Read At All Costs Online

Authors: John Gilstrap

At All Costs (46 page)

BOOK: At All Costs
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“Something’s wrong,” Nick whined. “I can feel it.”
To Jake’s eye, the scenery hadn’t changed in the last twenty minutes. Hell, it hadn’t changed in a year. Heavy woods just led to more heavy woods, the monotony of the landscape broken only by the occasional house or gas station. Rural Virginia was no different than rural South Carolina or rural Arkansas. Only the terrain and the foliage changed. The isolation was a constant.
From Route 28, they took Vint Hill Road to cross over to Route 29, and from there, on into Warrenton. After that, the turns and the route numbers came too quickly and too frequently for Jake to keep track. No one even bothered to name the roads out here. They just stuck a number on a post.
Soon the woods began to give way to fields and rolling hills. Stone walls took the place of barbed wire along the roadside, some of them in pristine shape, others crumbling under a century of neglect. Multimillion-dollar mansions alternated with more modest farmhouses and barely habitable shacks.
“How much farther?” Jake asked. Anything to cut the tension.
“About three miles.”
“Now
sign
it,” Wiggins instructed. They were in the master bedroom upstairs, gathered around a tiny antique writing desk.
“No one’s going to believe any of this,” Melissa sobbed. Her tears dropped heavily onto the mauve stationery, smearing the ink of her suicide note.
He smiled. “You’d be surprised what people will believe. Now hurry up and sign it. You’re running out of time. It’s after three.”
But the note was all wrong! She didn’t hate herself, and she wasn’t hopelessly lonely. She loved her children, and they loved her right back. Even the stuff about Nick was all wrong. He wasn’t the best husband in the world, but she could have done a lot worse. This whole thing made no sense.
If she signed the note—every word dictated by this madman—what would her children think of her as they grew older? They’d spend their entire lives hating her for abandoning them; for filling their minds with memories of finding her dead body.
“I won’t do it,” she declared.
Wiggins’s eyes flashed—a second of anger that disappeared instantly, replaced by his professional calm. He glared straight through Melissa’s eyes, into her brain. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t sign it. I don’t want you to sign it.” He snatched the note from beneath her hand and crumpled it up tightly, stuffing it into his pocket. When his hand came into view again, it held a knife. He snapped it open, revealing a finely honed three-inch blade. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She winced, anticipating pain, but panicked when she saw him heading out of the bedroom toward the stairs. “Where are you going?”
He never slowed, didn’t say a word.
“Oh, my God!” she yelled. “Lauren!” She bolted out of her writing chair and ran after the killer. She caught up with him at the top of the stairs and tried to tackle him, but he didn’t even seem to feel the impact. She fell to the floor and tried to hang on to his ankle, but he just kicked himself free.
“Please!” she yelled. “Please! I’ll do it! Please don’t hurt her.”
“I told you, Melissa,” Wiggins said calmly as he marched down the sweeping, carpeted staircase. “I told you this would happen, but you didn’t believe me.” His heels clicked as he stepped onto the hardwood of the foyer. “I’m going to have to get
really
creative with the boys.”
“No!”
she shrieked. “I’ll do it!” She sailed down the steps, barely touching them as she charged at him. “Touch my little girl, you son of a bitch, and I’ll kill you!”
She was five feet away when Wiggins stopped suddenly and whirled, thrusting his hand into the air like a traffic cop in an intersection. She skidded to a halt and nearly fell.
He glared at her and brought the point of his knife within inches of her face. “Are you asking for a second chance?”
She nodded frantically. “Yes.”
“Then ask me.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“I am,” she whispered back. “I’m asking you for a second chance.”
He smiled. “Ask me to let you kill yourself.”
She tried. “Please,” she said. She choked on her voice as she began to sob. She slumped to her knees. “Please . . .”
“Say the words,” he insisted, “or I’ll field-dress your little girl right there on the sofa.”
She tried again. Really tried, but the words wouldn’t come. “Please . . .”
“Say the words!” he boomed, his voice shaking the glass on a curio cabinet.
She was helpless now. Terrified. Fear and sadness flowed from her soul like a raging river as she finally croaked out the words. “Please. Let. Me. Kill myself.”
Wiggins stood over her, admiring his handiwork. Finally, he stooped down to her level and used one finger on the point of her chin to raise her eyes to meet his. “I don’t normally give second chances,” he whispered.
“That’s it!” Nick yelled. “The white mailbox on the right. That’s my driveway!”
Thorne hit his signal and slowed to make the turn. All very legal. All very slow.
“Goddammit, Thorne, move it!”
“Look!” the driver snarled. “If our target is already there, I’m sure as hell not charging up the driveway into a trap! It won’t make a difference, anyway . . .”
Jake saw the words cut divots out of Nick’s heart.
“. . . and if he isn’t there yet, then we’ve got nothing to worry about.” He cleared the mailbox and began inching his way up the long driveway, scanning the horizon for threats.
“Whose van is that?” Jake asked, pointing to the end of the driveway. The block lettering on the side read “Mike’s Plumbing.”
“Oh, shit,” Nick breathed. “Step on it, Thorne.”
Thorne hesitated, then stopped. “This isn’t good.”
It was three-twenty now, and the boys’ bus would arrive out front at any minute.
This time the note was short and sweet. “Good-bye.” She’d addressed it individually to all of her family, and she’d signed it without objection. With her children’s lives in the balance, her own meant nothing.
Wiggins led Melissa to the little balcony overlooking the foyer and handed her the rope. It was clothesline, really; an eight-foot nylon tube with little tufts of white stuffing sticking out of either end. “Tie this onto the railing,” he instructed.
She moved mechanically, like her hands were suddenly a couple of sizes too big. Much to her surprise, though, they didn’t tremble. She was terrified, yet resigned to her fate. It was for her children.
Wiggins watched her work, observing every detail.
