Shaken (25 page)

Then he was down by my feet, unbuckling my ankle restraints.

“It’s a bad break,” he said. “But this should help.”

I felt a pinch on my thigh, like a bee sting.

A moment later, the world became a warm, loving blanket. Pain free and fuzzy and euphoric.

I watched Luther put the syringe back into his pocket. Then he freed the strap around my waist, around my wrists. I threw a punch at him, but my swing was so slow, so weak. He easily dodged it, and then he had my wrists in his hands and I heard a
ZZZZZZZ
sound. I looked down, saw a plastic zip tie securing my wrists.

“Don’t try to run away,” Luther said. “You’ll make your leg worse.”

He gave my broken bone a pat, which caused a bolt of agony to shoot through me and quickly vanish. I looked down, saw my foot bent in an odd direction. It looked really painful. I felt bad for whoever had such a terrible injury.

Luther dragged me by my armpits over to the concrete block. I sat there, watching, as he pulled Mr. K onto the Catherine Wheel and began buckling him on. Then he frisked him.

“What did you give me?” I asked, feeling so light I was worried I’d float away.

“Heroin. Good, isn’t it?”

It was good. But it was also scary. I needed to get away from there. I tried to get up, but my leg bent a funny way and I fell over.

“You really need to sit still, Jack,” Luther said. He was standing above me, holding Mr. K’s sledgehammer.

Then there was screaming. A lot of screaming. Begging and screaming and more screaming until I had to put my hands over my ears, but I couldn’t because someone had tied them up.

“Would you like a turn?” Luther asked, holding out the hammer for me.

I saw Mr. K, upside down on the Catherine Wheel. He was in bad shape. His legs and arms didn’t even look like legs and arms anymore. Luther gave the wheel a spin, and the screaming went on and on.

“No,” I said, shrinking away. I didn’t like any of this. I just wanted to go home.

“He hurt you. This is your chance to hurt him back.” Luther pressed the sledgehammer handle into my bound hands. I swung at Luther, but again I was too slow, missing by a mile. Luther shook his head, taking the hammer away.

“Your loss.”

Then he went to Mr. K again. He was doing something to him with a knife.

Oh God.

The Guinea Worm.

Luther managed to get it going, and set them both so they turned by themselves. He had to stand right next to Mr. K and keep waving smelling salts in front of him, because Dalton kept passing out.

After a long time, the smelling salts stopped working.

Luther sat down next to me, throwing the ammonia vial across the floor.

“For a legend, he was a real disappointment,” Luther said. Then he turned to me. “I hope you don’t turn out to be a disappointment, Jack.”

Then I was on my back, Luther over me, pressing his lips to my forehead.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he whispered. “Soon.”

He pushed something into my hand. Dalton’s phone. A moment later, he was gone.

Twenty-one years ago

1989, August 19

I
didn’t get the credit for Brotsky’s collar. That went to the six cops who burst into his house. Even though I’d cuffed Brotsky, I hadn’t actually placed him under arrest, or read him his rights.

Brotsky offered up a full confession, and he gleefully blabbed about all of the atrocities he had committed. But he kept a few key facts to himself. Though he claimed that he had been hired by the Outfit, he never mentioned anyone by name. According to him, he slaughtered one of their high-class escorts, and they sent a hit man to his house. But rather than kill him, the hit man hired him to keep eliminating escorts, but to make sure they were the competition, not the ones owned by the Mafia. When pressed if this hit man was the elusive figure known as Mr. K, Brotsky just smiled.

When Brotsky had grabbed me and Shell, I hadn’t been his original target. Shell had been. He’d been following Shell, and had gotten in line behind us—something I vaguely recalled—at Buddy Guy’s, drugging our drinks while they languished on the bar. When Brotsky found out I was a cop after searching my purse, he was ordered to murder me as well.

Though Herb saw me get into Shell’s car, he never heard that we went to Buddy Guy’s instead of Miller’s. Herb had spent three hours at Miller’s, waiting for us, when he caught the squeal about me and Brotsky on the radio. Herb got to the scene a little after the uniforms had arrived. He rode in the ambulance with me.

