Blood Brothers (26 page)

Whatever came over Michael to head for water
instead of running into the city beyond the park’s borders was
beyond him. He only realized he’d done so when he was ankle deep in
water and still heading deeper. Though the sun had grown warm, as
had the day, the water was cool and it stung at his ankles, then
his knees, then his thighs. He heard splashing behind him. Cliff
was at the water’s edge, Dale just beyond. The bat hadn’t seemed to
take too much out of him. That or his adrenaline was warding off
the pain for the moment. Michael understood adrenaline. That
mysterious but all too handy, wonder drug had kept him alive more
times than he could count. Like now, for instance, his heart
thundered, his blood raged, his body felt alive and wild, and the
fight against fear was, so far, going his way.

And then his footing was gone. Mike’s head
bobbed below the surface, his whole body falling, falling. He arms
flayed wildly. He fought against his descent like a maniac, but he
didn’t rise.

He sank deeper and deeper.

Now

“Michael,” she said. Her voice warm silk.

He barely glanced up as he stepped past
her.

“What are you doing?” She’d begun courteous
and kind, but his brashness tipped her balance. She spun, the robe
billowing with breeze. What she turned to face was not a raging
Michael Cole but a very mean looking gun, and she was staring right
down the barrel of it.

“I think I’m the one who’s going to be asking
the questions.” He nudged the gun closer to her. Trista was not
normally a nervous woman, but very few people would feel as
courageous as a lion in a situation like this. “Where’s Jerry?”

“Jerry who?”

His anger visibly swelled to a new level.
“Get off it, bitch. Here and now, get off it. I just saw a woman
put a bullet in her own stomach. To kill herself and my baby. My
wife has the blood on her face. I’m not in the mood for bullshit.
Now, if you don’t want to end up exactly the same way, start
talking. NOW!”

There was just enough lunacy in him right now
for Trista to believe he wasn’t bluffing. Under ordinary
circumstances, she was quite confident that Cole didn’t possess the
ability or inclination for severe violence. If what he said was
true, however, he may just be willing to take a life.

“He’s not here.” There was no use in
lying.

Before she realized what he was doing,
Michael reached out and grabbed her hair, yanking painfully. He
threw her into a wall. He had the gun at the base of her skull and
a knee pressed painfully into the center of her thigh.

“You fucking whore!” She could feel his spit
as it sprayed on her neck. “I don’t know what you and your
boyfriend think you’re up to. But you have just fucked up really,
really bad.”

“I promise you it wasn’t supposed to be like
this. No one was supposed to get hurt.” Again, no use in lying.
Trista felt that the truth would be her best defense. And that was
the truth. Trista had anticipated a little trouble from this man.
But nothing she or Jerry couldn’t handle. They thought Michael a
rational man, a family man. A man who, when faced with a ruined
life, would quickly acquiesce, hand over the money. And then they’d
be gone like thieves in the night. Sipping umbrella drinks in the
Caribbean. Easy money.

In light of Michael’s mood, that had been one
hell of a mistake.

Death, whether suicide or murder, raised too
many questions. Questions that Trista didn’t want to be around to
try and answer.

“I don’t know anything about a girl shooting
herself. I promise. Please, let go. You’re hurting me.”

“Hurt?” Michael asked. “Hurt? You want to
know hurt?” Pulling her by the hair of the head as if he were
trying to pull each and every single strand free, he yanked her
from the wall and slung her, hard, down to the cold tile flooring.
Her knees hit first and then her elbows, which stopped her from
clobbering her face into the hard surface.

“Stop it,” she screamed, “Stop it!” She
wheeled around on the floor, planting her rump and scooting back on
bruised knees and busted elbows. Her robe had fallen away and her
thin blouse and panties were exposed.

“Stop it? Trista, I haven’t even got started
yet. With one hand still on the gun, he plucked his cell from his
pants pocket and tossed it to her. “Call him. Tell him to
come.”

She swallowed. Her throat was tight and her
chest heaving in fear. She had to think, and fast.

