Nine, the Tale of Kevin Clearwater

by T. M. Frazier

  “Was it up and running the day Nine killed Jared?” Frankie asks, excitedly.

  “It was running, but there was something wrong with it. I already tried to watch the video right after I came home to find Jared’s empty closet. I wanted to look for clues to where he might have gone or why he might have gone but the video was just static.”

  Frankie claps her hands together like a kid who just blew out the candles on their birthday cake. “That means Nine scrubbed the video. Smart man and one of the best hackers I know, but it doesn’t mean the video is lost, just…moved.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  Ray pours me another mojito, and I combat my sobriety by chugging the entire thing while Frankie furiously types away on her laptop.

  “Nothing is ever truly deleted or scrubbed,” she explains. “And since Nine and I do some hacking together, I have access to all his shit. Well, I know how to break into his shit, I should say. And since I know the way he works…ah, yep. Found it!” she cries out victoriously, fist bumping herself.

  “Frankie, I don’t think this is a good idea. She probably doesn’t want to watch it,” Dre says. She looks to me with understanding written all over her face. “You don’t have to.”

  Frankie’s already watching it, leaning in close to her computer screen with her earbuds tucked into each ear. Her eyes go wide. She lifts her head and flashes me a brilliant smile over the top of her screen. She pulls the earbuds out. “You don’t have to watch it, but trust me, you’re going to want to see this.”

  “Let me see,” Ray says. Frankie hands her an earbud, and Ray watches as Frankie plays it again for her.

  Ray looks to me. “Nine killed Jared, but he was right when he said that it isn’t what you think.”

  “I want to see it,” I tell them. Steeling every last nerve I have.

  “Are you sure?” Dre asks. But it doesn’t matter if I’m sure or not, I’ve already grabbed Frankie’s laptop. I spin it around toward me and pull out the chord for the earbuds so the sound plays through the speakers. I hit play.

  What I watch isn’t the senseless killing of my ex-boyfriend. It’s Jared, packing to leave me, just as Nine had said, when Nine and Bear approach him.

  I gasp, but not when Jared walks to the safe and pulls a gun. Not when he shoots Bear and not when Nine leaps to his own defense and takes down Jared. My gasp is at Jared’s words. “I didn’t do anything. It was my girlfriend. She organized the entire thing. It was her idea. Not mine!”

  That motherfucker! “He was trying to save his own life with lies that he knew would end with me getting killed.” I cover my open mouth with my palm.

  “Are you okay?” Frankie asks.

  I don’t answer. I can’t.

  “Lenny? You in there? How are you feeling?” Dre asks. “Because I’m not going to lie. You are really hard to read right now and kind of freaking me out.”

  I shake my head slowly from side to side as it sinks in. I take a deep breath and smile. “I feel…relieved.”

  “What do you want to do now?” Ray asks, pouring the last of the pitcher into my glass.

  Tears prick my eyes. I know exactly what I want. Now more than ever.

  “I want to go home.”

  When I get back to the RV, Nine isn’t there, but Pike is. He’s sitting on the small step by the door next to a large garbage bag.

  “You okay?” he asks. “Nine is going crazy, looking for you, you know.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I admit, and I actually believe it for once. I will be okay. “What’s all this?” I point to the bag.

  “It’s the stuff I couldn’t sell. I should have the cash for you by Tuesday after the website sends it. It’s more than I guessed it would be. I think you’ll be happy.”

  I think I will be too.

  “Thanks.” I take the bag from his hand and push the door open with my shoulder. “Hey, can you tell Nine that I’m here? I don’t have a phone.”

  “Already on it,” Pike says, pulling out his phone. “I’ll wait here until he gets back.”

  I go inside and shut the door. While I wait for Nine to get back, I look through the items that didn’t sell. A few of the smaller clutches, and a large tote bag that I realize isn’t mine at all, but Jared’s. It must have been in my closet by mistake. I open it up and there’s a crumpled plane ticket inside. It’s dated June 3rd, which was a week before I found his closet empty.

