Page 9

Janelle opened her eyes, confused and disoriented. She tried to shift, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move at all. She moaned softly as the pain kicked in. She couldn’t even tell where it was coming from. Was it her head or her body? Everything hurt, everything ached, and yet why? She desperately wanted to move, to roll to her side, or to maybe get up somehow, and yet every movement she tried failed. She was completely stuck.

And in the dark.

As her eyes adjusted, she noted she was tied up on the floor of a van.

A man spoke beside her, followed by mocking laughter.

She didn’t recognize the voice at first. As she slowly shifted her gaze to the person speaking, she realized it was the same guy, the fake doctor, and somehow she had been moved. She was no longer in a laundry bin. “What did you do to me?” she whispered, closing her eyes against the pain in her head.

“Conked you on the head,” he replied. “I didn’t want to deal with any more of your drama. That’s the thing about you women. You’re so full of fucking drama.”

She wasn’t even sure what that meant and couldn’t even understand why he would hold that opinion. She was pretty sure that drama wasn’t gender specific. “What do you want?” she muttered.

“From you? Nothing. You’re staying right here, and, if you can keep yourself quiet, I won’t have to club you on the head again,” he shared, with a sneer. “That’s what I want. I want cooperation.”

“And yet I’m a prisoner,” she whispered.

“You sure are, but apparently not the most brilliant prisoner, if you didn’t already realize that when you first woke up. You are definitely a prisoner. You’re not getting out anytime soon, and considering the fact that I’m not sure your boyfriend will cooperate,” he explained, “you might just want to stay where you are and maybe sleep, so you don’t have to see what’s coming.”

She wanted to scream and rail at him for doing this to her, but she knew that would just play into everything he liked about this activity. He was one of those assholes who thought he had the right to do anything he wanted, with no consequences. “He’ll never kill Mason,” she murmured.

“Too damn bad for you then, isn’t it?” he asked, with a sour tone.

“I do know that—absolutely no way.”

“Why? Doesn’t he love you?”

“Because he’s too honorable.”

“What good is honor when you wake up in the middle of the night and discover that you’re dead.”

“If that were the case”—she opened her eyes and stared at him—“I wouldn’t care, would I?”

“And you won’t care soon anyway,” he added, with a laugh. “Do you think I’m joking?”

“No, I don’t think you’re joking. I just think you’re misguided. Guilliam isn’t the kind of man who would kill someone to keep me alive.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t count on that. I saw the way he looked at you. He’s the kind who will do anything to keep you from this fate.”

“Maybe. But killing another person, especially a friend of his? That’s just not happening.”

He stopped for a moment, then asked, “Is Mason a friend of his?”

“Isn’t Mason a friend of everybody? Unless you happen to be an asshole intent on hurting somebody in his family.”

“I don’t know what the deal was, but I don’t give a shit. The old man is dying, and this is what’s required to get his bloody fortune, so this is my deal.”

“So, you don’t care that an innocent man will die and that you’re planning on killing me for the sake of your grandfather, a twisted and bitter old man?”

“God no, I don’t care one little bit. Why would I? Do you think anybody cares about me?”

“No, probably not,” she murmured. “Can’t say I’m against seeing you locked up for the rest of your life either.”

He gave a laugh. “Now that I can believe. The thing is, it won’t matter because you won’t see that because it’s just not happening.”

“You talk a big game,” she noted, “but I’m not sure you have anything to back it up.”

“Don’t need anything to back it up,” he stated. “But, if you keep talking, I’ll make certain you suffer more than necessary when I do take you out.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “Sure, you would. In fact, you would probably do this as a favor simply because you like to kill people. You don’t care about people. You don’t care about yourself. You don’t care about your family. You just care about money. You’re all about getting what you want and not giving a shit about what anybody else wants.”

“Everybody else can fight for themselves,” he said, his tone clipped. “And I don’t give a crap what you say. Don’t even bother psychoanalyzing me.”

“Too late. You’re so simplistic that you are one-dimensional,” she said. “Money is your god. Anything else is secondary. You probably never had a decent relationship in your life.”

He snorted at that.

“Or at least not with a woman who you didn’t smack around and tune up all the time, somebody who would literally be a doormat for you because that’s all you can handle.”

