Two for Flinching (32 page)

“I know you killed Amber.” I didn’t have any
reason to hold out. And it wouldn’t affect my outcome one way or
another. “You killed her for the insurance money.”

A slight shake of the head. “What else?”

“You killed my wife. Stella. For dropping
you.”

Steven laughed. “You think that’s it?”

“Yes.”

He let the pipe lean against my knee, the
threat clear. Unnecessary since I already knew my end. “What
else?”

“You wanted me to find her to collect on the
insurance. You had to have her body—missing wasn’t enough.”

“What else?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“What do you have in the way of proof?”

“Nothing.”

Steven seemed taken aback. “Aren’t you going
to tell me your lawyer has a file and will turn it over to the
authorities if something happens to you?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t you be threatening to kill
me?”

“I don’t make threats.”

“You could never kill me.”

“We’ll see.”

The brothers exchanged a look. Reggie said,
“This was all for nothing.”

“Four years ago, you were about to go broke.
You kidnapped Stella and Adrian and convinced them to liquidate
their accounts. How did you do that?”

“Adrian was easy. He was in-love with Stella.
All I had to do was tell him I would kill her if he didn’t do
exactly as I told him. Stella was another story.”

“You were blackmailing her. That’s how you
got her to go along. Give you the money or you would tell me about
the affair.”

The wooden chair groaned in protest as he
leaned back. A strange look crossed his face. “You want to know
why
you could never kill me?”

“Sure.”

Steven leaned forward, his voice a whisper.
“Because I am the father of your daughter.”

The last tumbler clicked into place. The dark
hair, the brown eyes, the facial structure—none of that came from
Stella or me. Why Big Bird and Fletcher wouldn’t move on me when
Sarah was at my side.

“You’re wrong.” I had to say it, at least one
moment of denial.

“There is no doubt. I’m her father. All you
have to do is look at the little girl.”

“You’re wrong.”

He shook his head.

“Now I will have to kill you to keep her away
from you.”

Steven laughed, long and hard. “Oh, you are
so stupid. Your wife had men coming and going out of your back door
all the time and you didn’t have a clue. You think you were the
first guy she took to the quarry? Or the last? She took me up there
in the Jeep you’re still driving. We put the back seats down and
had a hell of a time. Maybe you remember those carpet burns of
hers.” He stood, pacing the room, going back in time. Reggie
watched his older brother, entranced. I wiggled my arms against the
duct tape holding them to the sides of the chair. “She told me you
went up there all the time when you needed to think. I went up
there twice after Amber went in and that car was clear as day. I
didn’t think you would ever find her.”

He stopped pacing, looking down at me. I
stopped moving my arms. “You know how many women have dropped me?
Hell, I quit keeping count. Yeah, I was using what I had for
leverage for a couple of cheap thrills, but I didn’t kill her for
breaking it off.”

“Why?”

“Because the guilt was killing her. She was
about to tell you I was the father. I knew you would come after
me.”

The cold truth washed over me. Four years
ago, before I embraced my role as a father, Steven Noble wouldn’t
have made it to the next sunrise.

“Stella loved that little girl. She may have
been shit as a mother, but she loved her. The only way I could
force her to get that money was to threaten to go after Sarah.
Stella died for her daughter.”

The broken office door swung open. Three loud
explosions. Reggie turned, three holes in his chest, three craters
out of his back. Melvin Jenks stood there holding a .357 Magnum
revolver. Reggie looked down, looked up. Melvin emptied the gun
into him.

Reggie remained standing, stunned. When he
went it was like and avalanche. A little trickle of motion, then a
crash. And he crashed right on top of me, the wooden chair
shattering.

Melvin was in shock, smoke leaking from the
barrel. Steven stared down at Reggie, his last brother now dead.
Steven slowly raised his own gun at Melvin.

I struggled beneath the fallen mountain. My
arms were free, wood dangling from my hands. I didn’t have my
gun—not even a blade.
Use what you have.
I grabbed a broken
leg, the edge sharp and rose in a rush, shoving the stake beneath
the V of Steven’s chest and kept pushing until it refused to go
farther. His heart exploded, like a slain vampire in a bad B movie,
the blood gushing out, over my hands, my arms, over my body. I let
go of the chair leg and Steven slumped to the floor.