  Jared Cox

  RSW-LAS

  Seat 3A

  Las Vegas? I thought he was in New York that week?

  I didn’t even know he had business in Vegas. I guess it doesn’t matter, there was a lot I didn’t know about Jared and about what he was up to. It’s not like I can ask him about it now. I toss the ticket to the side when a second ticket slides out from underneath. I reach over and pick it up, but it’s not the return ticket. It’s a companion ticket for 3B.

  It’s the name that makes me feel like someone dropped an anvil on my fucking heart. I toss the ticket to the ground as if suddenly caught fire. “No….it…it can’t be,” I whisper to myself. I rock in place. I dig my nails into my palms, but the sting of the pain and the fresh blood rising to the surface does nothing to help me cope. “It just can’t.”

  I hear the door open and assume it’s Pike coming inside. I’m prepared for his questions on why I’m shaking and rocking and making myself bleed but the questions never come.

  “Oh, yes it can, and it is,” a familiar voice says.

  A familiar voice that isn’t Pike.

  My entire body tenses. I slowly look over my shoulder as I’m faced with my worst nightmare, a betrayal to end all betrayals.

  I meet the eyes of the one person in this world I knew for a fact would never turn on me. Not for the first time in recent weeks, I’m finding out that I was wrong.

  So very, very wrong.

  I have so many questions, but I don’t have time to ask any of them because something hard connects with my head. Everything turns fuzzy as I slump over onto the thin carpet.

  I don’t even care that I might be dying or already dead. Or that there’s blood dripping into my eyes that I can’t blink away because for some reason I’ve lost control of the ability to move my eyelids along with the rest of my limbs and functions.

  No, death doesn’t matter, because all that matters is the answer to the one question I’m repeating over and over and over again in my head.

  Why?

  Of all the people in the world…why her?

  Why Yuli?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  NINE

  I get a text from Pike that Lenny is back at the RV. I speed back, ready to explain myself, but when I get there, all I find is Pike, crumbled up on the porch, bleeding from his gut.

  “Pike, fuck!” I run to him and lift him into a sitting position. He groans. “Lenny, she’s in trouble. You’ve got to find her.”

  “Who has her? Where did they go?”

  “A girl. Hot, but mean as fuck, man. It’s…” his words fade as his eyes close and his head slumps to the side.

  “Fuck!”

  I check his pulse while I pull out my phone, and thank god he still has one. I call Preppy who picks up on the first ring. “Clearwater Morgue. You grill ‘em. We chill ‘em.”

  “Brother. Pike’s down. Took a bullet to the gut. I need medical at my RV. Lenny’s gone, too, but I don’t know where.”

  Pike groans and his eyes open. “I heard her say something about Fall. Like it’s going to be Fall again?” His face is growing paler and paler. “I mean it’s a good season if you live up north, but we live in Florida, ain’t got no kind of Fall here.” And just like that he’s out again.

  Preppy chimes in on my phone. “I’ve got a team of Lawless nurses heading your way. The MC is less than a quarter mile away and they were already there doing a check up on the BBB’s. They’ll be there in a few seconds.”

  A few seconds is right. A van pulls up, the tires spinning in the d
irt. Three women in scrubs run out and head straight for Pike.

  “Take care of him,” I order. “Please.”

  “Hey pretty ladies, what up?” Pike says, perking up yet again, drunk on blood loss. They check his vitals and start moving him onto a gurney. “None of you are mean, right? ‘Cause I just ran into a really mean pretty lady, and look what she did to me. She staind-ed my shirt.”

  “They’re here now,” I tell Preppy, heading for my truck.

  “Any clue where Lenny could be?” he asks.

  “No clue, Pike said something about Fall, but he’s out of his mind.” I start the engine and pause.

  Fall.

  It’s going to be Fall again.

  Falling again.

  “Scratch that, brother. I know exactly where she is.”

  “You wanna share that info or you want me to guess where I’m meeting you?” Preppy says. I hear his car door slam and his engine start up.