“A doormat.” He turned to glare at her.

“Somebody who doesn’t have a strong-enough personality or enough self-esteem to stand up to you. Somebody who hasn’t had the fear beat into her enough for you to keep up your facade of being a person they might even want. Of course they don’t want you. Why would they?” she asked, with a headshake. “You’re just—you’re just another bully. Somebody determined to take what they want and not give a shit about right or wrong or what anybody else wants.”

“Why should I give a shit about anybody else?” he asked, but a note of real curiosity filled his tone. “I don’t understand that. Look at the world we live in. Why would I care about anybody else?”

She stared at him. “Do you really think it’s that bad? That all of it is that bad?”

“Absolutely it’s that bad,” he declared, laughing. “Nobody else matters out there. It’s just me, myself, and I.”

“And where would you be if that’s how your grandfather felt?”

“It is how my grandfather felt. It’s how he still feels. Do you think he would be giving me a share of his wealth if I wasn’t doing something for him? Everything in this world comes at a price, and for him to die knowing that the person he hates the most is also dead comes at a price.”

Janelle continued. “What about your uncle? What about Gabe’s father?”

“What about him? He lost everything in his life when he lost his son. He hasn’t been the same since.”

“Why? Because he realized he was responsible for raising a piece-of-shit son?”

“Whoa, not sure where you get that bravado from, but you better get rid of it real fast. I’ve got far better things to do than sit here and talk to you. And I sure won’t sit here and let you bad-mouth my family.”

She laughed, gritting through the pain that came with it. “Oh, so now it’s your family? You didn’t care about anything before, but suddenly now it’s your family, and you care?”

He snorted. “I don’t give a shit about anything, particularly you, so shut the fuck up.”

She fell silent for the moment, knowing that he was unpredictable in this mood, but that aggression, that response, was enough to make her realize what a serious position she was in. There wouldn’t be any talking this guy out of it. He was all about making sure that somebody paid the price so that he could keep his grandfather happy. “So, what if somebody paid you enough money for my life?” she asked in a conversational tone.

“They don’t have enough money.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. My grandfather’s got billions. That’s tons of millions,” he said, with a laugh.

“And what makes you think he’ll leave it to you versus his own children? Doesn’t it make more sense that he would leave it to them, the next generation?”

“They don’t want it or need it,” he said, with a dismissive gesture.

“Maybe, but family is family.”

“And I am family, remember?”

“Sure, you are part of the family, but you’re not the next in line , are you?”

“No,” he muttered in a bored tone. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to do, but you are way off the mark.”

“Maybe. What about his favorite daughter?”

“What about her? She’s busy dying from cancer.”

She winced. “Wow, you don’t have much compassion for anybody, do you.”

“Not that bitch, I don’t. Nope. You don’t know what she’s like. She even made her own son’s life miserable. Gabe could never be good enough, could never stand up to be counted in any way that they saw him as a success. And when the news broke about his involvement in all the B&Es and why he went to Mason’s place, supposedly to rape and torture his wife while Mason watched, it’s as if she couldn’t quite reconcile that with the baby boy she’d been grooming to be the best man possible.”

“Maybe that grooming to be the best man possible ended up causing all of that.”

“No doubt about it,” he agreed, with a laugh. “And that may be why she got the cancer. Maybe it’s the rotten side of her working its way out.” He chuckled.

“Presumably she’s your aunt, and you didn’t have much to do with her.”

“Nope, she doesn’t have much to do with anybody who isn’t part of her high-society life.”

“I thought you were from that side of family,” she noted, puzzled.

“Grandfather had two daughters. I belong to the second one,” he explained.

“Ah, the least-favorite one.”

He glared at her.

She shrugged. “You know it’s true.”

“I know it’s true, but how do you know it?”

“Because that’s how families work,” she stated calmly. “There’s always a favorite, and sometimes being the favorite doesn’t necessarily get the favorite what they want. Plus, toward the end of the older couple’s lives, they start to realize that maybe they should have done more for the other one.”

“Yeah, they should have,” he said, his voice harsh. “She didn’t have it anywhere near as easy as my bloody aunt did.”

“And you hate her for that too.”

