The Prey Bites Back: A Jesse Watson Mystery Book #8

by Ann Mullen

  “Well, I sure am glad it wasn’t poisoned,” Mom said, interrupting my thoughts and bringing me back from that eerie place. “I’d hate to think she was poisoned. What a waste. Life is too short as it is.” Relief washed over Mom’s face. She had obviously been visiting the same place I had—that place in the back of your mind where you never want to go because the Devil and all his disciples live there. They taunt you, trick you, and make you do things you don’t want to do. However, the bad side of a person also dwells there—the side that can be so easily led astray. Yep, it’s a mighty scary place. I go there often and not because I want to.

  Jonathan walked in, closed the door, and said, “It’s time to go.” He looked over at Mom. “How’s that pill working for you, Minnie?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Ah… nothing. I was just wondering if you were okay. You had a bit of a tantrum earlier, and I thought you might be having side effects from the drug. That’s all I was saying.”

  Mom rose from the chair and walked up to Jonathan. “I have all my wits if that’s what you’re asking. I’m sane enough to know what’s going on here, and I’m willing to help. You want me to drive, or hand you the ammo? I’m quite capable of doing both. I can even shoot Dakota if I have to. I can’t watch if you’re going to skin her alive, but I can hand you the knife.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, Minnie,” Billy interjected with a grin. “We’ll handle everything from here on out. You just stay put and help Gator.” Billy looked over at Gator, and then back to Mom. “We need all the eyes we can get.” Billy glanced at Helene for a second to let her know she was to stay as well. “Mason’s watching out for Lu Ann and the kids, and Eddie’s resting in the trauma room. Right, Jonathan?” He looked over at Jonathan for assurance.

  “Yeah,” Jonathan agreed. “Eddie’s resting.”

  “Is he alone?” Mom asked, looking at Jonathan. “What if…”

  “He’s safe, Minnie,” Jonathan replied. “Nobody’s getting in here. You can go stay with him if you want to, but I can assure you he’s all right. He’s probably asleep by now.”

  “Did you give him one of those pills, too?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I’m going to sit with my husband if anybody wants me.” She glanced over at me. “Are you going with them?”

  I didn’t say anything, afraid of the lecture that was sure to follow, but instead of a sermon, Mom simply said, “Well, you’d better wear some of that black paint on your face, or you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb.”

  We decided to wait until it got dark before venturing out on what was sure to be a very tricky mission. All kinds of things could go wrong when trying to dump a body, and if we got caught, we’d spend the rest of our lives in prison. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. These guys were pros. They’d done stuff like this before. For them this was a cake walk.

  After a quick meal, Billy and I were taken to the suit-up room where we could choose the proper attire for the night. The place was stocked with T-shirts, pants, boots, jackets, and socks—all in black. Everything was black, right down to the belts.

  Once we had suited-up, it was time to gear-up. That’s what Shark said when he led us to another room down the hall. The door made the same clicking noise as the rest, but instead of opening up, Shark had to slide a keycard over a dot on the wall. The door opened and he waved us in as if he were showing off his prized mare. “Pick your weapon of choice.”

  A gun enthusiast would be in hog Heaven in a room like this. We had just stepped into an armory. Every weapon you could possibly imagine was stocked here, and not just one or two of each either. There were dozens of guns I’d never even seen before. It was the paradise of arms.

  “I want one of each,” I said as I turned around to look back at Shark. When I did, I froze. There on the wall behind him was the gun of my dreams. “I want that one!”

  Shark smiled and declared, “We have one in the Hummer already. We never leave home without it. Can you handle one of those?”

  “Never had the chance.”

  He looked at Billy for approval, and then after a brief moment he looked back at me and said, “If we need it tonight, you’re our man. But don’t get your hopes up. That baby is our last resort and we only use it when all else fails.”

  I was beside myself. I’d never had the opportunity to even get close to a rocket launcher, let alone fire one. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I shot it in the wrong direction and killed one of us, or all of us? I had a lot of what ifs, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. My self-esteem returned and I now knew I could handle it. I wouldn’t let the guys down. If they trusted me with a weapon like this, I would come through for them. What am I talking about? We weren’t going to blow up anything.

  While everyone else was safely tucked away at Jonathan’s fortress, the four of us were cruising down Rt. 29 with a dead guy wrapped in plastic in the back of the SUV. The fact that we had a body in the car didn’t seem to faze the other three occupants, but me—I was terrified, not by the fact that I was about to become involved in a major crime, but because I didn’t see anything wrong in what we were about to do. The guy was dead… and we weren’t the ones who killed him. We were just going to give him a proper send off, and let the true villain take the blame. What ever would Dakota do when she discovered his body? I’d love to see the look on her face.

  Jonathan took the back way to The Body Shop. When he pulled up to the tree line at the far side of the parking lot, Gator’s voice came through on the wireless gadget I had in my ear. He was telling us that he was ready to disable the alarm system. We were set to go.

