blood was thick in the air.
She let out her breath, lowered the gun, went to him. With one hand, she lifted the hood, knowing what she’d find.
Sladden’s eyes were half open, his chin against his chest. There were about a dozen puncture marks on his chest, stomach, and sides, and there, at the base of his skull, what would have been the final one. When they were done with him, they’d ended it that way. But it had been a long death, and a slow one, and no way to know what he’d said while it was happening, what they’d asked him, how much he’d told them.
She dropped the hood on the floor, put away the Glock and took out her penknife. She couldn’t leave him like this. Taking hold of one side of the clothesline, she used the short triangular blade to slice through it, then did the other. He fell forward stiffly, then onto his side.
There was nothing else to do here. She’d been too late again. She closed the knife, pocketed it, then went back up the stairs, shut off the basement lights, closed the door.
Back in the car, she called Chance, told him what she’d found.
She heard him inhale. Silence on the line, and then, “What do you think he told them?”
“I don’t know, but it looks like they had him down there for a good long time. The office safe was open, too, and all the computers were gone. No telling what he kept on those. How much did he know about you?”
“A lot. We go back a long ways.”
“Your address? Where you are now?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Not good.”
“How about you?”
“Not much, I don’t think. Everything we did was on burners or in person. Might be a good time for you and Lynette to take a trip, though.”
“She’s already gone. I sent her to her sister’s in Iowa today. The more I thought about how things were playing out, the less I liked it. I told her it was temporary. She wasn’t happy, but she went.”
“Go with her. Stay out of Ohio for a while.”
“Hell with that. I’m not going anywhere. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a real home, a place to call my own?”
“Better to leave. Think about it.”
“I don’t need to. This is my home. I’m staying.”
“If they got your address from Sladden, they’ll be on their way,” she said. “Hicks and Sandoval, maybe others. We don’t know how much of a head start they got.”
“Fuck ’em,” he said. “Let ’em come.”
* * *
Hicks washed his hands in the filling-station sink, rubbed at the dried blood on the inside of his left wrist. The latex gloves he’d worn hadn’t come up high enough. He palmed water in his face, looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were sunken, bloodshot.
A knock at the restroom door. Sandoval said, “You okay, jefe?”
He tore brown paper towels from the dispenser, dried his hands. “What? You want to come in and hold it for me?”
“Just asking, man,” Sandoval said. “You’ve been in there awhile.”
He crumpled the wet towels, dropped them in the trash bin, went out.
“Just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” Sandoval said. “You look pretty beat.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s been a long day. Lots of miles.”
“It has.”
The other three were standing around the rented Suburban, Banks pumping gas in the harsh glare of the island lights. Traffic flew by on the interstate beyond.
“Not for nothing,” Sandoval said. “But a couple of the guys, they’re wondering why you’re not coming with us now.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That it was none of their business. And they’re not getting paid to ask questions.”
“Right answer.”
“We come all this way, though, I can understand. They’re looking for you to call the shots with this next thing, right?”
“It’s one guy. There’s four of you. I’m
sure you can handle it.”
“I think you freaked them out a little, too. I mean, that was some off-the-chain Gitmo-level shit back there.”
Hicks looked at him. “Got what we wanted, didn’t we? I did what I had to do.”
“Hey, I know. I’m just saying.”
“Then tell them they need to man up. I have something else to take care of, needs to happen at the same time. That’s why I’m not coming. You drop me at the airport. I’ll be in touch after I land.”
“What about those computers?”
“Ditch them somewhere. I got what I needed.”
“This guy we’re looking for. He might not even be there, right? He might be long gone.”
“That’s what you’re gonna find out.”
“If he ain’t there, then what?”
“Then we’ll see.”
Banks finished with the gas, fit the nozzle back in the pump, looked over at them.
“How much they know about what happened back there?” Hicks said. “In Nevada?”