“Yeah, I do. No need to cut out my mother. No need to make her life so miserable that she ended up killing herself with drugs.” He shook his head. “She had a trust fund, and she had me, but she didn’t have anybody else. Sometimes you just need somebody else.”

Janelle thought about that, thought about her own mother, and nodded. “I can’t argue with that. I think we do need somebody else. I also think that sometimes what we need isn’t necessarily what we think we need.”

“Wow, isn’t that philosophical,” he quipped, with cutting mockery. “I get that you’re just passing the time and maybe getting to know me, thinking I might change my mind,” he noted in a laughing tone. “However, that won’t work.”

“I’m just trying to understand the family dynamic that brought all this on,” she clarified. “Your mother died unloved, and now you’re currying favor with your grandfather, bypassing your aunt and uncle, who you believe shouldn’t have any claim to his fortune, particularly after your mother was treated so poorly.”

“You’re damn right,” he muttered. “They shouldn’t get anything.”

“So, did you figure out how to blame them for all this? That would be a good strategy, a nice justice to see your aunt and uncle go to jail for all these murders.”

He burst out laughing. This time his laughter was genuine. “Damn, why didn’t I think of that? Shit, and here I thought you were just another dumb blonde.”

“When I realized how much you hated them, it just made sense.”

“Yeah, it makes a lot of fucking sense, but that doesn’t mean I thought of it ahead of time, and now you’re making me pissed off that I didn’t.”

He went silent at that point, and she could almost see the wheels churning around in his head, wondering if he could pull that off.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Now I can’t get that thought out of my mind.” He cast her an odd look. “What the hell’s wrong with you that you thought of something like that?”

“Hate is hate, right?” she replied. “When you hate somebody that much, and you don’t think there will ever be any real justice for those who suffered so terribly, wouldn’t you want to set them up for the fall?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, warming to the idea.

“I guess it depends on whether they had anything to do with it or wanted no part of it.”

“They wanted nothing to do with it,” he muttered, with a wave of his hand. “They were far too good for it all. They wanted all of it to just go away, instead of seeking justice for their son.”

“But that’s because they knew what he did, right?”

“So what? He might have been stupid and shouldn’t have been caught doing what he did, but that doesn’t change anything.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No, of course not,” he said, with a snort in her direction. “Don’t go all Dr. Phil on me now.”

“ Hmm .” She stared at him. “What kind of attitude did they have toward their son at that point?”

“The two of them don’t talk, and I’m pretty sure they blame each other for what happened to their son. She won’t accept that’s what Gabe did. Now dear old uncle accepts that part, but he’s desperate to cover it up. And I thought it was all covered up until Granddad contacted me, and now he’s one pissed-off old man, and you don’t cross him.”

“I gather that,” she said, with a nod. “Then the question becomes, is it just him or, is anybody else involved in this nightmare?”

“No, it’s just him, but you never really know when it comes to Grandpa. He could have another dozen people involved.”

“So you didn’t talk directly to your grandfather, just your uncle?” she asked, as she tried to figure out whether he was telling the truth, or it was just the truth as he knew it.

His gaze narrowed not answering the question, then asked suspiciously, “And what’s it to you anyway?”

“There are always surprises in life.” She just nodded and didn’t dare say anything else to him because, as she well knew, people did people things, and not always for the clearest of reasons.

He gave a bark of laughter. “Too bad I have to kill you,” he said. “You might be worth spending some time with.”

“Yeah?” she asked, her heart sinking at the thought. “I would probably be too smart for you. Guys like you, you always want bimbos with brains, but brains they don’t use.”

He nodded. “That’s not a bad way to look at it. Bimbos with brains they don’t use. That’s implying that they know what to do with them.”

“Yeah, but you’re the guy who thinks women don’t know anything.”

“Oh, some of them do,” he agreed. “I had a couple nice girlfriends for a while, but revenge does tend to make you a little angry.”

She frowned at that. “Revenge, huh ?”

“Yeah, revenge.”

“Did you ever take out your need for revenge on your aunt and uncle?”

“No, not yet, but you’re making me think I need to.”

“Particularly in case something goes wrong in your world now. I mean, what will you do if you’re the one holding the bag on this, and they walk away scot-free?”

