Unseen (28 page)

“All right,” the redneck finally said. He handed Will the phone.

Will didn’t know what to do but take it. The case was warm. His hands were so sweaty that he nearly dropped it before he could get it back into his pocket.

The redneck leaned across the desk and pressed a button on the phone. There was a buzz, then he pressed the button again. It was some kind of signal. They all waited. And waited. Will counted off the seconds in his head, but then he lost track and had to start all over again.

A cell phone rang. The redneck took his time. The Droid was buried under a stack of papers on the desk. He answered on the sixth ring. He listened, nodding occasionally. His eyes slid Will’s way. He said, “Yeah, I think you’re right,” then ended the call.

“That Big Whitey?” Tony asked. He was as eager as a kid. “He tell you we’re cool?” He slapped Will on the back. “I told you I’d make this right, man.”

The redneck took a stack of hundreds out of his pocket. He glanced at the Baggie of pills Tony had thrown on the desk and counted out ten bills. He held out the cash to Tony. “That’s more than you deserve, bringing this ass-wipe into our business. Get rid of him.”

Will felt panic rise, but then he realized the redneck meant the man tied to the chair. Will looked at the guy. He’d forgotten all about him. At some level, Will realized he already thought of him as dead.

The redneck said, “Leave him somewhere he’ll be found.”

“No problem.” Tony walked over to the chair. He slapped the man’s head. “Let’s go, dude.”

The man groaned. Spit slid out of his open mouth.

“Come on.” Tony slapped him harder. “Stand up, cocksucker. Time to go.”

The man struggled against the rope. Even if he wanted to, there was no way to get up.

“You believe this asshole?” Tony’s eyes looked as if they were on fire. He obviously enjoyed hurting people. He kicked the chair again. There was none of the gnat about him now, just a wiry tough guy who had no problem punching above his weight.

The redneck had had enough. “Stop fucking around and get him out of here.”

Tony pulled a knife out of his boot. This wasn’t a folding knife, but a ten-inch hunting knife with a nasty-looking serrated edge. He cut the rope around the chair. The man pitched forward, moaning from the release. Tony caught him before he hit the floor. He flipped the knife in the air and pointed the handle toward Will. “Get his feet.”

Will sawed through the rope that tied the man’s legs to the chair. He glanced up as he sliced through the last few strands. The man’s eyes were swollen slits in his face, but Will could see the bloody whites at the edges. Blood had trickled down his forehead, clotted in his eyelashes. His front teeth were broken. The bridge
of his nose was smashed. Still, he looked familiar, but Will didn’t have time to figure out why.

“Wake up, asshole.” This time, Tony’s fist came from below. The man’s head arced back. Blood went flying. “I ain’t playin’, dude. Stand the fuck up.”

The man tried to obey. His bare feet stuck to the rug. His legs shook. His knees wouldn’t straighten.

Will stepped in. He couldn’t watch this. He shouldered the man to standing, practically carrying all of his weight.

“Please …,” the man begged, his voice barely audible.

Will glanced around the room, but no one seemed moved by the plea. If anything, they were annoyed.

“Get him outta here,” the redneck ordered. He went back to the couch, sat down in front of the open pizza box.

Will tried to drag the man to the door. If he could leave this room, if he could manage to get out of this club, then there might be a way to save him.

The redneck picked up a slice of pizza. “I’ll be in touch, Bud. We have a job that Mr. Whitey thinks will suit your special skills.”

Will grunted, but only from the effort of carrying the man. There was no helping him walk. Will lifted his full weight onto his back. Five feet to the door. Maybe three feet to the exit. Around the building, then to the parking lot. Will would take Tony’s truck. He’d sucker punch him from behind, take away his keys. He would drive the man to the hospital. He would get Faith to put him into protective custody. And then Will would find Sara and fall down at her feet and pray for her to make everything better.

Will told Tony, “Get the door.”

“What about the rug?” Junior asked. “Ain’t no way that can be steamed out.”

“Shit,” Tony complained. “I ain’t no damn rug cleaner.”

“Take it and burn it.” The redneck finished his slice of pizza. “Dump the body on his front lawn. That oughta be public enough.”

