by Alan Lee
This wasn’t the house.
It didn’t match what Mackenzie had told them. There weren’t multiple men, it wasn’t isolated, it wasn’t run down.
Manny left the bathroom, stormed down the hall, and descended the steps.
Beck didn’t need to ask. Ronnie wasn’t here.
That was trouble.
The second house in the area was fifteen minutes south. However, the address they’d been given didn’t lead to a house. It led to Clifton Run Road, a winding path through a forest, next to a gated community and private DeBordieu beach. The houses there were palaces.
But where was Ronnie? In the forest? Or in a palace? Ronnie was supposed to be in a run down house.
“What happened to your arm?” asked Beck.
He didn’t respond.
Wordlessly they got into the car and Manny gunned the supercharged engine.
The clock read 9:00 a.m.
They wouldn’t reach her in time.
Saturday, 9:00 am
Mackenzie
It was time.
But.
I needed to hear a gunshot from the log cabin. I expected it. I’d been leaning toward the cabin in anticipation for an hour. I’d watched Hal New creep in from the east last night. He was slow and good, and he was in the house with Stackhouse. He’d fallen into the trap.
Obviously something had gone wrong. The sheriff should have killed him by now.
Or maybe she was about to.
Any second now.
Any second…
A car slowed on Lee Jackson Highway and turned in. 9 a.m. sharp. Stephanie was driving her husband’s BMW—I’d insisted. It was a convertible but it had a hardtop instead of soft. She motored down the gravel. She passed my father, drove up to the house, wheeled around, and returned to the little valley beside the Honda.
She parked and slid down in her seat.
Like my father, she was somewhat sheltered from Hal New. He’d have to fire into the car roof from a hundred yards to hit them. It wasn’t ideal. But I’d left ideal far behind.
I hadn’t moved since the horizon began to lighten. Stiff and aching, I now slid slowly out of my sleeping bag, which had frosted.
Another car was arriving. Dominoes falling.
Darren Robbins. Roaring on the highway.
He had hacked my phone.
He had been monitoring my texts and locations.
Hey champ. August and my ex-wife are meeting tomorrow. I’m spoiling the party. Kill August and leave the woman to me.
That was his plan.
It would’ve worked too. Still might.
He came onto the gravel driveway in a big silver Mercedes SUV. His brakes squealed and the gravel crunched, halfway down. The scene before him wasn’t as expected—the cars weren’t at the house, they were blocking the driveway in the valley—but it was close enough.
He eased toward them.
His plan, he thought, would still work.
I stood. My plan, I thought, would ruin his.
The blood pumping in my ears felt raw and warm.
I shot out both tires on the driver’s side. The popping of ruptured sidewalls was lost in the retort of my loud Kimber pistol. Darren mashed his brakes. Unexpected gunfire’s always scary. His eyes were wild, looking everywhere. I adjusted my aim and blew out his driver window, which collapsed in wedges. Fired twice more, though the broken window, punching holes and splintering his windshield.
Darren ducked to the side. He cut his steering wheel and floored the gas, but his deflated tires spun limply in the gravel. The SUV slid sideways with only the passenger-side tires getting traction, threatening to fishtail into trees.
His plan had evaporated.
My plan had holes too. A lot of them. One was, Hal had certainly spotted me by now. I was a sitting duck.
From his view in the front bedroom of the cabin, looking down at us a hundred yards away, he began firing.
The bullets came in like hot distortions of reality.
Saturday, 9:01 am
Stackhouse
In the attic, Stackhouse had heard the second car arrive. That was her cue.
She was on her feet and tiptoeing around the wall of clutter, shotgun in hand, when she heard the faint pop of pistol shots.
Dammit. She was late.
Mentally she had walked this through a dozen times. She’d put one foot on the attic ladder and kick. The hatch would open, pivoting downward on hinges, and she’d fire downhill into Hal New, catching him by surprise now that the others were here.
But she moved too slowly.
