The Watcher in the Wall (21 page)

If Donovan pulled the trigger, Gruber knew he was dead. The revolver was a beast. It would blow his head clean off.

But Donovan didn’t shoot. He looked Gruber over like a hunter studies snared prey. His lip curled, disgusted. He advanced on Gruber.

“You’re a psycho,” he said. “You’re a maniac, bro. I’m going to get in a lot of shit when I don’t come back with that money, but, what the fuck, I’m doing the world a favor.”

He raised the revolver to a firing stance. Gruber gauged the distance, watched Donovan’s finger tense on the trigger, knew he was dead unless he found a way out—fast.

“You’re not going to kill me,” he said. Gathered all the bravado he could muster, and stared Donovan in the eye. “You’re too much of a pussy for it.”

Donovan’s lip twitched. “Guess you’re going to find out.”

“I heard you talking to your boys on the phone,” Gruber told him.
“You don’t belong here, and they know it well as you. They made a mistake when they sent your punk ass up here.”

Donovan didn’t say anything. The gun stayed where it was.

“You’re afraid,” Gruber continued. Louder. Bolder. “You know you can’t show up back home without their money. You fucked up, shit stain. Face it.”

“Shut up.” Donovan shook his head, sudden, and Gruber could see he’d struck a nerve. “Just shut the fuck up, dude, or I swear, I’ll—”

“You’ll
what
,” Gruber said. “Blow my head off?” He laughed. “Do it, then. Pull the trigger. Then go home and tell your boys you couldn’t get their money.” He looked Donovan in the eye. “Do it, shit stain. Kill me. Show them what a fuckup you are.”

Donovan’s lip twitched again. He chewed on his frustration, the big revolver shaking, unsteady. Gruber forced himself to meet the kid’s gaze. Challenge him, like he’d challenged Sarah. Like he would one day, God willing, challenge Earl.

“You know I’m right,” Gruber told him. “You want to be a failure your whole life, asshole? Pull the trigger.”

Donovan made a noise, a growl, strangled from somewhere in his throat.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Raised the gun high and swung down at Gruber, the barrel arcing toward Gruber’s head.

Gruber was ready for it. He dropped before the blow connected, hit the carpet, hard, and rolled for the computer table. Pulled the bottom drawer open and grabbed for the knife as, behind him, Donovan stumbled, his balance askew when the revolver didn’t connect.

Gruber closed his fingers around the knife handle. Came out with it, just as Donovan regained his equilibrium. The kid was too late,
though; the revolver pointed wild, toward the kitchen window. Gruber slashed forward with the knife, caught him in the midsection. Donovan dropped the revolver. Cried out. Gruber slashed him again, dropped him to the floor. Then he toed the revolver closer, reached down, picked it up. Trained it on Donovan and breathed heavy, got his wind back.

“I see I had you pegged right all along,” he told the kid. “I
knew
you didn’t have it in you.”

<
81
>

Gruber found
a roll of duct tape. Taped Donovan to the computer chair, wrists and ankles. The kid was bleeding where Gruber had slashed him, a couple deep cuts to the stomach. He’d soaked through his shirt, made a mess of the floor.

“Good thing I never liked that carpet,” Gruber told him. “Shit, I think you might need an ambulance.”

Donovan moaned, something unintelligible. Gruber laughed, patted the kid’s head. Tested the tape, made sure his limbs were bound tight. Then he closed the curtains. Stood back and tried to work through his options.

The police had tracked Dylan. They would track him down next. He would need to come up with a plan.

Gruber knew he could disappear. He’d done it before, in Cleveland,
and he could do it again. Vanish from this place by tomorrow morning, find somewhere new, somewhere better. Montana, maybe. Colorado. Start over. Lie low. Fly under the radar, so the cops couldn’t find him.

He could do it, but it would be difficult. He was still flat freaking broke. He didn’t have enough money for food, let alone a bus ticket. Let alone a new stake at a better life. Anyway, something Donovan had said earlier was sticking with him. Something a little more important than just making an escape.

Gruber scanned the pictures on the wall, Sarah and Dylan and the others, scanned until he’d found Earl’s mug shot. The thug had mentioned something about Rico Jordan paying Earl a visit.