“You are one helluva cop,” he said as they were putting the cast on my leg. “When are you going to take your detective’s exam?”

“Soon,” I promised.

“Still interested in Homicide?”

“Absolutely.”

Herb smiled widely and shook his head. “One helluva cop, Jacqueline.”

I smiled right back. “Call me Jack,” I said.

I figured I’d better get used to it, since I had decided to marry Alan. I didn’t want kids. At least, not yet. But having someone to go home to after nights like that one was something I couldn’t chance to pass up.

This case had changed me. Scared me. Matured me. Made me realize how strong I was, and what I was capable of. I had a new look. A new attitude. Soon I’d have a new rank.

And a new name would be perfect to go along with all of that.

Look out world, get ready for Jack Daniels.

Epilogue

He has waited for a while now.

Waited for the right moment.

The perfect time.

While he waited, he watched. And planned.

There was much planning.

Broken bones take time to heal. He wants Jack to be at her best.

It was actually a good thing to wait, because now Jack is having a baby.

The baby excites Luther. Jack has always been a fighter. Now she’ll have even more to fight for. Even more to live for.

He’s waited a long time.

He can wait a little longer.

Seven months, two weeks, and four days longer.

That’s two days before Jack’s due date.

Luther knows, because he found a nurse who worked for Jack’s ob-gyn. He took the nurse to a nice, quiet spot, and she told him everything he wanted to know.

So he’ll wait a bit longer.

Wait, and watch, and plan.

Wait until Jack’s leg heals.

Wait until she’s ready to have her baby.

That’s when he will begin their game.

Author’s Afterword

S
o you might have noticed that the end of
Shaken
appears to set up an eighth Jack Daniels novel involving Luther Kite, who actually isn’t one of my characters.

Here’s the story behind that.

I’m good friends with thriller author Blake Crouch, and our writing has covered many of the same themes of good and evil. I love his terror novels
Desert Places
and
Locked Doors
, which showcase his own unique, disturbing take on the serial killer genre.

In 2009, we wrote a novella together called
Serial Uncut
(available on Amazon), combining some of the characters from his work and my work, including Jack Daniels, Taylor (from
Afraid
and
Trapped
, written under my pen name, Jack Kilborn), and Mr. K. It also featured the villains from Blake’s first two novels, specifically a fiendish maniac named Luther Kite.

I approached Blake with a simple, yet unique, idea: Wouldn’t it be fun to take Jack and Luther and pit them against each other in a full-length novel? He was all for it. That novel is
Stirred
, which we’re currently writing.

But aside from being just a fun collaboration where two writers go to war on the page,
Stirred
will also be something bittersweet for the authors. It will be the conclusion to my Jack Daniels series and the conclusion to Blake’s Andrew Thomas series.

If you’re new to my books, or Blake’s books, and want to get caught up on the entire universe of these characters before reading
Stirred
, here is the order they go in, along with the characters they spotlight:

Shot of Tequila
by J.A. Konrath (1991, Jack Daniels)

Desert Places
by Blake Crouch (1996, Luther Kite)

Locked Doors
by Blake Crouch (2003, Luther Kite)

Whiskey Sour
by J.A. Konrath (2004, Jack Daniels, Alex Kork)

Bloody Mary
by J.A. Konrath (2005, Jack Daniels)

Rusty Nail
by J.A. Konrath (2006, Jack Daniels, Alex Kork)

Dirty Martini
by J.A. Konrath (2007, Jack Daniels)

Serial Uncut
by Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn, and J.A. Konrath (1978–2010, Jack Daniels, Luther Kite, Taylor, Mr. K)

Afraid
by Jack Kilborn (2008, Taylor)

Jack Daniels Stories
by J.A. Konrath (2004–2010, Jack Daniels)

Fuzzy Navel
by J.A. Konrath (2008, Jack Daniels, Alex Kork)

Cherry Bomb
by J.A. Konrath (2009, Jack Daniels, Alex Kork)

Trapped
by Jack Kilborn (2010, Taylor)

Shaken
by J.A. Konrath (2010, Jack Daniels, Mr. K, Luther Kite)

Stirred
by Blake Crouch and J.A. Konrath (2011, Jack Daniels, Luther Kite)

This may seem like a devious effort by us to get you to buy everything we’ve written. I swear it isn’t. If it was, I would have mentioned Blake’s novels
Abandon
and
Snowbound
, and my novels
Origin
,
Disturb
,
The List
, and
Endurance
.
The List
has a Jack Daniels cameo, and the heroes are Tom Mankowski and Roy Lewis, who have a bit part in
Shaken
.