  I bang my fist on my steering wheel as the world around me slows to a stop.

  “The top of the fucking causeway.”

  * * *

  Lenny

  When I come to and open my eyes, I’m at a place I never expected to be again.

  The top of the causeway, on the very same ledge I fell from years ago.

  How the hell did I get here?

  My brain is trying to come up with the answers, but it isn’t functioning properly. I decide to reboot and try again, but from the safety of the other side. I grab onto the wires and pull myself up to stand so I can climb back over the railing. I freeze when I hear the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking.

  “There’s only one way you’re getting off this bridge, and it isn’t this one,” an evil version of a familiar voice says.

  My memory comes back to me. The tote bag. The plane tickets. I slowly look up to face my best friend.

  Yuli.

  It starts to rain. Water drips into my eyes, mixing with the dried blood, and I’m practically blinded, but I can’t wipe it away, or I’ll lose my grip on the wires, which are becoming more slippery by the second.

  “I thought you were in Africa,” I finally manage to say. Still holding onto the wires as carefully as I can, I slowly turn to face the woman I thought was my best friend.

  Yuli is standing in the rain, wearing a black hoodie and matching pants, but it isn’t her clothes that I find the most surprising. It’s the gun in her hand aimed at my head.

  She scoffs. “I was never leaving for Africa. I was leaving with Jared and our money.”

  The admission of her betrayal slices so deep within me that I can feel every stab of the knife she’s shoving into my fucking heart. “So then, why come back? You and Jared get bored of each other already and decide to torture me instead?” Playing it off like I don’t know that Jared’s dead.

  “You can cut the crap, Lenny. Jared is dead, so don’t play dumb and innocent with me!” she spits. Her right eyebrow ticks with rage. She smiles wickedly, and my stomach lurches.

  I think I’m about to be sick.

  “Why do you think I took you to that party?” she asks, like the answer is obvious when none of this makes any sense at all. “Because part of the money we stole came from the MC and from your buddy Nine and his crew. When Jared never showed at the plane, I knew he was dead. He wouldn’t just abandon me like he did you. I knew Nine would be at that party and that he’d been looking for you. Don’t you see, Len? I wasn’t trying to show you a good time on my last night, I was delivering you to him on a silver fucking platter!”

  I shake my head in disbelief. “That’s why you forged my signature on those documents? To point the cartel and the MC in my direction instead of looking at you and Jared?”

  She slaps her leg with her free hand. “Of course. You were the perfect scapegoat until you fell for Nine and he started doubting all of my hard work because of his feelings for you. Ricci didn’t fall for it either, so I had to send them back the money so they’d stop looking for who took it. Of course, I sent it to them courtesy of you, and they didn’t fall for that either. And now, here we are, and I’ve got to take care of shit myself like always.” Her twisted smile doesn’t fit on her face, at least not the face of the Yuli I know. This person is someone else entirely. Someone evil. Demented. “Now, you’re going to die. Just like Jared did.”

  I need to stall, to buy myself some time, but for what, I’m not sure. No one knows I’m here. No one is coming to save me this time. Right now, words are my only weapon, the hard part and the thing I’ve never been good at, will be choosing them wisely.

  “How long, Yuli? How long has this been going on? You and Jared?” The rain is beating down harder and harder. The wind is picking up. The oil from the wires is making it more and more difficult to hold on. My feet are sliding left and right. It’s a balancing act just to stay upright.

  She sighs and smiles as if remembering better backstabbing times. “Before you and Jared ever met. We made big plans for our future. It took us years to put it together, and we had it all figured out. How and when we were going to take the money. The offshore encrypted account. A nice two-story bungalow on the water in Fiji. I mean, taking all of your shit from you was my idea. The house. The car. Actually, Jared didn’t even know about that part, but I planned on telling him once we were on the beach as a running away together present.” Her gaze hardens once again. “Now, that’s never going to happen, and it’s all your fault!”