The deep boom of the rifle in the bedroom below startled her. Hal Hew was already firing. Firing at the people she loved.
This was happening too fast.
She took two brisk steps and hopped onto the attic hatch, landing in a sitting position. Her feet ahead of her. Shotgun held at her hip.
The hatch slammed open under her weight.
She intended to fire once before hitting the floor, but gravity was too strong. She couldn’t. The hinge partially broke. Her fall and the momentum spilled her onto the hardwood floor eight feet below. Her ankle hit first, awkwardly, and it broke.
She pitched forward and crashed to a stop next to Hal New, who was on one knee at the window. Her chin hit the hardwood and split open.
Hal New was too focused through his scope to codify the danger behind him. He hadn’t moved yet, emerged in a sniper’s myopia.
Stackhouse lay on her side, the shotgun pinned beneath, her finger still on the trigger. Only some miracle prevented an accidental discharge. She twisted painfully to release the weapon and raised it with her right hand, one smooth motion. The barrel pressed under his ribs.
She squeezed the trigger.
Saturday, 9:02 am
Mackenzie
I was saved by the distance and the tree branches. Hal New’s bullets passed through too much interference, the trajectory changing in minuscule caroms. Heavy rifle rounds splintered tree trunks near me. Limbs snapped clean off the trunk.
Being shot at is the worst.
I ran at Darren’s Mercedes, the closest source of cover. In truth, my own Honda was closer but my father sat inside that one. I moved gracelessly on dead feet.
The SUV was sideways in the drive. I dove behind it as two rounds penetrated the Mercedes. Windows exploded, spraying me with glass, and I fell in the gravel. Dazed. My pistol spun from my hand.
A deep thud reached our ears. Deeper than the rifle’s loud cracks and echoes. It was the growl of a shotgun.
The log cabin fell silent.
Stackhouse.
The driver door of the Mercedes SUV opened. Darren got out and hid behind the vehicle. His face was bleeding too. He held a revolver awkwardly in both hands. He pointed it at me, less than three feet away, a range at which even he couldn’t miss, and he kicked my Kimber under the SUV.
“Christ, August, you ruin everything. Even your face,” he said. “Who’s in the got’damn house?”
Before I could respond, Sheriff Stackhouse’s voice rang from the open bedroom window, small and distant. “I got him!” she called. “He’s down.”
“Who,” said Darren through clenched teeth, “the hell is that?”
“Sheriff Stackhouse. She just aced Hal New.”
“She did?”
“Go look.”
“Hah.” He chuckled but without mirth. He was still too shaken. “Lucky me. Now I don’t owe him the remainder.” Keeping his gun on me, he peered round the Mercedes. Beckoned her with one hand. “Steph? Can you hear me, Stephanie? Let’s you and me get out of here, yeah?”
I couldn’t see her. I was flat on my back with a bleeding face, but I heard her door open and close.
“Steph, it’s great to see you. You look like a million bucks, doll. But we need to go. We’ll take your car,” said Darren.
The next voice I heard was Stackhouse’s, still yelling from the house. “Hey, Mackenzie, babe? I’m busted up in here. Coul
d use a hand.”
Timothy August had been given strict orders not to get out of the car until I told him he could. Ergo, he couldn’t hear Stackhouse’s small voice.
I shouted, “Be there in a sec.”
The shouting hurt. I had glass shards in my face.
Darren grinned at me. “Honestly, August, I should play the lottery. I keep coming up aces. The sheriff can’t move and you lost half your face. What a morning. What a got’damn beautiful morning.”
Stephanie came around the SUV. She wore a long camel overcoat, the kind with two buttons and a belt, and her hands were in the pockets.
Her teeth were chattering. She inspected me and said, “Doesn’t look that bad, Mackenzie.”
Whew. I was fond of my face.
“Look at you, Steph. Your gorgeous,” said Darren. “Let’s go, huh?”
“She’s not going with you, Darren, you asshat.” I propped myself up on an elbow. The gravel was cold on my rear.
