Page 43 of Mail Order Bride: A Psychological Thriller

I hand him the cigarette and then offer him a light. We sit quietly as he smokes it down to the last half-inch.

“You’re wanted for some pretty serious stuff, Robinette.”

He cocks his head. “You a cop?”

“Something like that.”

“You don’t look like a cop.”

“Regardless, I hear you’ve done some bad things.”

“I’ve killed men, some that deserved it, some that didn’t.” He’s trying to act tough, but it’s an act, and we both know it. “So, what, you gonna take me in?”

“That depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“How cooperative you are, for one.”

He raises an eyebrow. “And two?”

“We’ll get to that,” I say, approaching his bed with the shovel. In my hands, the tool feels like it weighs a ton. I raise the shovel high in the air, ready to strike at any moment. It has been a long day, and I am tired. If I can get this over with quickly, it’ll be for the best. I take another step toward the bed when suddenly, he screams. His voice echoes through the walls and down the hallway of the motel like a crazed banshee. It is as if he is calling for every spook and specter in town to come and feast on me. My throat tightens up, and my temples begin to sweat. If I don’t finish this soon, I’ll end up dead in a hole at his side.

I have to keep going no matter what—my life and the deaths of multiple people are at stake here. “Please!” he screams. “Just shoot me!”

I shake my head. Why do they always say that?

I turn to the dresser, where the gun he doesn’t want me to know about is waiting for me on top of a stack of dirty laundry. I walk over to it, approaching it with dread, as if I'm walking into battle against an unknown enemy, unsure of what horrors awaited me inside the dresser drawer.

“Wait,” he says. “We can talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about?” I ask, rifling through the drawer. He has stacks of cash and a few erotic items I couldn’t name if I had to.

“I have money.”

“I can see that.”

“I can get more.”

“Anything else?”

“Whatever you need, I can get it.”

My head tilts to the side, and I turn toward him. “Like what?”

He dabs at the sweat at his temple. “Women… girls… you name it.”

“I have a woman. But thank you.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But one is never enough.”

“I think I’ll take your word for it.”

“Never trust a pretty girl,” he says, though his tone is mellow and unadorned, which should have been a dead giveaway that things were taking a bad turn.

“You’re about to die, and this is the conversation you want to have?”

He shrugs. “Sure, why not?”