Melvin said, “Holy shit!”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

“Ow.”

“Sorry.” The medic finished cleaning the
wound and came around to my front. I was sitting in the back of an
ambulance, my legs hanging over the edge. The medic took a pencil
flashlight, turned it on and focused the light on one eye then the
other. “Have any nausea?”

“A little.”

“Does it hurt?” He was a young man, probably
shy of twenty-five, short and thin with dark, close cropped
hair.

“Oh yeah.”

The kid clicked off the light and turned to
Melvin. “You okay?”

“Huh?” He was watching the chaos. The sock
factory lot was overrun with cops, police cars, deputies milling
about, holding back the gathering crowd and traipsing up and down
the metal stairs. I thought there was a good chance those stairs
could fail with all the traffic. Melvin said, “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Sure?”

Melvin didn’t look fine. He was pale, visibly
shaken. He looked as if he could pass out any minute. Melvin
blinked. “Yeah.”

“Melvin, not that I’m not grateful” I said,
“but what are you doing here?”

Another blinking attack. “Oh, I came to tell
you I took care of your mortgage.”

“You did what?”

“You were asking about government programs to
help people with their mortgage. I ran a credit check and saw you
were behind.” Melvin shrugged. “I brought you up to date.”

“You paid my back mortgage? Why?”

“You saved my marriage. I owed you.”

“I think we’re even now.”

Melvin didn’t reply.

“How did you know I was in trouble?”

“Those two strange cars in the lot and your
jacket on the ground. Then I stepped on all that broken glass. It
didn’t take a rocket scientist.”

“You always carry that cannon with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’m a bank president,” he said, speaking as
if to a child. “I saw a story a while back where these thugs
kidnapped a bank executive and made him open the doors after hours.
I’m not going down easy.”

“Thank God.”

Randall Rogers stomped down the stairs and
across the lot, Larry Coleman trailing in his angry wake. When they
reached us, Randy said, “What the hell happened, Beason?”

The medic said, “This man is in no condition
to talk. He has a grade three concussion.”

Coleman said, “How can you tell?”

It was obvious the young man had no love for
the law. “Getting knocked unconscious with a steel pipe is
generally a dead giveaway.”

“Well,” Randy said, “we still need to talk to
him.”

“Feel free.” He winked at me. I liked that
kid. “Whatever he tells you, though, don’t take it to the bank. His
brains have been scrambled.”

Coleman mumbled, “What brains?”

“Steven did it,” I told Randy, ignoring
Coleman. “He killed Stella and Amber.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me.”

Coleman said, “Anybody else hear him say
that?”

“I did.”

The three of us turned to Melvin. Randy said,
“You did?” The doubt was thick in his voice.

“Yeah.” Melvin swallowed, making eye contact
with me. “I was in the hallway when I heard him say it. He killed
them both.”

“Adrian, too?” The doubt was growing
thicker.

I decided to go with the short version.
“Steven was having an affair with Stella. He was jealous.”

Randy said, “How did he do Amber? We’ve
already got the timeline problem.”

“Steven and the Starlings were brothers. Or
half-brothers. I think Reggie killed her and slipped away.”

Randy was shaking his head. “Reggie was in
Dallas. He had an MMA match on Saturday.”

“She went missing on Sunday,” I pointed
out.

“Yeah. A radio station was one of the
sponsors. Reggie had to do an interview Sunday night.”

“An interview?”

“He won.”

“How did you find this out?”

“Google. The interview is online. I listened
to it myself.”

I shook my head. And almost hurled.
Big
mistake.
“Then Steven changed the watch before she went into
the lake. He was faking being that drunk.”

“No,” Randall said, “he wasn’t. They gave him
a breathalyzer at the hospital.”

“A breathalyzer?”

“Yeah. They were concerned about how the pain
medication might interact with alcohol.”