  My heart pounded in my chest like a drum in a marching band. I was sitting in a parking lot with Billy, Jonathan, Shark, and a dead man, getting ready to add to the list of laws we’d already broken. And getting caught this time would be bad… really bad. Having a dead body in your possession was a sure fire way to spend eternity in prison.

  I silently prayed that everything would go as planned and we would be able to get away untouched, but sometimes things don’t turn out like you want them to. There was a rock in the road, and we were about ready to trip over it.

  Chapter 9

  The only lights visible in the pitch black darkness were the ones in the front of the building. This aided us in our quest to slip in the back, dump the body, and then flee the scene. But lugging a dead body around is no easy feat. It took all three of the guys to haul it from the car to the drop point. My job was to hold open the door.

  Once inside, we knew something was wrong. There wasn’t a light on in the whole place, and after a quick search, not only did we discover there was no one home, it looked as if the occupants had moved out.

  “Dakota doesn’t live here anymore,” I said after going from room to room in the upstairs living quarters. “There’re only a few articles of clothing left in the closet. A woman like her would have a whole wardrobe full of nice clothes.” I aimed my flashlight over to the makeup vanity. “A bottle of perfume and a hand mirror… you know she would’ve had more junk than that.”

  “They’re on the run,” Jonathan calmly replied.

  “Yeah,” Billy added. “Everything started falling apart especially after Dakota found out her boyfriend wasn’t the man she thought he was. She knew he would eventually be her downfall, so she took care of the problem and then took off.”

  “I kind of feel sorry for Gavin,” I said. “Not that I liked the guy or anything, but she used him and when he became a liability, she poisoned him. He’s dead and now she’s free to start all over again in a new place… new city.” I glanced around at the guys in a room only lit by our flashlights. “We have to find her.”

  “We have to finish the mission,” Shark said. “We need to clean up our mess.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” I asked, huddled next to Billy. “There’s nothing to clean up but a dead body downstairs. Look around, Shark.” I used my
flashlight to scan the room again. “Everything looks normal. The furniture’s still here. I mean, even the beds are made. The only thing missing is Dakota, Olivia, and some of their belongings. They left just enough behind to make people think everything was copasetic. When people start showing up tomorrow they’ll just think the shop is closed, and after a week or so, somebody might call the police… or they might not. Gavin Preston’s body could go unnoticed until he’s nothing but a pile of bones.”

  “Oh, that’s not going to happen,” Shark said. He looked around at the three of us while holding his flashlight under his chin. “Anyone got a cigarette?”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “You’re going to take up smoking now?”

  “We’re going to torch the place,” he said, and then chuckled at me.

  “With a cigarette? Are you nuts?” I was confused. “A cigarette will take forever. Plus, you know they’ve done something to cigarettes. Now they’ll go out if you lay them down and not puff on them. Why don’t we just use the rocket launcher? I’ll be more than glad to go get it and do the deed.”

  Shark laughed at me. “We’ll break off the filter. The tobacco will burn just fine without a filter. I don’t smoke, but I have friends who’ve told me this. Ah… a slow burn will do the job. A rocket launcher will have the cops on our backs before we even get out of the parking lot. No… we need something slow and quiet.”

  “We’ll set the fire up here on the second floor so that the place will be in flames before it reaches ground level, Jesse.” Jonathan said. “That’ll give the fire department plenty of time to respond, and the first thing they’ll find is Preston’s body. We’ll leave it right by the back door.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I have a pack of cigarettes in my purse. I do smoke on occasion.”

  “Where’s your purse?”

  “In the Hummer.”

  “Then go get `em.”

  “All right, but I’m not going to light it. I don’t want my saliva on that cigarette. You know those crime scene guys can find a flake of skin floating in the air. They don’t miss anything.”

  “Just trust me on this one, Jesse, and go get your cigarettes.”

  “By myself?”

  Then I thought about how silly I must’ve sounded. The girly part of me was coming out, but being a sissy wasn’t going to cut it with these guys. My stomach quivered.

  When I first met Billy, I was basically a pencil-pushing secretary. That was a while ago. Life changes. Now I was in the middle of a cover-up that could come back and bite us all in the butt if I didn’t get it together. I wasn’t going to be the weak link.

  “No problem,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I turned, ran down the stairs, and then looked at Gavin Preston’s plastic covered body as I passed it, heading to the back exit. I grabbed the doorknob, yanked opened the door, and came face to face with Dakota Stone. She was holding a trigger device in one hand, the kind used to set off a bomb, and a gun in the other.

  “No!” I yelled as I lunged at her, trying to grab the little black gadget or the gun… whichever came first.

  But she was too fast. She jumped backwards just enough to keep me from getting to her, and when I finally did manage to inch my way closer, she stuck the gun under my chin. I stopped and froze.

  “You’ll never get away with it,” I said with a sinking feeling in my gut and a pang in my heart. If that truly was a trigger device for a bomb and it went off … I didn’t want to think about the outcome.