She tied the knot carefully, making sure it would hold, even as she feared that the railing itself might not stand the strain of the jolt. Probably wouldn’t matter, anyway. Once her neck snapped, the rest would be academic.
“Very good,” Wiggins praised. “Now, you see that little loop I tied on the other end?”
She looked at him quizzically, then nodded.
“Good. I need you to pull some rope back through the loop to form a noose.
She did what she was told, looking up for confirmation that she was doing it right.
“A little bigger,” he said.
And bigger it grew. She knew that a single screwup would kill her children. She had doubted that once, but not anymore.
He backed away now, putting some distance between himself and his victim. “Okay, Melissa,” he said softly. “The rest is up to you now.” He walked down the stairs to watch the action from the foyer.
She looked at him strangely; like she suddenly didn’t know who he was. She still didn’t understand why, but the time had come to kill herself. She prayed it wouldn’t hurt too much. She eyed the rope in her hands, then slowly and deliberately slipped the noose over her head, adjusting it just so on her neck, with the knot lined up to her spine.
She was crying now, though still amazingly calm as she slung one leg over the railing, and then the other, moving carefully to keep from falling. As if it would matter. The tiny ledge beyond the white wooden rail spindles protruded just enough to support Melissa’s heels; and even then, she had to jam her Achilles tendon into the spaces between them. With her hands behind her, knuckles white against the dark wood of the banister, she looked like the bowsprit of a great schooner. The tears flowed freely now as she looked down at her murderer.
“You’re doing great, Melissa,” he coaxed. There was now an easy gentleness to his tone that she found more frightening than his anger. “You’re almost there. Just take a step.”
She looked down at him, wanting to beg; hoping to tap into a tiny vein of compassion. But there was no pity in those eyes. There’d be no reprieve. She tried to speak but found her throat packed with sand. She swallowed dusty air and tried it again. “Promise me you won’t hurt the children,” she croaked.
He put his fists on his hips and shook his head. “We’ve already been over this.”
“Promise me.”
His eyes narrowed as his features hardened. “Jump, Melissa. End it. Now. They’ll be home soon.”
“Promise
me!” A fierceness returned to her voice. It wasn’t a request anymore. It was a demand.
He found it amusing. He stared at her for a moment longer, then finally shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I promise. Now jump!”
She glared down on him, trying to kill the bastard with the strength of her hate alone. When he refused to break eye contact, though—when he chose instead to smile up at her—she knew the battle was lost. Out in the family room, she heard the mantel clock chime the half hour. Nicky and Joshua would be home at any minute. She had to get this done.
Forgive me,
she thought, and she adjusted the rope one last time behind her. Then she let go. And jumped.
“He’s in there,” Thorne whispered, and he climbed out of the car.
Jake followed, sliding out of the backseat. “How do you know?”
“Because that’s what I’d drive if I thought I might have to dispose of a couple of bodies. Call it intuition.”
Nick stayed in the car as Jake and Thorne played commando, sneaking quietly up the grassy slope toward the house.
“Screw this,” Nick spat. In one smooth motion, he slid over to the driver’s seat and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The rear wheels dug trenches in the grass as the big boat of a car launched forward, the acceleration slamming Jake’s door shut.
He passed his partners in a blur, rocketing straight toward the front of the house. He covered the three hundred feet in no time at all, destroying a dozen azaleas and a thirty-year-old boxwood as he slid to a stop on the front walk.
Stealth be damned, he jumped out of the car and dashed full speed up the two steps to the front door. When he found it ajar, he panicked and flew into the foyer. “Mel—oh, God!”
Melissa saw the door fly open, even as she leapt into the air, and the reality of her rescue hit her like a bolt of lightning. Her body jerked and arced wildly as she abandoned her suicide and turned in midair, clamoring for a handhold on the railing. Her left hand nicked it but missed, and she brought her right around in a giant overhead arc, catching the polished banister in her palm.
She slammed heavily into the ledge and the spindles. A splintering
crack!
startled her, and for just a fraction of an instant, she feared that the wood had snapped. Then the bolt of agony reached her brain, launched from her ruined shoulder. Suddenly, the railing felt white-hot in her palm, and as her grip started to slip, she said another prayer for her children.
Nick had never seen the man before in his life, but he knew from his eyes exactly who he was. The entire scene registered with the speed of a camera flash. The murderer in the foyer. His wife struggling overhead.
Little Lauren, looking sleepy and disheveled, took it all in from the kitchen doorway.
Wiggins moved toward Nick with viper-speed. But for an extra two feet of separation, Nick would have died right there. As it was, Wiggins had to close the gap by a step, and Nick used the half-second delay to dive out of the way. As he skidded across the floor, his attacker changed course.
Nick saw the kick coming, and he rolled to his right, just as he heard Lauren’s panicked voice yell, “Daddy!” The kick missed, but Wiggins adjusted one more time, settling for a crushing blow to Nick’s ankle. He stomped on it; like someone else might stomp on a bug.
Nick howled in agony. He tried to pull his leg away, but the foot just flopped to the side, like it didn’t even belong to him. His vision seemed to liquefy. Again, he saw the kick coming, this one to his head and moving a million miles per hour.
Lauren screamed one more time.
Thorne moved with tremendous speed, sailing across the foyer in no time flat. For the final ten feet, he was airborne, arriving shoulder-first and launching Wiggins into the opposite wall. The murderer hit hard, knocking a curio cabinet off the wall and sending the shattered remains of Melissa Thomas’s most prized pottery skittering across the floor.
BOOK: At All Costs
2.89Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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