“She’s not? You’re not?”
Stephanie didn’t reply. She was breathing deeply, looking between us, her lip trembling.
Darren said, “I’m leaving, Steph. I’m getting on a plane. A private jet to paradise. That’s why I’m here, to get you.”
“To get me,” she said.
“That’s right. I gotta go.”
“He has to,” I said. “If he stays, the Kings and MS-13 will take turns killing him.”
“The MS-13? So it was you who interfered. Holy shit, August, you’ve got a peculiar genius for this.”
I shrugged with some aw shucks modesty. “I had some help.”
“No skin off my back. As long as they don’t catch me. Anyway, Steph. I bought an island and I want company. First I gotta drill August here in the head. Unless you’d like the honors?” Darren laughed.
“Before you go,” I said, sitting up and wincing, “and before you shoot me, can I solve the riddle of Darren and Stephanie? I think I know it all, but confirmation would be appreciated.”
“Proceed, rookie.” Darren waggled his revolver at me. “It’s your final sixty seconds. Spend it how you wish.”
“You’re alone, Darren. Shockingly and terribly alone. You drive everyone away with your arrogance and paucity of spirit.”
“The hell does—”
“Means you’re needy. I didn’t have time to investigate your childhood, but something therein malformed your soul.”
Stephanie spoke. “Darren’s parents were rich alcoholics. He was raised by a neglectful nanny. Didn’t know how to fit in at school. He told me once, when he was drunk.”
“So you’ve had no friends and no family, except for two brief moments in time.”
“Never mind, I’m not listening to this conjecture,” said Darren.
“You won’t shoot me.”
“I won’t?”
“You can’t. That’s why you hired Ernest the German bounty hunter last year, and Hal New this year. And why you asked Stephanie if she’d do the honors. It would take heart to pull that trigger and you’re not sure you got it.”
“What two moments in time?” said Stephanie. “What two moments in time did Darren have friends and family?”
“With you. And with Ronnie.”
“Who’s Ronnie?”
“My wife,” I said.
“Fake wife, you asshole.”
“Several years ago, a lovely and abused woman named Ronnie was willing to use her body to get what she needed and Darren took her as his fiancée. Blackmail, in a lot of ways. When he showed up at my door last week with photos of you, Stephanie, I realized he’d done it before. You used to be a prostitute too. That’s how you met in college.”
Darren rolled his eyes.
I said, “Looking at the photos you gave me, Darren, your lies fell apart. You said she never went out, had no friends, that she wanted to be an accountant. None of it matched the woman in the pictures, who wore make up, dyed her hair, smiled with some defiance.”
Stephanie nodded and leaned toward me, eager for the truth. “Darren was like a pseudo frat guy in college, but without a frat. Nobody liked him, not even the girls. They could stand a few dates with him, because he’s tall and attractive, before bailing. He found me on Craigslist, he was so lonely. But he wanted me to know he was doing me a favor, somehow.”
“He called over and over, and he fell in love with you?”
“That’s enough, August.”
Stephanie nodded again. “Exactly. He did.”
“You further gave yourself away, Darren, when you told me that I was a fool for marrying Ronnie. That she would go back to being a prostitute. You were speaking from experience. An open wound. In college, you wanted to save Stephanie from turning tricks. You kept asking, and she kept rejecting you, until one day…”
“I got pregnant,” she said.
“You got pregnant. And then suddenly having a husband didn’t seem so bad. Especially one who was an attorney.”
Darren seemed to be shrinking. He was a big guy, well put together, but his authority, his power, his superiority was dwindling in the awful light of truth. Stephanie was looking down her nose at him. His protests emerged weak and soft, dying on his lips.
“No,” he said and he was ignored.
“Habits are hard to break, and it was a loveless marriage. Right?”
“It was shit,” said Stephanie.
“After John was born, you fell into old ways. Darren was outraged and humiliated. His wife was turning tricks again.”