“Pick up the phone, Trista.” The gunshot
ricocheted through the foyer, sharp bits of dust flew from her
left, stinging the flesh of her arm and face. “You bastard.”

“That’s your only warning.”

She reached for the phone, picked it up, but
instead of bringing it to her ear, she began to stroke her inner
right thigh. “I could do that…or we could do something else.” With
the bottom lip of the phone she pried down the waistband of her
panties, swaying the telecommunications device seductively. “What
do you say?”

He said nothing.

***

She was a tramp to the very core, Michael
suddenly understood. From the very molecular structure that formed
her, Trista was nothing but a pure-D slut. Still, he could only
imagine the pleasure that was his for the taking.

Damn it. He had to think rationally. What she
and the motherfucker Jerry had done was beyond coming back from.
And no offer of a good lay, okay a great one, would change the fact
that his girlfriend lay dead, his seed ruined, his wife witness to
his darkest secrets and his life. How would he ever resurrect his
life, his world?

Could it even be done?

But neither lust personified lying on the
floor doing her very best to seduce him nor the anger and despair
he felt at the events back at the office would correct the problem
at hand. If the damage could not be repaired, and that was a
definite possibility, then his next move should be to ensure that
no further damage be wreaked upon him. And he’d make damn sure of
that just as soon as Jerry Garrett darkened the door of this
house.

The realization that he had not once, even
for a moment, considered the state of Ben and Elise struck him,
jolted him, actually. Where were they? Tied up, bound in a room
deep within the house? Away on an unforeseen trip? Could Jerry and
this beauty be so shrewd as to have the Reddicks, a couple surely
unknown to either of them, meet an untimely end just for the
convenience of their home? A silly question, really. At this late
date, Michael would be neither surprised nor appalled at any action
his former best friend took. There was no way to tell. And only one
way to find out.

“Ben Reddick, his wife, where are they?”

It was at that moment that Michael knew this
woman was pure evil. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t smile, not
so much as grin. But the way her eyes closed almost imperceptibly,
narrowing as if focusing on something delectable at a great
distance, the way that her stunning green eyes cleared to the point
of translucency, it was evident that whatever had been done to the
Reddicks had brought her immense joy.

The gun pushed towards her again, however,
dispelled any notion that he was interested in neither her erotic
ability nor her fascination at her memories. “Tell me, where are
they?”

Smile still on her face, she replied, “In
bed,” and then she laughed. The sound was so joyful, it felt as
out-of-place as a preacher in a strip joint.

Michael reached down, pulling her up by her
arm and thrusting her forward. “Lead the way.”

“My, aren’t you the perfect gentleman,” she
said as she started walking down the hall. Mounting the stairs,
Michael stepped in close behind her. The robe only came down to the
top of her buttocks. The crack of Trista’s delectable ass seemed to
dance in front of his face, even through the thin fabric of her
panties. It was amazing how, even at a time like this, the urges of
the flesh were so powerful a distraction.

On the landing she led him to a doorway,
pushing it open to reveal a narrow run of steps, presumably to the
attic. Suddenly, investigating of the whereabouts of his neighbors
didn’t seem like a stroke of genius. The attic stank of a foul odor
of cardboard, wet and rotting, and something worse, perhaps a rat
or squirrel caught in the walls, dead.

Noticing his hesitation, Trista said,
“Something wrong?” Then, “You’re not scared are you? Big man with a
big gun.”

“Just keep going,” Michael instructed, the
gun never wavering from her back.

She winked at him. “Sure thing, sweetie pie.
Your wish is my command.” She did as she was told and they reached
the top in short order, the top being a large unfinished area
reaching into darkness on either end. The floor was simple OSB
board. Trista stepped up and was quickly swallowed by the murk.
Rushing in behind her, Michael almost tripped over his own
feet.

“No lights up here?” Michael asked, as he
came up to her where she stood still.

Busy waving a hand around in the air, she
replied, “A pull cord somewhere around…here.” She yanked down on a
string and a bare bulb sparked to life, revealing nothing but the
floor and pasteboard boxes stacked one on top of another.

