Go Kill Crazy! (6 page)

“The only joke here is you, you steroid-chomping motherfucker.”

Marzetti pursed his lips. “Uh-oh.”

Fucking with the guy wasn’t the brightest idea. Casey was on thin ice already. But he figured his odds of walking out of this situation alive were pretty close to nil anyway, so what the hell. “Do you know what a Neanderthal is?”

Marzetti made a pained sound and put a hand to his forehead. “Kid, you really should quit while you’re ahead. Don’t antagonize—”

No-Neck cut him off with a simmering glare. “Shut up.” He looked at Casey. “I know what a Neanderthal is, you fucking faggot. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

No-Neck let out an enraged roar and leaned down to seize the front of Casey’s shirt in his massive hands. He jerked him roughly to his feet and kept hold of him with one hand while he drew the other one back in preparation of delivering another of those devastating punches.

But before he could uncork the blow, someone else in the room spoke up.

“Enough.”

The deep baritone was unfamiliar, but apparently the speaker was the true voice of authority here, because No-Neck immediately lowered his fist and released his grip on Casey’s shirt.

“We are not here to waste time on these antics. This man is at our mercy, Mr. Boyd, and he knows it. Allowing him to rattle you so easily displays only weakness.”

“Yes, sir.”

No-Neck’s expression was sheepish now. He actually looked down at the floor, the way an awkward kid would after a scolding from a parent or teacher.

“Bring him to me, Boyd.”

Boyd grabbed Casey by a bicep and dragged him across the kitchen, where he was dumped into a chair at a round table. It was a nice table with a wood surface and a wrought-iron frame. Along with the chairs arrayed around it, he’d inherited the table from his late grandmother, a taciturn woman who had nonetheless been a steadying influence during his turbulent youth. The way he’d heard it, she had died of a stroke at this very table during dinner one night. And now it was looking like dying at this table was on its way to becoming an authentic Miller family tradition.

Another man in a suit was in the chair directly across from Casey. The guy didn’t look much like his underlings. For one thing, he was black. And his clothing was more colorful—he wore a purple shirt beneath his blazer. Like the other men, though, he was of an imposing size. He had a big bald head. His smooth scalp gleamed from the overhead light. He sat with his legs crossed, his fingers laced almost primly over his right knee.

He smiled. “Mr. Miller, it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

“Fuck you.”

Boyd smacked the back of Casey’s head. “Show Mr. Jones respect, hippy.”

Casey groaned and touched the back of his head. “Ouch, man. Jesus. Stop calling me a hippy. I ain’t any goddamn flower child.”

Boyd snorted. “What else should I call you, Goldilocks?”

Casey managed a laugh. “Goldilocks. That’s a good one. Very creative.”

“Thank you,” Boyd said with no trace of irony.

Casey directed a smirk at Jones. “You’re welcome.”

Jones smiled. “My apologies for the rough handling, Mr. Miller. However, I find myself in the position of having to manage a crisis situation. And that’s fine. It’s part of the job description.”

Casey frowned. “What
is
your job?”

Another smile from Jones. “I’m a problem solver, Casey.”

Casey sighed. “Let me guess. You’re here to solve a problem named Casey Miller.”

Jones nodded. “Correct. You’re a man with a flair for the dramatic, Casey. Your actions have made things temporarily uncomfortable for my employer.”

Casey smirked. “Good.”

Jones’ expression turned grim as he shook his head. “No, Casey. It’s not good. Not for me, not for my boss, and most definitely not for you. My boss does not enjoy the close scrutiny of law enforcement officials.”

Casey nodded. “Yeah. Okay. So you’re here to warn me off again. Maybe rough me up a little and scare me. That about the shape of it?”

“That is the general gist of the situation, yes,” Jones said. He took a cell phone from an inner pocket of his blazer and set it on the table. “But what we’re doing today is a little more complicated than that. A man like you, an impetuous man prone to committing very brazen, foolhardy acts, requires a deeper level of motivation.” He tapped the phone’s screen with a forefinger and a frozen image of Keely Miller’s face appeared. “I have something to show you, Casey.”