Gruber set the revolver down on the computer table. Picked up the knife and stood over Donovan. Slapped him a couple times, hard, relished the way the kid flinched and drew back.

“Now listen to me,” he said. Held the knife up so Donovan could see it. “We just proved this whole violence kick isn’t really your game, so you play nice with me, and I’ll go easy on you, understand?”

Donovan didn’t speak, but he nodded a little. Gruber figured it was as good as he was going to get.

“You said your boss checked in on my stepfather,” he said. “I need you to help me find him.”

Donovan moaned again. Looked down at his stomach, his crimson-soaked T-shirt. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “I don’t know anything about that dude.”

Gruber rolled up the sleeve of the kid’s T-shirt. Took the knife and drew a stripe down his arm, long and deep. Donovan screamed. Gruber slapped him again.

“My stepfather,” he said. “Somebody in your crew knows where to find him. I want to know what they know.”

Donovan panted. Gasped, tears in his eyes, snot and drool and whatever else. “Rodney,” he said, low and desperate. “My boss. He knew a guy who did time with your old man. You call him.”

Gruber patted the thug down. Found his phone in the front pocket of his jeans. Pulled it out, swiped it unlocked. “
You
call him,” he said. Held up the knife again. “Don’t say anything stupid.”

<
82
>

Victor Rodney’s phone
was ringing. The call display read
DONOVAN
. He answered. “Took you long enough.”

A long silence. A ragged breath.
“Rodney.”
Donovan’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Shit, man, I’m sorry.”

Rodney snapped his fingers, and Marcus looked up from his magazine, his brow furrowed.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Rodney asked Donovan. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

Donovan didn’t get a chance to answer. Someone else had the phone, the same guy who’d called Rodney the first time around. Gruber. The whack job. This was bad news.

“I want to know about my stepfather,” Gruber said, his voice January cold. “You tell me what I need to know, I’ll go easy on this kid here.”

Marcus was watching. Caught the expression on Rodney’s face, shot one back, like,
What gives?
Rodney shook his head, said nothing.

“You’re this kid’s boss, aren’t you?” Gruber asked. “He said someone in his crew looked up my stepfather. Earl Sanderson. You know someone who knows him?”

Rodney blinked back to the moment. Found his voice. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, dude, that was me.”

“So where the shit did you find him?”

Rodney hesitated again. Pictured Donovan in Gruber’s hands, barely more than a kid. Supposed to be an easy job, hell, initiation to the crew. He swallowed.

“Louisville,” he told Gruber. “Indiana side of the river. Town called New Albany, just across the bridge.”

“I know New Albany,” Gruber replied, as if Rodney should know that. “I grew up twenty miles from there. You got an address?”

“Hell no, I don’t have an address,” Rodney said. “Was a shitty little apartment building, real close to the bridge. Some bar on the first floor, something called the Rusty Nail.”

“An apartment,” Gruber said. “New Albany.”

“Yeah,” Rodney said. “Third floor, I remember. Last door on the left.” He paused. “You going to give me back my boy, or what?”

“Yeah, you can have him,” Gruber said. Then he laughed. “Come get him.”

The line went dead.

>>>

Donovan was watching Gruber
as he ended the call. He seemed a little more alert, a little more awake.

“You told them where you’re going,” the thug said. “They’ll just send more guys down to meet you.”

Gruber laughed. “Let them come. If they’re all as hard as you, I shouldn’t have a problem.”

He picked up the knife again, relished the way Donovan’s eyes went wide at the sight of it. Was about to try and coax another scream out of him when his own phone buzzed, loud, on the computer table.

A text message, from DarlingMadison.
Where r u? I’m worried. Let me know you’re okay.

Gruber’s eyes found DarlingMadison’s picture on the wall above the computer, sullen and shy, pretty and vulnerable, hiding herself from the camera. Had an idea, a two-birds, one-stone situation. Madison wanted to see him. She was worried. Maybe they could meet after all, after he looked in on Earl.

If the police had found Dylan, they could find Madison, too. Gruber would have to move quickly to keep the girl safe. She was special. He didn’t want to lose her, not before they’d had their fun.

Gruber turned back to Donovan. Advanced on the kid, watching him struggle.

“I’m sorry,” Gruber told him, though he wasn’t, not really. “Anyway, you brought this on yourself.”