“This better not be a dead end.”

“You think I brought you all the way up here
just to make it easier for you to hide my body after you kill me?
Give me some credit, Michael,” she said. The way she said his name
so eloquently nagged at him.

“Then where are they?”

“Grab a box and help me. You’ll see.” Instead
of lending a hand, he merely watched as she labored to unstuck
several large, but apparently light, boxes. And boy, was it a
sight. A drop-dead gorgeous Dominican hottie in an extremely sort
robe and panties doing menial labor at gunpoint.

With a section of the wall of boxes taken
down, a dark niche was revealed. Michael peered in as Trista walked
in. There was something in there. Something all too well hidden by
the darkness. Placing his hand on Trista, he stopped her and
stepped closer.

“Oh, shit.”

***

She was numb, like she’d been standing on a
frozen lake but fallen through a crack, her body suddenly immersed
in sub-freezing water, confusing her nerve endings. But it was more
than just Stephanie’s body that was numb; it was also her mind. The
simplest thoughts that she attempted to gather spiraled away,
zigzagging and out of control. Her hands shook as if of their own
accord.

And the stares…

All eyes were on her as she was led, first
out of the office and then out of the building. She told herself
they were kind looks, compassionate glances, but she wasn’t
convinced. It was human nature to be curious, to be interested,
when one of their own took their life. But also was it human nature
to expect the worst and assume evil lived in everyone’s heart. God
only knew what everyone was thinking. She should have been thinking
that it didn’t matter what was on their minds, but the part of her
that had for so long been the town’s queen socialite feared what
the populous now thought, or even worse, knew, about her.

Miles Jackson, Benedict’s chief of police,
Michael’s attorney, Carlton Vickers and Andrew Crowe, the man
Michael trusted the most, led her from the horror of the young
woman’s suicide into a waiting car. As she stepped in, amidst the
throng of people that had gathered not only around the building,
but up and down the street, she realized she didn’t even know whose
car she’d just sat down in.

It didn’t matter.

The flash of the gunshot, the blood spraying
from the point of impact, the way her body folded in on itself so
quickly, so suddenly, like the collapse of a mighty building
imploding in fast forward. And God how she’d held on to the woman’s
rapidly cooling hand. It had all happened so quickly, and now her
entire life was changed.

When Carrie had first stopped by this
morning, she knew as soon as she greeted her, what she was there to
tell her. And when Carrie spoke, Stephanie had been ready to claw
out her eyes, pluck them from her skull and mash them into a
gelatinous mess in her bare hands, and then to go on to rip the
vocal chords from her throat. Thankfully, good sense interceded
even as her anger rose to a dizzying height.

She’d cried. She’d screamed. She’d pleaded
for Carrie to tell her it was all a lie. She had cracked right down
the middle. And she’d done it in her own home, in the presence of
the woman her husband had chosen, invariably, over her.

Still, the blight of Carrie’s death was
something that she would not have wished on her, not really. Oh, if
it hadn’t actually happened she would have loved to sit back and
think about it, to daydream, to fantasize about her being the one
to end not only the young tramp’s life but Michael’s as well. But
that would only have been in her notions; never, ever, would she
have ended Carrie’s life. As for Michael, now that was quite a
different matter. Carrie hadn’t vowed to love and honor, and to
place no one else above her. No, that bastard Michael Cole had done
the vowing and he’d been lying through his perfectly capped teeth
ever since.

A driver slipped behind the wheel and the
engine started. Stephanie barely glanced up as the car pulled away
from the curb.

“Trying day, Mrs. Cole?” Stephanie didn’t
recognize the voice, but still something in it chilled her.

“Excuse me. Who are you?” She was alarmed to
be in a car driven by someone she didn’t know, but no way in hell
was she, after seeing a suicide take place before her very eyes,
going to let it show.

“Relax, ma’am. I’m an old friend of your
husband’s.”

“Well Michael’s not here and I don’t know
you, so if you’ll kindly pull over, I’ll be exiting the
vehicle.”