Tony made it clear he thought he was doing them a favor. He hitched up his pants. He got down on his knees. He started rolling the edge of the rug. Will turned because there was nothing to do but watch him and wait.

This was when the man decided to make his move.

Without warning, he pushed away from Will.

The man grabbed at the doorknob. His coordination was shot. His hands were slick with blood. Instead of opening the door, he fell against it. He started screaming, pounding at the door like there might be help on the other side.

Will’s instincts took over. Of all the guys in the room, he was the least lethal. He grabbed the man around the waist. He tried to cover his mouth. The man kicked him, bit him, punched him, until Will couldn’t hold on anymore.

There was nowhere to go—no windows, no doors but the one they’d come through. The man was so crazed with terror he was practically spinning in circles. The rug bunched up under his feet. He careened off the coffee table, the desk. Tony tackled him from behind, throwing him face-down on the floor.

Tony straddled him. The hunting knife was in his hands. He pounded the blade into the man’s back, his shoulders, his neck. Again and again the knife went up and down like a piston. The blade made a pop-slap noise as it pierced skin. Spaghetti strings of blood flew around him like he was inside some kind of horror-house snowglobe.

Junior jammed a gun into Will’s chest, making it clear he should stay out of it. The muzzle felt like it was touching bare bone. Junior was eerily calm as Tony wailed away with the knife. He caught the redneck’s eye, gave him a single shake of the head as if to ask,
What got into that guy?
His counterpart sat passively on the couch, watching the murder unfold the way he might watch a card game.

The stabbing continued long after the man was dead. Tony only stopped when he ran out of steam. He sat back on his heels.
He was panting. Sweating. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Forehead, mouth, cheeks. Blood smeared everywhere.

Junior put the gun back into the holster on his belt. Will could move now, but he didn’t have anywhere to go. Twice in as many nights, he’d watched one human being attack another.

At least Lena had been responding to a threat. Tony Dell was like a jackal destroying its prey. He’d enjoyed each and every second of the kill. He’d grunted and screamed as the knife went in. The spray of blood that washed up into his face had only made him hungry for more.

And now he was laughing.

Blood smeared his teeth like lipstick. He asked Will, “How ’bout that, Buddy? You seen this nut job runnin’ around? That was some crazy shit.”

The redneck was not pleased. “You see the mess you made?”

“You was gonna throw away the carpet anyway.”

“You didn’t just get it on the carpet, did you?”

Tony looked around with awe at what he’d wrought. He shook his head, then wiped the hunting knife on his pants before trying to jam it back into his boot. The blade was bent, probably from striking the thick bone of the skull. Tony had to torque the handle to sheath the knife. And then he saw the open wound across the palm of his hand. “Shit, musta slipped over the hilt.” He asked Will, “You mind takin’ me to the hospital, Bud? This is the kind of shit gets infected.”

The redneck sounded more put out than disgusted. “Junior, go get some of the girls to clean this up.” He told Tony, “Get the body outta here. Drop him in his front yard, like I said.”

Tony asked, “You sure ’bout that?”

“Came straight from Big Whitey. Put him somewhere he’ll be found. The only way to send a message is make sure everybody’s got a chance to read it.” The redneck directed his next order to Will. “Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t fuck it up.”

“I ain’t gonna fuck it up,” Tony yelled. “You tell Big Whitey I’m the one what took care of this for him.”

“You really want credit?” the redneck asked. He shook his head at Junior, who returned the gesture.

Will said, “We’ll take care of it,” because he thought that would get them out of here faster. He knelt down on the floor. “Roll the body onto the rug.”

“Take a cue from your pal there, Tony. Good soldiers follow orders.” The redneck sat back on the couch. He took out his knife again to clean his nails. “Like I said, Mr. Black. We’ll be in touch.”

Will wasn’t going to wait around for more. He motioned for Tony to move. “Hurry up. Roll him onto the rug.”

Tony pushed the body, but the physics were against him. The man was dead weight. Tony’s boots skidded against the concrete floor. His face twisted into a mask of sheer determination. Finally, the man flopped onto his back. His arm was over his eyes like he didn’t want to see anymore.