He plunged the knife into Donovan’s stomach once, then again. Put
the knife to his throat and cut across, like in the movies. Stood over the chair, and watched Donovan die.

It was fun, he decided. The doing was fun. It was probably just as fun as the watching, maybe more.

<
83
>

Madison was walking
when her phone began to vibrate. She was tracing the banks of the Hillsborough River through Tampa, enjoying the sunset, about the only place she could find any peace and quiet and calm in her new hometown.

When she’d first started coming here, to the river’s edge, she’d thought about jumping in, filling her pockets with stones like Virginia Woolf, drowning herself. She’d walked for hours, plotting her demise, until one day she realized she didn’t actually want to die here at all, that she really just enjoyed being close to nature, the stillness of the water and the lush, quiet forest that lined the banks. She
liked
it here, she realized. It was a strange feeling to have.

She blamed her change in attitude on Brandon, whom she blamed for just about every positive change in her life. Madison didn’t hate herself when she looked in the mirror anymore, found reasons to smile now, collected funny and weird stories to pass along to him when they talked, told him about her classmates, her mother and her sisters.

There’s this guy in my class who I think has a crush on me,
she’d told him.
Paul Dayton. He’s always following me around, asking about you.

What do you tell him?
Brandon wondered.

Just that you’re cooler than anyone here,
Madison said.
And that I can’t wait to meet you and run away with you.

I can’t wait, too,
Brandon wrote.
But tell this Paul guy to mind his own business, k?

Oh, I do,
she wrote back.
I make sure he knows his place.

•   •   •

Anyway, her phone was buzzing. Madison pulled it from her purse, checked the screen. A phone call, from Brandon. She smiled as she accepted the call. “Hey, you.”

“Hi.” There was an edge to Brandon’s voice, a breathlessness, something off. “Are you alone? Can we talk?”

Madison found a clearing overlooking the river. Sat down. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, of course. What’s up?”

“I’m sorry I’m calling like this,” Brandon said. “It’s just . . . something happened.” He paused. “My parents found out about us. What we’re planning to do. They’re trying to stop us.”

Madison felt a sudden hollowness in her stomach, an empty sort of panic. Everything she’d hoped for, all the ways this crazy boy from Iowa had changed her life, had made her happy, and now he was going to tell her it was too good to be true.

Well, obviously. Madison fought the urge to cry, to kick something, to throw her phone in the river. “Okay . . .” she said.

“They found my account on the suicide forum,” Brandon said. “They read all our messages and they know about our plan. They tried
to call the doctors on me, the straitjacket people. They want to hospitalize me and drug me up so everything’s numb and normal and awful. I don’t want that.”

“No,” Madison said. “No, none of it, never. I’d rather die.”

“Exactly,” Brandon said. He exhaled. “Anyway, I got away. I’m calling from the road, but they know I’m coming for you, Madison. They’re probably calling the Tampa Police Department right now. You have to get away.”

Shit.

Madison looked around. The river barely moving, the trees hanging over the banks, dark shadows beneath, the last light of day disappearing fast. The muted noise of the city in the distance, the hum of traffic. A siren.

“They’re coming for you, Madison,” Brandon was saying. “Sooner or later, they’ll show up at your house with a straitjacket and a suitcase full of pills, and they might as well be giving you a lobotomy. You’ll be done.

“We have to run,” Brandon continued. “Both of us. You have to meet me somewhere safe, okay?”

Madison felt like she was drunk, or high or something, suddenly weightless and drifting and floating off the ground. Couldn’t parse what Brandon was trying to tell her.

“Meet you,” she said. “Yeah, okay. But where?”

“Kentucky,” Brandon said. “Louisville. I have a friend there who can hook us up with fake IDs, money, whatever we need. We meet there tomorrow night and then we drive off together. Disappear. Go out with a bang, okay?”

Tires squealed behind Madison. She flinched, spun, watched an old
pickup truck lurch around a corner. Realized her palms were sweating. Louisville, Kentucky. Tomorrow night.

“You have to go now,” Brandon said. “You can’t go home again, do you understand? It’s too risky.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Couldn’t believe it was true. And at the same time, she figured she’d always known it would come down to something like this. Something crazy. Nothing about her relationship with Brandon was normal.