“Nothing. They didn’t ask, and I didn’t volunteer. They’re here to do a job, jefe. They don’t need to know the backstory. And you don’t need to get any ideas.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
They walked back to the Suburban. The others were already inside, Banks at the wheel, engine running. Sandoval got in the back. Hicks climbed into the front passenger seat. Banks looked at him.
“What are you waiting for, soldier?” Hicks said. “Let’s roll.”
TWENTY-THREE
Crissa stood at the kitchen window, looked up the gravel road to the wooden gates, everything falling into shadow as the sun went down.
“What is it?” Chance said behind her. He was sitting at the table, oiling a disassembled Ithaca pump shotgun, the parts laid out on newspaper. A lit cigarette hung from his mouth.
“I was wondering,” she said. “If there’s a way to block that road.”
“There’s some fifty-five-gallon barrels out back. Empty. I could load them in the pickup, put ’em out there, maybe string some barbed wire between them. Stop anyone trying to come down that hill in the dark.”
She’d arrived late the night before, slept fitfully on the couch. Whenever she began to drift off, she saw the puncture wounds crisscrossing Sladden’s skin, the final, fatal one at the base of his skull.
She moved to the side window, next to the door. Chance’s pickup was in the driveway about ten feet away. Her own rental was parked out of sight in the barn. She looked across the cultivated field to the treeline, already darkening.
“You talk to Lynette?” she said.
“If you can call it that.” He was fitting the shotgun parts back together. “Mainly I talked, and she pretended to listen. Not sure where we left it.”
“It’s good she’s away from here. You should be with her.”
“We went over that already.” He opened a box of 12-gauge shells, began to feed them into the shotgun’s receiver.
“What’s on the other side of those woods?” she said. “Past the soy field.”
“More woods.”
“Fire roads?”
“Not around here.” He worked the pump to chamber a shell, slid another into the receiver to replace it, then engaged the safety. “To the west, there’s a good half mile of woods, then an old quarry. Only ways in and out of here, in a vehicle at least, are what I showed you, front gate and the road in back. Otherwise you’re on foot.” He set the shotgun on the table.
She took the Glock from her belt, eased back the slide to check the round in the chamber again, a nervous habit. She set it beside the shotgun. “What else have we got?”
“Thirty-eight Smith,” he said. “The snub you saw. Up there.” He nodded at the refrigerator.
She took the gun down. Rubber grips, two-inch barrel. Useless at anything more than fifteen feet, but a manstopper up close. She swung open the cylinder, saw all six chambers were loaded.
“More shells in the cabinet there,” he said. “For both.”
She snapped the cylinder shut, put the gun back where it had been.
“He might not be coming,” Chance said. “Could be Sladden didn’t tell him anything.”
She hit a wall switch. A floodlight went on outside the side door, illuminated the pickup. “Maybe. But we have to assume he did.”
“This waiting,” he said. “Makes me think about that other time. In the snow.”
“Yes,” she said. “Me, too.”
“How long?” he said.
She looked at him. “What?”
“How long do you think they worked on him before they finished it?”
“I don’t know. Long enough.”
He shook his head. “Hell of a thing. He was an OG, I know. He played the Game. But still, to go that way … He didn’t deserve it.”
“Who does?” she said.
* * *
He cooked hamburgers for dinner, but she couldn’t eat. There was a growing knot in the pit of her stomach. She paced the darkened house, checked the locks on the heavy front door. There was a chill in the air, so he’d built a fire in the living room fireplace. As it grew, the flames threw shadows against the walls.
She sat in an overstuffed chair, the Glock on a table beside her, looked into the flames. He turned off the kitchen light, came in after her. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed nine.
“Beer?” he said. “No wine in the house, unfortunately. Neither of us drinks it.”
She shook her head, growing drowsy with the darkness, the warmth of the fire on her legs. Her whole body seemed to ache; the past weeks, the driving, the lack of sleep, all of it catching up with her.