She shrugged. “He wanted to control me. Tell me what to do, where to go. I wasn’t gonna quit certain clients. He started hitting me. Yelling. Threatened to kill me. I like independence, I like my own money. I told Darren I was leaving him.”
“But if you left and you got busted in your profession, Darren would be ruined. Embarrassed. He was a government employee now. He couldn’t have his ex-wife turning tricks in the District. So he contacted the marshals, concocted a story about you being in danger and him needing to work against organized crime, and sent you away.”
“Before he did? The son of a bitch told me he’d find me one day, kill me, and take John. Warned me to always watch my back.”
“After you left he went back to hiring girls. Right, Darren? The only source of comfort you’d found as an adult. Only this time, you used your connections to nose in on the deal. You became the pimp.”
“Did he?” She said it was a high laugh. Enjoying the nasty surprise.
“He did.”
“I knew he was far too deep in the mafia,” said Stephanie. “I told him not to. Told him they’d chew him up.”
“God, you two rookies. You don’t know shit.” It was a scoff but without the requisite disdain. He used volume instead and it didn’t work.
I said, “They did chew him up. And recently they spat him out.”
“Now he’s alone again,” said Stephanie.
“No. No I’m not.”
“John sent him two birthday cards. Do you remember?” I said. “Darren held onto them. Kept them safe. And now he’s here.”
“For John,” said Stephanie.
“For John,” I said. “He wants John for the same ultimate reason he wanted you and Ronnie. Love. Affection. Meaning. Family. And he’ll hold John hostage the same way he did you and my wife. Anything to stave off the pain and panic. He’s human after all. He has his own inconsolable secret.”
She frowned. “What’s his inconsolable secret?”
“That his loneliness is more than he can bear.”
“You two…you two rookies, trying to play ball…” he said. His revolver was pointing at the ground now. His spirit had broken. There were no meek women to hit, no men to bribe, no money to be made, no places to hide.
I said, “That’s when I began to understand you, Darren. The loneliness. Your anguished struggle with ennui, your need for Ronnie, or Stephanie, or someone to love you. We were so much alike it was galling.”
“We were? We are? You w
ish,” he said. A reflexive response.
“We are. We both hit a wall that brought out the desperation, though I hit mine earlier than you. We both have sons. We both brushed up against the mafioso. We both fell in love with the wrong girl. The same girl, in fact. That was a tough conclusion to reach.”
“Your faces are both bleeding,” Stephanie muttered.
“But the thing separating us is our response to these events. I did better,” I said.
“You did better.” He sneered at me.
“I did. And that’s why I can’t kill you.”
“You can’t?” He seemed to inflate a little, like remembering he held the gun and I didn’t. New life. “You can’t.”
Stephanie’s hands were still in her camel overcoat. “Bullshit, Mackenzie. Yes you can.”
“If I do, then I’m stooping to revenge. And revenge is his thing, not mine. I gotta keep making the right choices, or I’m not me.”
“Then what the hell are you gonna do, big guy?” he said.
“Turn you over to the Kings. They’re expecting you.”
“Good hell, August. That’s worse than you killing me. I won’t let that happen.”
“You got one thing wrong, Mackenzie. He does not have a son,” said Stephanie.
“Yes I do. Our son.”
“John hasn’t been your son for five years. You abandoned him.”
“Because you took him! You, bitch, you took him!”
“I bet,” I said, “if we open up his Mercedes, we’ll find gear meant to entertain a young kid. A Nintendo Switch or comic books or a DVD player or iPad, stuff like that. He truly came here for John. You would be icing on the cake.”
“Is that true?” said Stephanie. “You brought toys?”
Darren shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. You think you can take him.”
“He’s my son! Of course I can take him.”
“No. You can’t.”
“Who’s going to stop me? You? You’re nothing, Steph. Nothing but a whore. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take you to my island. I bought one, you know. A real one, and it’s waiting. It’s a dream.”