Tony picked up the hands and crossed them over the chest. He started toward the other side of the rug.

“No,” Will said. “We have to roll the body.” He took the shoulders because that was the heavier end and he couldn’t watch Tony pushing around the corpse anymore.

Tony asked, “Ready?”

Will looked down at the man’s face. He recognized him now, though even in death, the pain still twisted his features. Faith had shown Will his picture on her phone just a few hours ago.

The man in the chair was Detective Eric Haigh.

I
t was just past midnight, and Sara was once again sitting on the couch in the ICU waiting room. She flipped through a magazine, trying to tune out the conversations around her. More patients had been admitted that afternoon. Family members filled the small room. The new people were a communal bunch. They wanted to swap stories. They wanted to compare tragedies. Nell had not been pleased. She couldn’t take the prying, the crowded space. She’d easily let Sara talk her into going back to the hotel room to get some sleep.

There was no reason for her to be at the hospital right now anyway. Jared’s condition remained unchanged despite the antibiotics they were pumping into him. Sara had dealt with surgical infections before. They were as relentless as they were indiscriminate. There were very few antibiotics left that could successfully treat them.

So, as Sara had many times throughout the day, she found herself back at the same point she’d started at this morning. The twenty-four-hour clock had been reset. Jared had survived the surgery. Only time would tell if he survived the infection.

Sara put the magazine back on the table. She’d read the same
celebrity gossip story three times and still couldn’t follow the details. She was in some sort of weird fugue state. Yet again, she regretted the large scotch she’d had earlier that evening. Self-medication was never a good idea, but stress, alcohol, and thirty hours straight without sleep were a lethal combination. Sara had all of the hangover and none of the buzz. Her head ached. She was jittery. The fact that Sara knew when she was drinking the scotch that she was making a huge mistake only added to her misery. Her only consolation was that she hadn’t ordered another one after talking on the phone with Will.

There was a conversation she wished she’d never had. Either Sara was a very cheap drunk or their relationship wasn’t heading in the direction she’d thought it was. Her desperate sexual enticement had gone over like an IRS audit. Thank God she hadn’t told him that she was in love with him. She could only imagine how embarrassing it would’ve been to have her pronouncement met with complete silence. Will was obviously pulling away. Sara had either done something or said something wrong. He was probably relieved she hadn’t asked him to make the drive down. Or up. Or over. Sara still had no idea where he was.

She was just glad that he wasn’t here.

And she fervently wished that she wasn’t, either.

Sara couldn’t sit anymore. She stood up and stretched her back. The vertebrae felt fused together. Polite smiles greeted her around the room. She walked into the hall for some privacy.

The lights were dimmed in deference to the late hour. Possum was exactly where she’d seen him thirty minutes ago. His back was to Sara. He stood at the closed doors to the ICU, looking through the window. He couldn’t see into Jared’s room from that angle. The cop was in his line of sight. Sara could tell the vigilance was grating on the young man. He kept glancing at Possum, then looking back at the nurses’ station as if the poor woman could help him.

Possum could barely speak to Sara—not out of rudeness, but
because every time he saw her, his eyes filled with tears. She didn’t know whether he was crying over the loss of Jeffrey, the threat to Jared, or the unbearable combination of both.

Sara just knew she was sick of being here.

She went to the elevator, then decided the stairs would at least give her some exercise. She needed some air, to be in a room that wasn’t stale with fear and tragedy. And she should probably have a conversation with herself about Will. Maybe she’d been blind to the deeper truth behind his silences. Sara had never told Will that she loved him, but then Will had never told Sara the words, either.

In her experience, the simplest explanation was usually the crappiest one.

Sara went down two flights before she saw a pink and blue sign. The maternity ward. She gladly took the detour. Whenever she was having a particularly horrendous day at Grady, she would go look at the babies. There was something so reassuring about watching brand-new eyes blink open, toothless mouths pucker into a smile. Newborns were proof that life could not only continue, but thrive.

Sara guessed not many people would be there at this time of the morning, and she was right. Visiting hours were well over. There was no nurse to send stragglers away. No one had bothered to lower the shade over the large windows so the babies could sleep in peace.