“I’m not sure how he did it,” I said firmly,
“but he did.”

“I don’t know what to do about this.”

“I do,” Coleman said. “Turn around, assume
the position.”

Randy said, “What are you doing?”

“Taking him into custody. He’s already
admitted to killing three men.”

“You’ll have to arrest me, too,” Melvin said.
“I killed a man.”

“Knock it off, Larry. Nobody is getting
arrested.”

“The lieutenant is on his way,” Coleman said.
“He’s gonna be pissed.”

“Then let him be pissed. Don’t go anywhere,
Bees.”

“This man needs to go to the hospital.”

Randy shot an ugly look at the kid and
stomped off back across the lot. Coleman unhappily followed.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. You want us to take you to the
hospital?”

“Not right now.”

“Okay,” the medic said. “If they give you any
more shit, just say the word and we’re on our way.”

My leg tingled. It took me a few moments to
realize it was my phone. I pulled out the cell, too late. Four
missed calls, three from Madison, one from the preschool. It rang
in my hand.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

“Hello.”

“We need to talk.”

“I’m kind of tied up right now.”

“You need to get untied.”

“Madison, listen. Steven is dead. He came
after me this morning.”

“What about the others?”

“The others? They’re dead, too. How did—“

“We need to meet.”

“I can’t. This place is crawling with
cops.”

“Get away.”

“I—“

“Lollapalooza. One hour. Where it all
started. Or ended, depending on your perspective.”

***

A cold chill ran all the way down my spine.
A fear like nothing I had ever known. Not even when that rocket had
exploded and all my friends died. Or when that blade made its way
into my chest. Not even when I had awoken taped to a chair with a
third grade concussion and a murderer. The fear that my daughter,
my life, was in mortal danger.

I slipped the phone back into my pocket and
zipped up the leather jacket I had reclaimed to cover the blood on
my shirt. “Melvin.” I grabbed his right hand in mine, clutching his
shoulder with my left. “I can never tell you how much I appreciate
what you did today.”

He looked back at me with confused eyes,
still in shock.

“We’ll talk later,” I said. “I promise. I’ll
help you get through this.”

“Where you going?”

“I gotta split.”

“The detective isn’t going to like that.”

“No,” I agreed, “he’s not.”

“What should I tell him?”

“Beats me.” I left him standing next to the
ambulance, a man slowly coming to terms with taking a life. The
reason it wasn’t easy is because it’s not supposed to be.

The uniforms were busy hanging crime tape and
crowd control. They were focused on keeping people out and didn’t
give me a second look as I merged into the crowd. I knew most of
the people by name, the rest by sight. They called out to me,
demanding to know what had happened in their sleepy town. I ignored
them.

“Beason!” A familiar voice. A very familiar
voice.

I turned, finding Hannah Strange struggling
upstream.

“Thank God!” She wrapped me in a tight hug,
squeezing with all her might. “I heard there was a shooting. I was
so scared. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. “I gotta get out of
here.”

She pushed back, hands on my shoulders and
looked deeply into my eyes. Something in there made her say, “Come
on.” She took me by the hand and led me to her waiting minivan.

“Where to?”

“Uh.” I didn’t have much time and even less
of a plan. “Back to your shop?”

“Sure.” She worked the gear lever and we
pulled out. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Yes,” I said. “Just not right now.” I pulled
out the phone and speed-dialed the preschool. Sarah’s “aunt” from
out of town had indeed picked her up, citing a family emergency.
They had called my home and cell, Erin’s cell as well, and since
the aunt knew the password, had let her leave with Sarah. The
teacher hoped that was all right. I assured her it was and closed
the phone. I was glad I never sent that tuition check.

“Where is Sarah? Who has Sarah?”

“Amber.”

“What? I thought Amber was dead.”

I closed my eyes a second. “Right. Amber’s
sister, Madison, has her.”

“Why?”

My head hurt. I was having a hard time
concentrating.
His brains are scrambled.
I thought the kid
was trying to help me out with the law. Now, I wasn’t so certain.
“I’m not sure.”