  Oh, she would get away with it and I knew it. She’d kill us and then make her getaway. She’d be free to continue her murderous rampage, and the cops would blame us for Gavin Preston’s death. They’d say we tried to blow up the place to cover our tracks, but failed and were killed by our own hands. I could just see the headline in the paper—Murder Cover-up Gone Bad. Five Bodies Recovered.

  Dakota laughed as she lowered the gun and started backing up. “Fools, all of you! I had you guys pegged right from the start. I knew Gavin was coming to warn you, so I decided to let him. That is, if he didn’t die first… which he didn’t, so here you are, dumping his body and trying to pin it on me. Well, girlfriend, it’s not going to work.”

  “Don’t do it,” I pleaded, inching closer. “We can work out something.”

  I was stalling for time. I was hoping the guys would start worrying and come looking for me, but they were nowhere in sight.

  “Oh, yeah, and what do you have in mind? You gonna just pretend this never happened and let me go on my merry way? I don’t think so. Why couldn’t you just mind your own business and leave me alone? All I ever wanted to do was run my business and help other women feel good about themselves, but no, you were jealous and couldn’t stand my success.”

  “Jealous? What are you talking about? I’d never heard of you until I tried to return that bottle of shampoo. All you had to do was refund the money, and I would’ve left without incident.”

  “Liar. You’ll say anything to save your pals. Unfortunately, that’s out of your control.”

  “I’m not lying. If you’d done the right thing, it wouldn’t have led to this. Don’t you know anything about trying to keep the customers happy? A refund would’ve done the trick. That’s all it would’ve taken.”

  I guess my talent for lying wasn’t up to par, because Dakota wasn’t buying any of it.

  “You’re a terrible liar, Jesse. Why would I give someone a refund for something I didn’t charge them for? You know all that stuff came free with their membership. Tsk… tsk, Jesse. I knew everything about you right down to the size of your underwear before you showed up at my shop that day. I’m sure you were told that I do a background check on every new client. I don’t let just anybody join my club. I’m very selective.”

  “Yeah, I know that now. You only want customers who need a hit man. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? What happened to you that made you want to rid the world of all men? Why do you hate them so much? Let me guess. Your daddy abused you as a child.”

  “I knew you were going to be trouble.” She held out the hand holding the bomb trigger and pressed it.

  I turned and looked at the building. My first instinct was to run inside, but I knew better. All I could do was wait for the explosion… and hope my guys would make it out alive before that happened. I had images of firemen sifting through the ashes, picking up their body parts.

  Nothing happened. The bomb didn’t go off.

  I was so relieved, the only thing I could do was laugh out loud at Dakota. She wasn’t so smart after all. She couldn’t even blow up her own building. I turned around to tell her so, but she was gone, vanished into the darkness. In her haste to flee, she had dropped the detonator. I stared down at it, but refused to pick it up as if it would explode in my hands. Leave it there for the cops to find, I told myself.

  I looked around. I didn’t know what to do next. I was afraid to go back into the building and afraid not to, so I just stood there, my imagination running wild.

  Seconds later, Billy and Jonathan came running out with Shark between them. He was limping and they were holding him up.

  “Run!” Billy yelled.

  So… I did. I ran straight for the Hummer, jumped in and turned the key. The SUV fired up and as soon as I heard the doors slam and knew everyone was inside, I took off.

  “Is Shark all right?” I asked, looking over at Billy in the front seat and then glancing in the back. “Why is he limping like that?”

  “Floor it!” Jonathan demanded. “And keep your eyes on the road. Shark’s fine. His leg’s bothering him a little, but he’s tough.”

  “I thought you said it was a flesh wound. There’s a big difference…”

  “I lied a little.”

  “Oh, God…” I murmured. “He isn’t going to die, is he?”

  “We’re all going to die if you don’t get us out of here!”

  “What…”

  The explosion wasn’t what I had expected. I though
t it would’ve shaken the ground and lit up the sky like a massive fireball, but it didn’t. It made a terrible racket, and you could tell there had been an explosion, but the sound was nothing louder than a couple of transformers going off. No windows blew out because there wasn’t any in the brick building, except for the ones in the front, and they couldn’t be seen from where we were. I hated to think what it was like inside. It scared me half to death. I gripped the steering wheel harder.

  “Pretty good driving there, Jesse,” Shark said. “I was afraid you might lose it, what with you being so shaky and all. Good thing that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.”

  “What just happened back there?” I asked looking out the rearview mirror. “And here I thought Dakota’s bomb making ability was a bust. She pressed the button, but nothing happened.”

  “You mean she was here?” Billy asked. “When? Where’d she go?”

  “Just before the explosion. As soon as I came out the door, she was standing there waiting. She pressed the detonator, I turned to look at the building, and when I turned around she’d vanished. I don’t know where she went. I didn’t see a car, so I don’t know how she got away. I was too busy wondering if you guys were dead.”

  “That means she’s still in town,” Billy said. “She hasn’t fled yet, so we might still be able to find her before she hightails it out of here.”

  “Why didn’t the place go up in flames when she pressed the button?”

  “The detonator activated a timer,” Shark said. “That way she had plenty of time to escape before the bomb went off.”