He put another split log on the fire. A dog barked far off somewhere.
She closed her eyes, began to drift, then snapped back awake. Chance sat on the couch, looking into the fire, his arms crossed. Wondering if it was all worth it, she thought. Endangering everything he had, running risks that might never be resolved.
“Any water out there?” she said. She needed to stretch her legs, clear her head.
“Refrigerator.”
She got up and went into the darkened kitchen. The dog was still barking. She opened the refrigerator, light spilling out on the linoleum floor. There were half a dozen cans of Budweiser in there, some water bottles on the door shelf. She took one, cracked the cap.
He came up behind her, said, “I’ll have one of those beers, I think,” and a red beam of light centered on his chest.
“What the…,” he said, and she was already moving, dropping the bottle, ducking low, barreling into him. They hit a kitchen chair, went over and onto the floor. The front kitchen window dissolved in a cascade of glass, and something struck the wall over the counter.
She rolled off him. The red light tracked across the kitchen, looking for a target. A second beam came through the side window by the door, held steady. So there were at least two of them out there, with silenced weapons. Hicks or Sandoval, or both.
“Son of a bitch,” Chance said.
The Glock was still in the other room. She crawled to the table, reached up and felt the stock of the shotgun, drew it toward the edge. Chance had pulled himself up, was sitting with his back to the wall, next to the interior doorway. The wandering laser passed along the walls again at head height, moving slow. The other beam stayed where it was.
“Do you think that…,” Chance said, and then the curtain over the shattered window puffed, and a round punched into the side of the refrigerator. Another ricocheted off the sink. He grunted. A third round cut a furrow across the tabletop. She pulled her hand back, then kicked a table leg hard. The shotgun fell off the edge and into her arms.
Without a target, whoever was outside was hoping to keep them pinned down. They would try to flank them next, she knew, send someone in the front or side door.
She looked at Chance. He was holding his left thigh. There was blood there.
He looked at her, and she thumbed
off the safety, cocked her head toward the broken window. He nodded.
The curtain moved again, but just a breeze this time. She crawled across the linoleum, felt broken glass under her, flattened against the wall beneath the front window. The laser tracked across the room again, and a round hit the wall above Chance’s head. He ducked. Plaster dust drifted down.
They’d come in closer now, up to the windows if they could, shoot any clear targets in the room. Then they’d come in hard through the doors, sweep through the house.
The sound of footsteps outside the window. She tried to remember if Chance had worked the pump after he loaded the shotgun, if there was a shell in the chamber. The laser cut through the air inches above her head, a different angle, the shooter closer.
She drew in breath, held it. Get moving, she thought. If you don’t, you’re going to die here, just like this. Do it. Move.
She raised up fast, pointed the shotgun through the broken window, and there was a figure there in the darkness, five feet away, using a tree as cover. She fired, the butt kicking back against her. In the muzzle flash, she caught a glimpse of a face she didn’t know. The figure dropped away, the laser angling crazily upward, and she pumped and fired again, blew bark off the tree.
She sank back down, worked the pump to eject the smoking shell. Chance had taken the sportsman’s plug out of the magazine, so the shotgun would hold six shells when fully loaded, five in the tube and one in the chamber. That meant she had four left until she could reach the table.
Footsteps on the gravel driveway. She didn’t know if she’d hit anyone, but they’d be more cautious now, not knowing how many people were inside the house, how many guns. The other laser stayed steady.
She pointed toward the living room, the hardwood floor there lit by the fire. Chance nodded, crawled through the doorway, going for the Glock. A loud pop outside and the floodlight over the side door blew out, dropped the yard into darkness.
Kneeling, she pointed the shotgun at the side door, finger tight on the trigger. The laser began to move, playing across the wall above the living room doorway. But they’d have to get closer to have an angle on the room. They were having a conversation out there now. She could hear voices but not words.
The Devil’s Share Page 17