Casey stared at the image of his sister for a long moment, then forced out a breath. “If you’ve hurt her—”

“Your sister has not been harmed.” Jones turned the phone toward Casey and tapped the screen again. “Watch.”

A video message began to play. It showed Keely smiling in a strangely vacant way as she stared at the person making the video. She had braids in her long hair and was wearing a pretty yellow sundress. She was in a room in which the dated décor screamed mid-twentieth century. Casey figured this was a room somewhere inside the big house at the ranch owned by de Rais.

An off-camera female voice broke the silence. “All right, we’re ready. You know what you want to say, right?”

Keely glanced to her right, smiling but looking a little unsure of herself. “Yes.”

“Good. Start now.”

Keely looked into the camera lens. “Hi, Casey. Today is Friday. It’s been two days since you tried to grab me off the street and got a bunch of innocent people shot. You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, but we’ve decided to leave you out of it. The police don’t know I was the target of the kidnapping attempt. You’re probably wondering how that’s possible. What you don’t understand is there’s no limit to what a dedicated group of people working toward a common goal can accomplish.”

She glanced to her right again, an eyebrow raised.

The unseen female spoke again. “You’re doing great so far. Go on.”

When Keely resumed speaking, her expression was grim. “For the first time in my life, I’m in a place where I feel like I belong. I’m surrounded by caring, nurturing people who only want the best for me. They are my soul mates, my real sisters and brothers, and together we have embarked on a path of spiritual awakening and enlightenment. My eyes are finally open and at last I see the world as it really is. I see the reality behind the lies society has taught us to accept as truth. And I won’t allow you or anyone else to take that from me.”

A sense of dread crept through Casey as he listened to his sister’s recorded voice. There was a harsh edge to it he didn’t recognize, a wisp of wrongness that saddened him even as it made his skin crawl. Not helping at all was the way Boyd and Marzetti continued to creep closer to him from either side. Though he knew the effort would almost certainly prove futile, the time had clearly come to make a break for it. Maybe take a roundhouse swing at the goons with a chair, then dash for the door and hope for the best. He would likely be shot down long before he could get there, but what other choice did he have? He wasn’t about to just sit here and take whatever brand of brutal punishment they had in mind.

He had to act and act now.

But something in his sister’s voice helplessly compelled him, made it impossible to do anything other than sit and listen as long as she continued to speak. “You are done interfering in my life, Casey. I have a rendezvous with destiny…” Something about that phrase struck a nerve within Casey and further fueled his already redlining sense of anxiety. “All of us do. And you’ve made your last attempt to block it. But I know how stubborn you are. I know you won’t just do the sensible thing and go away. So we’ve come up with a special way of dealing with you. After this, you won’t want anything else to do with me. But that’s okay. I no longer consider you my brother. Any pain you are about to suffer you brought on yourself.”

Boyd and Marzetti were too close now. The chair gambit was no longer a viable option. Every elapsing second brought him irrevocably closer to something horrible. The perverse anticipation of the goons pinning him in was a palpable thing. And yet still he couldn’t move.

Keely’s image smiled again. “Your life is about to change forever, Casey. All the simple, everyday things you take for granted are about to become very hard for you.” There was a vicious twist to her mouth now. The sight of it stabbed at his heart. “And it’s all your fault.”

The video ended.

Casey braced his feet on the floor and tried to propel himself out of the chair, but Boyd and Marzetti were there to grab him and slam him facedown onto the table. Boyd, being the substantially bigger man, held him down while Marzetti stretched out his right arm and held it against the table’s surface.

Casey’s eyes rolled upward to stare at Jones, who was now standing. From this vantage point, he looked almost impossibly huge, more like a mountain than a man. And clutched in his right hand was a shiny stainless steel meat cleaver. Casey was willing to bet it was brand new, purchased especially for the occasion. He had also donned a long rubber apron at some point while Casey had been transfixed by the video.