“But they aren’t involved,” he pointed out, “so your theory doesn’t hold.”

She wasn’t exactly sure that she even had a theory at this point. She was just tossing out anything to make him stop and think, something to make him reassess this game he was playing with her life. She knew he was somebody who just didn’t give a shit. But she did, and anything she could do to make her world function without all this killing would be lovely. “What if you don’t get any of your grandfather’s money?”

He jerked his head in her direction. “Don’t say that again or you’ll regret it.”

She waited a little bit longer and then added, “If my son was killed, I don’t think I would check out quite so easily.”

“What are you saying?” He looked over at her suspiciously.

She shrugged. “If my son was killed, and I wanted true justice to happen, I wouldn’t just give up, like your aunt did.”

“Yeah? Well, she did. In case you’ve forgotten, she’s also fighting for her life with cancer.”

“Right, and that could change things. I don’t know whether it makes it worse though, or better.”

“What do you mean?” he snapped, getting up and walking over, crouching in the van to talk to her.

She frowned, as he navigated around commercial laundry bags, the kind they would use at hospitals. In fact she was tucked into a laundry bag. “I don’t suppose you want to loosen the ties on my hands a little bit. Could you? I know I’m supposed to be a model prisoner, but I can’t feel my fingers and toes. A little circulation would help a lot.” He glared at her, and she nodded. “It’s not as if I can try anything. I’ve got no place to go anyway.”

“That’s true,” he muttered. He pulled down the laundry bag that had been tied around her neck, then quickly loosened the bonds on her wrists.

With her hands loose, she slowly rubbed them together, almost crying out with the pain at the movement. “Damn,” she muttered. “How could something like that hurt so much?”

“Circulation is everything,” he said, without looking at her too much.

“Right, got it. Okay, thank you.”

He didn’t say anything. Was he waiting for her to put her hands back inside the damn bag again? She hoped not and was rather desperate to have her hands free. She waited for him to say something, but, when he didn’t, she just relaxed ever-so-slightly, whispering, “It’s amazing what pins and needles feel like.”

“Yep. My uncle James, he was a bit of a bastard that way. Him and that punk-ass son of his, Gabe, used to tie me up just for fun, whenever we went over to visit. Not that my uncle was ever partaking in it, but he’s the one who showed Gabe how to do it. He always left me strung up for a while, until somebody would come looking for me. I hated that asshole.”

“So why are you doing anything to avenge Gabe’s death?”

“I’m not,” he declared, frowning at her. “I don’t give a shit about him. I’m perfectly happy that he’s gone. Besides, it’s one less for me to share the estate with.”

“Right. So, for you, it’s literally all about the money.”

“Exactly, all about the money,” he repeated, with that mocking tone. “I did say that earlier,” he pointed out, “but, once again, people just don’t listen.”

“I listened,” she corrected. “I just wasn’t sure that could be your strongest motive.”

“And why the hell not?” he asked, staring at her. “I don’t have any hidden motives here.”

“No, but maybe you’re also happy that cousin of yours is gone. Hell, maybe you even did something to make sure.”

He snorted at that. “If I’d thought about it, I might have. If I’d realized he would cause so much trouble for me, I might have. As it is, that Mason guy took care of it.”

She nodded. “Yet now Mason is to pay the price for getting rid of Gabe.”

“Yep. The ultimate price. And I think I’m supposed to take care of his wife at the same time.”

“But you expect somebody else to do the killing?”

“Sure. And it would be nice if it worked out that way. Then I don’t have to get involved. It seems like every time I get involved, it gets a little harder to get out of that grasp,” he noted. “The more killing you get involved in, it does get easier—the killing part, that is. Sometimes it’s damn hard to get out without leaving evidence behind. Yet the more I kill, Grandpa just wants me to kill more.”

“So, you did all those killings?” she asked.

“All what killings?” he asked cagily.

She thought about what Guilliam had shared with her. “I heard there have been a lot of killings, like five or six people who failed to kill Mason or to protect the boss man behind it.”

Her kidnapper shrugged. “Probably a lot more than that, which is also why I’m making damn sure that my grandfather is leaving me his estate. I’m not doing these killings for nothing. He may have taught me how to kill, but man, that guy, that old geezer, is brutal. He was my instructor when it came to this shit, but he can’t hold a rifle steady anymore, so I’m expected to finish this off, so he can die in peace.”