  My foot slips, and I’m barely able to correct myself. The wires slice into my palms. “Yuli, don’t do this. You’ll regret this for the rest of your life!” I yell.

  She rolls her eyes. “You were going to do this once, Lenny, and now, you’re going to do it again. The beauty of it is that nobody is going to question your motives for killing yourself. Your parents are dead. Jared left you. You lost the house and everything you own. The water’s a lot shallower now, so there’s no chance of you surviving the second time around.”

  Trying to reason with Yuli while she’s got that crazed look in her eyes is a lot like reasoning with a herd of startled circus elephants halfway through a stampede. I switch tactics. “Think about Jared, Yuli. He was going to leave with you because he wanted to be with you, but would he really want you to kill me?”

  She waves the gun around in the air. “See? That’s exactly how I know that you never knew him at all. Jared never loved you. He wouldn’t care what happens to you. He was only with you for a piece of your parents’ real estate business.”

  “That can’t be true. He didn’t own it. He never got a dime from it.”

  “He was planning a hostile takeover long before you came into the picture, but after your parents died, you decided to play your hand at being Wonder Woman and decided to step in and attempt to run shit yourself. That’s when we decided on Plan B, otherwise known as his fake relationship with you. But you see, the market tanked, and the company became worthless. So, we came up with Plan C, to run off with boatloads of his investors’ money, rendering both you and your fake relationship useless.” She sighs. “It’s a shame though, that I killed your parents for nothing.”

  “No!” I gasp and almost lose my footing once more.

  My stomach doesn’t care that I’m holding on with everything I have and lurches violently. I vomit into the water below, holding on as highly as I can until my stomach is empty.

  “Oh, yes,” she nods. Her eyes are wild. “Just a little snip of a wire here. A little snip of a wire there, and in less than an hour, their little flying lesson turned into a crash course straight into the Gulf of Mexico.”

  My head is spinning. Yuli’s face is twirling around above me like an evil halo.

  “You see, after I killed them, I thought your panic attack-riddled craziness would send you off the rails, making it easy for Jared to swoop in and take over the company. In fact, I was counting on it so we could shuttle you off to the looney bin or attend your funeral. Whichever. No preference. It’s too bad that fall from the bridge di
dn’t kill you the first time.” She cocks the gun. “Don’t worry. There’s virtually no chance of you surviving it again.”

  I look down to the water below. I may not survive the fall the second time around, but the chances are better than a bullet to the head. Not by much. But better.

  “You’re forgetting something,” I call to her over the sound of the rain clinking against the metal of the bridge. I meet her demonic eyes with my own determined and unwavering gaze.

  Yuli impatiently taps her foot against the pavement. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

  I smirk. “Between the two of us, I’m supposed to be the crazy one.”

  I let go of the wires and lean back with my arms spread wide.

  And then I’m falling.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  * * *

  NINE

  I reach the top of the bridge two seconds too late. Just in time to watch Lenny fall from the top of the causeway for the second time in my life.

  It’s one of my nightmares and the very last thing I ever wanted to see again. It’s why I didn’t want to get close to her. It’s why I couldn’t stand the thought of losing her.

  And now, she’s gone.

  My heart is shattering, and as I hear the small sound of the splash below, it cracks wide open. “Lenny!” I cry. “Poe!”

  Yuli turns and spots me. She fires and misses. I keep walking toward her like my entire body is made out of anger-based Kevlar, but anger, unfortunately, doesn’t equal bullet proof. She fires again, and this time, she doesn’t miss. I take a bullet to the chest, somewhere in the vicinity of my raven tattoo. But my heart’s still beating, and I’m still breathing, and there’s no time to wallow in the pain I feel. Only the pain I want to inflict.

  By the time I reach Yuli, I don’t know how many times I’ve been hit, but luckily for me, she’s out of bullets and shaking with newfound fear.

  I sneer at her traitorous eyes. “What? You’re done being a badass killer just because you don’t have any more bullets?” When I look at her, I see nothing but blood and hatred.