Every remaining ounce of bravado drained away from Casey as his gaze locked on the gleaming edge of the blade. In its place was nothing but gut-twisting fear. He was pretty sure he’d never seen anything quite as sharp as that blade.

“You don’t have to do this. I’ll leave you motherfuckers alone from now on, I swear.” Casey hated hearing the pitiable whine creeping into his voice, but he couldn’t help it. Stoicism was impossible in a situation like this. “Come on. I fucking swear to God, I won’t ever bother you again.”

Jones chuckled. “Oh, we already know that, Casey. According to your sister, you’re right-handed. Well, you used to be, as of a few seconds from now.”

This remark elicited belly laughs from the goons holding him down.

Jones looked like a grinning ghoul as he raised the blade high above his head. “Ready to bleed, Casey?”

Casey couldn’t stop shaking. Tears stung his eyes. “No. Please.”

Jones’ right bicep expanded perceptibly as he prepared to slam the blade down, but before that could happen something in the kitchen exploded. Screams filled the room as Jones staggered backward. Casey glanced up and saw that a chunk of the man’s head was missing. He belatedly understood that the explosion he’d heard had actually been the close-range report of a gun. The cleaver slid from Jones’ fingers and clattered on the tiled floor an instant before the big man toppled dead to the floor. The goons let go of Casey and went for their weapons, but it was already too late for them. Two more loud reports rang out. Two more big bodies hit the floor. Casey remained where he was a few moments longer, his ears ringing while he waited, fully expecting to meet the same fate as the other men. Then the ringing began to subside and he realized someone was talking to him. The voice was vaguely familiar.

It was a woman’s voice.

It was telling him to…to…

“…get up off the goddamn table, Casey.”

He decided obeying the voice was probably wise. And anyway, it wasn’t like there was anything else he could do.

So, still trembling, he pushed himself away from the table and turned around to face the person who had maybe saved his life. The “maybe” qualifier was definitely necessary, because the person pointing a 9mm at him now had once vowed to kill him if she ever saw him again.

He held his hands up, a look of profound confusion twisting his features.

“Echo? What the hell are you doing here?”

Chapter Six

One year ago

The scene is an idyllic middle-class neighborhood on a warm day in early spring. It’s a newer development and all the prefabricated homes look much alike. This lack of outward personality is offset by the clean streets and immaculate lawns. The residents are all hard-working people who are justifiably proud of the small slice of the American Dream they’ve carved out for themselves. The people here look out for each other and strive to be good neighbors. There are no gangbangers dealing drugs on the corners and no drive-by shootings. All that sort of thing happens in an alien world removed far from this place. Crime of any sort is rare.

So when twenty-two-year-old Echo Vaughn emerged scantily-clad and screaming from one of the prefab homes early that sunshine-soaked afternoon, it made for a pretty unusual sight. Ninety-year-old Vera Brooks happened to be out walking her elderly Pomeranian when this occurred. She stopped dead in her tracks and gawked in open-mouthed wonder as the enraged young woman swung a golf club and smashed in one of the headlights of a late-model Lexus. Puddles the Pomeranian started barking his little head off while Vera stared at Echo and felt faint stirrings of the forbidden lust she had last indulged decades ago. Nowadays people were more open-minded about such things, but in her time Sapphic love had not been socially acceptable.

Vera was just a visitor to this neighborhood, the reluctant guest of one of her grandsons, a patronizing young man she secretly couldn’t stand. At the moment, however, she was very glad she had accepted this latest invitation to visit. Never in her life had she beheld a sight as glorious as the one before her now. Her heart was beating almost painfully fast as she watched the young beauty swing the golf club again and smash out another headlight. The woman’s assault on the car continued as she commenced striking the windshield. After the third swing of the club, the glass began to splinter. She continued with her screaming the entire time. It was a profanity-laden tirade that was only intermittently intelligible, but it seemed most of her ire was directed against someone named Casey.