She winced. “Any idea how many he’s killed?”

“In his lifetime? Who knows. Dozens for sure,” he said, with another dismissive wave of his hand. “Anybody who resisted him was killed. Listen to any of the tales about some of the locals who tried to argue with him, who fought him on some issue, or who tried to raise a group against him, and you can bet that Grandpa’s the one who popped them and buried them out in the desert somewhere.” Her kidnapper chuckled. “Just go to the history books and look up missing persons. It’ll be due to him.”

“Nobody said anything? Nobody did anything?” she asked in shock.

“Who would stop him?” He laughed. “He’s a law unto himself and has been for a very long time. Nobody ever expects an old man to do something like that. I know that my uncle was suspected of doing a lot of it there for a while, but it was never Uncle James. It was the old guy that whole time.”

“And you,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, and me,” he added, with a shrug. “But it’s not what I wanted do. It’s what I had to do.”

“Right,” she muttered, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. But it was obvious from his sharp look that she hadn’t succeeded. “You’re correct. That was sarcastic. It’s just hard to imagine how many deaths he got away with all these years.”

“Remember that people always go missing,” he noted. “Just because you don’t know who they are or where they went missing from doesn’t mean that the same person was killing them.”

“I just can’t imagine,” she whispered. “So many families destroyed, and all because of what?”

“Because they crossed him,” he stated.

“And that’s the life you want for yourself?”

“No, the world is changing. Hell, it changed long before he ever stopped. If he hadn’t had that stroke a good ten years ago, there would have been a hell of a lot more killings.”

“And given the change in the times, with new technology and potentially a new chief of police, he might not have gotten away with any of it,” she pointed out.

“That’s true enough. I’m pretty damn sure the chief of police has his number, but she doesn’t have any proof.”

“She’s probably getting that now. People are sniffing around, looking to take down somebody like that. So you can bet all the evidence will start coming out of the woodwork.”

“Not for Grandfather,” he stated confidently. “He’s bought everybody off.”

“Everybody?”

“Except for that one, the chief of police,” he admitted. “And the fact that it’s a woman just pisses him off even more.”

“Of course. But then he spent his lifetime keeping women down, where I’m sure he thought they belonged. An interesting position for the father of two daughters.”

He burst out laughing at that. “You’re damn right. That is where they belong.”

“Of course that would be your attitude.” He glared at her, but Janelle just shrugged. “Think about it.”

Just then his phone buzzed. He looked down at it and smiled. “Look at that. Your little friend contacted my family.” She frowned at him, while he nodded. “Now this shit’s fixing to get fun.”

“Why is that?” she asked, as she thought about the implications.

“Because my grandfather, he won’t give an inch. He’ll probably tell your boyfriend quite cheerfully what he’s doing and what he’s done, but no way in hell will he let your buddy off the hook. Mason will die,… or you will,” he declared, with a hard look her way. “Believe me that me and my grandfather, we don’t give a shit which one.”

*

The cops were behind Guilliam and Masters, having arrived at the retirement home soon after they did, but the old man was still just grinning like a fool. He wasn’t prepared to talk or to otherwise help them out in any way.

“And your son-in-law?” Guilliam asked. “Does he know this is what you’re up to?”

He snorted. “That son-in-law of mine is nothing but a coward at this point. Losing his boy, that just ruined him. He went soft and has been useless to me ever since.”

“A death like that has a tendency to affect people,” Guilliam stated, with a gaze at the old man who showed no signs of softening.

“No time for that shit. You make good on what you need to do, and then you move on.”

“Right. So, he was supposed to grieve for a moment, then get back in the saddle, is that it?”

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” he barked. He shook his head. “You’re as stupid as the rest of them.”

“And that’s how you got through life, isn’t it? Insulting people, badgering people, probably killing people too.”

The old guy laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.” He sneered. “Death is cheap.”

“Not to the rest of the people in the family.”

“Who gives a shit? Women, they just turn around and find another guy. It’s not like they give a shit. It’s all temporary anyway.”

“Is that how you felt about your wife?”