Seriously, though. It really isn’t necessary for you to read any of these previous novels to enjoy
Stirred
.

But we’d love you even more if you did. :)

Joe Konrath

Schaumburg, IL

SHAKEN

LINEAR VERSION

PART 1

Chapter 1

1985, October 15

S
ergeant Rostenkowski walked into the classroom and cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention. He was old—probably close to fifty—thick, with hands like two-by-fours, the knuckles covered with curly, gray hair. When he spoke, it was with utmost authority, and all of us took notes. Standing next to him was a short man in an ill-fitting suit whom we’d never seen before.

“Our guest speaker today is Dr. Malcolm Horner,” the sergeant boomed, “a clinical psychiatrist from the University of Chicago.”

Harry McGlade raised his hand and began talking without being called on. “Doc, I’ve been having these dreams where I’m trying to throw a spear at a giant pink pretzel, but every time I throw it my spear bends in half.”

Everyone in class laughed, except for me. I nudged my one-piece chair and desk away from Harry and silently pitied the poor sap who got stuck being his partner after graduating from the police academy.

Dr. Horner smiled politely. “Your problem, Cadet, is firmly rooted in the fact that you have to be the center of attention, probably because your parents didn’t love you enough.”

Harry’s grin fell away, but mine blossomed.

“My mom may not have loved me,” Harry said, “but the last time I saw your mom, which was yesterday—”

“Can it, McGlade.” Rostenkowski shot out one of his
cut the bullshit
looks, and Harry clammed up. “Now, please welcome Dr. Horner to our class.”

The fifty or so cadets offered the psychiatrist a weak round of applause. It was close to dinner time, we’d been running drills all day, and I figured everyone was as hungry, exhausted, and brain dead as I was. While I was sure Dr. Horner would be tremendously enlightening (baloney, because during four weeks at the police academy the speakers had ranged from bland to downright awful), now wasn’t a good time to absorb a lecture. But like any good student, I dutifully opened my notebook to a blank page and jammed a pen between my fingers.

“Gentlemen…and ladies,” Dr. Horner acknowledged me, the only woman in the room. “Today I’m going to talk about evil.”

My interest was piqued. In the nonstop lectures I’d been forced to endure about the criminal mind, the word
evil
hadn’t been used before. We’d had terms like
socioeconomic factors
and
biological positivism
and
differential association
hammered into our heads, but nothing on evil.

This prompted a predictable outburst from Harry. “I just joined so I could catch bad guys.”

While being a law enforcement officer had as much to do with how and why criminals became criminals as it did with how to catch them, part of me was with Harry on this issue. While poverty, upbringing, and genetics all contributed to illegal behavior, I was more interested in stopping it than understanding it.

But evil? That was for philosophy class, not psychology. I thought about mentioning that, but someone in the front row beat me to the punch.

“We’ve been told evil doesn’t exist. Last week, your colleague, Dr. Habersham, lectured that morality had no place in law enforcement. We’re supposed to enforce the law, not judge right and wrong.”

“I’m surprised you stayed awake long enough during Dr. Habersham’s lecture to absorb that tidbit.”

Laughter broke out. I was starting to like this guy. “Indeed,” he continued, “some schools of philosophy dictate that morality changes according to society. For example, in ancient Rome it was considered acceptable to throw people to the lions. A little over a hundred years ago, our country bought and sold human beings. Forty years ago, Germany endorsed genocide, something still common in modern times. For a recent example look at Cambodia and the killing fields, where more than two hundred thousand people were forced to dig their own graves before being beaten to death with ax handles because their executioners wanted to save on ammunition.”